Kicks

The low kick is the single most consequential technique in kickboxing, and the one that most sharply divides the rulesets. Thrown as a roundhouse into the outside of the opponent's lead thigh, it lands with the shin across the peroneal nerve and the muscle belly of the vastus lateralis. Executed correctly it is not a stinging blow but a dead, heavy impact that accumulates: the first one is uncomfortable, the fifth changes how the opponent stands, and by the tenth the leg no longer takes weight. Fights are lost to low kicks slowly, and then all at once.

The calf kick attacks below the knee, landing the shin across the outside of the opponent's calf on the peroneal nerve where it runs close to the surface. It is a newer weapon in mainstream use than the thigh kick, popularised heavily in the 2010s, and it works for a specific structural reason: the calf cannot be checked the way the thigh can. Lifting the knee to check exposes the calf; keeping the foot planted exposes it too. There is no clean defensive shape that protects both targets at once.

The body roundhouse — the middle kick — is the most universally legal power technique in kickboxing. Every one of the sixteen rulesets permits it, which makes it the common language of the sport: a Kyokushin fighter, a savateur and a Dutch pro will throw recognisably the same weapon at recognisably the same target, even if they land it with shin, boot and shin respectively.

The high kick is legal everywhere and lands almost nowhere — which is precisely what makes it valuable. Against a competent opponent the raw technique has a low success rate, because a kick travelling that far on that visible an arc gives the target time to cover. What changes the arithmetic is the setup, and the whole art of high kicking is the art of making the head available before the leg leaves the floor.

The push kick is the range-management tool of kickboxing, and the closest thing the legs have to a jab. Thrown by chambering the knee and thrusting the ball or flat of the foot into the opponent's midsection, hip or thigh, it does two jobs at once: it stops forward movement and it buys the space to reset. Fighters who cannot teep effectively spend their fights being walked backwards.