How can I do better, more controlled kicks?

[tonydee]

First, I would echo the suggestions to practice kicking at a comfortable height until you get the mechanics sorted out. You may even find the muscles you're currently struggling with aren't taxed once the technique is sorted out....

Unfortunately, there are as many variations on turning kick as there are for side kick, so it's hard to break it down to "4 steps" as you requested. Personally, I practice two things: 1) isolating the hip movement and straightening of the kicking leg, developing the power transfer and timing between the two, 2) integrating the rotation of the supporting foot.

While you may find practicing your turning kick with a similar breakdown useful, I'm not sure if the specifics of how I do my turning kick will help with your MT technique. I explosively rotate and close the hips - with the kicking foot arcing past horizontal to slightly downwards, while locking the body in a straight line with the supporting heel facing the target. This is almost certainly not the way you've been taught in MT. So, while I'll run through what I do for the record, I'm afraid you may not find it useful....

I found some old video of myself executing a slow turning kick for instructional purposes: just

for reference. Note especially how my body is pivoting away from the kicking leg to maintain a stretch down through the torso into the kicking leg's thigh....

For 1), I move back and forth between a ready-to-kick position and a kick-completion position. The latter is practically identical to the side kick completion position shown here. The important things about this position are that:

a) a line out through the belly-button (imagine someone screwing a maglite in there if it helps ) would angle downwards of horizontal (i.e. the hips are closed towards the ground),

b) the kicking foot is similarly angled (for a line through centre of heel and centre of ball), and

c) the supporting heel is facing the target.

From that position, to return to the pre-kick position, I'm basically wanting to keep the upper body and supporting foot as they are, but open the hips and stretch the kicking knee and foot as far away from the target as possible without "breaking" the position. The idea is to stretch but be able to whip everything back into the kick with one coordinated "twitch" of muscles: predominantly closing the hips again and snapping the quadriceps. You can imagine - from the kicking position - that someone has put their hand on your knee and pushed it away from the target, and you're wanting to drive that knee back into the target but they're too strong, so you relax as much as possible - allowing the upper body and supporting foot to stay firm, flexing the supporting leg, opening the hip a bit, and stretching the quadriceps. If you pause the video when my kicking leg has just come off the ground - foot about knee high - you'll see roughly the position to which you should return (although for a back leg turning kick the supporting foot won't have rotated yet). To kick from there (as if they removed their hand) fire the hips, knee and eventually foot back in towards the target.

Throughout the kick, the quadriceps of the kicking foot stay pretty much in line with the upper body... stretching out in the preparation for the kick, and contracting to power the execution. In that regard, there is a stretch much like the oft-seen standing knees-together reach-both-hands-behind-for-your-foot quadriceps stretch.

That becomes more important in 2), practice of a rear-foot turning kick. For that, you want to time the rotation of the supporting foot such that it aids the upper body in rotating ahead of the lower to maintain the torso/hamstring stretch. This stretch down through your upper body into the quad connects the rotation of the upper body to the power of the kick.

Sorry if the above is too confusing to follow easily (or perhaps at all). Do feel free to ask any questions....

Cheers,

Tony