I was commenting on another forum when it occurred to me that for a number of years I have had the suspicion that certain aspects of my technique, no matter how much I train to correct, have been overly influenced by my early years of "air" training.
...in particular my round house kick.
Firstly, no false modesty, I have pretty bloody good form in all of the "traditional" Shotokan kicks. This is no accident. From the ages of 15 through to 25(ish) my training goal was to achieve, what I believed then to be, the pinnacle of karate form, I wanted all of my technique to look the best it could.... and there is the rub.
The main issue is that I was not training to generate maximum power to strike through the target, but generating maximum speed to strike at the target. (this may seem trivial but I believe this has profound effects on muscle memory and the timing of the kick)
To achieve a mawashigeri of great form - firing a head-high kick at an imaginary point with perfect control - requires me to use the corresponding antagonistic muscles to ristrict the power of the kick just at the point of striking the target, else the follow through will unbalance me. and I trained for years to perfect this.
So this is not normally a problem - I just aim 3 inches into my targets head - but it does get exposed when kicking with the ball of my foot into a heavy bag. I just don't get the penetration as I would with the shin or instep.
So to all you other Nethy-forumites, especially those of you like myself that started in one of the mainstream karate styles in 80's have you noticed the same thing? do you too have a dark secret, maybe a dodgy uracken or you can't stop yourself doing hook kicks? Be honest and lets shine a torch on some of those bad training behaviours, misapprehensions and kooky logic that you are trying to untrain even now......
News, Articles and Updates