Sky High Thai Kicks

[Jazzshredder86]

I need to start working on the height of my thai kicks. I practice em really low, hard, and quick for self defense reasons, but I don't know how to practice to be able to land the roundhouse to the upper body/head region. My instructor tells me not to worry about that right now, but does anyone have any tips on stretches or kicking drill to be able to land a kick high and keep things like balance and power? thanks a lot in advance

[Nit]

Your instructor is telling you something important, master other kicks before you go for high kicks. High kicks are not as useful unless your well trained in them.

But then the long journey starts with a footstep:

To improve balance do the kick slowly, very slowly (Bionic Man slowly). Make sure you get your knee up high with your leg tucked in, then slowly extend your lower leg out to full extension and hold it. Then slowly pull it back. The slower you go the longer you will be balancing on one leg and hence your body and brain become more comfortable with it. Do this often, the more you do it the better you get, when I first started I could barely keep my leg at a 60% angle!

General leg stretches are vital and should be done often but not forcefully. Stuff like touching toes, Splits and variations of leg positions for splits etc, standard gymnastic stuff.

And I found exercising my hips and quads/upper legs with weights helps you keep your leg up. If you can't go to the Gym then do lots of leg exercises, little and often through the day. Hindu Squats, Raising Knee / Leg, running up stairs that sort of thing.

As usual, corrections welcomed if you think I'm full of [poopy]

[sslinky]

You mainly need to stretch you inner thigh muscle and hamstring.

You could try:

Sideways splits (inner thigh) - or as low as you can get. Both feet facing forward.
Frontways splits (hamstring) - one leg out the front, one out the back - feet facing forward and backwards.

You also need to build up flexibility in the hip. Try this:

Stand up.
Bring your right knee up to your chest and hold it with the right hand around the front of the knee/shin.
Practice getting it as close to the chest as possible, keeping your standing leg straight, and not bending your back.
Then use your arm to pull your knee to the right, 90 degrees to the way you are facing and still at chest height.
Keeping the knee in the same position use your hand to rotate your leg so your foot rises and your knee is pointing forward.
You should now be holding your leg (with knee bent) in approximately the position it would be for a high roundhouse - that is you can draw a straight line between your hips, your knee, and your opponents head and your body is side on to your opponent.
Look to your right, and you will be able to see your opponent!

You should also try to turn your standing foot about 135 degrees away from your target (so it's almost pointing "backwards"). This kind of happens naturally though as you rotate your hips through the kick.

The knee position is very important, because it basically dictates the height of the kick - if you can only get your knee to hip height, they you can't kick any higher than that.

You also need to build up muscle around your hips and abs - eventually you should be able to do the above exercise without using your hands to hold your leg up.
You can then progress to fully extending the leg so you can hold a static roundhouse position. If you can do that you will have great control over your kicks - it's also very good for balance.

The mechanics of the kick are very similar to the low roundhouse, except that generally the arm swings back against the kick in the high roundhouse forcing the hips to rotate through the kick which adds to the power - whereas the low roundhouse should have the lead arm out in front.

Try to always keep your body as upright as possible - there should be about a 90 degree angle between your body and your leg. It's easier to get your leg higher by leaning back, but this will throw you off balance.

The best way to start is *slowly*. This will help build up muscle power and control. Many people rely on the "swing" of the leg to get the foot high enough because they aren't strong enough or flexible enough to do it properly - and therefore lack control and ability to execute the kick in tight situations.

Hope that helps - this is what you're aiming for... (picture from lannamuaythai.com)

[FUH-Q]

dont worry about that right now.


hehe, j/k, but seriously you should really get the lower kicks down ( to me a low kick is on the knee and high is the upper ribs, though i can hit anyone under 6'3 in the head with power) before you go trying to kick people in the head. im sure to piss some people off with this but........theres no reason for you to try and kick people in the head untill later on when you are very confident and can properly set it up, even then theres no point. it will be very hard to hit a competant opponent in the head (though im sure many of you CAN hit someone in the head) and more often then not you will get dumped on your butt. its a very bad place to be if you get your leg caught that high for many reasons.

if ur just tryin to to it because you want to able then i would suggest just using a bag and start kicking higher and higher, but be sure to do a LOT of stretching before hand and use caution.

[Jazzshredder86]

thanks

Thanks yall, Im really a grappler working on my standup game by learning as much Thai boxing my teacher (who has a good foundation in muay thai, but does not claim to be an expert in it by any means) can show me. Im just kind of stuck in one of those situations every beginner gets in, when Im not sure if Im just not doing it right or I just havent done it enough kicking to build up the flexibility and power....in other words, whether its that i need to work on technique or just work on kicking as hard and as much as i can....thanks for the responses.