Three Pros and Cons of the Superfoot style for Kickboxing

The video below is one of the many available videos from Bill “superfoot” Wallace and it offers great training tips to improve speed in your kicks.

I will analyse the basics about this amazing style of fighting and highlight what I believe to be the three main pros and cons.  Having met the Superfoot in person last year I can state that after over 30 years from his retirement from professional fighting he is still amazing and thought provoking for its simplicity, directness and applications.   However the Superfoot style has some characteristics that makes it unapproachable for many people.

In a sentence the Superfoot style can be defined as based on a side stance and guard where just the front leg and arm is used to attack, using very fast combinations of kicks and punches, with priority to leg techniques.

Pros of the Superfoot style:

• It is simple and intuitive to use
• It scores at all allowed ranges
• It develops unexpected speed and often it surprises opponents when they get hit

Cons of the Superfoot style:

• It requires very flexible legs and hips; most of the techniques and combinations will not work unless your flexibility is very good
• It just works from side stance and guard; I personally like using kicks with the rear leg and combinations of punches from both hands that are not possible
• It stops working when the opponent go past your kicking distance

I would suggest to every kickboxer to learn, test and analyse how the Superfoot can work for them.  It might not be for everyone but some of the basics, if your legs are up for it, can be very useful to apply in certain situations. However the very specific stance and guard makes it, in my opinion, too limiting to be the only style to use.