When should one use the rear leg in Jkd?

I understand that kicking from the rear leg in Jeet kune do can be risky because it's further away, but sometimes it could be used as a power shot and not really designed for intercepting.

so my question is; when or how should one use the rear leg in Jeet kune do ?

 

At the risk of sounding trite and unhelpful "when necessary"

Taking the example of backing someone up under a series of shots you can deploy a rear leg shot to cover additional distance to land a telling blow. Another example may be off a mistimed or heavy front foot landing when you can angle off and take the shot

"Punch when you have to punch, kick when you have to kick" - that counts the same for rear or front

 

- Use your leading leg kick to set up your rear leg kick.
- Kick your rear leg if your opponent switches from "uniform stance" into "mirror stance".

 

Not sure why kicking in JKD would follow different principles than other arts. With that said, based generally the kick with the rear leg is an offensive kick. A front leg kick is a defensive kick.

Offensive kick:
- Power kick: Able to step-in and then kick
- Counter kick: Able to evade off the line and then step in with counter kick
Stepping in can be as little as a weight shift, small step, or can be an actual step or even a jump. The key is that your body is moving behind the kick.

Defensive kick:
- Kick when caught leaning back or away
- Kick when being driven back (e.g. falling backwards)
- Defensive stop or push kick, or kick used to parry

 

I always like using tan gerk from the rear leg myself whenever it can be set up. Really the only difference between the way you demo it and the wing chun way of doing it is the lack of withdrawal and setting down the leg to eat up the space and maintain forward momentum. Well that and technically you're not supposed to kick in wing chun without a hand bridge.

It's funny because there isn't a complete retraction of your student's leg in the second clip and his footwork ends up being fairly close to a stance-transitory bit out of the chute bo.

 

Two words: Bill Wallace

 

And Bill's kickboxing doesn't even entirely account for a variety of leg kicks, kicks to the knee, kicks to the groin, sweeping kicks against the lower leg, kicks to the crease of the hip. All which can be carried out with the front leg.

 

Thanks to all that have commented and posted videos. I must analyze what you have all posted and consider and experiment with what I feel be beneficial to me.

I must admit I am not a very well seasoned Jkd practitioner, far from it! Hence the rooky question about rear kick, but I question everything and I try to solve any doubts that I have regarding techniques (regardless of how stupid they may seem) before I spar or before I don't have much time to really think about it in a life or death situation.

Regarding the back leg kick again: It's just that I always use my front kick for must, if not all the kicking angles of attack because it usually is "the closest ranged weapon to the nearest target" so to speak, but there are times when it limits me in terms of kicking because it becomes predictable what my attack patterns are and this often limits what tools I can make use of in sparing or heaven forbid the cold concrete Streets if I really have to.

Feel free to keep posting stuff if you have time to add more.

 

On the "cold concrete Streets" people won't be taking the time to figure out patterns in your attacks. Not unless they're a lot better than you, in which case you've lost anyway

I really wouldn't worry about that.

 

The legendary Front leg!

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r58rS09Tlg"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r58rS09Tlg[/ame]

Exhibition match vs Joe Lewis (hige JKD connection right there...)

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAEKbKHmo_Q"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAEKbKHmo_Q[/ame]

With my Sifu

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfDJTH7VXzU"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfDJTH7VXzU[/ame]

 

True. I was thinking about that. My post was supposed to be "in general" rear leg offensive and lead leg defensive.

I then separately was trying to explain that offensive kick requires body moving forward, such as with a step or jump usually. Bill Wallace does an offensive kick with lead leg, but he still uses footwork to move forward.

 

I use it when nessecary. Fighting boxers for instance

 

Counter intuitively your back foot is in range of the opponent when your front foot is not. So although it is further away from your opponent it is also the closest foot to them when it comes to kicking them.