why was Dooku so weak against Anakin's kicks? or was he...
He takes a boot to the face in the clone wars film and then I think to the chest in ROTS. I understand once but you think after the first time he would've learned from it and developed some defenses at reading it, especially since Anakin choreographs the hell out of his kick in ROTS since he jumps and chambers his right knee up before leap-kicking with his left-foot for impact.
This seems to turn the tide in BOTH fights giving Anakin the high ground and momentum and in both cases it happens when Dooku threatens someone Anakin cares for (Ahsoka in CW, Kenobi in ROTS) so one might think of it as a 'darkside kick' which was unusually fast and powerful, fueled by anger?
I wonder if maybe Dooku would normally just use the force to guide unarmed attacks away from himself or let them impact a force-shield so he doesn't bother to predict them (they're not as inherently dangerous like a lightsaber) or dodge them, but a force-propelled kick which can't be stopped by a force-shield would be the achilles heel (so to speak) against such a strategy.
Still doesn't explain why it happened twice though... the 1st sucker-kick I understand could have happened based on Dooku being startled, but the second one...
Do you figure Sheev told him to take that kick on purpose as part of the whole "throw the fight" strategy? A kick is the sort of thing you could survive, and probably milk to make it look worse than it actually was. That would also explain why he took it on the chest instead of the chin the 2nd time around - easier to tank that without becoming disoriented.