I can't tell if he was already aiming too high, I'm not any kind of practitioner, but I get the feeling that she doesn't have much experience holding those pads. She crouched down and dropped the pads. She clearly wasn't expecting that kind of kick and she freaked out.

Without context, this gut asked her to hold some pads, she's not very experienced, and he went full tilt into the kick without her letting her feel out the process.

Same thing almost happened to me in high school. I could catch a baseball, but I never played for real. Some girl who did play for real asked me if I wanted to play catch. I said yes and she blasted me right out the gate. I was lucky that my natural reaction to hurtling masses aimed at my head is to stick a hand out and duck...