On Calf Kicks

If you’re watching professional MMA lately you know that one thing announcers are sure to mention is a Calf Kick. The idea of this technique WAS to step slightly outside of your opponents front leg and throw a low kick just behind the shin, digging into the meat of their calf. My first exposure to this came by way of Justin Gaethje during his World Series of Fighting days. A glutton for chaos up until recently, Gaethje banked on utilizing this kick to catch his opponents by surprise at the beginning and end of his close-quartered combinations. In particular, the ability to throw this kick while crowding his opponents took most of them by surprise-most people can’t throw the kick that close to someone and land effectively. The surprise of the kick lead to dread, with dread comes anticipation, and most fighters respond by lifting their front legs in an attempt to check their opponent by clashing shins. Following?

However, unless the check is employed on an angle close to 45 degrees, it’s very likely that the shin or foot can still wrap around and dig in to the calf muscle even if some of the steam is taken off. An opponent on the other end should rally to find a way out of leg-numbing hell, but each step they take starts to become more and more unsure. The kick hurts, but it’s not life changing, so it can be perplexing when you can’t wake up your leg, or get your brain to tell your body to stop giving out at the knee and ankle. Point being, before you know it these little chops to the lower half of your body start to add up. Lately, this old Muay Thai technique turned new has been really changing the tides of some recent match-ups. Moreover, this technique has stayed on the tip of commentators, journalists, and bloggers tongues alike.

But why now? The techniques been around. It can been seen in the UFC all the way back to the days of Pedro Rizzo, if your looking to watch some serious heavyweight kickboxing at work on YouTube.. And why the obsession? Do announcers and fans understand the fundamental difference between a low kick to the shin or thigh and a low kick to the ankle or calf? Can they spot the difference in-between a flurry of other strikes, or when it doesn’t land perfectly? So far the answer has been resounding in that they don’t care. These days, anything that hits below the knee is now a calf kick to the men with microphones, and for months on end the question has been simple: Why?

Forgive the head first dive into even more minutia as a way to prove the relationship between trend and reality. When the Imanari roll made it’s way to mainstream MMA it became a point of education for announcers to explain to fans the technique and it’s history. Even if the technique failed on camera, announcers allowed the likes of Tony Ferguson and Ryan Hall a moment of explanation as the fight went on. When the Peruvian Necktie came onto the MMA scene it became increasingly popular to mention that this option was available in addition to the more traditionally employed Guillotine from a front headlock position. Smashing a neck between forearm and bicep to cut off the carotid artery should be equally exciting whether it’s named after a weapon for execution or an accessory to a collared shirt. Is the possibility of a dead-legged fighter so exciting that a low leg kick to the shin or ankle becomes over looked or mislabeled? Maybe calling out, “calf-kick” is a way of showing evolution in what is still a young sport, with those writing or calling the fight looking to paint a picture of a more technically savvy matchup. For me, this seems to be a rare instance where trend has taken over logic. The Calf Kick is the new It Girl in town, and everyone just wants to get a look.

This situation haunts me in much the same fashion as when the terms, “Mission Control” and “Rubber Guard” get thrown around. These positions popularized by Eddie Bravo and 10th Planet Jiu-jitsu are in actuality variations of a Jiu-jitsu practitioners High Guard distinctly different in the nuances of where to place the dominant leg, and where to place the hands. I like to think of these things as versions of the High Guard, with it’s own separate systems for attack. A subsystem different but closely related to the traditional approach. In a traditional High Guard, the legs creep up the back and shoulders as high as they can so that a grappler or fighter can contain their opponent in a more cramped up space. The goal is to force them to carry your weight in their back, neck and shoulders to the point of discomfort, and then look for many of the same sweeps or submissions available to them from a Closed Guard. In High Guard, there’s very little grabbing of your own leg like there is from the Rubberguard- if any as far as I am aware. To confuse things further, Mission Control is actually a technique within Rubber-guard, aptly named as a starting point or system of control that leads to sweeps and submissions. Meaning without Rubberguard, there is no Mission Control. That’s my understanding of it.

But back to usage. With Eddie Bravo’s Tenth Planet Jiu-jitsu style getting more widespread acceptance comes regular frequent mislabelling. If Joe Rogan is in the booth, being close friends and a long time student of Bravo’s, you can almost guarantee he will find a way to call this position up whether to mislabel or to tangent. Any time a fighter creeps their legs up from a closed guard to a high guard somebody somewhere is ranting about Mission Control or Rubberguard willy nilly and without order. It’s still sort of new, it’s trendy, and at one point it was mysterious and subversive. From around 2005 till now snobs like me have been shaking their head at the mention of this sort of thing. Now, as a nice little treat for what has otherwise been an awful calendar year, we can add Calf Kick to the trend list right next to it’s buddies in the High Guard system.

Get Jake!’s stories in your inbox

Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.

Remember me for faster sign in

Here’s some other trendy little suckers getting thrown around to add to the list: Maybe later on I’ll explain how I think they got here.

1. Flying Knee
2. Ankle pick
3. Arm Drag (What about the Russian Tie?!)
4. Scramble
5. Check Hook
6. Shovel Hook
7. Overhand Right
8. “Body the Beautiful”