Second video on advance parrying. Using the outside parry with the lead hand from switch stance as bait, a typical response is to sit their weight down to defend or move backwards using evasive foot work. either one works as i use my lead front leg to ‘cut’ low kick. and not so much in a traditional chopping low kick style, but rather i wrap my whole instep around their achilles and use my foot to pull them off base and off balance. Once they are off base and off balance, i use that little window of opportunity to attack before they regain their composure and begin to guard or counter attack. That is what i call attacking within transitions. I use the left kick as one example, but further in the video i also use different punches along with the kick. up to you, try it out and see what flavor suits you.

The post ADVANCED PARRYING: BALANCE BREAKING appeared first on Thai Boxing Institute | Muay Thai West Los Angeles | Venice.

Along with video, there’s audio commentary as well as a pretty dense explanation of the technique in the blog.  Of course there are some mistake but that’s part of the learning process!

/shrugs

ANYWAYS.  i’m pretty happy of the overall product and am excited to present:

MUAY THAI:  DECONSTRUCTED.

THE RIGHT ROUND KICK

(should be ‘the rear round kick’, whoops!)

((continue to scroll past video for full technique explanation))

A note on ‘learning’:

One movement in, execute technique, and return back to stance.  

Sure,  sounds easy yea? But, it’s the little things that make a world difference between just ‘doing the technique’ and ‘doing the technique correctly’.

Not just once though, but consistently.  We are trying to create consistency. Consistency to the point where every movement is done without effort.  Where all parts of the body are moving efficiently. The end goal really is to execute any sort of technique utilizing the minimum amount of energy.

We are attempting to produce a result that is equal in balance, finesse, ease, and power.  The outcome should feel almost as if one were floating. That feeling is what i call ‘flow’.  

Creating this harmony of elements requires practice.  Practice is key, and practice makes perfect. Practice isn’t just repeating the movement, but rather being conscious of what you are doing.  Digesting, reflect and repeat.

How did it feel?  How did it sound? Did you feel light, heavy, clunky?  Did it hurt? Haha.

Once you get the beauty of the technique down you can start adding the element of style, but that’s for another time.  😉

On to the show.

Ok, let’s preface all this by saying this tutorial is meant for right handed (conventional, orthodox, whatever you wanna call it) fighters.  If you are left handed (southpaw) then your right leg leads. As a whole, the concept is the same for both stances, difference would be the sides i use to describe the actions,  left hand, right hand, left side, right side.

For the sake of ease i will try to use lead and rear as often as possible, or when possible.

In regards to this instance, for reference:  Left side will be ‘lead’, right side will be ‘rear’.

Capiche?

Ok, moving forward.

There are different styles and variations of the round kick, with each instructor teaching the kick differently.  This is one of many; the way my instructor taught me, and the way i teach it.

I believe this is the most difficult thing to teach and even though from an outsider perspective it may seem simple.

Wrong.

My method of teaching is what i call ‘big picture first’, then we widdle down the details.  This is just a general overview of the round kick plus some basic details. I’m sure we can distill it even further but i’m hoping this provides some good insight into getting down the basic form.  

Remember, practice is key, and practice makes perfect.  🙂

TLDR  (too long didn’t read):

(Range Find)

((inhale))

1.  Step (we need momentum)

1.1  Lead foot at 11 o clock, rear leg lifts up, ankle locked.

1.2  Rear arm swings back as a counter balance and to aid in torque development

2. Pivot  

2.1  Rear leg brings hips up and over in a tight arch

2.2  Shin to target

3.  Turn

3.1  Turn ( your body along with your foot)

3.2  Hit target (exhale)

3.3  Follow through

3.4  Pivot out back to stance.

4.  Look cool.

4.1  Film yourself kicking, tag all your friends, set location to ‘Thai Boxing Institute’

The nitty gritty:

The round kick can be simplified into 3 different steps.

