How important role does Mids/pads practice (kicking/punching) play in your TKD?

[Laplace_demon]

I would say once every second class, we practice various techniques against mits and I find it to be the most rewarding training.

I am referring to kicking against a holder of these types: http://i00.i.aliimg.com/wsphoto/v0/...ont-b-target-b-font-font-b-Martial-b-font.jpg

Two questions for this thread:

1.How often do you practice it in class?

2. Is training without it - practicing techniques in the air, really comparable? Should it not be the number one priority hititng targets? What could be more effective than actual application of techniques against something?

How else would you know the level of your technique (power).
I would be curious what various instructors of Tae Kwon Do have to say about this, too.

 

[andyjeffries]

I'm an instructor.

1) I would say that we only have the two-armed versions of those pads, and we use them about every 6 weeks. More often than not we use normal paddles (every session) or have people wear two sets of body armour (every 3rd or 4th session). This answers the first question.

2) Just because we aren't using those types of pads, it doesn't mean we don't develop/test power. We tend to use bodies covered in WTF Hogu (often two of them for power work) as nothing works better than a realistic target. Also we work on kicking paddles fast (as force = mass x acceleration - kicking faster generates more force).

Personally I've found that an over usage over power pads (such as the ones you show) lends to people performing in a way to develop maximum power but often with an exaggerated movement that wouldn't work against a real human (where you can't just welly them and then take some time to recover the shot back to the ground). So my forcing the focus to be on either speed (paddles) or human targets (double-hogu) we allow people to develop more powerful kicks than kicking in the air, but without the downsides of traditional power bag/pad work.

As I said though, it's not to say we never use kicking shields, it's just more of an "every so often, for fun" type of situation rather than the meat of the training.

 

[Laplace_demon]

I dislike the paddles for one very simple reason - it hurts your foot if you don't hit them correctly with your kicks, while the shield guarantees that no pain will be felt no matter if the technique hit it correctly. Even if it's fairly little felt from hitting the target wrong, it's still annoying and takes the fun out of the practice for me.

In some techniques shields can't be used, but I much prefer it if possible. It also feels better to hit a shield

 

[Tez3]

I dislike the paddles for one very simple reason - it hurts your foot if you don't hit them correctly with your kicks, while the shield guarantees that no pain will be felt no matter if the technique hit it correctly. Even if it's fairly little felt from hitting the target wrong, it's still annoying and takes the fun out of the practice for me.

In some techniques shields can't be used, but I much prefer it if possible. It also feels better to hit a shield

If it hurts your foot when the technique is wrong it's an incentive to get the technique right.

 

[Laplace_demon]

If it hurts your foot when the technique is wrong it's an incentive to get the technique right.

Correct judgement of distancing and other factors account for if my foot hits it correctly, not only the techniques. This is too a challenge I don't need to worry about when using shields.

 

[Tez3]

Correct judgement of distancing and other factors account for if my foot hits it correctly, not only the techniques. This is too a challenge I don't need to worry about when using shields.

Gosh, you are so lucky.

 

[Cirdan]

Correct judgement of distancing and other factors account for if my foot hits it correctly, not only the techniques. This is too a challenge I don't need to worry about when using shields.

Maybe you will have to worry about those factors when actually kicking someone? I am currently working with a partner to improve our kicks doing a hundered kicks or more every day after class in various ways (pads, shields, against the body, slow, fast, moving, pull, kick trough etc) and she has a bit of the same problem (impact too close to the toes). It is definately something that needs to be corrected however. And about pain, if you practice MA you will experience at least some level of it regularly.

 

[Laplace_demon]

I do have distancing problems in predetermined sparring. My legs are tall. I really need to step back more than expected, which impacts both my timing and balance. As to the paddlers I feel as if my foot is too large.

 

[Thousand Kicks]

While I can't speak to how often the training should be done, I believe techniques should be practiced in the air, on paddles, on hogu, and on shields.

Practicing in the air requires control. Hitting something heavy allows you to swing full force and the impact can hide things like not being on balance or not properly recovering your kicks. Practicing in the air requires you to control your kicks to prevent hyperextension. It also requires you to control your balance. We should always consider what happens if we miss a technique completely.

Practicing on paddles or targets allows you to concetrate on accuracy. Hitting a specific target versus just throwing a kick out

Practicing on hogus is excellent for using moderate power, but the biggest benefit is understanding proper distance and what targets you are trying to hit on an actual body. The down side is your partner can only take so much so you can't go crazy

Practicing on shields gives you the sensation of hitting something with full force. As physics states, when you hit something, some of the force is absorbed by your body. Hitting the target incorrectly will result in pain.

To truly undertsand if your are doing a kick correctly, you have to train using all types of targets.

 

[RTKDCMB]

As to the paddlers I feel as if my foot is too large.

My feet are a size 13 and the paddles work just fine.

 

[chrispillertkd]

I dislike the paddles for one very simple reason - it hurts your foot if you don't hit them correctly with your kicks, while the shield guarantees that no pain will be felt no matter if the technique hit it correctly. Even if it's fairly little felt from hitting the target wrong, it's still annoying and takes the fun out of the practice for me.

"Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to go to his class." - Gen. Choi, Hong Hi

Pax,

Chris

 

[Jaeimseu]

I do have distancing problems in predetermined sparring. My legs are tall. I really need to step back more than expected, which impacts both my timing and balance. As to the paddlers I feel as if my foot is too large.

Ideally, only the proper impact surface should contact the paddle. For example, if practicing round kicks, we hold the paddle with the spine down. If the kick is thrown incorrectly (like a front kick) it will hurt and let you know clearly what you're doing wrong. We kick with the instep, so the toes never make contact with the target of the distancing is correct.

I do think it's important to teach students how to hold correctly, which is something I think is often neglected.

 

[andyjeffries]

Ideally, only the proper impact surface should contact the paddle. For example, if practicing round kicks, we hold the paddle with the spine down. If the kick is thrown incorrectly (like a front kick) it will hurt and let you know clearly what you're doing wrong. We kick with the instep, so the toes never make contact with the target of the distancing is correct.

That's brought up an interesting point to me (and one I don't know if you intended). I have a lot of students that I overhear asking for the laced-spine direction to be changed, which I always correct and say that it doesn't matter whether the laces are rotated (from any given position) by 180 degrees, as you should be hitting perpendicular to them anyway.

This happens less with the JCalicu paddles that have a little nubbin (for want of a better word) at the end of the handle that makes it feel really awkward unless you hold it laces towards the holder.

I do think it's important to teach students how to hold correctly, which is something I think is often neglected.

I completely agree, there are different positions for different kicks, people need to know how to hold them - and most importantly why it's that way.

 

[TrueJim]

For what it's worth, at our school they teach to hold the paddle with the rounded edge pointed in the same direction as the toes of the foot at impact. I think the idea is that the center of the striking surface of your foot should be hitting the rounded area of the paddle so that the paddle will rotate a slight bit in the holder's grip. If instead you hold the paddle with the spine pointed in the same direction of the toes, the paddle won't rotate in the holder's grip.

Probably about every-other class at our school incorporates kicking drills in the class, half of the time using paddles, and half of the time using kicking shields. Some of our kicking-drills are to improve speed ("do twenty kicks really fast!"), others to focus on power ("kicks come more slowly, but kick as hard as you can"), and others to focus on accuracy. For accuracy drills we generally use paddles. For power drills we generally use shields. (One of former instructors also used to use big elastics during the power drills, the elastics pulling you back away from the target so that you had to push your body against the elastic to kick...those were fun drills, but whew! exhausting.)