JJ Or.Pimonsri's Versatile Lead Leg
An in-depth look at mechanics, tactics, and setups for the lead leg body kick, featuring one of Muay Thai's hardest lead leg kickers in JJ Or.Pimonsri.
The rear middle kick is, in many ways, the quintessential weapon of Muay Thai. It directly attacks the opponent’s balance and center of gravity with a ton of stopping force, which is critical under a scoring system that prioritizes balance and poise. The open side round kick is one of the highest scoring strikes in Muay Thai, and that dynamic is why you see more converted southpaws in Muay Thai than tend to exist in other combat sports. If you’re a strong kicker, you may be taught to fight southpaw early on so that your rear kick naturally coincides with an orthodox opponent’s open side.
But when a kicker fights an opponent of the same stance as him, the rear kick falls on the closed side, kicking into the stronger back muscles and away from the squishy bits of the abdomen. The kick becomes less damaging and loses some of its balance-breaking potential, but it also becomes easier to catch and counter. How a kicker responds to that dynamic says a lot about their style. Some push onwards and keep relying on their rear kick, accepting that their kick will fall on the closed side. Kiatmoo9 fighters are perhaps the best example - Singdam, Superlek, and Rungnarai all fought heavy on the front foot, making it difficult to quickly lift the lead leg, but facilitating quick, powerful rear kicks. Others adjust their tactics and rely more on their lead leg kick, which falls on the open side against a same-stance opponent.
JJ Or.Pimonsri is a powerful and versatile kicker who kicks actively off both legs, but his lead leg body kick is of particular interest. The lead leg body kick tends to be more of a scalpel than a cudgel, inherently less powerful than the rear kick but capabable of quickly sneaking inside the elbow and catching opponents by surprise. One of its most frequent uses is as a quick, light counter to an opponent’s rear hand, sliding in on the rib as the elbow leaves the body to punch. Most proficient lead leg kickers use it as a tool of finesse and point scoring, but it can still pack a punch when thrown with more commitment.
Crucial to JJ’s ambidextrous kicking ability is a fairly upright, narrow, and balanced stance that allows him to quickly shift weight onto either leg. In a rear foot or lead foot heavy stance, it takes longer to shift weight off the loaded foot, making kicks off that leg more cumbersome. But JJ’s balanced stance allows him to pick away at kicking range with either leg, without having to first distract the opponent while he shifts his weight.
He regularly employs a switch kick at long range as a quick, low commitment option to score at long range and force opponents to open up.
The key to an effective switch kick is taking a very slight switch step. When learning the kick, pretty much everyone exaggerates the switching motion, bringing their lead leg too far back or jumping upwards, which causes the kick to be too slow and easily countered.
There’s a spectrum between speed and power where the switch step can be adjusted to suit each purpose, but even a power kick involves a switch much slighter than most expect. JJ is one of the fighters who optimizes toward power more than speed and his switch is still very slight, often bringing the feet only slightly further than parallel before turning his hip into the kick.
The switch step opens up his lead hip and allows it to be whipped into the kick with power. JJ’s rhythmic bouncing of the lead leg in his stance hides his switch, conditioning his opponent to the rhythm and suddenly breaking it with the kick.
When he wants to add even more concealment to the kick, JJ will shoot his lead leg out straight from his stance without first switching his feet. Typically, throwing the lead leg without a switch involves rocking the weight backwards onto the rear foot or leaning back slightly, allowing the backwards weight transfer to lift the leg into the opponent’s body. It’s a quick motion built for precision counters but largely lacking power. However, JJ has a unique adjustment to the form that allows him to get some stink on the kick.