ALTA Week 3 Striking

Striking – Kicking Fundamentals (roundhouse, push, knee)

These are the 3 most common fundamental strikes using your legs. This session’s goal is to get you throwing the strikes and hitting the kick shields to explore the movement and range.

Roundhouse Kick

Included in this category are calf kicks, leg kicks, body kicks, head kicks. Regardless of the final target, the technique has common features.

• Striking area: Make sure you’re landing with your shin (not your foot). This is not football. If you kick an elbow or a knee with your foot, that’s going to cause injury. Make sure you get close enough to where the striking area is the bottom third of your shin. Now, you still want to avoid hard targets (like the elbow, knee or shins) but just do yourself a favour and protect your foot.
• Rotate the standing foot: To facilitate the rotation of your hips, focus on allowing your standing foot to rotate. This will require you to take weight off your heel so that the ball of the foot can spin. In Muay Thai, they recommend you come right up on your toes to achieve this. In traditional styles like Karate and TaeKwonDo, the heel lift is more subtle. Either way, rotate that standing leg.
• Arm Movement: Your arms have an important role in your balance and control. The kicking-side arm will need to swing back (opposite direction to the kick) while the non-kicking-side arm will come across the face to provide cover for counter punches. Think of “Dabbing” (as in that trend amongst the cool kids in the mid 2010s). 

Push Kick (aka “Teep”) 

Muay Thai is the sport which utilises this kick more than any other martial arts. They call it the “teep”. Think of what you’d do if you had to kick a door down. Or alternatively, if you remember the film “300” when King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) kicked the messenger of Xerxes (Peter Mensah) into a bottomless pit and screamed “THIS… IS… SPARTAAAAAA!”. 

• Lead leg teep: This variation is more to maintain distance. It will lack the power of the rear leg but is useful as a “Get away from me!” kind of kick.
• Rear leg teep: Now we’re King Leonidas. This is the power teep and can push your partner way back. 
• Switch Teep or Step up Teep: These variations can give the lead leg teep some of the power of the rear teep but at the cost of telegraphing your movement. We’ll come back to these at a later time.

Knee

In amateur MMA, you’re not allowed to knee to the head of your opponent. However, knees to the body or thighs are extremely effective and are definitely worth investing time to get good at them.

• Striking Area: At fight time, you’ll use your knee cap as the striking area. However, during drilling or sparring with training partners, it’s customary to use softer areas like the inside of the thigh to make contact (just to avoid rib injury).
• Arms: If you’re close enough, you’ll use your arms to hold your opponent’s upper body (usually the back of their neck or shoulder) to pull them into your knee. Sometimes, if you’re further away, it might not be possible to reach the upper body before you knee (particularly if you’re using the knee as an entry to the clinch – more on this later). 

Kick Shield Holding

At this point, it’s a good idea for you to practice these strikes on a large kick shield. This will allow you to just give it a go. Holding the kick shield is also very valuable. It allows you to feel the impact of kicks and knees without getting injured. Your body will learn to brace for impact and to balance in opposition to hard strikes. You’ll also get a bird’s eye view of your partner’s technique, allowing you to notice what’s working and what’s not working. 

• For Roundhouse kicks, make sure the kicker only sees the side wall of the kickshield. Don’t face the pad towards them. Make it perpendicular so that they kick around the corner. 
• For push Kicks: Face the pad directly at your partner. Also make sure to have a strong stance (stagger your legs front and back and prepare to be pushed backwards). Be aware of your lead knee. If the kicker is off target, you may find your knee being pushed the wrong way. Keep reminding your partner to aim for the centre of the shield.
• For Knees: Turn the shield in the horizontal configuration and also lean your chest a bit more forward so that the shield is angled slightly downwards. Keep reminding your partner to aim for the centre of the shield and beware of accidental groin strikes.
• Hand placement on the kick shield: I always recommend ignoring the straps of kick shields. Instead hold the top and bottom of the shield so that you can quickly transition to holding for all 3 of the strikes above.