Are there examples of large stocky guys like me pulling off acrobatic kicks?

[Zeny]

I would train a spinning kick. It looks awesome and i would probably feel awesome if i could do it.

 

[Phobius]

You and him would probably get along great.

One thing confuses me, your sifu does not feel you should do this. He already knows how to do it and says no to you doing it. Also you have trained the different parts of the spinning kick, I assume with his guidance.

Am I the only one here having a sense that your sifu believes you are not yet ready to learn that kind of spinning kick without the risk of injuring yourself severely?

So the goal is not to do the spinning kick, the goal is to learn to do it. As such take your time, continue train as your sifu instructs you. Get better at kicking and one day you will not have to train to do a spinning kick, it will just be something that is quite easy to do if you need to do it. As soon as something is hard to do, it should mean you are not ready to do it from a fighting context. The only thing that should be hard is to find the strength and willpower to continue doing the stuff you do and improve yourself a little bit every day.

Complex stuff can not be used in fighting anyway, those guys doing a "complex" kick are actually just doing a very easy kick to them. What they do comes easy. Until the same applies to you you are not yet there.

 

[RTKDCMB]

There was a Fijian guy called the head hunter who was known for a spinning kick ko. That almost killed people.

I think his name is 'Manly Spandex', whoops sorry, I mean 'Stanley Nandex'.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

One of the best things to know about martial arts is to know yourself. It is good to push boundaries, to try things you currently cannot do, and to always strive to improve. But it is another thing to ignore who and what you are and try to be something you are not. I am not a hummingbird at 235 pounds. I do not float so much as I plummet. Acrobatic kicks are beyond me, and I get that. That does not mean I am limited; my size gives me advantages others do not have, including the ability to hit like a train and to absorb punishment that others might have difficulty with.

I guess what I am saying is, play to your strengths. And be honest with yourself.

 

[drop bear]

One of the best things to know about martial arts is to know yourself. It is good to push boundaries, to try things you currently cannot do, and to always strive to improve. But it is another thing to ignore who and what you are and try to be something you are not. I am not a hummingbird at 235 pounds. I do not float so much as I plummet. Acrobatic kicks are beyond me, and I get that. That does not mean I am limited; my size gives me advantages others do not have, including the ability to hit like a train and to absorb punishment that others might have difficulty with.

I guess what I am saying is, play to your strengths. And be honest with yourself.

Yeah but for most people that is desire. Not fate. If you wanted to do acro you probably could.

 

[Flatfish]

OK. 540 kick ko.

]

I don't have time to watch the other videos right now, but the kicks shown in these two are not what we call 540 kicks. The first one is a spinning heel kick that he immediately followed up with a tornado...two separate kicks. The first kick backs the guy into the corner as a set up for the tornado.
The second vid is a 360 kick. In my school we call those reverse roundhouse. The difference to a tornado being that you don't take a step forward first. You start spinning as if you were gong to thow a spinning heel kick but keep going all the way around into a roundhouse. And yes those and tornados get used in TKD competitions actually fairly frequently. Hell even I have managed to land one before and I suck.

 

[Balrog]

Sammy Hung did some pretty cool stuff, and he's not exactly thin.

"I think I broke my ***!"

I love cheesey chop-socky movies like this!

 

[Ironbear24]

One thing confuses me, your sifu does not feel you should do this. He already knows how to do it and says no to you doing it. Also you have trained the different parts of the spinning kick, I assume with his guidance.

Am I the only one here having a sense that your sifu believes you are not yet ready to learn that kind of spinning kick without the risk of injuring yourself severely?

So the goal is not to do the spinning kick, the goal is to learn to do it. As such take your time, continue train as your sifu instructs you. Get better at kicking and one day you will not have to train to do a spinning kick, it will just be something that is quite easy to do if you need to do it. As soon as something is hard to do, it should mean you are not ready to do it from a fighting context. The only thing that should be hard is to find the strength and willpower to continue doing the stuff you do and improve yourself a little bit every day.

