[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iWIcGOUn-0"]Training video 1 - YouTube[/ame] Yesterday, I decided to take a couple videos of my training to critique my technique and isolate weaknesses. I'm uploading them to YouTube as we speak and will continue to post them here as a training log and as a reference. I would greatly appreciate any pointers you guys can give me. In this video, I noticed I drop my hands when I kick. BAD HABIT! My roundhouse kicks could use a little work as well. Any thoughts? http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=plcp&v=3iWIcGOUn-0
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gX0OXdGbGnY"]Training video 2 - YouTube[/ame] In this video I'm working specifically on head kicks. The issues I've noticed are these. I need much more flexible hips. I can't chamber my roundhouse kicks high enough to deliver a good head kick. My front kicks are slow to get up that high. That should just be a matter of doing them more and stretching.
[ame="http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=w1RC1TuM3G8"]Training video 3 - YouTube[/ame] This is me practicing rear leg round house kicks using my shin for a change. I can see the usefulness for kicking while closer. Although I will need to do some shin conditioning.
You had a strange m in the original url. Once I deleted it it went to the normal youtube page. I then copied and pasted that.
Before I offer any feedback it would be useful to know what it is you are training for/trying to achieve with your padwork here. what are your SMART goals? http://www.practicalkarate.co.uk/BillB2.html
Grass hopper, props for posting your training videos. I love seeing these and it definitely helps make the place feel more of a community. In the first video I would have liked to have seen you slow down a little. Hit, hit, hit, then check balance and positioning. Then go again. In the second video I would have liked to have seen you check your balance and positioning at the end of the movement. Kick, land, then re-assess. Are you balanced, where are your feet, am you too close or too far away etc. Excellent work and please keep the videos coming.
Disclaimer: My background in karate specifically is limited to 5 years of taekwondo (pre-olympic style shotokanish taekwondo) and 6 months of Shotokan. So take this with a grain of salt. Something on you needs to go through the target. In the karateish stuff I've done, the round kick is "loaded" at the knee. So the knee needs to be aimed somewhere inside the target. If we were talking muay thai, I'd be saying the same thing about the hip instead. But you're doing neither one, so the range of motion on your round kick is getting snuffed out on the surface of the bag. The result being a weak kick. You're also not opening up your hip, though that may be a stylistic decision. I don't know. You also choke up on your reverse punch. Getting too close to the target and not committing your hip and shoulder to the punch. You're flurrying too much. A third as many hits, delivered with real power, would do you worlds more good. Does that make sense? EDIT: I'm glad Simon said what he did. I wish I had the first time around. But yes, kudos for posting video and inviting critique. It speaks volumes about you. Keep it up.
At the moment, I'm training in preparation for a knockdown tournament in the fall. I've never done something like this before and I've had to make a few tweaks to my karate to be better suited for it. Long term, I want to be a well rounded karateka. To me karate is not just for self defense (although that is a large portion) but a long lived cultural tradition.
Thanks, I can see what you mean on the reverse punches. And as for the hips, I've always had that issue. My hips are remarkably stiff. I've become convinced to stretch them everyday. They don't open up properly so as a result, my end house kicks are fairly weak.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmF2UeDN9dY"]Pinan shodan - YouTube[/ame] This is Pinan shodan. My head seems to be creeping forward and my forward stances in the end could use some cleaning up.
That's not entirely why they're weak though. You're also positioning yourself oddly before you kick. Imagine you're kicking with your right leg. Even without taking the hip into account, if you were a step further to your left when you kicked, it would hit A LOT harder. You need the force of your kick to penetrate the target. So, if the force of your kick were travelling forward (e.g., side or front kick), you wouldn't want to be too far away from the target. Or it simply wouldn't hit very hard. Right? Same deal with the curving kicks, like the round kick. You just need to step into your kick a bit.
I have. Hanging bad, but it's not a great one. If I give the wave master a real good hit at full force it falls over, but these ones are fairly good. I'm not going full bore on every strike in the video so it stays standing. I will be ordering a better hanging bag in not too long. Maybe a month or so.
