Does anyone else's rear leg roundhouse high kick look bad when Shadow boxing?

[thehairyfairy]

Honestly for the life of me I can't figure it out when I'm throwing against a person/bag/pads my hip rotation etc... looks good, as soon as I start doing shadow work my rear leg high roundhouse turns into a Brazilian kick where I feel like i'm overly rotating my hips, it looks just like a Brazilian kick but weirdly enough when I'm throwing it on the heavy bag it's a normal rear leg roundhouse

Any tips? Or does anyone else's kick resemble a Brazilian kick when doing shadow work?

 

[fluffball]

Yup, kicking air is really difficult. But it's also good practice because not every kick lands. IMO, and a lot of very talented people will disagree, learn to not spin in a complete circle every time you miss. Control your balance. If someone whiffs on me and turns their back, I'm going to have a surprise waiting when they are facing me again.

Flexibility is a very big factor in this. You can hold your arm out at any position you want because you aren't fighting your own body to do so. Most people can't control their legs because their own body is snapping it back down to standing position.

 

[thehairyfairy]

Yup, kicking air is really difficult. But it's also good practice because not every kick lands. IMO, and a lot of very talented people will disagree, learn to not spin in a complete circle every time you miss. Control your balance. If someone whiffs on me and turns their back, I'm going to have a surprise waiting when they are facing me again.

Flexibility is a very big factor in this. You can hold your arm out at any position you want because you aren't fighting your own body to do so. Most people can't control their legs because their own body is snapping it back down to standing position.

Cheers for the response, honestly I feel so frustrated, like if my leg makes contact with a solid object the form looks good, same goes with my spinning back kick or spinning wheel kick, when I throw it in the air it looks awful, if I'm throwing it on the bag/opponent, my leg straightens out by itself and it looks decent

 

[fluffball]

This thing called dynamic stretching used to be really big like 10 years ago. Maybe check that out. To be a good kicker you want to be able to just pick your leg up and hold it out at your opponent's face level as casually as if you were pointing at him.

I used to spar with this pro mma fighter that would throw jump spinning kicks and what not in tap sparring. It's the control.

 

[Frode Falch]

I dont do the full motion while shadowboxing. I do that on pads, bags, and my sparring partners.

 

[SummerStriker]

Cheers for the response, honestly I feel so frustrated, like if my leg makes contact with a solid object the form looks good, same goes with my spinning back kick or spinning wheel kick, when I throw it in the air it looks awful, if I'm throwing it on the bag/opponent, my leg straightens out by itself and it looks decent

I personally taught it to myself be watching these videos and getting a lot of help from other posters:







Practice it. Video yourself. Compare it to these videos. Do not except anything less than perfect technique. Pick one or two things to improve. Practice. Video yourself...

Here is a thread on it when I was learning it.

http://forums.sherdog.com/forums/f11/working-mt-kick-2350751/

 

[SummerStriker]

It is interesting that Coban's low kick looks like a wrong TKD kick: step, chamber from the outside, snap in the air with the top of the foot pointed down, rechamber while swinging forward and turning on the ball of the foot until it stops on its own, hanging in the air.

I've had this theory for a long time that the Thai roundhouse was more effective on average than the TKD round house because the Thai roundhouse is closer to the way an untrained person will understand a kick naturally.

 

[SummerStriker]

I dont do the full motion while shadowboxing. I do that on pads, bags, and my sparring partners.

What people with legitimate Muay Thai background think is the correct way to perform the Thai round house without a target is one of the most diverse things in martial arts. It is like asking different people the right way to do a double leg.

Most MT guys look pretty similar hitting the bag, and it is so rare to miss all together with the Thai style round kick because you are usually so deep when you throw it.

It seems to me that the two main points of doing the kick in the air is to practice the flow from a hit to the start of the kick, and to make sure you are on the ball of your foot and pivoting on it so you don't hurt your knee on an eventual miss.

 

[thehairyfairy]

What people with legitimate Muay Thai background think is the correct way to perform the Thai round house without a target is one of the most diverse things in martial arts. It is like asking different people the right way to do a double leg.

Most MT guys look pretty similar hitting the bag, and it is so rare to miss all together with the Thai style round kick because you are usually so deep when you throw it.

It seems to me that the two main points of doing the kick in the air is to practice the flow from a hit to the start of the kick, and to make sure you are on the ball of your foot and pivoting on it so you don't hurt your knee on an eventual miss.

