This kick would make more sense if the practitioner was holding a sword or a weapon. I'm no expert, but from my understanding, this was a holdover from an older battlefield weapons form. Basically, the practitioner is trying to dodge multiple spear attacks by jumping over the sharp points and hurdling the spear shafts while slashing with his/her weapon and the kick is used more for momentum to generate power for the slashing motion than to actually kick any one. The newer Wu Shu empty hand forms just incorporated it since it is a technically difficult move, so it would be a good basis for judging skills during competition. Kinda like the mandatory technical jumps required in figure skating. But I could be wrong.
edit: here's a video of a staff form that features the butterfly kick, look at 0:21 of the video and you'll see what I mean...
In a real combat situation, or street fight, you don't want to take both feet off the ground at the same time unless there is no other possible option. In fact, in a real fight, one seldom kicks above the waist as you don't want to lose your balance, either.
The kick is from Wu Shu, a theatrical martial art that involves gymnastics, dance and theater skills and should not be thought of as kuntao or Chinese boxing (often mislabeled as "kung fu" for westerners).
Looks cool but that's about it. Very hard to accurately hit someone with that. In a life or death situation NEVER turn your back to your opponent, whatever the reason may be. You do that butterfly kick, you miss and you will need a second, maybe two or even three to get back in the game. Those are very crucial seconds. Might as well be a life time.
But hey not everything in martial arts has to be about how applicable it is in real life situations. I think we focus too much on that sometimes. I think it looks awesome and I would love to learn it but I would never use it in a real life fight.
From where I come from this back spinning kick is known as the 'swallow' kick. Is it a fig of imagination by compilers of 'modern wushu' that they include such a useless kick only to impress? What is this often touted as 'Modern' Wushu? It is a pot-purri of Bei-pai techniques picked from what most of us will know as Northern Shaolin traditional schools of martial arts. This so-called 'butterfly' kick is a common technique in Hua-chuan, a very traditional bei-pai. Every technique has its use like that eagle-claw one-leg stance, static seemingly useless but good as a visual impression? I don't quite 'get it' with that eagle-claw stance but this 'swallow' leg was explained to me by my sifu. This technique is not targeting against a singular opponent but as a quick response to being surrounded by a group, similar to a ground sweep, or to swing a long pole in a circular movement around the body to keep the aggressive crowd away. True, it is useless to execute if used on a single opponent and some intelligence is required to use it against a crowd. One can often see this spinning kick in a bei-pai repertoire of nine-sectioned whip routine/toulu a well. On the other hand, concerning the execution of the kick in the video, some negative comments were quite correct, because if executed in a truly traditional CMA, the hitting surface is the back heels; otherwise, it is acrobatic, it is a dance move.
Honestly i really hate any move where you lose sight of the target even for a split second. Sure this could catch out some amatuer but you need a heap of space to make it work and there is no defense to being rushed or your opponent changing the line of strike.
like i said anything where you lose sight of the target in my eyes is poor for self defense.
I would not consider ever doing that kick in a self defense situation. I can't say that it won't work. It can catch someone off guard. But I would advise against doing it for self defense. I would only suggest doing it for demonstrations.
Utterly useless in the real world. Spinning techniques look fancy and all that, but there's a reason that this was the technique used in the commercial where a "real" fighter" knocks out a guy that's doing this.
Wasn't this supposed to be a jian sword type move. Not an actual kick.
I remember something about that.
Looks pretty. It's a dance/gymnastics move, though, and only started showing up in Chinese martial arts forms with the advent of Modern Wushu, which is a combination of traditional martial arts and gymnastics.
I doubt anyone could land it with any consistency on anyone who actually knows how to fight. A really athletic guy might catch a guy by surprise once or twice in their entire life, but I wouldn't even train it, if you're trying to build practical fighting skills.
Probably 1 in 10,000 chance it would work. Nothing is impossible though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbefem-b8p8
What is it used for? Is it an actual kick? Does it work in a street fight? etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziTR38KwTwQ
