Roundhouse kick - lean back for head kicks, stand straight for body kicks

[drop bear]

This is an excellent kind of drill and pretty much elementary TKD training.
I usually do it while moving across or around the room.
It's a very fun exercise once you've got the movement down. I can't tell you how many miles I've done this type of drill for lol

I got that one from a TKD school.

 

[skribs]

@Dirty Dog go ahead and disagree with me. If you want to be wrong, that's your prerogative

 

[paitingman]

Leaning is useful but is best kept within the range that you have absolute control over how and where your head moves subsequently.
Basic danger of putting your head down or back is that it will have to come back to balance and our skillful opponent can gauge where they'll meet us. Higher skill will pressure you to limit footwork options and pathways for your head to travel to regain an upright position (and take a dominant position if also grappling).

As long as you're ready and able to slip punches, clinch, etc. as your head comes back forward, or even come back with a spinning back fist, elbow to clinch or something it should be fine

 

[skribs]

Leaning is useful but is best kept within the range that you have absolute control over how and where your head moves subsequently.
Basic danger of putting your head down or back is that it will have to come back to balance and our skillful opponent can gauge where they'll meet us. Higher skill will pressure you to limit footwork options and pathways for your head to travel to regain an upright position (and take a dominant position if also grappling).

As long as you're ready and able to slip punches, clinch, etc. as your head comes back forward, or even come back with a spinning back fist, elbow to clinch or something it should be fine

Depending on how you land after the kick, you might not be moving back forward into them.

It would also take precise timing to avoid the kick and be ready to counter as they stand back up. I catch people a lot when they lean back to avoid my kicks, but not when they have a kick going at the same time.

 

[dvcochran]

Are we talking about a roundhouse kick with the front leg or the rear leg?

Mainly rear leg. Variations of the mechanics still apply for either kick though.

 

[dvcochran]

Depending on how you land after the kick, you might not be moving back forward into them.

It would also take precise timing to avoid the kick and be ready to counter as they stand back up. I catch people a lot when they lean back to avoid my kicks, but not when they have a kick going at the same time.

So now you are agreeing too much lean is Bad?

 

[Gerry Seymour]

I do a drill that goes round kick, front kick, front kick, round kick.

Normally on a bag and not all cramped up.

But what it does is it forces me to recover for the next kick which moving from round to straight I found mentality quite challenging .

I need to do more of this kind of thing. I tend to not follow a kick with a kick, probably because I don't do this.

 

[paitingman]

Depending on how you land after the kick, you might not be moving back forward into them.

It would also take precise timing to avoid the kick and be ready to counter as they stand back up. I catch people a lot when they lean back to avoid my kicks, but not when they have a kick going at the same time.

Yeah there are different paths for your upper body to take; forward is just one of them. Eventually you have to go back to upright (head above hips) unless you want to lay down.

And you're right it does take good timing, but it's not very hard to counter. Definitely easiest to counter if they have a hard follow through and can't rechamber the knee. Especially when not using Olympic sparring ruleset.

I should add that you can be viciously countered while kicking and staying upright as well. Danger everywhere; so long as anyone understands the risks with their technique and trains them well, they should be fine.

For those with great fitness and footwork, you can keep bringing your hips back under your shoulders instead of swinging your face to be back above your hips. This helps maintain the distance you gain from leaning away, but this isn't very easy for me by round 3.
When doing this your weight kind of comes down hard on your feet and you must be ready to keep using your footwork and move immediately so you must be in shape.

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

 

[skribs]

For those with great fitness and footwork, you can keep bringing your hips back under your shoulders instead of swinging your face to be back above your hips. This helps maintain the distance you gain from leaning away, but this isn't very easy for me by round 3.

I'd say great fitness isn't required, since I am capable of doing this.

 

[paitingman]

I'd say great fitness isn't required since I am capable of doing this.

I guess it depends on how you use the term/qualify fitness. In your case, I would shine positivity on you and comment something like, "Hey, skribs, you seem in great shape!" after seeing you perform those maneuvers with little effort. For some students and partners of mine, simple motions like this are major hurdles. It's all relative, but you know this. I don't use the term "great shape" in a scientific way.

Many people are capable of doing this motion including me. Anybody can do this once or a few times, but it's not something I believe most people can count on to KEEP doing without fatigue. I'm speaking mostly from an MMA perspective though. Sparring TKD we can all kick for a long time hopefully , but when you do these maneuvers while also having to wrestle, sprawl, and kickbox, it's really not easy to do any sort of skipping footwork by round 3.
Perhaps you are an exception.

 

[drop bear]

I need to do more of this kind of thing. I tend to not follow a kick with a kick, probably because I don't do this.

Yeah Dutch style thai can lead people to being a bit leg clumpy. So a bit of hopping around can offset that.

 

[drop bear]

For those with great fitness and footwork, you can keep bringing your hips back under your shoulders instead of swinging your face to be back above your hips. This helps maintain the distance you gain from leaning away, but this isn't very easy for me by round 3.

