Kicks
Kicks are mere variations of punches and slaps, but the potential force behind them is much greater. Add to that the fact that most people have no idea how far their foot really can travel on a kick, and you’ll see how we’ve moved a step up on the danger ladder. To reduce that risk, we have to be even more attentive to relative body positioning at every point in the kicking simulations.
fan kick
In reality it’s a big looping slap to the face using a foot instead of a hand.
Fan kick viewed from the side (and would have been more impressive if I could have kept my back and legs straight, but the dancer that I was is a distant memory).
Set up: Victim stands full back, and the aggressor is upstage and full front, facing the victim. The distance between the two needs to be twice the distance of the aggressor’s arm. To make sure, initial contact can be made by, let’s say, one actor touching the other on the shoulder, and then taking a big step back with the non-kicking foot.
Picture: The aggressor keeps the non-kicking foot planted, and ten takes another step back with the kicking foot. But be sure and keep the body weight over the non-kicking foot.
Action: For a right-footed actor, an inside fan kick will travel right to left, and an outside fan kick from left to right. Either way the leg is kept straight as it swings in as big a circle as is comfortably possible, landing at the same spot that it started. Try it very gently a few times and you’ll realize that this requires great hip flexibility and strong thigh muscles. (Most actors won’t be able to perform this kick unless the victim is on hands and knees.) As the victim’s back is to the audience, he can provide the knap by simply clapping his hands.
Reaction: The aggressor’s reaction is static, ready for the next move. The victim is going to move the head and body in the direction of the kick (although in a broad comedy such as The Three Musketeers the reaction turns into a cartwheel!)
groin kick
DO NOT suggest to the actors that it is safe to do a contact groin kick so long as the victim wears an athletic cup. Athletic cups are meant to protect against incidental contact. On a full contact kick, the edges of the cup can rupture the lymph nodes on either side of the groin, leading to systemic toxic shock within an hour. People have died this way.
DO NOT suggest to the actors that it is safe to do a contact kick by simply aiming for the victim’s inside thigh. A slight miscalculation can lead to getting nailed in the groin anyway or, worse, the strike hitting low and breaking the leg. It only takes about 45 lbs. of pressure sideways to break the knee. So DO NOT have any movement going toward the victim.
There is horrible video on the web with an “expert” demonstrating a simulated knee to groin. It features the aggressor directly facing the victim, and the victim with his hands crossed in front of him, fingers interlaced and palms down. The aggressor then raises the knee and strikes the palms of the victim. Here are some of the problems with the technique as demonstrated:
1) The aggressor’s knee has to lift up far higher than groin level in order to strike the hands of the victim.
2) Striking the victim’s palms when his fingers are interlaced is a great way to break fingers or wrists.
3) The movement of the aggressor’s leg is going toward the victim. If the aggressor is standing just a little too close, the knee can hit the groin or stomach.
This video ostensibly was created in order to show a safe simulation, only to add more levels of potential injury.
Instead, let’s try a simulation where the energy of the aggressor is moving away from the victim:
Set up: have the victim stand full-back to the audience. Without turning the head towards the aggressor, cheat some eye contact before continuing. The aggressor stands in profile but slightly up-stage of the victim, and about one and a half arm’s distance away. The body of the aggressor must not face toward the victim, but rather at the empty space directly upstage of the victim. The toes of the downstage foot point at the victim’s left and right toes. At this point on, that downstage foot remains planted; it is the upstage foot, the foot furthest from the victim, which performs the action.
Picture: Much like the slap, the groin kick works best when it comes as a surprise to the audience. And yet there still has to be a tiny moment that the audience can identify as a precursor to the action we want them to believe. In this case, it is a very small bit of preparatory body movement in opposition. It can be as simple as a little lift of the foot off the ground, or a momentary shift of weight to the rear foot.
Action: The upstage knee rises and points towards the spot upstage of the victim, and then the foot swings out and back quickly, parallel to and upstage of the toes of the victim. Don’t allow the foot to arc towards the victim. The foot must immediately go back to its starting position. Any hang time at all on this and the audience will not believe the illusion.
