Tippy toes a no no...a better way to kick

[-guerilla-]

In reference to your base foot most martial arts instructors teach people to rise up on their ball of their foot while throwing the round kick

if you watch traditional Muay Thai closely you'll notice that the most powerful kicks occur when the base foot is planted flat heel on the ground and they virtually never rise up on the ball of the foot when kicking low however when they're reaching higher they often do. My point is maximum power and stability is achieved when your foot is flat on the ground and your base leg is bent deeply requiring extreme flexibility

the pivot is facilitated by the angular step in while there is a fair amount of pivoting it's pretty minimal and you can pivot on a flat foot with a bent leg, it just takes practice!

rising up on the ball of your foot just makes you easier to sweep and dump and while American kickboxers don't seem too worried about getting slammed in Thailand its the norm.

I don't know why so many people for so many years have pushed this tippy-toe roundkick Theory but it's inferior.

work on your flexibility don't reach up on your tippy toes to get that extra couple inches on your round kick.

Step in at an angle keep your foot flat on the ground Bend your base leg knee.

This is how everybody throws low kicks....they very rarely rise on the ball their foot for low kicks, what works for low kicks works for high kicks you just need the flexibility to reach up there, don't change the way you kick.

Especially if you plan on using your kicks in MMA or street fight situations I believe this is a vastly improved theory on the Tippy Toe ball of the foot rise.





It seems like everybody kicks like this when they go low but whenever they go high they rise up on the tippy toes it's not necessary but it's just what they do...

If anybody can find a video about the specifically I would be very interested thanks!

[THIS SECTION ADDED 16 FEB 2019]

I AM NOT ADVOCATING AN EVEN DISTRIBUTION OF WEIGHT ACROSS ALL 3 POINTS OF CONTACT OF THE HUMAN FOOT [2 BALL 1 HEEL] WHILE YOU PIVOT OR ROTATE!!!

I AM ADVOCATING THAT YOU SHIFT YOUR WEIGHT TO THE BALL 90%+ AND LET THE HEEL SLIDE ACROSS THE GROUND OR RAISE JUST AN INCH AS YOUR PIVOT OR BETTER YET SET UP ALL OF YOUR KICKS WITH A STEP IN PUNCHING COMBO TO REDUCE YOUR NEED TO PIVOT DRAMATICALLY.

this is how mma greats like GSP, Jon Jones, Israel Adesanya and Mirko cro cop kick.

your NOT GONNA HURT YOUR KNEE!!!

 

[ImmigrantMentality]

I think you can have a powerful roundhouse either way, but being on your toes just feels more comfortable and I think helps more with recovery in a missed kick situation because you pivot and spin easier. For a low kick, you're trying to generate force downwards so it doesn't make sense to be on your toes in that situation, you would lose power if you did.

 

[Blowing Dixie]

Throwing thousands of kicks without going up on your toes is a great way to fuck up your knee.

 

[Crash Lance]

Throwing thousands of kicks without going up on your toes is a great way to fuck up your knee.

How so?

Could it be that the knee/leg that is still on the ground is withstanding too much stress from the movement?

Not to mention the actual impact after someone hits their opponent.

 

[Blowing Dixie]

How so?

Could it be that the knee/leg that is still on the ground is withstanding too much stress from the movement?

Not to mention the actual impact after someone hits their opponent.

Keeping the heel on the ground causes rotation in the knee joint of the supporting leg. It might not be much rotation but do a couple thousand repetitions and it adds up..

 

[Kanka]

It's difficult to win kick exchanges against skilled kickers if you keep your foot planted. By getting up on your toes you can have good posture and perfect balance, while doing small adjustment to your standing leg position. With flat feet it's more difficult to make those small adjustments. It shouldn't affect the power though, as the power comes from the hips and not th. For most people it's probably better for their knees to get up on the toes though.

If you don't believe me, try throwing 20 kicks in a row while your pad holder is moving around. It's just very difficult if your foot is planted.

 

[Monte Moku]

While I have read about potentially getting more power by keeping the foot planted, my knees have never liked the feeling of it.

From my understanding of technique, the power is generated from the weight shift + rotational force in the hip and the foot is acting as the base for the rotation so the form remains stable. I don't think there is any actual power generation coming from the foot itself (other than, possibly, the angling/ankle rotation, but my coaches have told me that it is just to open up your hips).

What I have noticed many Muay Thai fighters and Kickboxers do is just a less dramatic arch of the foot. For example:

At first glance it can look like he's just hammering away with the right leg and keeping his left foot on the ground, but if you look closely you can see he is just bringing his heel slightly up for the rotation. I've found quite a few cases where this is happening and someone might say "see, he keeps his feet planted."

 

[Snubnoze707]

Next time put your questionable advice in this forum:

https://forums.sherdog.com/forums/standup-technique.11/

 

[MadSquabbles500]

Why not just do a little hop and rotate in the air

 

[Tayski]

Why not just do a little hop and rotate in the air

It's not dragon ball z mate.

 

[-guerilla-]

It's all about not getting sweeped or dumped,
Especially the bent leg part.

The lower your center of gravity the more stability you have and the more foot touching the ground the harder it is to sweep you. Critical in MMA and street!!