I kind of softened the edge of my fitness issue with ring craft and timing. So I will take more breaks and choose my engagements a bit more. Which then when I do engage allowed me to have a bit more snap.

And the way I do this is a bit counter intuitive. I will engage more often and generally be first. But engage with lower effort techniques and shorten the combination.

Rather than try to run away constantly and then get engaged and have to fight my way out all the time. Which is very Labour intensive.

Or worse get tired and jacked off and try to slug away.

 

[wab25]

Bill Wallace has an interesting way of doing it. He brings his back foot under him into the pivoted position, then chambers his kick. He leans back a little, but not much.

He also has a ton of stretching videos on youtube to show you how to get this flexitbility.

 

[paitingman]

Bill Wallace has an interesting way of doing it. He brings his back foot under him into the pivoted position, then chambers his kick. He leans back a little, but not much.

He also has a ton of stretching videos on youtube to show you how to get this flexitbility.

Total control and balance. You can see how much control and strength he has in his core.

It's an impressive and effective way to move, posture, and kick with control and accuracy.
If you want to head kick like this in the world of leg kicks and takedowns, you have to kick and rebase much more quickly than American kickboxing style.

 

[dvcochran]

I do a drill that goes round kick, front kick, front kick, round kick.

Normally on a bag and not all cramped up.

But what it does is it forces me to recover for the next kick which moving from round to straight I found mentality quite challenging .

Total control and balance. You can see how much control and strength he has in his core.

It's an impressive and effective way to move, posture, and kick with control and accuracy.
If you want to head kick like this in the world of leg kicks and takedowns, you have to kick and rebase much more quickly than American kickboxing style.

The last thing he says in the video really resonated. We teach the chamber the several kicks the same so as not to give the kick away, just as he said.
If you notice, when he gets close to full speed he does not lean back much at all. He is in demonstration mode so never goes full speed/power in the video.
I agree with you on his core & leg strength and exceptional flexibility. Not too many people has that balance and control and as much as some people want to think it, he was not a one trick pony. Wallace has great hands as well.

 

[dvcochran]

I kind of softened the edge of my fitness issue with ring craft and timing. So I will take more breaks and choose my engagements a bit more. Which then when I do engage allowed me to have a bit more snap.

And the way I do this is a bit counter intuitive. I will engage more often and generally be first. But engage with lower effort techniques and shorten the combination.

Rather than try to run away constantly and then get engaged and have to fight my way out all the time. Which is very Labour intensive.

Or worse get tired and jacked off and try to slug away.

If I do not know the fighter I use a balanced strategy testing them and trying to fish the out. I will engage or pseudo engage to try and figure out the other person's tactics. A lot of it is the efficiency of motion you mention. I never have played 'run away' early in a match. Possibly if I get up on points near the end of a match I would. Nothing pisses me off like a person playing run away early on.
If/when I feel I have superiority I may go in hard.

You may not know this but there are only three ways to score in an Olympic rule tournament; visible shutter, knock down, or knockout. No submissions. You either keep beating on each other accruing points until the end of the match or knock the guy out. There are standing knockouts. Much like boxing in this aspect.

 

[Acronym]

I used to believe that you should stand up straight and lean into all of your kicks. That way your weight gets behind the kick. However, recently I learned that you can get more power and height into a back kick by hunching over when you kick. Leaning forward forces your hips back, which helps add thrust to the kick.

I have the StrikeMeter that I've mentioned in other threads - it gives you an arbitrary number that you can use to compare techniques of like height (i.e. compare headshots or compare body shots). Here's what I found:

Head shots: my kicks were about 10-20% stronger if I leaned back. This is in addition to other benefits you get from leaning back, such as:

• Easier to kick higher
• Gives you a counter-weight you can use to help drop your foot down faster (stand up straight brings the foot down quicker)
• Gets your head out of range of the opponent.

Body Shots: my kicks were about 40-60% stronger if I stood up straight.

The only thing that really surprises me is that it depends on the height of your target whether you want to lean back or not. What I think is happening is that for the higher kick, you're actually bringing your center of mass back in line with the kick, where with a straight kick you're kicking over your center of mass. You still are with leaning back, but at least now you've got the counterweight action going on. For the body shot, it seems the direct weight transfer is better than the counterweight.

It's best to be as upright as possible for any kick since your core/balance is of the upmost importance. Whether you kick harder or not doing that is a different thing..

 

[skribs]

It's best to be as upright as possible for any kick since your core/balance is of the upmost importance. Whether you kick harder or not doing that is a different thing..

If you're kicking high, balance is better by leaning back.

 

[Acronym]

If you're kicking high, balance is better by leaning back.

Not hitting and getting hit back. The more you lean the less control you have over your body upon impact. There is a bonus though that your opponent has a harder time countering your face so it depends and you have to weigh these things out.

 

[skribs]

Not hitting and getting hit back. The more you lean the less control you have over your body upon impact. There is a bonus though that your opponent has a harder time countering your face so it depends and you have to weigh these things out.

And if you're front-heavy (which you are if you stand straight and your kick is in front of you), the less control you have if you miss.