Low,Middle,HighBlocks:WhatMostPeopleStillGetWrong

If you've trained for more than a month, you've already performed hundreds of Arae Makki (아래 막기). You've probably also done hundreds of Momtong Makki (몸통 막기) and Eolgool Makki (얼굴 막기). What's curious is that when you ask a group of blue belts why the elbow ends up where it does, their answers contradict each other. This article clarifies what taekwondo blocks arae momtong eolgool actually do, what threats they stop, and why the final position is not decorative but structural.

The first misconception is semantic. Makki (막기) is usually translated as "block," and that word creates a mental image of a wall stopping a strike. Biomechanical reality is different: a forearm, however conditioned it is, does not stop the energy of a circular kick thrown by an opponent weighing 75 kilograms. What it does is deflect it.

That's why the three classical blocks have diagonal or circular trajectories, never straight frontal ones. The arm makes contact with the attack at an angle that pulls it away from the body's centerline. The final position is the point where the deflection is complete, not the instant of impact.

Understanding this changes your training. You stop searching for "firmness" at the end point and start seeking the clean trajectory that leads there. The block ceases to be a static gesture and becomes a sweep with direction.

Arae Makki, the low block, is almost always taught as a response to a front kick. The routine description is: "lower the forearm from the opposite shoulder until it rests on the front thigh." That's correct geometry, but it explains nothing.

What Arae Makki does, in functional terms, is intercept an upward attack, a kick, a knee strike, a groin blow, before it reaches the abdomen or hip. The forearm crosses the body diagonally because that diagonal covers the centerline, where the most sensitive targets are. The hand that pulls back to the hip (the reaction hand) is not ornamental: it generates the rotational counterweight that gives speed to the descending forearm.

The common error is ending the block with the fist too close to the thigh, almost touching it. This traps the arm and leaves the practitioner without space for an immediate counterattack. The correct position leaves a fist and a half of distance between the knuckle and the thigh, exactly the space where the elbow maintains useful flexion.

Momtong Makki is probably the most used in the Taegeuk (태극) and in ITF Tul, and also the one with the most variations. The key question is: which direction does the forearm rotate? Because there are two common versions that get confused.

The first is Momtong An Makki, the middle inward block, where the forearm travels from outside toward the center of the body. The second is Momtong Bakkat Makki, outward, where the forearm leaves from the opposite shoulder and ends with the fist at the height of your own shoulder. Each responds to a different attack.

• An Makki: deflects a direct strike to the chest or solar plexus toward the internal lateral side, opening up your opponent.
• Bakkat Makki: moves the same strike toward the external lateral side, keeping your opponent off the centerline.

The tactical difference matters. An Makki usually sets up a short counterattack (an elbow strike, a hook punch). Bakkat Makki creates distance and prepares a kick. When a practitioner repeats Momtong Makki without distinguishing which one to use, they're losing half the tool.

Eolgool Makki, the high block, protects the head. The manual description indicates that the forearm ends above the forehead, angled, with the fist slightly above the line of the opposite eye. The critical detail is that angle.

A perfectly horizontal forearm above the head doesn't block: it absorbs. The force of the descending strike, whether a hammer fist or an object attack, comes straight down toward the skull, and a flat forearm simply receives that vector. The correct angle, approximately 30 degrees from the horizontal, causes the strike to slide forward, away from the skull.

The second error is the distance from the face. Too close to the forehead, the block has no travel distance to deflect; the strike is transmitted to your own forearm and from there to the skull. The practical measurement is that of a fist between the wrist and the forehead. Enough space for the deflection to occur outside the vulnerable zone.

The high block is not a visor. It's a ramp.

In poomsae and tul, the three blocks appear isolated, each in its time, with its kihap. In modern sport gyeorugi (겨루기), they almost never appear as such. This confuses practitioners, who don't know if taekwondo blocks arae momtong eolgool are living technique or formal relic.

The honest answer is somewhere in between. Under World Taekwondo rules, where scoring rewards kicks to the chest protector and headgear, the classical blocks are rarely seen complete. But their fragments, the reaction hand, the diagonal deflection, the hip rotation, remain present in competition guards and short deflections. In the ITF, where face contact exists and the ruleset values counterattack more, Eolgool Makki retains immediate utility.

In applied self-defense, all three remain relevant because the human body continues to attack from above, the middle, and below. What changes is how you train them: with a partner, with graduated contact, with non-pre-established response patterns.

Three technical details that distinguish a functional block from a cosmetic one:

1. The hip initiates the movement. The arm arrives afterward. If the forearm moves alone, the block loses body mass and the deflection fails.
2. The elbow is never blocked in full extension. A closed joint transmits all impact to the shoulder and from there to the spine. Residual flexion is what absorbs.
3. Timing coincides with the end of inhalation or the beginning of exhalation, depending on the school. What matters is that the diaphragm is firm at contact, not relaxed.

These three points are what allow the same gesture, repeated in the air a thousand times, to work when a real leg comes in its direction.

Arae, Momtong, and Eolgool Makki are not three versions of the same gesture at different heights. They are three distinct responses to three distinct threats, each with its own biomechanics. The next time you train them, observe the diagonal, the hip rotation, and the space they leave for the body. If you want to go deeper, the logical next step is to study the transitions between block and counterattack within the basic poomsae.