Just a general FYI, something I really picked up in Muay Thai and Kickboxing, you should set up all your kicks with punches first. Not saying this isn't stressed in knockdown karate, but I do know in some dojo, it's not. I even catch my own students still trying to throw just kicks, without setting them up first.
Anybody that's even half decent at kumite will be able to block or evade most, if not all kicks that are thrown without being set up first.
What I tell my students is, that this isn't a Van Damme movie, this is real life, you have to set up your kicks first. It's also a good way to develop strong punching habits, so they don't try to rely just on their kicks, too..and to start actually working combinations in kumite.
I'm going to revert back to a "motto" of the Tjakai dojo I trained at years ago, which was, always end a combination with a kick, but begin the combination with your hands.
As I said earlier, I honestly can't remember the last time I took an elbow from throwing a sune chudan mawashi or chosoku chudan mawashi geri. No, I'm not the world's greatest kicker, but I always do combinations and set the kick up.
I personally haven't blocked somebody's chudan mawashi with an elbow in many years because I'll either counter it or catch it. I used to do so, and can remember when I was 14 doing it to my Dad in kumite so bad that it was the closest I came to ever really getting into a fight with my Dad in kumite...and a big reason why I stopped doing kumite with my Dad not long after
. With that being said, it's a good tactic, but I refrain from doing it in the dojo, it's very easy to do, but I like to not hurt who I'm sparring in the dojo so they can continue to train hard, and do a lot more kumite. I guess over the years, I got a bit nicer, or perhaps just wiser and see more of a benefit in having someone train hard within reason, so they can train harder, longer. Instead of the kumite sessions where somebody always gets injured and can't do much afterwards for a week or two...or even long after. Kumite like that all the time is just stupid, IMHO. Not to say, I haven't done kumite like that, I certainly have, and trained at Kickboxing gyms like that...where somebody always got hurt bad.
Osu!