Alignment during a technique

Some time ago on the now defunct United Goju Forum Steve Rowe wrote that anyone could kick head height as long as the alignment was correct. This was met with some scepticism and derision, one poster wrote that there’d be a line of people from his club wanting assistance. At the time I didn’t quite get it but at Primal last year in one session Steve Morris showed this statement to be true.

First he had us against the wall, side on, swinging the kicking leg up so that when it was in contact with the wall we’d reached the finish position. Of course kicking the wall there was no finish as such but the body was in a ‘straight’ line with the head below the kicking foot; the lower the head the higher the foot. I found that it was essential to turn more than you thought was necessary; it requires that you have a go.

While an improvement was instant I spent a lot of time practising and hallelujah head kicks were possible for the first time in 10 years or something. ButI had to try this drill out on someone who really struggled with high kicks. There’s one bloke at our club who really fits the bill but using the described drill and others he was able to kick higher than he has ever benn able to. He carried a lot of stiffness around the hips but was really pleased with his progress.

If a person has very good flexibility they can often kick high regardless of alignment, the trouble is the compromised technique also has compromised power. This reminds me of when I was in Greece on holiday many years ago visiting the friend of my girlfriend. She’d been working there for years as a dancer and her boyfriend was a king fu instructor. I went along and trained with him and we got on. We ended up following them and the girls dance troupe to Kos where they were performing. We did some training on the roof of the hotel and some of the dancers joined in. The dancers were able to perform high round kicks comfortably due to their flexibility but did so as if they were dancing. The leg went up high but the alignment was out hugely reducing power generation. Fine for ‘dancing martial arts’ but not a lot of use if you want to kick a head!

This example clearly shows the importance of correct body alignment when performing a high round kick but then the body has to be aligned correctly to the target to allow correct body alignment. This holds veracity for other techniques, when punching the body needs to be aligned to the target correctly to allow maximum power to be delivered. It’s a little like the golfer addressing the ball before driving for the green, if he’s got his body incorrectly lined up, if his feet are incorrectly placed he’s not going to optimise the power in his shot.

Another, closely related consideration is the direction of force, vector, of the strike. The body has to be correctly aligned in itself and in relation to the target, but thats another post.

Whipping in the Round Kick

Round Kick

As well as altering my punching, after encountering Steve Morris the way my round kick is delivered has changed. It is significantly better than when it was a standard mawashi geri. The whipping action delivery ramps up the power for a kick as much as it does for a punch and we end up with something much more akin to a Muay Thai round kick than the standard mawashi geri.

Whereas the whipping punch used a hip-shoulder-arm sequence as the basic movement, in the round kick the sequence is arm/foot-hip-leg, once again with the head leading the action

The non-kicking foot moves out and across to the side with the head moving (posting) over it. The arm on the kicking side is raised so it can pull in the opposite direction to the kick, rotating the upper body and transferring momentum into the hip and then leg creating the whipping action. The lower segment of the kicking leg is left behind and in effect is thrown into the target. For the kick to be thrown the body is first elongated and then contracted rotationally.

Hopefully that makes sense, it’s easier to show than describe; as usual the written word is clumsier than a demonstration. The rotation of the upper and lower body in opposite directions is perhaps counter-intuitive as one would think that everything should be going in the direction of the target. However, it’s easy to get a feel for how this kick works by sitting on a computer chair; it has to be one that revolves though. If you lift your feet up off the floor and stretch your arms out to the side, you have the equivalent of the starting position. Now sharply pull your arms into your centre and you’ll see that the momentum is transferred to the lower body and your legs twist in the opposite direction to the upper body. Ta daaa!

This instructional clip of the Thai round kick is pretty much it, although there are a few details missing. Steve describes the kick in some detail here in #6 and goes into great depth on his Round Kick Clinic dvd. This dvd is great, it’s the first one I bought and is really excellent, well worth a look.

There are several examples of this kick or similar in MMA/Muay Thai/K1 fights, such as the one Steve Morris mentions when Cro Cop was knocked out by Gonzaga, shown in this UFC 74 preview clip. Thiago Alves is using a similar kick a lot against Josh Koschek creating plenty of power. But the power of the kick is clearly illustrated in this clip from a pseudo science show called Fight Science.

Function over Form – the round kick

Thai Round Kick

In the previous article I related the (hypothetical) Form Police apparent in the Physical Conditioning world, as reported by Ross Enamait, with those in the martial arts world. These Form Police are firmly removed from the lateral thinking stratum being entrenched and engrossed in literal translation of martial arts related topics, kata for example. While the literal-lateral distinction isn’t strictly dichotomous, it’s probably best thought of as a sliding scale of  fixed to open thinking,  literal thinking places limitations on potential progression. There now follows an example of the distinction.

If we consider the round(house) kick, a martial arts stalwart technique,  we can witness the drawback of literal thinking. If the desired outcome of the kick is to produce sufficient power to cause damage or even a KO, as efficiently as possible, by definition the emphasis has to lean toward function rather than form. We want to produce a powerful effective kick and as such are not too concerned with aesthetics.

Consider the following two clips, broadly separated into opposite extremes of the (hypothetical) form-function (or literal-lateral) continuum, one from TKD the other from Steve Morris

Morris goes into a fair bit of detail of how to perform the kick but the emphasis is clearly not on form but rather on how to get ‘total body movement’. The TKD clip, however does seem to have a greater emphasis on form, look at the lines etc added to help the viewer, note the precise instructions, which go into fine detail. Force equals mass times acceleration, acceleration can be achieved in both version of the kick, but the Morris version allows greater mass to be included in the equation, as the whole body (i.e. the mass) is involved not only in the production of the kick but also after contact (if you watch the entire clip, there are one or two instances where he ‘gently’ kicks someone).

It’s clear to me which is the more effective kick, admittedly I have no personal experience of the TKD kick but lots regarding the very similar karate mawashi geri*, certainly similar regarding teaching protocols, while I have felt the Morris version. The Morris kick is far more effective, as he says you get more for your money.

If you look at the two pictures of round kicks included in this post, it’s obvious that the thai kick is transferring momentum, and so force, into the target, while the mawashi geri is merely being placed. You get what you train and the mawashi geri trained in the manner of the photo is aesthetically pleasing, it looks nice but is less efficient than the thai kick.

I’m not saying that a spinning, jumping reverse TKD tornado kick hasn’t got the capability of producing sufficient power to cause KO, there’s evidence of that on you tube. Rather I question whether it is the most efficient/effective method of producing the power required to achieve a KO from a high kick or cause damage efficiently in a low kick.

In fact, ‘perfect’ form results in minimal loss of balance and so minimal transfer of force, clearly an inefficient method of producing power sufficient for a KO. In contrast, by emphasising total body involvement Morris concentrates on outcome, i.e. power, rather than form, indeed his kicks look rather untidy. If unconvinced I’d suggest experiencing one or two of his kicks at quarter power, it’s a pretty surefire convincer.

An alternative and less painful option is to consider which of the kicks outlined in the clips above is more similar to those used to get KO’s in MMA/K1. Look for more or less body involvement as Mirko Cro Cop, famous for his kicking power, dishes out lots of KO kicks.

*the interested reader can watch a Shotokan video on the round kick