1. Step (we need momentum)
2. Pivot
3. Turn

Range finding:

Get in your fight stance, lead leg steps, rear leg follows.  Notice the my lead hand extends and the fingertips touch the bag.  If i can touch it i can hit it. I return back to my stance, rear leg first this time, lead leg follows.

I call this ‘ballroom footwork’.  We want to avoid a shallow step so that we don’t kick with our foot, or to be too close to the target resulting in our technique being smothered.  

Lead foot positioning:

If we imagine a clock, and our body is positioned at 6 o clock, once we initiate the technique, the first step with our lead leg will position itself towards 11 o clock.  I like to make a point of saying ‘leg’ rather than foot is because if we look down from our perspective, we have to pay attention that toes, ankle, knee and hip are all aligned, meaning that entire plane of our body is pointing towards 11 o clock.  We do this because if we understand the trajectory of the kick, it follow thats much like a baseball bat swinging (or pretty much any sport that requires swinging an object). Thus, in order for us to understand and apply the idea of falling through (continuing our own momentum once we struck our target), we must position our body (mainly hips)  in a way that will allow our leg to follow through it’s ‘swinging’ plane. Amongst the many factors that contribute to ‘power’ or strength of technique, positioning our hips in a way that will allow us to generate torque is key to the proper execution of this particular technique.

Ankle lock and toe point:

Lastly, before we actually kick something, i like to show how i flex my foot in order to isolate both the top foot, and shin.  This plays many different roles. One is safety, safety in that my toes aren’t in the way in case i accidently kick with my foot.  Second is i want to make sure i kick with as much as my shin as possible. When you first begin sometimes you end up kicking with the instep which isn’t entirely wrong, but we want to get into the habit of kicking with the shin in order to avoid any injuries as well as to become the conditioning process of being able to kick with your shin and it not hurting.  🙂

Ok, let’s finally kick something.

As a trainer i’ll demonstrate a few times slowly, and then have the member practices a few times with their own rudimentary version of what they just heard and saw.  From there we widdle down the details.

1.  Step (we need momentum)

A:  lead foot at 11 o clock, rear leg lifts up, ankle locked.

B:  Rear arm swings back as a counter balance and to aid in torque development

The biggest thing people have trouble with is the pivot.  Whenever i assess someones technique the first thing i pay attention to is what their foot is doing.  Are they stepping out? Is the foot engaged and pivoting?

When we first execute that first step to 11 o clock, you must step on the ball of your foot, sit your weight down and turn your heel.  We call that pivot. Another important element to proper technique, and torque development. Once we’ve hit the object and felt our ‘follow through’ or momentum stop, we use that same pivot to drive ourselves back to our fighting stance.  

Pivot in, pivot out.

Another point i make is that both legs are dependent on each other.  Meaning once i step and pivot, my rear leg begins the kick sequences along with the lead legs’ pivot.  Once my rear leg begins it’s return, so that does my front leg’s pivot.

Confusing?  Watch and rewind a few times.  :B

Shin  position:

1.   Step (we need momentum)

A:  lead foot at 11 o clock, rear leg lifts up, ankle locked.

B:  Rear arm swings back as a counter balance and to aid in torque development

C:  Pivot in

D:  Rear leg brings hips up and over in a tight arch

This maybe bit of an intermediate/advance concept but what’s very important to me is how much shin makes contact with the surface area of my target.  I like to get the entirety of the shin across whatever i’m kick, but that requires a bit of practice with the frist couple fundamental steps of the kick technique, as well as balance, and proper torso positioning.  Yet again, these are all elements of developing torque, which develops effortless technique, which develops power. I’ll say a little more about this in our conclusion, but if you start thinking about these things and applying them to your practice, i believe this will expedite the process of learning how to round kick.

1. Step (we need momentum)

A:  lead foot at 11 o clock, rear leg lifts up, ankle locked.

