The kicks-only doctrine is demonstrated before exposition. The reader is being shown the rule before being told it; the explanation arrives in Ch. 56-58 (Zeff backstory) as: a cook’s hands are for cooking.
Forward-payoff: every Sanji combat scene for the next 1000+ chapters obeys this rule (the only exceptions are extreme — the Whole Cake arc, his Germa lineage activation). The kicks-only rule is established on first sight as the character signature.
The chapter is also a correction of Ch 43’s single fist-strike: Ch 43 showed Sanji punching Fullbody as the K.O. beat; Ch 44 retroactively tightens the doctrine by never letting Sanji throw a hand-strike again, even in extended combat (the Sanji vs Patty brawl, the Sanji vs Fullbody dining-room sequence). The kicks-only rule is being finalized in Ch 44.
Technique stack
crew-role-verb — Sanji’s verb-pair is cooks/kicks; established by demonstration. See Crew Role Verb Triad.
chekhov-explicit — the rule is demonstrated with mechanical consistency before being verbalized.
prop-tell — the cigarette-and-hands-occupied composition reinforces that hands are for cooking.