Welcome? Well that's great! I've been here for over a decade and I get a welcome! That's fantastic. No, obviously checking kicks is a good thing. I know myself from having been kicked over and over and over again from a Muay Thai Master Instructor. I'm painfully (literally) aware of how powerful those kicks are and the importance of checking them. Painfully aware. What I'm saying is that it's not as simple as just saying, "Well, why doesn't he just check them?"
what is the science behind checking a kick? its done with your shin correct? but wouldnt that still be just as painful? the best check kick i ever seen was Fedor-Cro Cop 1st round.
Yes its still very painful but less painful if you check it with the top of your shin the lower is goes the more pain it causes. Id say checking it hurts just as bad but after years of training your shins they get stronger and also believe it or not getting kicked in the shin doesnt take as much out of you as being kicked in the thigh. Both hurt terribly but with the shin it doesnt take as much energy out of your leg and doesnt effect the movement as much right away. You feel the pain of a leg kick and it effects you right away where as the shin you really dont feel it so much until the next day.
It's simple, with the bone you'll get bruised or it'll break and disable you. With the thigh muscles kicks will slow you down after 2 good kicks, and very possibly disable you with more.
makes sense, i read story's of shaolin monks who wack like bamboo sticks against there shins and forearms for years then eventually they become immune to pain in those areas and there bone actually hardens, they do that **** with there knuckles as well by lightly punching wooden boards every day for basically there whole lives. I can also see why its better to get hit in your shin because your thigh has mad blood vessels and tendons.
Also raising your leg lowers the risk of getting your knee all jacked up because your weight is supported on the leg.
Well, it's something like that. And they would primarily kick banana trees. They might hit themselves (or get hit by someone) with bamboo sticks, but that's only to work themselves toward kicking trees. (Yeah. Ouch. I've tried that. No. Hurts. Alot.) This is something I've done fairly routinely for the last 4 1/2 years. It's a process that's designed to do two things: 1. Immunize the nerves in a particular area of the body. (i.e. your legs, more specifically your shins) You literally kill off the nerves in your legs so you don't feel any physical pain when striking anything with your shin (properly, I'm sure you'd still feel it if you broke your leg). 2.) Calcification of the bones. You see this in many, many things. Take brick breakers for example. There are tiny, tiny bones inside your wrist that are broken down whenever you strike at a brick or board. Through the constant breakdown and rebuilding/restrengthing of that bone, over time it becomes increasingly "harder" and more resistant to damage. Thus, they're able to break more bricks. Same principle applies to your shin. You break your shin bone down over and over and over again (by kicking trees) and over time your shin bone becomes sharpened (I know some fighters that take a glass coke bottle and hit their shins with it to create kinda dents which can be felt more acutely when kicked with) and hurts their opponent/attacker far more then someone who hasn't done this. This process is called conditioning. (Yeah, a term used for many other things, but in Muay Thai, that's the term they use for this process)
But don't you think catching a kick in the shin is better than flush thigh shots? What else could he have done besides checking, or side stepping/moving back?