B:  Rear arm swings back as a counter balance and to aid in torque development

C:  Pivot in

D:  Rear leg brings hips up and over in a tight arch

E:  Shin to target, follow through

F:  Pivot out back to stance.

Rear foot details:

Earlier i made a mention of balance;  once the member is getting the ‘gist’ of the technique, i like to point out what the rear foot is doing.  Once i complete the ‘pivot out’ and i’m arriving back to my stance, my rear leg’s foot lands on the ball first followed by the heel (if necessary).

If necessary?  Necessary meaning if i’m only doing a single kick then i proceed to place my weight back, but if i’m doing multiple kicks at once (5 left, 5 right?) then i forego that step.  I’ll land on the ball and use that to drive myself back into the second, third etc kick. Another intermediate concept which can be a whole nother’ video of it’s own.

Anyways, balance, sometimes people get into the habit of landing straight on their rear heel, which sends them stumbling back. Landing on the ball prevents all this and makes for a smooth landing.

Breathing:

Breathe in, breathe out.  The kick should be a relaxed technique with the exhalation of the breath being the moment of tension that your body creates in any explosive movement.  

Breathing is a pretty broad subject itself, and another factor in efficiency and power.  BUT, baby steps.

My tips are:

(before you initiate the kick)

Breathe in through your nose (nostrils)

Feel your lungs fill with air.

Commence kick sequence.

Exhale once your leg reaches the the target.

Simple?

The exhalation should come out as a form of a tight breath from the diaphragm.  Imaging yourself sprinting fast and hard in a face, you give yourself that extra push, maybe even scream as you do.  That’s a breath from your diaphragm.

Merely exhaling the air from your lungs isn’t enough.

To recap:

 (inhale)

1.  Step (we need momentum)

1.1  Lead foot at 11 o clock, rear leg lifts up, ankle locked.

(Range Find)

((inhale))

1.  Step (we need momentum)

1.1  Lead foot at 11 o clock, rear leg lifts up, ankle locked.

1.2  Rear arm swings back as a counter balance and to aid in torque development

2. Pivot  

2.1  Rear leg brings hips up and over in a tight arch

2.2  Shin to target

3.  Turn

3.1  Turn ( your body along with your foot)

3.2  Hit target (exhale)

3.3  Follow through

3.4  Pivot out back to stance.

4.  Look cool.

4.1  Film yourself kicking, tag all your friends, set location to ‘Thai Boxing Institute’

See!?  3 easy steps.  Practice makes perfect, now get at it.

A note on ‘learning’:

One movement in, execute technique, and return back to stance.  

Sure,  sounds easy yea? But, it’s the little things that make a world difference between just ‘doing the technique’ and ‘doing the technique correctly’.

Not just once though, but consistently.  We are trying to create consistency. Consistency to the point where every movement is done without effort.  Where all parts of the body are moving efficiently. The end goal really is to execute any sort of technique utilizing the minimum amount of energy.

We are attempting to produce a result that is equal in balance, finesse, ease, and power.  The outcome should feel almost as if one were floating. That feeling is what i call ‘flow’.  

Creating this harmony of elements requires practice.  Practice is key, and practice makes perfect. Practice isn’t just repeating the movement, but rather being conscious of what you are doing.  Digesting, reflect and repeat.

How did it feel?  How did it sound? Did you feel light, heavy, clunky?  Did it hurt? Haha.

Once you get the beauty of the technique down you can start adding the element of style, but that’s for another time.  😉

On to the show.

Ok, let’s preface all this by saying this tutorial is meant for right handed (conventional, orthodox, whatever you wanna call it) fighters.  If you are left handed (southpaw) then your right leg leads. As a whole, the concept is the same for both stances, difference would be the sides i use to describe the actions,  left hand, right hand, left side, right side.

For the sake of ease i will try to use lead and rear as often as possible, or when possible.

In regards to this instance, for reference:  Left side will be ‘lead’, right side will be ‘rear’.

