Side Kick Question

[tonydee]

Found two tutorials for the side kick; what this guy calls the

and a

version. I find it quite interesting that this guys varient is actually what I'd been taught and use as standard and his normal version would be the varient. If I get your descriptions Tony, would you say the first is similar-ish to your thrust kick and the second to the piercing version?

Interesting videos. The second "screwdriver" kick is indeed a piercing kick. He brings the leg through like a front kick, while I'm recommending cocking it more to the outside and emphasising the arcing movement, as that really encourages hip rotation and full power, but once you're comfortable with the kick you'll be able to feel out the best course to follow. He lists, relative to the thrusting kick, pros and cons as:

CONS

- not as powerful (agreed)

- technically more demanding (disagree, though it feels bizarre initially, it's not actually hard, and it's massively easier to master than the thrust (which he doesn't get right anyway, so his point of reference is invalid from my perspective))

- not useful at closer distance (agreed: a back leg thrusting kick can hit a closer target without compromising it's power)

- hard to control (agreed, in a couple senses: once the kick has started, a small movement of the target forwards or backwards, or even side to side, will frustrate or prevent powerful delivery (a superset of the point above); and, recoil is hard to control, with unexpected resistance - or lack of it - able to put you off balance)

PROS

- much quicker (disagree - it's less fiddly in the middle, and will be quicker until the thrusting kick's movements are perfected, but after decades of practice the gross back-to-front movement of the leg dominates the overall speed of the kick, and both thrusting and piercing kick end up similar in overall speed)

- very deceptive (agree, in the sense that...)

- opponent doesn't know what kick you use until it's too late (agreed)

Another important reason for learning the kick is so you can use it off the front leg to quickly jam into a charging opponent, as it is definitely less telegraphed than a thrusting kick in that situation (at least from my guard, which keeps the front leg ready for a front kick).

Another pro I'll mention - bit of a convoluted one and more relevant when the kick is lifted on the "outside" rather than the front-kick position in his video. Say you're kicking with the right leg, and your opponent has their left leg forward and is standing their ground trying to block with their front/left forearm/hand coming inwards behind your Achilles, deflecting it onto their chest side: if you customise the arc to be a bit more exaggerated than usual, the kick will frustate the usual blocking timing and strike the outside of their forearm or hand, plowing through it to the head. If they're good enough to vary the timing and get outside the arc, then they will have to reach further sideways and block later, pulling the kick inwards while the kick needs to arc inwards anyway, and it's very hard for them to make the deflection sufficient to pull the kick off course. Not sure I've explained that well, but if you drill the kick with a partner, then experiment with trying to kick around and "through" their guard, you'll both find out how hard it can be to block cleanly from that position....

Re the other video, it's not the same as the thrusting:

- at 0:39 his supporting foot isn't quite turned far enough

- at 0:48 you can see he's only showing the "underside" of his hips - not the back of the buttocks

- 0:50-0:53: the actual extension: he's closing the hips (rolling the top/kicking hip over/forwards/down) ala piercing kick rather, than having it brought it back far enough earlier to be now opening/lifting that hip as the source of power for the leg extension.

- at 1:00, emphasising this: he's recommending leaning the body away during the kick, which is rolling the hips away from the target: as he says, that would stabilize the kick (into a less resistive target), but only because there's a lot less force going into the target, and consequently less reaction forces to deal with. (Obviously, I don't buy his claim to "gain force"). When the target has a lot of incoming momentum/mass or enormous inertia, you do need to have the hips rotating in behind the kick and deal with the stronger forces or you'll simply be knocked over.

So, to correct these issues and get a great back leg side thrusting kick, it's still most effective to develop the simpler

, and practice a spinning version, until you just know the feeling and timing of all the muscle movements perfectly. Then, you practice the back leg kick by patiently and slowly bringing the leg across the body, bouncing/swinging it back a little to load/wind-up the kick to thrust, then you're back into the familiar movement. With lots of practice, you find exactly the right medium between turning too far in loading the kick (which wastes time and prevents you getting enough forwards movement of the hips), and not turning enough and failing to engage the hip power, and can finally deliver the kick at full speed.

Cheers,

Tony

Edited July 8, 2009 by tonydee

[joesteph]

Found two tutorials for the side kick; what this guy calls the

and a

version.

I noticed in the first video, the tutorial on "basic technique," that although he's much more skilled than I am in swinging that kicking leg around (doesn't drop it to the 45 degrees I do), it's what I'd aim for if I can keep practicing and have the kicking leg (upper and lower) up to almost all horizontal.

That screwdriver kick is something to examine, isn't it? So you do that one regularly, DWx? I'm surprised at how many variations of the "side kick" there are. I can't practice everything, but it's interesting to try different ways of doing the "same thing" against a heavy bag or WaveMaster, if only for a new experience.

When the target has a lot of incoming momentum/mass or enormous inertia, you do need to have the hips rotating in behind the kick and deal with the stronger forces or you'll simply be knocked over.

