This ten article series will take care of the assorted components that have to be addressed when considering the utilization of a specific kick in a combat or self-defense situation. These ten components may also be utilized by the tournament competitor although certain segments would should be modified barely for the tournament facets of kicking, fairly than the more intensive nature of using a kick or kicks in combat. Although all of those individual components are vital, they’re only when combined together and utilized accurately when executing a kick.
Although I’ll only be discussing certainly one of the components in this text, here is the whole list of all ten of them.
1. Your Kicking Ability
2. Your Intended Application
3. The Environment
4. Telegraphing
5. Striking Implement
6. Striking the Correct Goal
7. Initial Impact
8. Impact
9. Retraction or Follow Through
10. Return to Fighting Position
Component Nine; Retraction or Follow Through:
Now I used to be at all times told from the primary day that I began taking Karate that regardless of what kick you probably did, that you just never wanted to go away your foot “hanging” out within the air. There have been three primary reasons for this they usually are as follows.
1. The longer your kicking leg is “hanging” within the air, the longer you’ve got to balance on one leg.
As hard as a few of you could find this to consider, we humans were born with two legs for a reason, and that’s to face on each of them. We weren’t designed to be standing around all day like a pink flamingo with one leg “hanging” out within the air.
Now I’m all for extensive training on balancing on one leg while kicking and I even have several different training exercises that I do with the intention to improve my balance. Nonetheless, the keyword here is “training.” When in an actual situation where you’ve got to defend yourself, you should get your foot up and out to make contact with its intended goal as fast as possible, after which immediately get it back down on the bottom.
2. The longer your kicking leg is “hanging” within the air, the better it’s in your opponent to grab.
Ever watch a boxing match where certainly one of the boxers has a bent to go away his punch in his opponent’s face, or is only a bit too slow in bringing it back into position? What normally happens to that boxer?
Well, generally if the opposite boxer is any good, he’ll land at the least a punch or two on his opponent. Why? Because by leaving his punch “hanging” out within the air, he leaves himself wide open for a counterattack. Now as bad as that is, it’s over and over worse when you’re kicking. Not only do you allow yourself balancing on one leg, but you furthermore mght leave yourself wide open for a wide range of counterattacks. These can range anywhere from a punch, kick, and even tackling or throwing you to the bottom, and these aren’t even the worst.
The worst of all possible counterattacks is to have your kicking leg grabbed by your opponent. Why is that this the worst? Simply put, since you then now not have control of your body, your opponent does.
3. The longer your kicking leg is “hanging” within the air, the longer it takes before you’ll be able to execute one other kick.
Do this experiment:
Take one leg and hold it up within the air at about waist height, now leaving it up within the air, execute an efficient and practical kick. Now try throwing a few punches while standing on one leg. Does it work thoroughly?
A kick coming up from a balanced position on the bottom is much more practical and powerful than one which starts off already within the air. What I mean by that is that the primary Roundhouse Kick that you just throw from a standing position is way more powerful than the second that you just throw with the identical leg before setting your foot back down on the bottom.
For those who are executing a kick that relies on the foot being returned along the very same path of trajectory that it traveled to get to its goal, this could be called a “retraction” of the kicking foot. The next kicks could be ones that may require you to “retract” your kicking foot after making contact along with your goal.
1. Front Kick
2. Back Kick
3. Side Kick
4. Roundhouse Kick (with the notable exception of the Thai Roundhouse Kick)
For those who are executing a kick that relies on the foot continuing through the goal along the identical path of trajectory that it traveled to get to its goal, this could be called a “follow through” of the kicking foot. The next kicks could be ones that may require you to “follow through” along with your kicking foot after making contact along with your goal.
1. Wheel Kick
2. Axe Kick
3. Crescent Kick
4. Reverse Crescent Kick
5. Hook Kick
6. Hatchet Kick
Training Advice to Improve your Retraction and/or Follow Through:
Under normal standard training practices, the scholar attempts to execute a kick as fast as he can from a standing position to the goal. On this case, I’m going to have you ever do the precise opposite.
This can be a fairly easy, yet very effective, technique that you may practice with the intention to improve your retraction or follow up skills. Simply put, what you do is take your kicking foot and slowly place it within the position where it will have made contact along with your intended goal. As soon as you leg and foot are in position, as fast as you probably can, complete the kick by completing the retraction or follow through. At all times ensure and utilize the right technique in any respect times.
Final Thoughts:
As fast as your foot traveled to strike its goal, it needs to be just as fast if not faster returning back right down to the bottom. Aside from improper technique and improper application of the aforementioned technique, leaving your foot “hanging” or “posing” within the air after kicking is maybe the only biggest mistake you possibly can possibly make when kicking.
This “hanging” or “posing” appears to be prevalent in quite a lot of the tournament oriented schools more so than the normal schools. Although I actually have seen students “posing” kicks in each sorts of schools.