# Question about kicks.



## Tom Smits (Mar 9, 2016)

Hi

This video shows me doing a few right and left kicks. Can you guys tell give me some advise?




I think im doing something wrong, especially with the left kick because i kick less harder with it. 

When i train, i always do the left and the right kicks the same amount of times.


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## Tez3 (Mar 9, 2016)

Can I ask who taught you to kick? I don't mean to be unkind but you need to learn to kick properly. There's a lot of things wrong but basically you need someone to show you how to kick, us telling you won't help you, you need to be shown.


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## Monkey Turned Wolf (Mar 9, 2016)

Ask your sensei/coach/etc. There are a lot of issues with your kicking, and he's the one who can help fix them.

For your question, if you're a righty, unless you practice more with your left side then your right there's always going to be less power there.


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## Tom Smits (Mar 9, 2016)

Me coach did show me how to kick. I asked him the same question and he's okay with my kicks. He did told me i should work more on my flexibility.


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## Tez3 (Mar 9, 2016)

Tom Smits said:


> Me coach did show me how to kick. I asked him the same question and he's okay with my kicks. He did told me i should work more on my flexibility.



Ah, to be honest and I don't want to offend you, you need to find a MT coach who will teach you to kick effectively. It's good to work on your flexibility anyway, you can't go wrong but really you need to learn how to kick. You need to stop lifting your non kicking foot off the ground when you kick, you also need to keep your guard up, that's just for a start. Have you watched any MT fights at all?


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## Bill Mattocks (Mar 9, 2016)

Tom Smits said:


> Hi
> 
> This video shows me doing a few right and left kicks. Can you guys tell give me some advise?
> 
> ...



I will go against the grain here and say I don't really see anything terrible about your kicks, at least nothing that cannot be fixed.  But always do what your instructor tells you, not random people like me on the internet.  What follows is merely my opinion, which counts for nothing.

I will agree with the others that this is the type of advice you need your instructor for, not least of which because different styles of martial arts generate power differently, and deliver kicks differently.  One is not necessarily better or worse than another, but they are different.

If you want my opinion, it is that in our style, the mawashigeri kick (roundhouse kick as you appear to be doing it), is delivered with the knee higher and turned over, such that the kick is not moving upwards when delivered, but sideways.  You're almost there, just lift your knee higher and turn your hip over a bit and you've got it.

Second, control your hands.  They are flailing around and that's fine for now, but you are using that arm motion to help generate power.  That means when you actually need to deliver a big kick, you'll do that.  And your opponent may well grab those hands.  If they are waving around, they are also not available to defend or attack.  Learn to keep your hands under control when you kick.  You can grab your gi (if you wear one) or just hold your arms in a ready position and try to keep them there.  It takes time for this to become natural.

You are also leaning backwards to deliver the kick, also part of how you are generating power.  While this does give you some rotational momentum, it puts you seriously off-balance.  A person't unbalance is the same as a weight.  In other words, it is very easy to take someone down who is off-balanced.  It is like they have to fight while carrying a log or something.  Hard to stay upright.

So, in summary (and again, this is for the style *I* practice and keep in mind I am a student like yourself):

1) Lift the knee, turn the hip over so that the kick, when it arrives, is moving sideways with respect to the ground, not at a diagonal angle.
2) Get those hands up, protect your face, keep them there while kicking.
3) Learn to keep yourself upright while kicking, don't lean backwards. 

Just my 2 cents.  I don't really have a problem with your kicks as-is, but I'd talk to your instructor some more and see what you can do to clean them up, assuming your instructor thinks that is necessary.


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## marques (Mar 9, 2016)

That is easy to see, hard too explain in letters.
You are putting the height of your leg, instead of *your* height, in the bag.

I will try a few tips:
You must relax and rotate your hip. Your knee should rotate more. Your heel (support foot) shouldn't touch the ground.
I also trained it in a bag a few days ago, after a long break and... exaggerating the rotation helped me. (You face the camera at the moment of the impact, to give you an idea.)

Training tips:
Forget the speed and power for a moment. Coordination, rotation. One kick and stop.
When it is good, you can feel the power (and balance) at the moment of impact.

One last thing: there are many different ways to 'kick' similar kicks. Don't mix everything. Learn ONE kind at a time. Don't get all the tips. Even if all the tips on this page page are good... 

