Jan 02 Dennis Jones – High Kicking on the Door

This interview was published in April 2007

DJ Went off on a tangent last month didn’t I Steve…

SR To be expected, but as you know, there’s a lot more to martial arts than most people give credit and your comments last month did get a few people thinking…

DJ I thought it might, but as I’ve always said ‘what I say is based on what I’ve seen!’  But picking up the thread from a couple of months ago…

SR…Did you ever use high kicks, kicking someone in the head whilst having to defend yourself?

DJ Yes and no…

SR I thought so.  A very enigmatic answer (laughs)

DJ (laughs) I suppose that does sound puzzling but it’s not meant to be, and it certainly isn’t about keeping all those lethal high kickers happy!  When I first worked on the door I can remember using high kicks.  That was my training and it came out in my fighting.  Once, I was going to have a fight and I’d squared up to this guy on the dance floor.  I’d already hit him with a right hander but to no avail.  We steamed in to each other but just before we traded punches and got into a clinch, I threw a jodan mawashi-geri (roundhouse kick to the head).  It missed because he backed away.  I then tried kicking again attempting to hit him in the face with my left foot.  We both had back-up; friends were watching both of us, so nobody else got involved.  I always wear loose clothing, so I felt comfortable swinging my legs around but I’d missed with both kicks!  I can’t give an in-depth academic reason why I choose to do head kicks beyond that it was instinctive, a product of eight years training and dojo sparring.  In full contact karate round kicks are the ones that really work and the more flexible your legs the easier the kick.  In the style I was doing the idea was to punch piston like to the opponent’s torso and whilst only an arm’s distance away flick your leg up and over the opponent’s guard and get the knock out.  Hence that’s why we did all those ‘five kicks to the head combinations’ (go-geri). 

SR Front high round kick, followed by a jodan spinning hook kick then high front mae-geri and the same again on the other side etc.

DJ Go-geri came with the organisation’s new Japanese instructor.  He came from Japan with this new way of kicking.  We swung our legs around like they were heavy clubs and I spent the next four years practicing them even doing them for warm ups-we just kicked lower.   The high kicks work well in semi and full contact ‘karate type’ fighting and I’ve knocked a few people down with high front round kicks, as well as, back spinning kicks.  In dojo and competition fighting I’ve been on the receiving end of other peoples’ kicks and it hurts!  Going back to that fight at the start of my bouncing career it wasn’t the last time I tried high kicks in a nightclub but it was obvious that it wasn’t the right technique to use given the situation that I found myself in.  The chances of success, even for a very good kicker, are low.   In my training at the time punching and high kicking went together; for me one always came with the other.

My body and mind were ingrained with that way of fighting and as an instructor it was generally believed that if you could kick high, you’d have no problem kicking low.  That sounds logical until you’re under pressure having a struggle with some thug and that’s when you learn that ‘more often than not’ you miss by a mile!  And there’s a little more to it.  When I first started having these fights I quickly realised that people didn’t move like karateka. I couldn’t predict where their body movement might take them.  I didn’t know where they were going to be next and what ‘shape’ their techniques were going to take; it was as if I was fighting blind.

Years ago and long before I started bouncing I remember being at a wedding reception.  The ‘do’ was held in a modern Church hall and it had a bar in one corner.  The happy couple put a large sum of money behind the bar and for the first part of the evening the drinks were free.   Anyway with everyone rushing to get their freebies, you can imagine the chaos that was going on.  Drinks were going everywhere, tempers flaring, arguments kicking off and then it ‘went’ off.  A brawl broke out and two groups of men started thumping each other.  All this action was taking place in the corner of the Church hall.  I rarely drink alcohol even now, and back then some thirty odd years ago I mostly avoided it.  I was sipping my orange juice and thoroughly enjoying the spectacle.  I’d been watching for a while when I spotted a guy in a brightly coloured tank top running across the dance floor.  He came out the toilet, saw the fighting with I suppose a couple of his mates in the middle of it all.  I knew him from the local boxing club but he was a bully and liked fighting.  Anyway he ran in and kicked out aiming at somebody, but at the last moment just before it landed the guy instinctively moved backward and the kick missed.

SR Where do you think he was aiming?

DJ Anywhere Steve!  Initially before a fight goes off, the two or three seconds before, most people focus on the face.  It’s not the so called ‘hara or dantien’ (lower abdomen) that they want to destroy, it’s you they want to hurt and ‘you is your face.’  It was obvious to me watching tank top that he wanted to hurt the other guy and attempted to bury his ‘platform sole shoe’ into the guys head.  As I said he missed but his foot ended up about six foot in the air.  However, it kept on going but unfortunately it took him with it.  He slipped over and landed on his backside.  Winded and lying on broken glass, he took a short break.  A few guys, including the one he tried kicking, hesitated for a moment and held back; staring intently and slightly bent over they pushed their bodies in his direction leaving their feet firmly planted where they were.  They were instinctively weighing up the situation, working out in their subconscious mind if the man on the floor was a danger. Then one mentally broke free and started ‘sticking the boot in’.  The others followed suit and tank top gets booted all across the dance floor by four guys.  They were using him like an ice hockey puck and curled up like a ball he went into a foetal position protecting his face and throat with his arms and legs.  The fight turned into a brawl involving dads, uncles, wives and girlfriends.  It seemed like half the place was fighting, everyone was hitting anyone they could.  Bottles and glasses were going everywhere.  Fists were flailing around people were grabbing shirts, jackets, jumpers and hair.  Men and women were getting pulled to the ground and getting a good kicking.  The heaving mass of flesh takes an identity of its own and it doesn’t take much for the crowd to turn on you.  And as I moved to the other side of the hall tank top extracted himself and made for the door.

SR Weddings eh?  A nice end to a joyous occasion.

DJ Kicking is a natural thing to do in a fight and especially if you’ve got distance.  Kicking someone in the head while they’re standing up isn’t such a good idea.  I mean look at football matches, most kicks are low!  Going back to the brawl, at the time I didn’t think much of it.  It was just another shared night with morons but I do remember thinking that if he had used jodan-mae-geri (upper or face front kick) he wouldn’t have missed.  I suppose Steve that’s what thinking does.  It’s so easy when you only ‘fight’ in your mind.  In that world everything has a reason and what you do will always work!  Now-a-days I kick low, no higher than the lower abdomen.  In training I aim at the place I want to hit when it’s for real.  So I reckon that you should train how you intend to fight.  And don’t forget if it’s for the street; remember what Desmond Morris said in his book ‘Manwatching.’

‘…Most people rely for their information on the stylized brawls depicted in violent cinema or television films. When compared with the real thing, these manly encounters, with hero and villain taking turns to knock each other down, are little more than a ballet performance…In a true bar-brawl, once fighting has broken out, everything happens much more quickly.  The attacker suddenly explodes with a rapid series of blows and kicks.  Each action is quickly followed by another, to block any retaliation.  The victim responds in one of three ways…’ 

As I said Steve at the beginning of this article when I answered ‘yes and no,’ like that wedding reception I was at, we know there are always lots of head kicks in bar-brawls!

SR  Or if they’re used – they usually miss and leave you weak!  Thanks for that Dennis.

Steve Rowe

Steve Rowe is a highly successful Martial Arts instructor - an International Neigong, Qigong and Tai Chi Teacher and an 8th Dan Karate with many other senior dan grades in other martial disciplines.

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