Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Faster Taekwondo Turn Kick

Want to improve the speed and accuracy of your turn kick? Sang H. Kim, star of Complete Taekwondo Kicking, offers this advice:

At the fighting stance, relax your body by lowering your arms slightly lower than usual and relax your shoulders. Bounce up and down lightly so that your entire body is not so tight but loose. Turn your hip first- not your feet. When you turn your hip first, your knee and feet should follow naturally. Hit the target without power. As long as you contact the target nice and smoothly, you will have power and speed in time. So be patient. Let the crossing leg go free in the way your body turns. It's like jumping across stones in a brook. You just touch them and go-not stomp on them. You just use enough force to cross the brook, right? When you can do this, now do the hip turning quickly in one thought. ONE count and turn. Don't worry about the kicking part. When you have a good hip turn, you can have it all. The last one you should know is your eyesight. Quickly turn your head around and spot the target. Someday soon you'll be able to do the kick in one second or less. Practice gradually and internalize the process. Cut out anything that hinders your progress and modify it to fit your movement.