Yeah, find an instructor.


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## Dirty Dog (Mar 9, 2016)

Mostly... you kick like a beginner. 

As Bill pointed out, a true roundhouse should be moving parallel to the ground, not at an upward angle. There is a variation that moves upward, but it is inherently less powerful. 

Your leg is nearly straight the entire time you're kicking, which limits which muscles you can use and makes the kick slower, both because the foot isn't moving as fast, and because it's obviously a roundhouse from the instant your foot leaves the floor. Flexing the knee and bringing the kick up more to the center before pivoting (your supporting foot is turned before you kick, which also telegraphs the kick) makes it more difficult to determine exactly what kick you're throwing. The longer it takes to figure out, the faster your kick is, effectively.

Even though your kick looks to be no higher than your hip, you're leaning back. If you can't kick at least to your waist without leaning, spend less time on kicking and more on stretching. The hip of your supporting leg is a fulcrum. Your torso weighs a lot more than your leg. So the more you lean back, the more weight you have on the wrong wide of the fulcrum, the worse your balance will be. And you cannot kick hard when you're off balance.

There's more, but that's some basic stuff to start with.

The other thing is... talk to your instructor. I'm telling you how a roundhouse should be done by Taekwondo standards. There are differences between systems...


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## Monkey Turned Wolf (Mar 9, 2016)

Bill Mattocks said:


> 1) Lift the knee, turn the hip over so that the kick, when it arrives, is moving sideways with respect to the ground, not at a diagonal angle.
> 2) Get those hands up, protect your face, keep them there while kicking.
> 3) Learn to keep yourself upright while kicking, don't lean backwards.


These are the main things I noticed as well. Additionally, to me it is more important that you get the technique down over speed, which is what you seem to be going for. Like Bill said they can all be fixed, which is why I said to ask your instructor. He'll fix them when he feels it is the right time to do so.


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## Dirty Dog (Mar 9, 2016)

kempodisciple said:


> These are the main things I noticed as well. Additionally, to me it is more important that you get the technique down over speed, which is what you seem to be going for. Like Bill said they can all be fixed, which is why I said to ask your instructor. He'll fix them when he feels it is the right time to do so.



Absolutely. Speed and power come from good technique. You may be able to kick hard with sloppy technique, but you will kick faster and harder if you develop better technique.


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## ks - learning to fly (Mar 9, 2016)

as mentioned.. you do kick like a beginner and - absolutely - if you're
right handed, do more with your left..you're always going to feel better
about your kick or hand strike with your dominant leg or hand
Second, don't start your round house kick from the back - chamber
your leg and kick from the chamber.. if the bullet is not in the chamber,
the gun won't fire.. so, chamber your kick and then, snap it straight across..


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## Monkey Turned Wolf (Mar 9, 2016)

ks - learning to fly said:


> Second, don't start your round house kick from the back - chamber
> your leg and kick from the chamber.. if the bullet is not in the chamber,
> the gun won't fire.. so, chamber your kick and then, snap it straight across..


I may be wrong, but I'm fairly certain some styles don't chamber their roundhouse. They'll chamber all the other kicks but not the roundhouse.


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## Danny T (Mar 9, 2016)

Tom Smits said:


> Me coach did show me how to kick. I asked him the same question and he's okay with my kicks. He did told me i should work more on my flexibility.


Tom, you have posted this on the Muay Thai forum so I assume you are asking about kicking in Muay Thai.
First and foremost you need a good Muay Thai coach.
Some fundamental aspects of the type of kick you showed in Muay Thai;
1. Stance first. Learn the stance.






Front foot pointed straight forward, rear foot pointed about 45 degrees outward. Up on the balls of the feet. Front leg is light.












2.  When kicking with the rear leg lift the body upward and forward onto the ball of the front foot as the rear hand pulls downward to behind the rear hip. As the body is lifted upward and forward pivot on the ball of the front foot as much as 180 degrees (heel is off the ground and points toward the target). The rear shoulder drive forward toward the opponent and your jaw, Rotate the hip over. There is no snap of the leg. It is delivered more as though it were a baseball bat with the knee slightly bent just as when in your stance.

Standing leg heel up and pointed toward opponent,
Hip rotated over with body turned,
Front of shin directly into target.