Reaction: The victim performs the universally understood reaction – bending the knees, sticking the butt out and lifting the chin. Don’t collapse the head down nor bend over at the waist – that only confuses the illusion. The reaction is funnier if the vocalization of the victim can be high pitched, if the knees can touch (knock-kneed) and if there is a slow continuing collapse after the initial shock of the impact. The aggressor should not bend over at all (so many male actors want to in unconscious sympathy), but maintain a victorious posture.
The kick is more of a flick kick than one that is capable of doing any serious damage, so the aggressor’s action must be as quick as possible, especially coming away from the target. There is also a truism at work here in that if the aggressor’s foot actually rises to the height of the victim’s groin, the audience thinks that it has seen a kick to the stomach, because the viewer’s mind always adds a little more movement to what he actually sees. So stop the foot a little lower than groin level. Be sure to include the look of the foot bouncing back from the groin, like a ball bouncing off a wall, to give the illusion of contact. In order to sell this, it might be necessary for the foot to swing up for the kick a little slower than it will move on the bounce back.
If you want to simulate a groin kick with the knee rather than the foot, the basics will be the same, but look ahead to the knee to stomach explanation.
front kick to stomach – victim standing
There are two ways of simulating a front kick, but I’m only going to tell you how to do one kind – the safer one. This one is really the same as the groin kick, with some obvious exceptions. So look at the groin kick pictures on the previous page. All we have to do is change some very minor points:
Set up: have the victim stand full-back to the audience. The aggressor stands in profile but slightly up-stage of the victim, and about one and a half arm’s distance away. The body of the aggressor must not face toward the victim, but rather at the empty space directly upstage of the victim. The toes of the downstage foot point at the victim’s left and right toes. At this point on, that downstage foot remains planted; it is the upstage foot, the foot furthest from the victim, which performs the action. Get eye contact.
Picture: For the picture, we can have the aggressor step back with the kicking foot, bending the knee of the supporting leg, as if gearing up the energy for the kick.
Action: The kick is going to be a bit different as well, with the foot allowed to drift just a little higher (but still lower than stomach level), and the entire kick rising up in a full arc from the ground up to the target level, swinging from the hip, as opposed to the quick flick of the groin kick. Always keep in mind that there is no reason to hook the kick toward the victim, for the audience has no depth perception. The victim can use a free hand to pat the stomach to produce the sound of impact, but the most important noise to make is a huge exhalation of breath.
Reaction: And of course the reaction of the victim is going to be very different than that of the groin kick, most especially in that the head can be allowed to look down. The body of the victim can move slightly downstage as with a stomach punch, but also can almost hop even as the victim doubles over, for the direction of the impact has come up from the ground.
front kick to stomach – victim on the floor
This is where the victim is already on the floor for some reason on all fours, and the aggressor simulates a full kick to the stomach. When this was taught to me, back in the day, I learned it as a full contact kick. I was expected to clench my stomach muscles and simply absorb the blow. This worked well almost every night. But there was one performance where it didn’t work well, where just before the kick I ran out of air and needed to take a quick breath. I tried to wave off my partner, but it all happened so fast that he didn’t have time to notice my change of expression, and his foot landed on my stomach just as it was relaxed enough to suck in a gulp of air. That little bit of air was immediately pushed out of my lungs, and the force of the kick lifted me up off the ground. I was left in a crumpled mass on stage with no way to continue the scene. My partner simply had to stand and wait for what seemed like an eternity until I could manage to say my next line and get the scene going again.
If you really must do this simulation, here is one way to do it which is marginally safer than what I was taught. Have the victim on all fours placed so that he is heading 45 degrees from either profile or straight. The aggressor moves in sideways but upstage of the victim, so that no matter which way the victim is pointed the aggressor is facing 1/4 out, with hips and shoulders square to the victim’s stomach. The non-kicking foot is planted about six inches away from the victim. That is your set-up.