This is something my teacher's instructor brought up when she guest-taught one of our classes. She spoke about all kicks, not just the side kick, when practiced against a strong target (kick shield, WaveMaster), that you can knock yourself back--or flat on your back--by your own kick. She didn't mention an opponent, but we got the message.

[bushido_man96]

I thought I was clearing things up a bit, but now when discussing the hip position during the kick, I am a bit lost.

When I do what I think is a thrusting kick, I tend to get my hips turned over a bit. I feel that it adds power to the kick. Is this not proper for the side thrusting kick as you know it, Tony?

[tonydee]

When I do what I think is a thrusting kick, I tend to get my hips turned over a bit. I feel that it adds power to the kick. Is this not proper for the side thrusting kick as you know it, Tony?

Sorry for the wordy responses, but I'll just talk this around from different angles until we're confident we're on the same page.

For a thrusting kick, the hips should indeed be turned over: that's half of getting it right. The other half is the direction of movement/rotation during the acceleration and contact of the kicking leg. Hips should turn over early and far enough that there's time and space for them to change direction and be coming back in towards the target during the leg extension. It's a kind of backswing for the kick, just as essential as the backswing in tennis, golf or baseball. If the hips are still rotating into this backswing as the leg extends - instead of having changed direction back towards the target - then from a power perspective it's worse than not rotating at all.

Using the tennis analogy: Federer is

will have been front facing then is showing stepping his right leg across to the left - hips necessarily rotating anti-clockwise. As he makes his shot his hips are turning clockwise in support. In contrast,

shows a shot without hip rotation, presumably when returning a wide fast serve and consequently lacking time for anything more than a counter-punch. This relies on the stiffened racquet to reflect the incoming speed rather than creating a lot of its own. The former is conceptually akin to a thrusting kick, while the latter shows that if you don't have time to create that motion, you typically try to at least stop the anti-clockwise hip rotation, keeping hips and torso stiff while executing the technique. Having the hips still rotating clockwise while striking forwards tends to make you "fall off" or away from your target: in the case of tennis, it's hard to hit the ball firmly over the net, especially if you use a lot of top spin which reduces the forward power imparted to the ball.

Another comparison: many people deliberately question and explore the direction of hip movement in the outward (across your own chest) knife hand strike. If the strike is performed in a stationary position, with the right leg starting in front and right hand striking, then you'd clearly rotate your hips anti-clockwise by something like 45 degrees during the backswing, then come back in a clockwise direction to strike: this feels good, natural and strong.

But, if you are moving in to that same stance by stepping the right leg forward as or just before striking, the step itself must involve a ~120 degree anti-clockwise hip rotation. Thinking about it from this hip-rotation perspective, the obvious approach is to simply combine the two motions in sequence: step forwards while rotating the hips ~165 degrees, by which time everything's the ready to rotate clockwise into the strike as for the stationary version.

Unfortunately, having to make such large hip movements slows down and telegraphs the technique. The faster you try to step, the more the stepping footwork dictates that anti-clockwise hip movement and the harder it is to get any kind of clockwise movement happening before the strike. Consequently, some people prefer simply to accept that, and see if they can make the best of it. Striking while stepping, or as the right foot touches down, their hips are rotating in what would seem the wrong direction for the strike. Another type of power mechanic must be found if credible power is wanted, though many people get so caught up in the feeling of exerting muscles in stepping and striking that they fail to even recognise that there's any issue with power.

The way I generate power in this variant of the stepping strike is by making a small side-to-side motion of the centre of mass - moving it from over the toes to over the heels, and cultivating a "wall" of rigidity across the back, shoulders and striking arm such that the target has to absorb the power associated with the sideways "fall" of the body. Effectively, as I move forwards to strike, I actually perform a controlled sideways fall (over ~10cms), dipping the hips to add bodyweight, and make my back and striking arm rigid so that the target has to stop that fall and hold up much of my falling bodyweight for a tiny fraction of a second to have absorbed the initial impact. The "fall" is basically moving in the same direction that the striking hand hits the target (albeit a little downwards to boot), with the rigidity connecting the two.

So, while I prefer to use a more full-bodied hip rotation when time allows, I have this "short-cut" version that suits some situations better, and may still be good enough power wise.

Relating this back to the back leg side kick...

The big problem with back leg side thrusting kick is that the kicking leg starts on what's really the wrong side of the body. Having to bring the leg across the front of the supporting leg dictates the wrong direction of hip movement. A vastly exaggerated "ideal" would be simply to get the leg in a great place to start the strongest possible hip rotation in the correct direction. That would be: bring the kicking leg across the body while turning your back somewhat towards the target, but keep going until you've stepping it down behind you in a walking stance, with your back very much to the target. Then do something a bit like the post-spin version of a "spinning side/back kick": push off the kicking leg and rip it linearly past the supporting leg, hips rotating in at the target the entire time.

As actually stepping down and forward again is clearly too slow, you want to avoid putting the kicking leg all the way back to the floor. Instead, having brought it right around the body, you rock it backwards while it's cocked (line through knee and ankle is towards the target) enough to stretch all the muscles that will be used for the forwards motion, then reconnect to the same kind of extension as in the exaggerated ideal above.