Capiche?

Ok, moving forward.

There are different styles and variations of the round kick, with each instructor teaching the kick differently.  This is one of many; the way my instructor taught me, and the way i teach it.

I believe this is the most difficult thing to teach and even though from an outsider perspective it may seem simple.

Wrong.

My method of teaching is what i call ‘big picture first’, then we widdle down the details.  This is just a general overview of the round kick plus some basic details. I’m sure we can distill it even further but i’m hoping this provides some good insight into getting down the basic form.  

Remember, practice is key, and practice makes perfect.  🙂

TLDR  (too long didn’t read):

(Range Find)

((inhale))

1.  Step (we need momentum)

1.1  Lead foot at 11 o clock, rear leg lifts up, ankle locked.

1.2  Rear arm swings back as a counter balance and to aid in torque development

2. Pivot  

2.1  Rear leg brings hips up and over in a tight arch

2.2  Shin to target

3.  Turn

3.1  Turn ( your body along with your foot)

3.2  Hit target (exhale)

3.3  Follow through

3.4  Pivot out back to stance.

4.  Look cool.

4.1  Film yourself kicking, tag all your friends, set location to ‘Thai Boxing Institute’

The nitty gritty:

The round kick can be simplified into 3 different steps.

1. Step (we need momentum)
2. Pivot
3. Turn

Range finding:

Get in your fight stance, lead leg steps, rear leg follows.  Notice the my lead hand extends and the fingertips touch the bag.  If i can touch it i can hit it. I return back to my stance, rear leg first this time, lead leg follows.

I call this ‘ballroom footwork’.  We want to avoid a shallow step so that we don’t kick with our foot, or to be too close to the target resulting in our technique being smothered.  

Lead foot positioning:

If we imagine a clock, and our body is positioned at 6 o clock, once we initiate the technique, the first step with our lead leg will position itself towards 11 o clock.  I like to make a point of saying ‘leg’ rather than foot is because if we look down from our perspective, we have to pay attention that toes, ankle, knee and hip are all aligned, meaning that entire plane of our body is pointing towards 11 o clock.  We do this because if we understand the trajectory of the kick, it follow thats much like a baseball bat swinging (or pretty much any sport that requires swinging an object). Thus, in order for us to understand and apply the idea of falling through (continuing our own momentum once we struck our target), we must position our body (mainly hips)  in a way that will allow our leg to follow through it’s ‘swinging’ plane. Amongst the many factors that contribute to ‘power’ or strength of technique, positioning our hips in a way that will allow us to generate torque is key to the proper execution of this particular technique.

Ankle lock and toe point:

Lastly, before we actually kick something, i like to show how i flex my foot in order to isolate both the top foot, and shin.  This plays many different roles. One is safety, safety in that my toes aren’t in the way in case i accidently kick with my foot.  Second is i want to make sure i kick with as much as my shin as possible. When you first begin sometimes you end up kicking with the instep which isn’t entirely wrong, but we want to get into the habit of kicking with the shin in order to avoid any injuries as well as to become the conditioning process of being able to kick with your shin and it not hurting.  🙂

Ok, let’s finally kick something.

As a trainer i’ll demonstrate a few times slowly, and then have the member practices a few times with their own rudimentary version of what they just heard and saw.  From there we widdle down the details.

1.  Step (we need momentum)

A:  lead foot at 11 o clock, rear leg lifts up, ankle locked.

B:  Rear arm swings back as a counter balance and to aid in torque development

The biggest thing people have trouble with is the pivot.  Whenever i assess someones technique the first thing i pay attention to is what their foot is doing.  Are they stepping out? Is the foot engaged and pivoting?

When we first execute that first step to 11 o clock, you must step on the ball of your foot, sit your weight down and turn your heel.  We call that pivot. Another important element to proper technique, and torque development. Once we’ve hit the object and felt our ‘follow through’ or momentum stop, we use that same pivot to drive ourselves back to our fighting stance.  