In this photo the kicker should have his left glove up to protect his head but the rest of the profile is good.

Work slowly to develop the proper delivery and attempt to simulate the second photo's kicking profile and then recover the kick. Pivot, lift up, rotate the hip, strike with the leg as though is were a bat.

Kick, Kick, Kick, kick, kick, kick, kick, kick, kick, and kick some more.


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## Tony Dismukes (Mar 9, 2016)

Hey, Tom, just to be clear - is it Muay Thai you are training in? You posted this in the Muay Thai section, but you don't actually specify in your post. Several members have offered advice which may be good for Karate to TKD, but is not correct for Muay Thai.

If you are doing Muay Thai, I can offer a few pointers, but I want to make sure that's what you're doing before I go to the effort of typing things up.


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## Tom Smits (Mar 10, 2016)

Thanks a lot guys

Im trying to do the mauy thai roundhouse kick here. Because of my infexibility, this is the highest kick i can do. The bag is a bit too high for me. I will practise my kicks slower on a lower bag so that i can improve my technique easier.


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## drop bear (Mar 10, 2016)

Kick longer. So you generally get told about kicking aroun or through the target. An you have that bit down. 

But you dont get told about kicking for depth. Kick as if the target is as far away as possible. This will force your hip around.


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## Tez3 (Mar 10, 2016)

kempodisciple said:


> I may be wrong, but I'm fairly certain some styles don't chamber their roundhouse. They'll chamber all the other kicks but not the roundhouse.





I think you're correct, this is in the MT section so assuming it's not karate kicks.



Tom Smits said:


> Thanks a lot guys
> 
> Im trying to do the mauy thai roundhouse kick here. Because of my infexibility, this is the highest kick i can do. The bag is a bit too high for me. I will practise my kicks slower on a lower bag so that i can improve my technique easier.




No one has said your kicks are terrible but they need a lot of work on them, I wouldn't worry about the height of them at all at this point, getting the technique right is the priority then you can practice getting them higher. You've been told here how a couple of different styles do the roundhouse so you realise there are different ways of doing it, the MT way_ is_ different and one I personally find easier to do now than the karate one. It's also one that is very effective against the legs so often you don't need that 'head' kick. another difference with MT is that the striking surface for the kick is often the shin rather than the foot.

Advice on the internet is fine, it can give you pointers but you need a good instructor to show you and correct you.


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## Bill Mattocks (Mar 10, 2016)

Tom Smits said:


> Thanks a lot guys
> 
> Im trying to do the mauy thai roundhouse kick here. Because of my infexibility, this is the highest kick i can do. The bag is a bit too high for me. I will practise my kicks slower on a lower bag so that i can improve my technique easier.



Ah, I didn't notice what forum this was in.  Please disregard any information I gave you - I'm a karate guy.  MT kicks very differently.


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## Flatfish (Mar 10, 2016)

I'm in no position to criticize anyone's kicks. I just wanted to comment on the left leg, right leg issue. Like others have said, if you're right handed you will probably kick stronger with your right leg and will need to put extra time into developing your left leg. But there could also be other things. I find that I can kick significantly higher with my left leg (non-dominant) if I'm doing a front kick or axe kick( i.e. no hip rotation) than with my right leg. But my left leg roundhouses suck because my hip seems to jam up when I rotate and try to kick higher. No problem with the right leg. Best I can tell is that my hamstring is tighter in my right leg and something I have not figured out yet is tighter in my left hip. Maybe paying attention to things like that and then working on fixing imbalances could be helpful as well.


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## Tony Dismukes (Mar 10, 2016)

Tom Smits said:


> Thanks a lot guys
> 
> Im trying to do the mauy thai roundhouse kick here. Because of my infexibility, this is the highest kick i can do. The bag is a bit too high for me. I will practise my kicks slower on a lower bag so that i can improve my technique easier.


Cool. Here are some things to work on ...

As you mentioned, a lower bag will be good until you develop better flexibility.

Do one kick at a time while you are focusing on technique. Doing multiple fast kicks in a row is good for conditioning and testing whether you can maintain your form at speed, but right now you need to be working on your basics.

In between kicks come all the way back to your good ready stance. Right now you are kicking and then placing your foot back on the floor behind you without resetting your upper body. That leaves you in a sort of twisted stance in between kicks.