With a lot of practice, the subtle timing for the above works very well and is fast enough to be practical in almost all situations where any kind of side kick was practical to begin with. This is the way I deliver my back leg side thrusting kick.

Given many people give up on mastering the subtle timing needed to get that to work, there are a plethora of other variants where people do not have the hips having changed direction to support the leg extension. Instead, the hips are either still rotating in the "wrong" direction while the leg extends and contact is made, or they've simple stopped rotating at some time before contact, with the muscles around the hips/torso presumably tensing during contact to provide some rigidity and connection to more body mass....

1) hips change direction of rotation, and are supporting the kick

2) hips are still rotating during the kick

3) hips rotate and stop, then kick extends

In any of these, the amount of hip rotation is a separate issue, and therefore so is the position of the hips at any given point in time, though by definition in anything that is "thrusting" rather than "piercing", the hips will have had to have at least turned over enough for the top/kicking hip to be further forwards (chest side) than the supporting one. You could also rotate the hip over nicely but failed to reverse its direction. In 2 or 3, if you rotate the hips over a long way then the body won't be lined up very well during the kick (as the hips aren't brought back as per 1), and there's more chance of kicking yourself into an even bigger roll of hips until you're rolling away from the target, rather than it moving away from you.

I'm sorry that's a bit of a ramble... but hopefully it makes the point clear.

Cheers,

Tony

[bushido_man96]

Well, I'm having trouble following. Pictures truly are worth a thousand words, especially now, I feel...

I'll have to see if I can find any clips that might give some clues to look at. I appreciate you trying to explain it, though.

[joesteph]

3) hips rotate and stop, then kick extends

The postings' texts, when the videos are included, have helped me in my side kick practice this past week while the dojang was closed for a July week off. I've been concentrating on using the back leg as the kicking leg.

I wasn't practicing the "official" side snap kick that much at all. I've found that I can most rapidly and comfortably fire off a side kick if I just chamber the kicking leg with the upper leg horizontal and the lower leg hanging no more than 45 degrees. I think that the more I've been practicing, it's getting to be somewhat less than 45 degrees--not horizontal, but not so hanging down diagonal. (Actually, raising/swinging the kicking leg into position, someone might first think I'm going to chamber for a roundhouse.) I feel that my kicking leg's hip has sometimes been directly over, and sometimes just past, the supporting leg's hip. It may not be the most powerful it can be, but it feels natural, is fast to chamber, I can kick hard without losing balance, and I'm enjoying using it rather than skipping the kick unless I have to use it (as in a one-step sparring exercise). If I concentrate on going further than top hip directly over bottom, it turns more into a back kick, and I've played around with it to the point that I like it as a back kick. Whatever I do, though, I don't kick until the supporting foot is already at 180 degrees. I understand that there's more power in having the foot hit 180 at impact, but I have to concentrate on balance and even getting the foot to be at 180. There's zero power if the kick is never used.

[isshinryu5toforever]

Well, I'm having trouble following. Pictures truly are worth a thousand words, especially now, I feel...

I'll have to see if I can find any clips that might give some clues to look at. I appreciate you trying to explain it, though.

Seriously. I think we should try to video ourselves doing the different sidekicks we're talking about. All the text can be difficult to get through, and youtube can be a pain haha.

[sensei8]

The big problem with back leg side thrusting kick is that the kicking leg starts on what's really the wrong side of the body

How can a leg that's in the back/rear in any given stance be on THE WRONG SIDE of the body? Unless someone is built uniquely differently than everyone else...me...then my leg ISN'T on the wrong side of my body; it's right where it belongs. My legs are on opposite sides, right/left, and I sure hope that both my right and left aren't on the same side.

I've got to have one leg either in the front or in the back; therefore, one legs got to be somewhere, and in the BACK LEG side thrusting kick, I've got to have one of my legs in the BACK! Hence the name, BACK LEG side thrusting kick!

[joesteph]

The big problem with back leg side thrusting kick is that the kicking leg starts on what's really the wrong side of the body

How can a leg that's in the back/rear in any given stance be on THE WRONG SIDE of the body?

I looked over Tony's posting again, Bob, and the next sentence reads:

Having to bring the leg across the front of the supporting leg dictates the wrong direction of hip movement.

Perhaps Tony sees the lead leg side kick as more efficient with biomechanics?

[tonydee]

Well, I'm having trouble following. Pictures truly are worth a thousand words, especially now, I feel...

I'll have to see if I can find any clips that might give some clues to look at. I appreciate you trying to explain it, though.

Seriously. I think we should try to video ourselves doing the different sidekicks we're talking about. All the text can be difficult to get through, and youtube can be a pain haha.

Agreed... I will try again to get my video camera talking to Windows 7. Wish it was a newer one with USB2 or SDHC cards, but it's IEE1394/firewire/iLink and tapes, and I gather support for some older firewire cameras was in XP but removed in Vista. There's some registry hack I'll try.

Joe: thanks for explaining the "wrong side" thing... was indeed meant in the sense of being on the wrong side of the centre line, such that rotation had to begin in the wrong direction for the thrust....

Cheers, Tony