Pivot in, pivot out.

Another point i make is that both legs are dependent on each other.  Meaning once i step and pivot, my rear leg begins the kick sequences along with the lead legs’ pivot.  Once my rear leg begins it’s return, so that does my front leg’s pivot.

Confusing?  Watch and rewind a few times.  :B

Shin  position:

1.   Step (we need momentum)

A:  lead foot at 11 o clock, rear leg lifts up, ankle locked.

B:  Rear arm swings back as a counter balance and to aid in torque development

C:  Pivot in

D:  Rear leg brings hips up and over in a tight arch

This maybe bit of an intermediate/advance concept but what’s very important to me is how much shin makes contact with the surface area of my target.  I like to get the entirety of the shin across whatever i’m kick, but that requires a bit of practice with the frist couple fundamental steps of the kick technique, as well as balance, and proper torso positioning.  Yet again, these are all elements of developing torque, which develops effortless technique, which develops power. I’ll say a little more about this in our conclusion, but if you start thinking about these things and applying them to your practice, i believe this will expedite the process of learning how to round kick.

1. Step (we need momentum)

A:  lead foot at 11 o clock, rear leg lifts up, ankle locked.

B:  Rear arm swings back as a counter balance and to aid in torque development

C:  Pivot in

D:  Rear leg brings hips up and over in a tight arch

E:  Shin to target, follow through

F:  Pivot out back to stance.

Rear foot details:

Earlier i made a mention of balance;  once the member is getting the ‘gist’ of the technique, i like to point out what the rear foot is doing.  Once i complete the ‘pivot out’ and i’m arriving back to my stance, my rear leg’s foot lands on the ball first followed by the heel (if necessary).

If necessary?  Necessary meaning if i’m only doing a single kick then i proceed to place my weight back, but if i’m doing multiple kicks at once (5 left, 5 right?) then i forego that step.  I’ll land on the ball and use that to drive myself back into the second, third etc kick. Another intermediate concept which can be a whole nother’ video of it’s own.

Anyways, balance, sometimes people get into the habit of landing straight on their rear heel, which sends them stumbling back. Landing on the ball prevents all this and makes for a smooth landing.

Breathing:

Breathe in, breathe out.  The kick should be a relaxed technique with the exhalation of the breath being the moment of tension that your body creates in any explosive movement.  

Breathing is a pretty broad subject itself, and another factor in efficiency and power.  BUT, baby steps.

My tips are:

(before you initiate the kick)

Breathe in through your nose (nostrils)

Feel your lungs fill with air.

Commence kick sequence.

Exhale once your leg reaches the the target.

Simple?

The exhalation should come out as a form of a tight breath from the diaphragm.  Imaging yourself sprinting fast and hard in a face, you give yourself that extra push, maybe even scream as you do.  That’s a breath from your diaphragm.

Merely exhaling the air from your lungs isn’t enough.

To recap:

 (inhale)

1.  Step (we need momentum)

1.1  Lead foot at 11 o clock, rear leg lifts up, ankle locked.

(Range Find)

((inhale))

1.  Step (we need momentum)

1.1  Lead foot at 11 o clock, rear leg lifts up, ankle locked.

1.2  Rear arm swings back as a counter balance and to aid in torque development

2. Pivot  

2.1  Rear leg brings hips up and over in a tight arch

2.2  Shin to target

3.  Turn

3.1  Turn ( your body along with your foot)

3.2  Hit target (exhale)

3.3  Follow through

3.4  Pivot out back to stance.

4.  Look cool.

4.1  Film yourself kicking, tag all your friends, set location to ‘Thai Boxing Institute’

See!?  3 easy steps.  Practice makes perfect, now get at it.

The post How to throw a Muay Thai Round Kick appeared first on Thai Boxing Institute | Muay Thai West Los Angeles | Venice.