Kicking technique

[Fish]

As well as the good advice from others here:

1.Stretch daily, especially butt stretches, hamstrings and groin.

2. At first, you will be thinking hard about the techniques, but that tends to make them more stilted. You want to get to the stage where they are relaxed. Practise them low so that you don't have to worry about balance, and can work on getting that relaxed feel.

3. I found the following exercise helpful for roundhouse kick foot placement and generating the power from the hips:

Part 1

Stand in your normal fighting stance (left foot forward right foot back). Now push with your right hip, lifting your right foot off the floor so that your hips rotate and your right foot ends up in front of your left. At the same time, spin on the ball of your left foot. At the end of the exercise, your left foot should point backwards, and your right foot should be in front pointing forwards. Now repeat by pushing through with your left hip and rotating on the ball of the right foot.

Part 2

When you feel comfortable with doing the above in a relaxed way, perform a low roundhouse kick with the back foot as it comes round in front of you - don't chamber, just flick it out in a relaxed way to knee height or below. Again, try and feel the power coming from the hips, not the leg.

I have found that exercise helpful for relaxing the kick, and making it "snap" out quickly. Of course, you have to do other exercises to build up balance, strength and other aspects of technique. I like the slow kick exercise that some others have suggested.