For the picture, the kicking foot steps back and the front leg bends slightly at the knee, so as to aid in maintaining balance. The action is the part that can get actors in trouble, for the tendency is to swing in too close and accidentally make contact with the victim. That is precisely what we do not want. Instead, slowly bring the kicking foot to a spot parallel to the planted non-kicking foot, and at the moment of “impact” pull the foot away again as quickly as you can. To repeat: slow in, fast out. And no closer than your own planted foot.
The reaction is pretty obvious, and you might even be able to sneak a little self knap if you can hide one of the victim’s hands from the audience’s view. But don’t ever let the aggressor try to make the sound by jabbing his kicking foot into the floor. It just sounds horribly not like any kind of kick to the body.
front kick to head
Once again, we follow the mechanics of the above groin and stomach level kicks, but in this case we have to lower the victim since most actors won’t have the flexibility to kick at higher than waist level without pulling a hamstring. For our purposes we’re going to try the easiest form of the kick to the head – one performed with the victim’s head only a couple feet off of the round.
side view
audience view
Set up: The victim is already on the ground for some reason, on his hands and knees and full back. The head must be held back some, so that the hands are further upstage than the head is. The aggressor, standing stage left, profile right , lines up his left foot so the toes point in a straight line to the victim’s finger tips. Once the aggressor is in position, then the victim can rock back slightly so as to shift weight off of the hands, freeing them to provide the knap for this simulation. The hand nearest the aggressor should be directly beneath the other, ready to clap. Care must be taken during this shift that all of the movement be hidden from the audiences view. The victim then establishes eye contact only when ready. Be patient. Don’t rush into the picture unless every part of the set-up is comfortably in place.
Picture: As with most kicks, we can have the aggressor step back with the kicking foot, bending the knee of the supporting leg, as if gearing up the energy for the kick.
Action: The aggressor’s foot swings in an arc parallel to the proscenium, following the path of where the victim’s fingertips were. As opposed to the other kicks, this one does not bounce back, but continues past the level of the head. Keep the heel of the standing foot securely planted for balance. The victim provides the sound of contact by driving the bottom hand into the top (target) hand, and then continues to the face. Careful not to let the elbow “flap”, for the audience can see the tiny move and figure out how you made the sound. If the victim wishes to add a vocalization (and he should), keep the sound higher in pitch than that for a stomach punch.
This simulation is most often taught with a different kind of knap – a “cage knap”. It’s a shared knap requiring both actors to make the sound. The victim cups his hands, one overlapping the other a bit. With the palms facing the floor, it creates a dome shape. The aggressor then kicks the open “cage” with the top part of his foot. I’ve been leery of this ever since I saw the victim’s hands kicked right into his own face, breaking his nose.
Reaction: The aggressor should not quickly return the foot to the ground, as she would for the other front kicks. On this one, we like to see a little hang time before the foot naturally drifts down. The victim will arch his back and let the head snap up and very slightly away from the aggressor.
roundhouse
This kind of kick is not a street fighter’s act, but comes from eastern martial arts. The rear heel and knee lift up to waist height, and then are swung around in a big looping motion parallel to the ground until it strikes the opponent’s waist, ribs, knee or face. The strike itself is something similar to that of a snap-kick. The danger level on this kick is so high, and the kick itself so rare, that there is to need to include it in a show without having an expert on site, so I’m not going to include a description of how to do it here.
rear kick
This would be a simulation of kicking someone who is standing behind you, and is actually very similar to the front kick in execution. But it is a difficult kick for most actors to perform with consistent accuracy (they usually have difficulty maintaining their balance and keeping control of the direction of the kick), so I suggest leaving it out of your fight unless learned under the direct tutelage of an experienced instructor.
knee to stomach
Go back and re-read the section on the groin kick and the stomach punch. You should be able to see how many of those elements are modified to make this kick easy and effective. This is an excellent close-in simulation that can work in almost any direction.
