DURING A HIGH KARATE KICK WHICH IS WORSE THE SOUND OF CRACKING JOINTS ,PULLING LIGAMENTS AND TENDONS OR THE RIPPING OF TROUSERS?

Every Kung Fu and Karate practitioner spends ages putting themselves through warm up and stretching excercises before and after the training session so they can throw high thrusting, snapping, roundhouse, spinning kicks of all kinds and angles ,front, side ,back, etc ,but all ,mainly due to films want to kick to their opponents head.

Without a doubt head kicks are most spectacular. Flatten someone with a spinnig back roundhouse kick and you'll feel and be thought of as the 'Dogs bollocks' until the next time you get beaten or flattened or use a boring low front snap kick and your arsenal of spectacular 'Dogs bollocks' kicks becomes the 'usual load o' bollocks!'

In non contact Karate competition the fighters tend to use lower wider stances and go for the high kicks whereas the full contact use narrower stances  and boxing style guards , but interestingly use low kicks to the outer and inner thighs, not so much the knees as damage can occur, mind you those nutty THAI BOXERS probably boot 'em anywhere ,they use lots of low painful kicks ,but since they train 23 1/2 hours , 7 days a week they can use high kicks to great effect to knock out opponents. Even MMA, etc don't use THAT much high kicks, using low kicks ,knees, fists, elbows and throws and locks as it's not point scoring it is beating your opponent in a fight.

Out in the ' mean streets ' People can, sadly get into a bit of grief! The fight, if it does 'kick off' will normally be the good ol 'KNUCKLE BUTTY!' Very rarely will anyone be able to launch a fight stopping kick to the head. Most martial artists are average blokes ,or ladies and the only way they will be able to get a kick up to the dizzying heights required is after a good 1/2 hour stretching warm up excercise session ,which, unfairly as it may seem , your opponent wont be the level of gentleman needed to allow his opponent to warm up.

The sad truth most people have seconds to dive into 'the mill' as the prizefighters used to call it. If 'our hero was to throw a head kick 99.99999%   will hear a variety or cacophany of a series of horrendous teeth grindingly awful sounds made worse as they come from your own body as ligaments and tendons twang; Joints click and crack, not only does it sound painful ,but it is painful and will be for days ,if not weeks after.

If you throw the kick ,not only may you cause untold suffering and strain upon your joints, but even those who could throw the kick are further restrained by the trousers they wear, it is ridiculous that we spend years turning into human fighting machines , as long as you wear the loose fighting pyjama-like Karate Gi we are fine. Then when we need to use our long hard learnt lessons we can't because we'll split our trousers. The energy needed to flatten your opponent will be drastically reduced by the energy required to tear the seams of your trousers apart!Which is worse the cracking and twanging of joints or the RRRIIIPPPING of your trousers in front of a full pub or in front of the girl of your dreams as well as your opponents mates?

The only fellah i knew who could walk into a fight and flatten multiple opponents with full blown Karate foot work  as he worked on club doors in his suit around clubs in Liverpool was the immortal TERRY O'NEILL,there are many stories of 'the guv'nor's exploits, Dig out DENNIS MARTIN'S book about life on the Liverpool doors, 'WORKING WITH WARRIORS'.

After years of clicking joints the slow TAI-CHI excercises have allowed me to kick high anytime, but again that is .....TROUSERS ALLOWING! 

ZEN AND THE ART OF SHAVING YOUR HEAD ,TATTOOEING YOURSELF ALL OVER GOING IN A CAGE AND PUNCHING THE SHIT OUT OF EACH OTHER!!

                                                                              I do enjoy watching the various sports channels and watch a bit of KICKBOXING,or the increasingly popular MMA, MIXED MARTIAL ARTS  mayhem which is becoming increasingly popular. The two cartoons which i have put up for your delectation were done a while ago and the more eagle eyed and pedantic nit picking pains in the arse amongst you will recognise as being used before ,although i prefer to look at it as artistic recycling of a sort. The top one was when our beloved P.M. DAVID CAMEROON  was fighting our cause for something or other with our oldest friends across the channel. I thought they should let them slug it out in a cage fight. Likewise when the elections were taking place and we had to sit through the three way telly debate ,i thought they should have slugged it out in the cage, the winner would've gained a lot more respect for their fighting prowess and courage than the party policy bullshit which was the political 'SUZY Q' knockout punch that CAMEROON won it with.

 

The reason for the cage fight theme was quite simply because a MARTIAL ARTIST lady friend of me and the family and teacher of my nephews was fighting in a title KICK BOXING fight in the holiday town of CONWAYin North Wales.....Lovely it was too....As we walked through high winds and pissing down storms to the glamour of Conway Leisure Centre. All the competitors and their club mates were there,various MMA club hoodies ,all with stubbly unshaven chins ,but totally shaved heads and ,if you looked carefully you might see a bit of flesh coloured skin between the tatooes.

 

As we sat there guzzling from bottled lager with 'dance music' booming out ,from the speakers that we found ourselves right in front of .....I'm sure i've got tinnittus now.  One by one after the young ,but still puppy-fatted long legged would be model ring girls had done their circuit of the ring with the round number the spilling of the blood n' snot began. Dont get me wrong ,some good stuff took place ,but basically it was a brawling slugfest ,on the whole . KICK BOXING is ,basically fists and feet, but the MMA is no holds barred ,kicks,punches, knees and most amazingly aside from JUJITSU locks and holds on the deck is how its ok to hammer the face of your opponent with your fist as they lie on the deck. I dont think any of the MMA fights went the distance . Possibly the best two fights of the night were the womens ,two momentous scraps ,unfortunatly our friend ANN lost to her opponent ,only just ,but she is a slim lady and her opponent who held the title wouldnt fight if she was above a certain weight ,so Ann had to lose over 2 stone, so she went from not much in the first place to virtually nothing in as many weeks, which cant do you much good.

 

 

Call me a MARTIAL ART SNOB,if you will ,but i remember watching the great fighters at KARATE championships through the years in a lot more traditional vein, although it was semi-contact ,a lot more control and skill was displayed ,sadly ,as sport KARATE is becoming more and more important in the burgeoning number of new schools and styles popping up all over the place ,the traditional techniques and principles of MARTIAL ARTS  and the BODY MECHANICS that make KARATE a life time study have all but dissappeared, but the sport fighting like boxing is hard and fast ,but as in traditional boxing and most sport the body wont take it after the thirties on the whole. The traditional KARATEKA would power in ,but would protect themselves ,but the cage figthers went in swinging and leading with their faces ,there was hardly a guard up all night, very strange.....

 

 

Nobody likes getting hit: Then you get used to it...: Then you dont mind it too much: Then you dont mind it at all : Then you start to enjoy it and then you look foreward to a smack and cant wait to fight and enjoy ,getting a smack ,but never quite as much as dealing them out.....If you do ,then i think maybe its time you looked for something else to pass your time.

 

 

One thing that i didn't miss about the cage fighting night was ,i blame the bottled lager ,but the smell of  farts pervaded the hall....The fighters didnt stink ,but some of the audience did!....Some knockout stuff there ,it actually made me wish i wa up in the cage sometimes.