Kick

Kick

A kick is a physical strike using the leg: foot, heel, tibia, thigh or knee (the latter is also known as a knee strike). This type of attack is used frequently by hooved animals as well as humans in the context of stand-up fighting. Kicks play a significant role in many forms of martial arts, such as savate, taekwondo, sikaran, karate, Pankration, Kung fu, Vovinam, kickboxing, Muay Thai, capoeira, silat, and kalaripayattu.

Kicking is also prominent from its use in many sports, especially those called football. The best known of these sports is association football, also known as soccer.

The English verb appears only in the late 14th century, apparently as a loan from Old Norse, originally in the sense of a hooved animal delivering strikes with his hind legs; the oldest use is Biblical.

Kicks as an act of human aggression have likely existed worldwide since prehistory. However, high kicks, aiming above the waist or to the head appear to have originated from Asian martial arts. Such kicks were introduced to the west in the 19th century with early hybrid martial arts inspired by Asian styles such as Bartitsu and Savate. Practice of high kicks became more universal in the second half of the 20th century with the more widespread development of hybrid styles such as kickboxing and eventually mixed martial arts.

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