I am ambidextrous with my hands, I have boxed and wrestled since I was 15 and can box with either hand but I can't kick with my left leg to save my life. I have tried just repeatedly kicking but it feels so awkward I nearly fall down when I hit the bag. wtf and how do I fix this problem?
if yor problem is flexibility wiht that leg Id do stretching kicks with it, kicking staright up and down without bending your knee, however if it is your non-dominant leg it will generally always be weaker than your dominant one.
Practice kicking at half speed and then work up your speed/power. If the problem is with balance start doing single leg balancing exercises. What does your stance look like?
Make sure to set your standing leg up right. Step off at a 45 degree angle to your opponent and fire away. A lot of people dont set their front leg kicks up right, making them very weak. Just try to imitate what you do on the other side.
More kicking. If you only ever kick with your strong leg, no wonder that your weak leg is not good. Dedicate the next month or two to your weak leg. For each kick with the stronger leg, do two with the weaker. Stay after training and do a few hundred kicks with the weaker leg until it sits.
Agree with EEG on that. One thing I've noticed with a lot of the noobs (and even some more experienced guys) is that when they use their front leg/weak leg they don't use their hips very well to generate power. They tend to fling their leg out without any hip motion.
it just feel like I can't get a good turn out of my hip, I always end up hitting with the blade of my foot and have no power whatsoever. thanks for the suggestions
I have the exact opposite problem. I fight left leg forward, but my left leg is way more powerful (I'm talking about at least 3 times more powerful) than my back leg. They can lift the same amount of weight but kicking with my front leg is much more comfortable..... Sometimes I'll go southpaw and try using my right leg for 'jabs' and such but it's no where near as effective.
I have tried the repititions and it jsut feels like I am doing hundreds of wrong kicks and am not improving. maybe I just need to do them really slow and try to get the right and progressivly go faster.
What helped me was to go in a pool at about stomach to chest deep water and kick with your dominant leg then imitate exactly with your opposite side. For me it made it seem like slow motion with my dominant so I could really see what motions and angles I was using, and the slow motion with my opposite side allowed me to see what I was doing wrong.
Don't do the same kick over and over again. Pay attention to what your doing and the way your body is moving. Tweak things a little here and there. And make sure your coach is watching you too, chances are you've developed some habits which feel normal to you but will be very obviously incorrect to him.
Look, most people have a better and a weaker leg. Sometimes it depends on the kick, but usually one leg is better than the other. If you can kick well with the good leg, then you already know the mechanics of the kick. Try to train in front of a mirror, or in front of a window late at night, so you can see yourself. Do a few kicks with the good leg to see what they look like. Then train the weak leg. I'll give you the following advice -- reduce the height. You are probably trying to match the height of the kick with your good leg, and until you get the mechanics right, it won't work. Kick lower, but concentrate on the technique. Look in the mirror to see what it looks like, as it's much easier to spot problems. Then, when you find a height where you can do a half-decent kick, you have to practice it. Three times a week, after your training workout, do 200 kicks with your weak leg. In front of the mirror. Not until it "feels like" 200, but count from 1 to 200. Three times a week. Keep it as low as you need to get the technique down. When it sits, increase height. Make them 200 GOOD kicks. If you make a few bad ones, don't count them. Concentrate on technique. Each kick counts. Six months later, if you come here and still say that the kicks haven't improved, I'll eat my uniform and post a video of it. It works. Kicking works. If you know what it should look like and feel like (cause you can do it with the other leg), then you need to practice. And by practice, I mean thousands of EXTRA kicks every week.
I really don't recommend learning to kick on your own. I thought you had learned kicking already. If you haven't, you're probably picking up bad habits. Try to find somebody to show it to you. You can practice on your own, but you should at least have somebody teach you the basic mechanics and control your progress every month or so.
I did have someone teaching me, I just never got any good with my weak leg and now with no coach or decent training partners I have no one but myself to analyze my technique. I was thinking of videotaping and checking it out from there, It worked for some of my fights I figure why not tape the training too.
Well, if you know what it SHOULD be like, that's already something. Videotaping is great, just like training with a mirror. It's extremely humbling, though.
I got knocked out once in front of my wife and two kids, THAT is humbling, the mirror should be fine.lol
