Power Martial Arts Kicks In Five Logical Steps

It makes no sense to let an attacker get close enough to punch. If he’s got a knife or club, or just a fist that is fast, the best strategy is to kick low and hard and keep him out of range. The problem is that many Tae Kwon Do schools do not teach the right way to use the legs.

A couple of things to remember before we get into making your kicks into powerful weapons. Practice kicking high so you have strength and flexibility, but keep your kicks low in a real fight so you don’t get a leg caught. And, the best strategy is to avoid the fight altogether whenever you can.

Practice kicking over a chair. This will train you to raise your knee high. When your knee is high your foot can go straight in and deliver the goods, and not arc up and scrape the body.

Turn your hips so they go into the action of the kick. Always turn, or tilt, your hips so that the weight of the hips is fully utilized. This will also give you a little more reach, and it will help commit the whole weight of the body into any technique.

Always try to kick with the ball of the foot. I know many people like to kick with the instep, but if they miss they end up spinning around out of control. Kicking with the ball of the foot forces the artist to be an artist, and it concentrates more weight into the smaller area of the ball of the foot.

Bring the foot all the way back. Snap that foot back so that an opponent can’t grab it. This also tends to leave more power in the target.

Practice planting your foot on your partner, then pushing him. This usually means you will alter the kick so that you can place the heel on the body of your partner, then push. This trains you to use the exact muscles that are actually used in a kick.

Kicks are your first line of defense, and this makes them extremely important, so don’t just practice your kicks ten or twenty times and forget about them, practice them hundreds of times a day for each kick. Whether you are training in Karate, or Tae Kwon Do, or Kung Fu, or whatever other art, a well placed kick cancan make the difference between winning and dying. So practice, and look at your kicks, study the physics of a kick so that your kicks are effective and end the fight before the opponent even gets close.