Set-up: No matter where the victim is, the aggressor moves directly in-line and faces the victim’s right side. The victim is turned out, showing his right profile to the aggressor, either or both of whose hands may lightly land on the victim’s right shoulder. The aggressor’s left foot is placed behind the victim’s right heel, so that the aggressor is almost straddling the victim’s right leg. Establish eye-contact.
Picture: We don’t get to see any leg prep on this, so it all rests with the aggressor’s body English, who needs to bend the knees a bit and really sell that he is about to drive the knee into the stomach. If the actor believes it, we’ll believe it.
Action: The knee glides along the front of the victim’s right leg and stops when it is at stomach level. On this illusion, the leg will “stick” there for a moment, allowing the victim to double over around the attacking leg, closing off the distance between the leg and stomach. Full breath exhalation – no need for a knap.
Reaction: The victim has the wind completely knocked out of him, and probably has a broken rib or two, so this is a fight ender. Staying doubled over, with head down, is the most you can expect. The aggressor allows the kicking leg to drift down to the ground.
head to wall
This is usually performed as a compound series of separate actions: the aggressor grabs the victim by the hair, drags him over to a wall, and slams his head into it. Three distinct actions that combined look very scary but can actually be done very safely.
The hair pull has already been discussed, as has the concept of the aggressor making it appear that she is dragging the victim across the stage, when actually the victim is leading all of the action. The aggressor is merely pantomiming the pulling while moving ahead of the victim. As the ending location is going to be a wall, let the audience see the aggressor do the hair pull first and then make the decision to go to the wall. Here is where actors start to muddy this simulation.
Actors want to run into the wall nonstop. That cannot be done safely, so don’t let them try. Instead, they have to cross to the wall first and then do the head to the wall bit. First complete one, then do the other. Once they have finished the drag/cross, only then can they perform the following:
Set-up: Assuming for now hat the aggressor has been pulling on the victim’s hair with his right hand, it means that he will be to the left of the victim as he stops in front of the wall. The victim can stand square to the wall, but for additional balance and control, one foot might actually be pushed against it. The aggressor could turn to face the victim, who is facing the wall with legs bent and a bit bent at the waist (coming naturally from having been pulled by the hair). It will be difficult to make eye contact, so the aggressor has to be completely relaxed and apply no pressure whatsoever to the victim.
Picture: The victim keeps the knees bent, and arches back to the point where the head has fully raised up. Completely let go of the aggressor’s hand.
Action: The victim pivots the head quickly down to where it was at the set-up, and then immediately snaps it back up as though it has bounced off of the wall. As he does so, his own hands will slightly lead the way, and with one open palm smartly rap the wall for the impact sound. The hands must then drift down, away from head level. As the hands are leading the movement, and the smack to the wall is done at head level, there is no worry that the victim will hit the wall with his own head, for his hands will get in the way. Important note: don’t ever let an actor kick a wall in order to make the sound of impact. The audience can see that a mile away and it just looks horrible.
The aggressor’s hand does not follow the head as it arcs down, but moves in a straight line towards the wall and parallel to the floor. At the moment of impact, the hand can flair up a bit. The aggressor’s hand should not get too close to the wall or the audience will think that she had something to do with making the contact noise.
Reaction: The victim should keep the knees bent but the rest of the body should be fairly upright, with the hands continuing to drift down instead to going back to the head. We want the audience to forget that the hands were involved in any of this.
knee to head
Here’s a simulation that is even more dangerous than it looks. It shouldn’t be, and if done correctly is very safe indeed. But there is no way under heaven that this should be attempted unless under the direct supervision of a very competent stage combat instructor.
When I include this in a show, I first demonstrate it a few times to the actor, then have him do the motions several times without a partner, and then bring in the victim to have him try it in super-slow motion. Even with all that, believe it or not there have been many times that the actor will bring his knee up directly into the victim’s face. I was always standing right there to stop it, and they were working at extremely slow speed, so no one has ever been hurt, but you can see my trepidation at having actors try this without an expert standing by.