You're leaning back too much as you kick. Part of that may be issues with balance and flexibility, but it also looks like you may be stepping your support foot too close to the bag, forcing you to lean back to compensate. (Not 100% sure of this, due to the camera angle.)

Don't lift your support foot off the floor between kicks.

*Do* pivot on the ball of your support foot so that your heel (of the support foot) ends up pointing towards the bag and your toes are pointing away. Right now you aren't pivoting on the support foot at all. That makes a huge difference in power.

Your arms are flailing too much. The arm on your kicking side can be thrown towards your back pocket in a single relaxed motion as you kick, then bring it back up to guard immediately. Your other hand should be guarding your head throughout the kick.

Danny T and drop bear have good advice above. Ignore the other suggestions about chambering or bending the leg  - that doesn't apply to the Muay Thai round kick.

The MT kick to the midsection is often done with an upwards arc. Once you get your bag set up for low kicks, you'll need to turn your hip over more to let the kick travel more horizontally or even with a light downwards arc at the end.

If you normally fight from an orthodox stance, then use that stance for both your right and left leg kicks. For the right kick it's helpful (but not mandatory) to step out slightly with your left foot at a 45 degree angle (forwards and to your left) before pivoting in to your kick. For your left leg you'll need to either do a quick shuffle that switches your feet and your angle (switch kick) or else step out with your right foot forward and to your right in order to set up the correct angle. Which one you use largely depends on your range.

All this should be stuff your instructor has shown you already. If he has, then he may just be trying to overload you with corrections all at once. If he hasn't ... then you might want to check into his qualifications.


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## marques (Mar 10, 2016)

Dirty Dog said:


> Flexing the knee and bringing the kick up more to the center before pivoting (your supporting foot is turned before you kick, which also telegraphs the kick) makes it more difficult to determine exactly what kick you're throwing. The longer it takes to figure out, the faster your kick is, effectively.
> (...)
> I'm telling you how a roundhouse should be done by Taekwondo standards. There are differences between systems...


I was teached this way. Saenchai (Muay Thai) does that way.
But, strangely to me, a lot of professional kickboxers and MMA fighters do it differently. So I have to admit that they know what they are doing and maybe there are different advantages and disadvantages of each one, regardless of the style. And I admit the way we advocate is not the easiest delivering power...


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## Danny T (Mar 10, 2016)

marques said:


> I was teached this way. Saenchai (Muay Thai) does that way.
> But, strangely to me, a lot of professional kickboxers and MMA fighters do it differently. So I have to admit that they know what they are doing and maybe there are different advantages and disadvantages of each one, regardless of the style. And I admit the way we advocate is not the easiest delivering power...


Saenchai does use the kick as you describe however it is but one of his specialty kicks that he uses after setting up his opponents with the 'te tat' the basic thai roundhouse kick, the 'te chiang' the diagonal kick, or the 'te kot' the down roundhouse kick.


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## Tez3 (Mar 10, 2016)

Danny T said:


> the 'te kot' the down roundhouse kick.



That's the one I like and find easier to do these days.


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## Danny T (Mar 10, 2016)

Tez3 said:


> That's the one I like and find easier to do these days.


Yes ma'am. I can still get the higher kicks in... every once in a while but the down kick is simple and effective with my torn up knees.


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## Tez3 (Mar 10, 2016)

Danny T said:


> Yes ma'am. I can still get the higher kicks in... every once in a while but the down kick is simple and effective with my torn up knees.



Ah yes, that's my problem, the knees still I had a lot of fun on the way to ruining them lol.


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## Touch Of Death (Mar 10, 2016)

Tom Smits said:


> Hi
> 
> This video shows me doing a few right and left kicks. Can you guys tell give me some advise?
> 
> ...


OK, two things: If you are doing a Muay Thai straight leg thing, your body should actively be able to throw a right cross, to the guy standing next to your opponent, or at least, you go through that motion; Secondly, if you are doing a regular old round house kick, lead with your knee, like you are kicking something, with your knee.


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## Kenpoguy123 (Apr 1, 2016)

I can't comment on Muay Thai kicks but from I can see your to close to the bag. Get your range. kicks are long range weapons and your knees and elbows are short ranged weapons. If you want power don't stop at the back try and kick through the bag


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