We were going through kicks in tonight's class, one of the new guys asked how to block a roundhouse kick, and Sensei showed us a block that we (white belts) have never learnt before. One of the red belts recommended that we could use Gedan-Barai, which is probably what I would've said too considering the exceeding limited repertoire that we've been taught, but Sensei disagreed. IMO neither the block she showed or the Gedan are better or worse than the other... and really, kicks are better off being blocked with legs than hands/arms (which you would use only if the kick's come in too fast for you to get your leg up in time - so arm blocks against kicks are still useful IMO as a backup). I was talking to that red belt later and asked him if he's ever been kicked by someone with a massively powerful roundhouse kick (like say, a lot of Muay Thai fighters)... cos blocking those with your arms would cane! (even blocking them with your legs hurts, but I'd hate to imagine how painful they'd be to block with arms!)

GKR kicks are similar to Tai Chi kicks insofar that the knee is lifted first before doing the kick, which sacrifices power, but gains greater manoeuvreability and versatility. Other fighters launch their kicks straight from the ground without lifting the knee first. While they sacrifice manoeuvreability and versatility, they gain massive power! XO Although I must say that one significant difference w/ the GKR roundhouse kick is that the knee is lifted up to the side instead of in front like with a front, side and back kick (in Tai Chi we lift to the front, same as every other kick). I can see that this is to help give the roundhouse kick more power, but damn it _completely_ opens the groin!! If you wanna generate more power, I reckon you're better off just launching the kick straight off from the ground and forget about the knee lift. Lifting it off to the side when kicking straight ahead kinda defeats the versatility advantage since you're exposing yourself anyway.

Sensei then asked if there were any other questions, and I asked what the defence is against someone who grabs your kicking leg. Sensei's response said that it would never happen because grabbing is against the rules in GKR. So I said, but what about in self defence? Sensei then said that our kicks just need to be faster than the opponent's grab... but I think she quickly realised that it wasn't a very good answer (because the obvious next question would've been "But what if they do grab you?!") - which was on everyone's face. So she paused and thought for a while, then asked one of the senior students to grab her leg and she tried to get out of it... but couldn't. So she told us that there you can't get out if someone grabs your kicking leg. Again... good luck fighting a grappler, guys. Heck, even people who do Wrestling (like the kind they do at the Olympics) will grab your legs! I once sparred against a wrestler who dived at my ankles and grabbed both of them and quickly lifted them up over my head before jumping on me -- I had to go into breakfall and use ground-fighting techniques against him because I'd completely lost my footing.

Anyway, I politely asked Sensei if I could show them something, and I asked the senior student to grab my leg, and just showed them a very simple technique where you just shift your weight forward into the leg that's being held (i.e. so that the person holding your leg ends up bearing your entire body weight), and of course with elbows bearing forward as you do. I told Sensei that I wanted to know what GKR's counter to a leg grab was, which was the initial purpose of my question - and she understood that and said that she'll get back to me next week with an answer.

Anyway, next week's the last week of my trial period. Unless something amazing happens then that impresses me and convinces me to continue with GKR in my area, I'm likely to look elsewhere for a more effectual place to learn self defence. There's a BJJ school not far from me that I might have a look at.