I like to check leg kicks with my thigh and calves.... It works great for a little bit

I like how you've edited it so that the check actually is at 8:07

I love that Mike has gone from "side-kicks don't work" to "I'm gonna throw a side-kick in every single video I make, even a flying one if I can, and they always end up working". I guess that's Sensei Seth's long term influence at play. Thank you for the consistently great content.

"Half the mistakes you make are because you are lazy; The other half because you're a Coward." - Icy Mike More wisdom that needs to be on a front/back t-shirt/rash guard! Thanks as always, Coach!

i love the consistency, almost everytime mike mentions a comment timestamp he lines it up with the video. Fun little detail to pause the video and look out for "at 8:07, he felll uhh fall off balance"

In our gym, the ideal check is balanced on the base leg, but includes a hip thrust (like a knee strike). This hurts them, but keeps you balanced, neither falling forward nor being knocked backward. The falling-forward, unbalanced check will work fine until the guy is good enough to pump fake you and then throw the kick as your weight is falling back to earth.

As a karate guy I naturally check kicks like that, however I always had trouble explaining how to check kicks and whenever I looked at the details of what I was doing I got confused. Thanks for clearing this up.

“Half the mistakes you make are because you’re lazy the other half are because you’re a coward” sounding like my dad 😅😔

Interesting! I’ve noticed the same thing when Thai fighters throw lead leg teeps: If you pause a video of them when they’re in the “chambered” position, they are leaning forward (all the way from their right foot to their head). There’s a level of forward commitment on Thai style strikes.

I just watched Sean Strickland check kicks for 25 minutes straight I think I'm an expert at this now

You should have Jay back! I miss seeing him, a good ol’ video where you have a competition with Jay on who can take more leg kicks would be great.

In Muay Thai we would also use the checks to offer an instant counter,either using a switch or head kick alot of the time where I trained. The switch kick was always my go-to for countering after a check. Love the vids man big up from the UK 💯

Can we not say LEG MUSCLE!!! anymore

Blue balled us with the LEG MUSCLE 😂😂

12:16 such a good callback

What’s also great about checking like that is your also adding momentum to your counter. It can act as a trigger step for a hard straight punch or a cheat step to immediately throw a leg kick before they are able the check.

Checking kicks shin to shin hurts unless you have really great bones, dead nerves or just made of steel. A Thai coach told me evade or change angle to lessen the impact first if you can and checking kicks only as a last resort. But he had more of a Muay femur/evasion style of fighting. He still told us that being able to pressure or stand and bang was important . You just have to learn to block properly, accept and ignore the pain and trade Give more than you take he said. It's impossible not to get hit in a real fight with a good opponent.

As a tkd guy, I've started checking kicks to the body, since we don't do leg kicks, and it's absolutely great at allowing you to counter quickly

One of the best videos you have posted. I usually reference getting the knee waist high and keep hands up. That puts the large part of the shin on the checking leg in position to check. If they "sneak" a body kick between the knee and elbow.....good for them.

Love your coaching and energy, brother! 🙏🏽

Another lil trick you can do (but dont spam it) is after you lift knee to check kick instead of putting it down in the same spot spill your balance forward enough initially to follow their kick down with your knee a bit and sorta get a lightning footwork step-in and innitiate the dirtyboxing/standing grappling. Assuming you can get past their arm fencework during the step-in.

Love your enthusiasm and passion for the sport! Respect man, you're a phenomenal coach💯

Great work Natalia! As usual, your technique is on point.

Thank you Mike. You see this is why I love martial arts and choose to be one. Even after almost 26 years in the field learning different arts, I can still learn something new from anyone and any art. I throw my ego to the trash and learning. One of the arts I practice is Muay Thai and I have been taught to check the kick the way you showed in the beginning. In my case I wasn't lazy I just didn't know the option exist.

Thank you for mentioning this; when checking kicks, I noticed that intentionally going off balance to the direction of the attacking kick is what keeps me stable upon receiving its impact

This is one of your best videos yet in my opinion! It's not easy for most to make a good tutorial entertaining.

This is why you're a legend Icy Mike. Keep it up.

The energy of this channel is amazing

Great stuff. Well explained and explored through all the permutations. Meat and potatoes H2H. "Fatigue makes cowards of us all." -- this saying used to be on the wall in my team's gym. Also, if you're a nasty, mean kind of guy out to cripple someone, then right after a good check is a great time to throw the oblique kick or side kick to the knee. That's in a lot of close quarters styles -- southern Chinese kung fu and old Okinawan karate. In fact, Jesse Enkamp did a nifty video with Kevin Lee that showed a leg kick check immediately into a low sidekick to the knee without putting the foot back down. EDIT: I realize now that the short I'm referring to was filmed at your gym. Duh. LOL. No wonder the two lessons jived so well!