Complex stuff can not be used in fighting anyway, those guys doing a "complex" kick are actually just doing a very easy kick to them. What they do comes easy. Until the same applies to you you are not yet there.

Not at all what happened. His friend who is in TKD came by because he likes working on his hand work. After class we normally stick around for a little bit and continue training, during this time his friend showed us these kicks.

Someone asked hey can you show us how to do these kicks? So he broke them down slowly and step by step. So our sifu did not teach them to us, his friend did.

One of the best things to know about martial arts is to know yourself. It is good to push boundaries, to try things you currently cannot do, and to always strive to improve. But it is another thing to ignore who and what you are and try to be something you are not. I am not a hummingbird at 235 pounds. I do not float so much as I plummet. Acrobatic kicks are beyond me, and I get that. That does not mean I am limited; my size gives me advantages others do not have, including the ability to hit like a train and to absorb punishment that others might have difficulty with.

I guess what I am saying is, play to your strengths. And be honest with yourself.

Yeah I agree with you. I think that is where he was coming from when he told me to do get better at what you are already comfortable with.

I tend to favor punching and elbows more than I do fancier kicks. As far as kicks go the only "fancy" one I do is a spinning side kick, I been sticking to the more basic stuff, side kick roundhouse ect.

 

[Flatfish]

Yeah I agree with you. I think that is where he was coming from when he told me to do get better at what you are already comfortable with.

I tend to favor punching and elbows more than I do fancier kicks. As far as kicks go the only "fancy" one I do is a spinning side kick, I been sticking to the more basic stuff, side kick roundhouse ect.

I agree with that as well. The fanciest kick we learn in our curriculum is the tornado. I practice and use it occasionally, but by and large my time is better spent practicing the higher percentage techniques.

 

[JowGaWolf]

Hey my kicking has gotten much better since then, but thanks for the videos. Here is another question I have, why are these kicks taught at all if they are not practical. I believe you that they aren't practical and that was the wrong word for me to use. I guess the phrase would be "Would it be worth my time trying to learn how to do these kicks?"


I have never seen the guy use them in sparring either lol. .

Unless you just want to be fancy, there's no real fighting benefit to learning these kicks. People who don't understand kicks will get hit by fancy kicks. The most spin you'll need for any type of attack is 360. Anything more than a 360 will put you at risk. Especially if you are fighting someone that understands the weak points of those fancy kicks.

This guy gets cheers for his kick but in a fight situation look where he is. On the ground. If you watch professional fighters do it, you'll see that is exactly where they will often land when doing it.

I talked to my sifu and he said if he finds me practicing them he will be disappointed. He wants me to improve on what I already have experience

I agree with your sifu on this. Your time will be better spent on something you can actually use to fight with than trying to learn a fancy kick.

 

[JowGaWolf]

This is what happens when someone starts to understand a TKD kick. Keep in mind that you have no root when you are in the air.

 

[Zeny]

Quite obviously fancing jumping spinning kicks are rather pointless in actual combat, but I think the practice to learn and execute those kicks effectively, forcefully and accurately on a stationary target will teach us something about our body and balance that is useful for something other than doing those fancy kicks.

Just a guess of course, as despite two years in taekwondo i could not even execute a proper 'back swing' kick without losing my balance.

 

[Phobius]

Just saying one thing. You don't train a technique to get better balance and power. You train you balance, coordination and power generation which allows you to do techniques.

Your traits come first, then the techniques. Doing the opposite will just give you injury in the long run.

 

[drop bear]

I don't have time to watch the other videos right now, but the kicks shown in these two are not what we call 540 kicks. The first one is a spinning heel kick that he immediately followed up with a tornado...two separate kicks. The first kick backs the guy into the corner as a set up for the tornado.
The second vid is a 360 kick. In my school we call those reverse roundhouse. The difference to a tornado being that you don't take a step forward first. You start spinning as if you were gong to thow a spinning heel kick but keep going all the way around into a roundhouse. And yes those and tornados get used in TKD competitions actually fairly frequently. Hell even I have managed to land one before and I suck.

