Hi all, like i said in meet and greet im really out of shape, i cant do kicks and am not able to do deep stances yet. I was wondering if any of you might point me to some footwork drills that arent to tough to do on the web? Are there any? I'm mostly only able to do higher stances like from a natural walking position at this point but I need something I can work towards to build a foundation on...Thanks in advance.
Easy to learn footwork
- Thread starter Fang
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CuongNhuka
Senior Master
Boxing normally does good tactical foot work (as it's called here sometimes). As, I understand it, so does Kempo. I'm getting this from your User CP, by the way. If you need more, a good source would be dance. Strange as it sounds, I'm serious. Perhaps you would like to here how I know this. Alright...
My Cuong Nhu Sensei is cross training in Wing Chun and he teaches some of the upper ranks the material. Before this I wasn't too good in sparring, this diffenitly helped. Once contact was made (espically on my terms), the other guy was S.O.L. But getting to the point where we were on my terms was the hard part. From my readings I ran across this tyle called Jade Ring Mantis Kung Fu. It's focus is on useing strange foot work to get their opponents into a bad place, or simply hide their intentions. There was no further discussions on the matter, and I couldn't find any other sites that mention it, so I put it in the back of my mind.
Then I ran across this factoid about Bruce Lee. Turns out he did jazz dance to improve his foot work. And he allegedly danced before his fights. I Remembered the Jade Ring concept, and put one and one together and got three. I bought 2 books on ball room danceing and tried it out. Works beautifully.
Keep in mind though, doing dance is demanding. Its a good cardio work out. And you're going to have to do some serious tweaking to get it to work well in a more martial atmosphere.
good luck and good training
My Cuong Nhu Sensei is cross training in Wing Chun and he teaches some of the upper ranks the material. Before this I wasn't too good in sparring, this diffenitly helped. Once contact was made (espically on my terms), the other guy was S.O.L. But getting to the point where we were on my terms was the hard part. From my readings I ran across this tyle called Jade Ring Mantis Kung Fu. It's focus is on useing strange foot work to get their opponents into a bad place, or simply hide their intentions. There was no further discussions on the matter, and I couldn't find any other sites that mention it, so I put it in the back of my mind.
Then I ran across this factoid about Bruce Lee. Turns out he did jazz dance to improve his foot work. And he allegedly danced before his fights. I Remembered the Jade Ring concept, and put one and one together and got three. I bought 2 books on ball room danceing and tried it out. Works beautifully.
Keep in mind though, doing dance is demanding. Its a good cardio work out. And you're going to have to do some serious tweaking to get it to work well in a more martial atmosphere.
good luck and good training
Steel Tiger
Senior Master
I would suggest the eight or so basic stances of gongfu. Moving between them is a good way to develop basic footwork that can eventually be translated into a more tactical format. The stances themselves can also help with strength, balance, and endurance.
Have you picked an art to train in yet? The reason I ask, is because footwork will most likely vary from art to art. Once you choose an art to train in, I'd stick with the basics of that arts footwork first, rather than getting multiple variations to choose from. Once you have your base, then you can experiment with something different.
Mike
Kosho Gakkusei
Blue Belt
The core of Kosho is it's octagon footwork. Personally, I don't like kicking above the hips because kicking high leaves you vunerable and off balance. In actual application a natural type stances are used. The wide stance work is only for strength training because they are slow and cause you to disconnect your upper and lower body. I'm not sure if there are any Kosho schools in your area but you can go to http://www.collectivesociety.com/skski to check it out.
I hope this helps.
_Don Flatt
I hope this helps.
_Don Flatt
CuongNhuka
Senior Master
Wide stances also make it a hundred times easier to throw/take down some body. They're good leverage techniques. There's a reason why most Karate and Northern Kung Fu styles revolve around wide, deep stances.
