Kicks play a significant role in many forms of martial arts, such as capoeira, kalaripayattu, karate, kickboxing, kung fu, wing chun, MMA, Muay Thai, pankration, pradal serey, savate, sikaran, silat, taekwondo, vovinam, and Yaw-Yan.

However, the earliest documentation of high kicks, aimed above the waist or to the head, comes from East-Asian martial arts.

Such kicks were introduced to the west in the 19th century with early hybrid martial arts inspired by East-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.

One theory was that it was developed in Northern Chinese Martial arts, in which techniques involving the use of the foot to strike the vital points of the head was often used.

The high kick also seems to be prevalent in all traditional forms of Indochinese kickboxing, but these cannot be traced with any technical detail to pre-modern times.

[citation needed] The Mahabharata (4.13), an Indian epic compiled at some point before the 5th century AD, describes an unarmed hand-to-hand battle, including the sentence "and they gave each other violent kicks" (without providing any further detail).

Kicks including ones above the waist are commonly depicted in the stone carvings of the Khmer Empire temples in Cambodia.

As the human leg is longer and stronger than the arm, kicks are generally used to keep an opponent at a distance, surprise them with their range and inflict substantial damage.

Stance is also very important in any combat system and any attempt to deliver a kick will necessarily compromise stability to some degree.

As combat situations are fluid, understanding this trade-off and making the appropriate decision to adjust to each moment is key.

Further, since low kicks are inherently quicker and harder to see and dodge in general they are often emphasized in a street fight scenario.

[4] Due to its power, the roundhouse kick may also be performed at low level against targets, such as the knees, calf, or even thigh, since attacking leg muscles will often cripple an opponent's mobility.

In most Karate styles, the instep is used to strike, though use of the shin as an official technique for a street fight would mostly be allowed.

Front kicks are typically aimed at targets below the chest: stomach, thighs, groin, knees or lower.

This technique is considered antiquated[citation needed] and used only after an opponent is persuaded to believe it is a roundhouse (a feint) and then led to believe that closing the distance is best for an upper body attack, which plays into the tactical position and relative requirement of this version of the side kick.

A well-known proponent of the axe kick was Andy Hug, the Swiss Kyokushinkai Karateka who won the 1996 K-1 Grand Prix.

[9] First practiced in Chinese martial arts, the butterfly kick, or "xuan zi", is widely viewed as ineffective for actual combat.

This is useful for getting inside defenses and striking the side of the head or for knocking down hands to follow up with a close attack.

The inward variant has also been called a hangetsu geri (half-moon kick) in karate and is employed to "wipe" an opponent's hand off of the wrist.

At full extension, the knee is bent and the foot snapped to the side, impacting the target with the heel.

In taekwondo it is often used at the resulting miss of a short slide side kick to the head, but is considered a very high level technique in said circumstance.

There are many variations of the hook kick, generally based on different foot work: rear- or front-leg, oblique or half-pivot, dropping, spin-back and more.

An L-kick, also called aú batido, is a movement in breakdancing, capoeira and other martial arts and dance forms.

One leg is brought downwards and forwards in a kicking motion while the other remains in the air (giving rise to the name).

This was exhibited by Bruce Lee on numerous occasions in his films Enter the Dragon, Fist of Fury and The Big Boss.

[20] The jump spin hook kick was popularized in the mid-eighties by Steven Ho in open martial art competitions.

[24] Flying kicks are commonly practiced in Taekwondo, Karate, Wushu and Muay Thai for fitness, exhibitions and competition.

In karate this is called a yoko geri keage, in Taekwondo it is referred to as sewo chagi and can be performed as either an inward (anuro) or outward (bakuro) kick.

In some encounters with highly trained and conditioned fighters, multiple side-kicks have seen disastrous results against the abs of their target.