The problem I have is that straightness between shin and upper leg/quads/thigh is weird when I'm throwing a high kick in the air my upper leg will be parallel to my waist and my shin will be extending out at a weird angle however when I reach full extension of the leg it will reach i'll get some pics to explain my point.

 

[thehairyfairy]

(how the kick looks before ie when I'm winging it up)

(how it looks after when the leg straightens out in mid air)

 

[judochop87]

I'm a tkd black belt that transitioned in Muay Thai with no problems. Nothing wrong with throwing the kick fully when shadow boxing. Your kicking leg is at an awkward angle seems like to me. Remember it's foot pivot, hips, then leg. Striking of course with the shin bone. Your knee should be pointing more horizontally to the floor rather than down. Just my 2 c

 

[aries]

(how the kick looks before ie when I'm winging it up)

(how it looks after when the leg straightens out in mid air)

What's wrong with that? Would make for a great neck kick which most people really struggle with. The reason you have that angle is because your hips are really rotated. I can see that your support leg is pointing almost straight backwards. Lessen the pivot on your support foot if you want a more horizontal kicking shin and also keep your body more upright. Your torso looks almost horizontal there. Your arm on the kicking side should counter rotate down and backwards (currently it doesn't look like it's contributing anything). This will keep your body more upright and help with balance and power.

 

[thehairyfairy]

What's wrong with that? Would make for a great neck kick which most people really struggle with. The reason you have that angle is because your hips are really rotated. I can see that your support leg is pointing almost straight backwards. Lessen the pivot on your support foot if you want a more horizontal kicking shin and also keep your body more upright. Your torso looks almost horizontal there. Your arm on the kicking side should counter rotate down and backwards (currently it doesn't look like it's contributing anything). This will keep your body more upright and help with balance and power.

Thanks for the response, I look off balance/horizontal torso because I had to slow down the kick so my friend could capture the frames, later thought about recording a video and screenshotting it but by then it was too late LOL! Regarding the neck kick, that's what I love going for in sparring, going to focus on lessening the pivot, I've always had a habit of really pivoting my support leg because I feel like I generate the most power when I'm doing that and it has led to a few knockdowns in harder sparring, but also watching pure MT guys throwing kicks and I still feel they pivot deep yet manage to keep fairly horizontal.

 

[Paradigm]

What's wrong with that? Would make for a great neck kick which most people really struggle with. The reason you have that angle is because your hips are really rotated. I can see that your support leg is pointing almost straight backwards. Lessen the pivot on your support foot if you want a more horizontal kicking shin and also keep your body more upright. Your torso looks almost horizontal there. Your arm on the kicking side should counter rotate down and backwards (currently it doesn't look like it's contributing anything). This will keep your body more upright and help with balance and power.

go look at Saekson's instructional...he has a neck kick in there like that.

 

[fluffball]

Most people learn to kick high by using violent momentum to rip their muscles in to place. It's better to have the strength and flexibility to do it slow motion, with your shin not facing down, which is why people look bad shadowboxing.

I mentioned dynamic flexibility before, here's a specific exercise. Stand normally and lift your kicking leg straight out to the side. Don't rotate so that your shin faces down, which makes it easier, but keep your shin facing forward or slightly up, depending on how high you can go. Don't swing your leg up, just use your own strength to increase your flexibility.

You want to look something like this:

But most people struggle to get their leg even parallel to the ground without swinging it up. Work on this everyday, it is hard to do and it sucks, but it improves your strength and flexibility so you can throw a kick without using pure momentum to rip your muscles.

Another neat benefit is you eventually don't need to stretch beforehand to throw high kicks because the range of motion is natural to you and you aren't violently fighting your own muscles. The same way you don't need to stretch to brush your hair. (Not that you wouldn't want to still warm up before class, I'm just saying you CAN do that.)

 

[thehairyfairy]

.

Again thanks for the post very informative once again and I will definitely try out what you told me, the problem for me lies with the leg swinging around after the hip, but after the initial stage of throwing it facing downwards it almost auto-corrects itself in mid air to straighten out as per the picture you showed me.

 

[fluffball]

I'm still betting improving range of motion will correct that. The idea is you strengthen your own muscles controlling your kick at the same time you work on the stretch. If you can throw the kick slowly and in control, you can change anything you want about it.