Search Google or YouTube for effective self-defence techniques, and you will quickly see someone kneeing someone in the groin.
Knees to the groin are “sold” as the gold standard of strikes for women in self-defence, but are they?
Yes, a shot to the groin, junk, nutsack, or balls will stop some in their tracks, but often it will have the opposite effect, enraging your aggressor.
Where is the most significant limitation for the knee to the groin? In an attack like a front choke where you are being driven backwards, lifting your leg off the ground and delivering a knee strike will compromise your balance and have little to no effect if it even comes close to landing on the desired target.
Knees have a higher chance of success when one has gained a more dominant position and has the balance and time to deliver the knee effectively.
Don’t get bogged down in specifically targeting the knee; throw it. To expect to deliver it to the left testicle at a 48-degree angle by the 78th pubic hair will not happen; throw it.
An excellent illustration is in this video with these young teenage girls who deliver these knees in that exact scenario. This video is also a perfect example of why we teach from a principle and conceptual-based approach.
We did not teach these as specific ways to throw a knee, but they used these knees this way after just a few hours of training.