We all throw low licks like this, rising up on the ball is subconscious "reaching"

Boxing coaches call it "sitting down on your punches" and planted feet are VERY important in generation of power.

that said you can generate incredible power from flying techniques like 720 and Superman punches but they are risky in that they take much longer to recover or combo from and you inherently take the chance of being swept, tripped or lifted and slammed

 

[-guerilla-]

Good point its actually very common that the foot is actually completely off the ground for a split second but when impact is made the base foot seats flat....

If you step in well there is very little need for a pivot.

Great observation that many times thai boxers pivot foot looks flat but the heel is in fact "unweighted" for the pivot or perhaps less than a centimeter off the mat...i would say this is the most common way to throw a thai roundkick

 

[Snubnoze707]

The only other person I ever heard advocating this was Bas Rutten, and he has two completely blown out knees. Both of them. No thanks. I'll kick with my hips.

 

[Kanka]

NOnsense, being flat on the foot won’t help you against getting sweeped. You’ll get sweeped either way unless you do something to avoid the sweep, like turning your foot and teeping him away, or jumping over his sweeping foot, or bending your knee pulling yourself towards him.

Also in muay thai your kick is supposed to be diagonal,almost upwards in order to minimize telegraphing. If you kick with your foot planted in order to generate power you would have to take a diagonal step first, to open up your hips, and then throw the kick with a more horizontal trajectory than most thais do. This technique will generate a powerful kick but it’s easy to block and takes time to recover from it. I believe Ramon Dekkers something similar to this. It’s just not the most effective way of kicking against elite kickers.

If you’re a kickboxer that mostly use your kicks as part of combos or to set up your hands, keeping your foot flat and not rotating the hips much might be useful. Then you give up power in the kick for faster punch/kick combos. I think Lucien Carbin teaches this way, but again his fighters aren’t elite kickers either.

Pretty much all elite muay thai kickers lift their heel of the ground, some more than others. Sam-A seems to keep his foot quite flat in comparison to say Kongsak, for example.

 

[NidNoi]

Sam-A seems to keep his foot quite flat in comparison to say Kongsak, for example.

No. All Thais stand on the ball of foot while kicking.

 

[Kanka]

No. All Thais stand on the ball of foot while kicking.

I said in comparison. Of course he lifts his heel up

 

[-guerilla-]

kickboxers don't go up on there ball of their foot when they throw low kicks so why would they do it when they throw high kicks?

All thai boxing round kicks start with a step in and wind up that's why they're so damn heavy, don't worry about all this Telegraph nonsense because the punch you just hit him with is the setup to the Kick. Also if you're any good at fainting at all you don't have to worry about telegraphing, fainting allows you to trick an opponent, they'll never know when you're really going to hit, don't worry about telegraphing. I can remember instructors lecturing me that my roundkick was to telegraphed when I was hitting the pads, they have no concept of fainting.

It won't hurt your knees because you're still pivoting, there's just a little bit more friction, it takes practice but you can pivot just fine with a whole foot planted on the ground and especially when you keep your knee bent and your foot flat on the ground you are much less susceptible to sweeps trips and dumps which is critical on the street or in MMA.

Watch the legend Danny bills style...95% of his round kicks are flat foot

 

[Monte Moku]

kickboxers don't go up on there ball of their foot when they throw low kicks so why would they do it when they throw high kicks?

All thai boxing round kicks start with a step in and wind up that's why they're so damn heavy, don't worry about all this Telegraph nonsense because the punch you just hit him with is the setup to the Kick. Also if you're any good at fainting at all you don't have to worry about telegraphing, fainting allows you to trick an opponent, they'll never know when you're really going to hit, don't worry about telegraphing. I can remember instructors lecturing me that my roundkick was to telegraphed when I was hitting the pads, they have no concept of fainting.

It won't hurt your knees because you're still pivoting, there's just a little bit more friction, it takes practice but you can pivot just fine with a whole foot planted on the ground and especially when you keep your knee bent and your foot flat on the ground you are much less susceptible to sweeps trips and dumps which is critical on the street or in MMA.

Watch the legend Danny bills style...95% of his round kicks are flat foot

I am not seeing Dany Bill's technique the same as you, it seems.

The way I see it:

He pivots his foot with his heel slightly raised when he hasn't already stepped out with his foot angled. The reason he is often not pivoting on the ball of his foot is because of this as well. It's not that he is pivoting flat-footed, he is usually just opening up his hips in his initial step out to remove the need for the pivot by already angling his ankle out. The others looked like he was just raising his heel slightly off the ground rather than dramatic arch we often see. From my experience, this happens more often at the higher levels Muay Thai and Kickboxing. Here is an example I posted earlier in the thread:

And another example here:

 

[-guerilla-]

Take a look at this guy, you may have heard of him, watch that base foot, always flat!

 

[-guerilla-]

I am not seeing Dany Bill's technique the same as you, it seems.

The way I see it:

He pivots his foot with his heel slightly raised when he hasn't already stepped out with his foot angled. The reason he is often not pivoting on the ball of his foot is because of this as well. It's not that he is pivoting flat-footed, he is usually just opening up his hips in his initial step out to remove the need for the pivot by already angling his ankle out. The others looked like he was just raising his heel slightly off the ground rather than dramatic arch we often see. From my experience, this happens more often at the higher levels Muay Thai and Kickboxing. Here is an example I posted earlier in the thread:

And another example here:

EXACTLY!!!
the step in negates the need to pivot dramatically and thus negates the need to go on the ball of your foot....excellent reply and observation!!!