540 hook kick help?

[Tetsujin]

Hello. I'm a karateka rather than a TKDer, but I really like the advanced jumping/spin kicks of TKD and I'm looking to improve my skills in this area. I already have a pretty solid spinning hook kick, 360 roundhouse (i.e. tornado kick), and a reasonable 360 hook (at least on my right leg), but the kick I'm trying to learn now is the 540 hook.

I don't have anyone able to teach me this stuff at my karate dojo, so I'm hoping someone here might be able to offer me some tips or advice. The kick I'm talking about is this one here. The technique, as I understand it, is to step in and then take off and 'double-pump', where the first pump is what you do in the first part of a tornado kick (with the non-kicking leg, though in the 540 hook this leg becomes the kicking leg instead), swinging the knee and arms up and across to generate height and spin, and where the second pump is like the first pump in a 360 hook, bringing the second knee (i.e. the non-kicking leg) across the centerline and over the first leg as you chamber the kicking leg.

I've been working on the set up and jump/spin without the kick, simply landing in the hook kick chamber position, and I'm starting to get a feel for the double-pump and rotation. I've also been experimenting with the initial pump, varying it between pumping with the lower leg swung across in a more or less vertical position and with it swung across more diagonal/near horizontal. I'm also unclear on whether to straighten the initial pumping leg (i.e. the kicking leg) between the initial pump and the chamber/kick (it seems this would help rotation, though it also seems more difficult), or whether to keep it tucked up as the guy in the above linked vid seems to do.

I understand the importance of swinging my arms and shoulders to gain height, and then wrapping them close for extra rotation, and while I welcome any advice on that front, it is mostly the leg motion I could use help with. I seem to have something of a mental block against properly lifting my non-kicking leg (i.e. the landing leg) into a proper pump, and really have to force myself to lift it, though the rotation works much better when I do. I could also use tips on body position/axis of rotation, as most of the vid's I've seen have the kicker leaning back a little off the kick during the rotation, but when I try that I tend to lose balance in the spin.

So can anyone offer me any tips or advice for getting this kick down? The more detail the better.

 

[IcemanSK]

I'd recommend this tutorial from Daniel Sterling. He's a good instructor & does this well.

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=qpCFm1sYyQA

part 2
http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=q6MBonNh5gk

I hope it helps.

 

[Tetsujin]

I'd recommend this tutorial from Daniel Sterling. He's a good instructor & does this well.

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=qpCFm1sYyQA

part 2
http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=q6MBonNh5gk

I hope it helps.

Thanks, man. Excellent tutorials, but wrong kick! That one's a 540 roundhouse (i.e. tornado kick landed on the kicking leg), whereas I'm working on the 540 hook (aka cheat720). But I found his tutorial here:

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=0_Rk6NlYZRs&feature=related

Very useful! Thank you.

Edit: I finished watching his tutorial. I've seen two different techniques described before for this kick. One is the 'double-pump' as i described in the OP, and the other is a 'single-pump' which is what Sterling describes in this tutorial - i.e. where you simply bring the first knee all the way around to the chamber for the kick. He doesn't say anything at all about what the non-kicking leg should be doing. Yet interestingly he doesn't do a single-pump technique when he puts it all together - his non-kicking leg does pump up and across somewhat during the kick rather than just hanging there waiting to land, but he doesn't say anything about this during his breakdown of the technique. Perhaps that's the key?! To just let the second (i.e. non-kicking) leg just do whatever it needs to without consciously focusing on how it should move?

 

[IcemanSK]

I wish I could help you further. Daniel is the one person I'd go to for the answer. He's in my TKD org. & is a really great guy & great instructor. Unfortunately, I don't know him personally to ask him.

I hope you can find what you need.

 

[Tetsujin]

I wish I could help you further. Daniel is the one person I'd go to for the answer. He's in my TKD org. & is a really great guy & great instructor. Unfortunately, I don't know him personally to ask him.

I hope you can find what you need.

I appreciate the help. His 540 roundhouse tutorial is excellent too. And not just because I would also like to learn that kick, but because his explanations for the takeoff and rotation for that kick are also directly applicable to the 540 hook.

It would seem that I need to delay the initial pump raise of the first leg until I'm closer to a fully frontal position as he says, and also get the second leg into the air a lot faster as he also explains in the 540 roundhouse tutorial. The timing for a tornado kick gives me plenty of time to throw the first leg early and then delay the roundkick motion until the top of the jump, but I think I need to get out of this habit of timing to make the 540 and 540 hook work well.