Absolutely loved this video, checking kicks this way was something I'd been thinking about for a bit. A request though, can you do a video on spear hand and the weird techniques where you hit with your fingers or the knuckles on your fingers? It would be awesome, thank you!

I know I once saw Ernesto Hoost check a leg kick just by turning his knee slightly outwards, that check ended the fight. It was in a K1 tournament in the early 2000s and I think it was against Peter Aerts, if any of you remember the exact fight, please reply. Ever since then I saw leg kicks and checks in a very different light.

Mike sure does love to teach. And we love watching it 🤓

Gotta love how all of Mike's students hesitate to answer his questions. They've all been burned too much lmao.

Thanks for this video man very informative! I would love more videos like this, learned a lot.

The double tease! You are the best! And Mike, you contributed to Jesses knowledge. Still imcredible

That was brilliant and very very well explained. Thank you.

I'm glad you saying this cuz I've been teaching this to my guys for a few months and it been working moving on to using the momentum to counter

I can’t express to you on how much I enjoyed this video

You always have great advise, and you bring your advise in a great way Thnx for tips 👍🏻

The leg muscle cut gag is driving me crazy, keep it up 🙏🏻

You're the Michael Scott of Kickboxing instructors, always a blast watching your videos 😂😂

Absolutely right and for round-housing, kneeing and blocking, I develop my tibialis anterior muscles and never strike with the joints.

Great advice! Thank you for sharing...👍

haven't heard you say the half n half mistakes line in a while. refreshing

8:20 90 degrees defense against low kicks

Great wisdom, its kinda like how you would receive a kick with a pad, just using your shin. Also kinda reminds me of when karate guys will throw a front kick and then step-jab/cross, just use the check as that first step to get your weight forward a bit. Thanks Mike!

12:18 the powered up "LEG MOSSELS" was about to go so hard he had to censor it!

Good lesson. And good fighter lady. Thanks

Great advice indeed. I’m going to renew my subscription. “Checking” hurts; but not as much as getting kicked on the muscle! I never realized the Strong vs weak part of the shin block. That’s very important.

Consistently good videos, thank you :)

I was taught this and similar when blocking punches too, then fire back with the shot as you will have 'naturally' torqued your body into lining up for you to fire a shot right back. Works great!

Woooow! I watched your episodes on the perfect techniques in the bus and knife defense. KZfaq only now shows this channel. I'm a new subscriber now. Didn't know you were a street fighter either. 👌

This was GREAT !!! 👍🏿

Awesome tips. Great stuff. Interestingly I study real Okinawa karate. So usually I just keep my trap shut rather than weather the prejudice. So while I will probably regret this…. Leg checks are part of the reason why the traditional back stance in Shorin Ryu splits weight 60/40 to the back foot. We also catch, pass or check block the kick with our leg check. So three options or styles of leg check can be done. The only way to do these is if you hold your position without shifting back. Check blocks with the leg are awesome entering moves.

Icy Mike just got back from helping Sean Strickland win that fight apparently 😆

Found this video after the wonderboy collab one, this is awesome! Thank you! 🙏🏾

Great one!

A good way of getting advantage of checks from a wider stance like this is keeping your leg glued to his lower shin after the kick, and while he brings his leg back down to his position, sweep it. Controlling the opponent gloves/having contact with his guard to desestabilize him also helps the sweep.

very interesting stuff man thanks

When i check kicks, half the time i don't even take my leg off the ground. I just lift my heel and that catches leg kicks at VERY low risk. Catches right in that sweet spot where your strong and they're weak. I taught it to a friend of mine and works for him too. Another sneaky trick i do is sometimes i time their kick and lift their leg with my knee, which is then super easy to catch and again, low risk.

Best sparring on Tube ever!

If you go off from stopping the kick, can't you use the momentum to send the leg you stopped the kick with to the back and the leg you were 'balancing' (but not really/effectively) on becomes the one in front?!

Excellent I learned something new 🤗

LMAO That "Never do this. You do this your fired" caught me off guard 2:17

Roger Denton taught me this years ago. It’s also a really good set up to throw the cross after.

This little things can make big difference

😂😂😂 I really liked the disconnecting noise🤭 Props to the editor

The video I needed, especially after getring my leg torn up last time I sparred.

I discovered the more lazy check he demonstrates by accident. The one he demonstrated that lands below the knee. Everytime that person goes down in pain. And I never felt it either. No pads btw.

My big shame is that I did this Krav class forever, and they only ever sparred once a month, so they were basically just doing drills and stuff. Wish I had a serious place like yours near me at that time cause I wasted a lot of training time, and I was *dedicated* back then, man. Love the vids, I was thinking you had stopped posting but YT just stopped recommending me these. Gotta watch some manually to get the algorithm working for me.