The difference isn't that big. So op. Let's off a tweeked version of an acro kick that works for him. Rather than do a 540 or 720. The latter being a bit ambitious.

 

[drop bear]

Just saying one thing. You don't train a technique to get better balance and power. You train you balance, coordination and power generation which allows you to do techniques.

Your traits come first, then the techniques. Doing the opposite will just give you injury in the long run.

Why?

 

[drop bear]

Unless you just want to be fancy, there's no real fighting benefit to learning these kicks. People who don't understand kicks will get hit by fancy kicks. The most spin you'll need for any type of attack is 360. Anything more than a 360 will put you at risk. Especially if you are fighting someone that understands the weak points of those fancy kicks.

This guy gets cheers for his kick but in a fight situation look where he is. On the ground. If you watch professional fighters do it, you'll see that is exactly where they will often land when doing it.

I agree with your sifu on this. Your time will be better spent on something you can actually use to fight with than trying to learn a fancy kick.

You can find more fancy kicks ending fights than kicking knees out.

 

[drop bear]

Not at all what happened. His friend who is in TKD came by because he likes working on his hand work. After class we normally stick around for a little bit and continue training, during this time his friend showed us these kicks.

Someone asked hey can you show us how to do these kicks? So he broke them down slowly and step by step. So our sifu did not teach them to us, his friend did.



Yeah I agree with you. I think that is where he was coming from when he told me to do get better at what you are already comfortable with.

I tend to favor punching and elbows more than I do fancier kicks. As far as kicks go the only "fancy" one I do is a spinning side kick, I been sticking to the more basic stuff, side kick roundhouse ect.

So you are more comfortable doing a technique you have actually practiced than one you have tried to do for a day?

Would you be doing less basics in favor of training this kick?

(I just really hate people believing they have to settle for being mediocre. You choose that)

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

Just saying one thing. You don't train a technique to get better balance and power. You train you balance, coordination and power generation which allows you to do techniques.

Correction, you don't train a technique to get better balance and power. Does not mean anything about what other people do..plenty people train techniques with that purpose, and it works fine.

Your traits come first, then the techniques. Doing the opposite will just give you injury in the long run.

Not if you do it gradually (not trying 720 jump spinning heel kick right away). Plenty of people do the opposite, and do not get injury from it.

 

[JowGaWolf]

I agree with that as well. The fanciest kick we learn in our curriculum is the tornado. I practice and use it occasionally, but by and large my time is better spent practicing the higher percentage techniques.

Same here. I think the tornado kick is as fancy as Jow Ga gets, which is fine because we'll front kick and side kick a person a hundred different ways. One of the advantage of being a circular style is that we understand how to deal with circular attacks.

When a person spins to do a kick I already know which side the kick is going to come from and that it's coming for my head.

You can find more fancy kicks ending fights than kicking knees out.

Just understood what you mean by kicking the knees out. I wasn't pointing kicking the knees out. I was pointing the kick has no root. I don't have to kick your knees out. I could punch you in mid air, I could move forward and bump you, I could do a lot of things while you are in the air spinning around. it's not a difficult kick to deal with. If you spin to your right then the kick will land on my right. If you spin to the left the kick will land on my left. The only thing I would need to do is move to the center of your rotation and interfere with you being able to land. You are suspended in the air so it's not like you are going to dodge anything

If you were to fall on concrete the same way that some of the guys in the video fell, then the fight would be over.

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

That said, while I find fancy kicks as good way to learn balance, control and speed with normal spins, and find spin kicks to be very effective, I would never suggest to someone that I'm training/coaching to actually use one in a fight. One spin is more than enough, and anything more just adds risk.