How often do you use the more fancier Kicks?

[SahBumNimRush]

One thing I've noticed more recently while sparring is that I tend to prefer the use of my hands over my legs. Going in for a great counter punch combo and maybe ending with a kick seems more natural to me than doing more powerful fancier kicks. I hardly ever use crescent kicks, Tornado kicks, or hook kicks. Mostly just round kicks, twist kicks, and side kicks.

Am I the only one? Sometimes I feel like a poor TKD practitioner because of my lack of kicking in a kick heavy art ( although I know perfectly well how to do them. )...especially after 11 years of it.

I use my hands a great deal. "Fancy" kicks? Depends on what you mean by "fancy." I use crescent kicks, axe kicks, hook kicks, jump back pivot kicks, as well as roundhouse, back pivot, side and front kicks. I don't use the acrobatic kicks, as I don't find them as effective personally.

I've been practicing for 28 years, and although TKD is a kickcentric art, it is perfectly acceptable to have balance between hand and foot techniques. Particularly if your goal is SD oriented.

 

[SahBumNimRush]

Wow, just realized this is an old thread, but it does bring back to life an interesting topic of discussion.. .

 

[RTKDCMB]

99% of all martial artist suck. 99% of all martial artist don't really train. The 1% in any art that do train, would rather easily destroy all of the 99% in any other art. So all this talk is just that, talk. Because just about everyone on this board falls in the 99%, and if pitted againt any actual WTF Olympic fighter would get owned in about 3 seconds. That also goes for any other world class fighter in any other style also. We would all get owned by any other styles at the world class level, regardless of what we practice.

Sounds a little brainwashy, with a touch of arrogance a pinch of self delusion and a dash of ignorance. Somebody had to say that eventually.

 

[wtftkdfanatic]

At this level right now, I'm using a lot of kicks often to sharpen my skill while I can. roundhouses, back kick, tornado kick, spin hook, love the axe and crescent/drop kicks. I'm finding a lot of success in using them too, and sparring at a blue belt level, i'm hoping I can use this practice to my advantage for when I begin to compete again at the black belt level. Nothing's a better feeling than landing a clean tornado kick in a tournament!

 

[ETinCYQX]

At this level right now, I'm using a lot of kicks often to sharpen my skill while I can. roundhouses, back kick, tornado kick, spin hook, love the axe and crescent/drop kicks. I'm finding a lot of success in using them too, and sparring at a blue belt level, i'm hoping I can use this practice to my advantage for when I begin to compete again at the black belt level. Nothing's a better feeling than landing a clean tornado kick in a tournament!

Playing with a bunch of different stuff is exactly what you should be doing at blue belt. When you start BB competition, you'll probably adopt a game plan that's relatively consistent from match to match from what you've learned doing that

 

[steve93]

There is nothing wrong at all with your fighting style, just because a Form of martial arts consists of a lot of kicks does not put you under any pressure to use them all. I trained Tae-Kwon-Do in the UK for many years and competed, with my natural flexibility I found axe kicks, crescent kicks, reverse hook kicks and reverse turning kicks all very effective for me. But this however was not the case for my Old man who much like you LOVED his twist kick! He only mainly threw twist, side, turning and front, all the basic kicks and fought the majority of fights with his hands. Even with this fighting style of his he still became Full Contact British Champ.

So Yeah, I wouldn't worry at all about your fighting style. Use what works for you!