Theres difference in defense for beginners and as you become more advanced. You have to shell up more and have a tighter guard as a beginner because you're not really adept at seeing when/what an attack is and what it's targeting. It is evolving. Great video.

So, I watched the video today and tried doing that on sparring, my checks were waay better and it felt way easier to follow up with counters. Also one guy was limping a bit after a few of those (my upper chin is regular sore, but I only felt it later at home), so I guess it really hurts them more than you. I've always felt that the way Alex Pereira checks calf kicks was very weird, it kinda makes more sense now, cause I think he's básically doing this.

Ok, I'm glad to know my instructor is good, cause he told me to do it like this. But seeing the video made me realize I can check the kicks better by being a little closer

I think about it like pulling my opposite hip into the direction I'm checking to help maintain balance.

Now that I think about it, checking with the lead leg and shifting the weight onto it would be a good setup for a Falling Step or Gazelle Punch.

I really like your videos. Brutal honest. ;)

Thx i need to hear this

"A check is a poorly excecuted destruction." If i remember it correctly that's a quote from Dan Inosanto ;-) Goes totally in line with the vid! Nice

Where you talked about checking the kick with the strong part to their week, we call that a t- block and it’s like kicking a fence post😅

this is great advice

Great video! When I was a teen I just kicked any kicks coming at me as I didn't know any other way. My sparring partner's legs were full of bruises.

I like to shift my weight to the side taking the hit when the hit comes. Incorporating checks into your movement and striking drills makes it fluid and convenient instead of a hassle of an option

Half of our mistakes are because we're lazy. Do you think that's why traditional martial arts had tales of people doing unbelievable feats of training? Like I've heard that traditional judo schools would have guys practice the same throw with flawless form literally for an entire day. Is there merit to having someone train there hip flexor for a ridiculous amount of reps just so they don't do it the lazy way?

Your so smart for having her in your videos, even if you didn't know what your taking about and were a total doofus I would still watch because of her! 🤣

If it's Blocked,, it Blocked,, if it's Checked it's....... Checked.. Have fun . You now know everything.. cheers from Huntington Beach CA 🇺🇸

I like to attack the weak part of a leg while checking. This requires more focus and awareness to forward fall like you said and attack my check as a way to soften there legs. I don’t want to only absorb all the blows plus I have compact legs and powerful hips so dexterity in hip range allows me to lock and load-forward.

Here's a point you may not have considered also- in any form of melee combat, a powerful attack with a lot of leverage (like a kick, in unarmed combat arts) ONLY has significant impact out at the extent of its reach. It can do SOMETHING in the middle range maybe, but if you're very close when the strike lands, it will have almost no leverage, and therefore almost no force. So if you opt to shoot in instead of check the kick or dance out of range to tire your opponent out, you get inside and they don't hit you hard enough for it to matter. How does this help us counterattack though? Since this is especially useful against a naked kick to begin with, and that's what the whole conversation is about, they won't be keeping you at distance with their hands if you're trying to do this, so throw a short range, powerful punch when you shoot inside their guard, like a shovel hook to the liver. This is something I became more familiar with in swordsmanship than in unarmed combat, and I haven't sparred a lot using these kinds of principles in unarmed combat against kicks, but I have found this sort of thing to work well against people throwing long-range, full extension punches against me. Keep in mind where your opponent's kinetic energy is, and where it has to go, and you can see openings as their possible moves change based on how they position themselves. I really liked this video, love your content, always glad to see another video.

I do the Ernesto Hoost check, where I turn the hips to basically attack the kick

"More than one way to skin a cat" is great advice. Too many people get too dogmatic about martial arts. I don't know what it is about MAists and finding the new truth. First time I ran into (literally) the forward stomping leg check, where the big part of his shin met the small part of mine was in a Monkey Kung Fu seminar of all places. Like in the late 80's or early 90's. I remember it hurt so much I didn't want to throw another leg kick for a week.

Could we get a breakdown of one of the biggest upsets in mma??

GREAT video

Great vid

Pull elbow down towards knee when you do that and lean slightly forward . Try it although you may frog yourself . Now you can sweep the leg out position.

Okie!~ I'll try to mix it with my MMA tyson style, thx!

12:17 you robbed me, this made me stand up actually

In a video by the Modern Martial Artist about Ernesto Hoost. He mentions that Hoost checks kicks by pulling his foot backward rather than lifting it up. Which is apparently also a good way to defend against calf kicks in mma

7:42 Crazy that's like swordsmanship. Get your strong where your opponent is weak.

Totally agree with you on this one 👍👍

I try to block it with the SUPER thick bone right under my kneecap, or even push this bone into their kick. If I cant and gotta use lower shin then I try to angle my shin so it isnt a direct head on collision and sorta slides by bringing the foot in and giving them a slanted-shin to kick.

nicely timed with Sean Stricklands win.