Position of Supporting foot in Roundhouse Kick

[wynnema]

I was working on my roundhouse Kick last night experimenting with a few foot positions after watching the Power High Kick Video from Stadion. I have always struggled with the height of this kick but realised last night that I have probably been overturning my hips all these years - worrying too much about rotating the supporting foot to around 180 degrees – which is the way I have been taught. I tried chambering more to the front with the supporting foot only rotated by say 100 degrees and found the kick much easier, higher and controlled – if less powerful. I think the way I have been taught is the traditional WTF TKD technique which is a powerful kick but unless you have an extraordinary range of motion in the hips, you will struggle to get this above shoulder height.

Does anyone have any comments on this?

 

[The Kidd]

I know your problem, I am not blessed with a great deal of flexibility and I have had to tweek a few things due to my body size and type. When I am focusing on a technique oriented roundhouse then I will do it slow rotating that pivot foot 180 degrees chambering and extending properly. When I am sparring to get the power and height I will not turn my pivot foot as much, open up my hips a little more to get height and then roll them on contact to finish with power and the whipping motion. Sometimes perfect technique does not coincide with body type or ability and there has to be a compromise.

 

[exile]

I was working on my roundhouse Kick last night experimenting with a few foot positions after watching the Power High Kick Video from Stadion. I have always struggled with the height of this kick but realised last night that I have probably been overturning my hips all these years - worrying too much about rotating the supporting foot to around 180 degrees – which is the way I have been taught. I tried chambering more to the front with the supporting foot only rotated by say 100 degrees and found the kick much easier, higher and controlled – if less powerful. I think the way I have been taught is the traditional WTF TKD technique which is a powerful kick but unless you have an extraordinary range of motion in the hips, you will struggle to get this above shoulder height.

Does anyone have any comments on this?

180 degrees? Way overrotated, I'd say. For a rear-leg side kick, sure, but not for a turning kick. I train against a hanging heavy bag that sits there laughing and sneering at me unless I do everything right, and what I've found works best is a 90-degree rotation---but the trick is, you must use your quads above the knee to get that lower leg moving fast---really fast---so that by the time you've completed the rotation of the support leg, the striking leg is just about to slam into the target. If I do it right, I can get a grunt or two out of the bag, but if I don't put the two components---the rotation and the strike---together just right, the bag just sits there grinning...

One other thing that you didn't say anything about---is your lower leg moving in a plane that that's dead parallel to the floor? If your arc is moving from lower to higher, you're going to lose a lot of impact. This is a problem that I notice with the roundhouses that a lot of the lower-color belts at my school use---they don't get the chamber high enough and they don't make sure their foot is rotated so it lands on the target completely flat; instead, they do something that looks more like a cross between a proper roundhouse and a front snap kick. It takes them a long time to feel what the right motion would be, and when they do, they suddently realize---sometimes unfortunately in a kind of discouraged way---how tough it is to achieve a really good, technically correct roundhouse.

 

[matt.m]

180 degrees? Way overrotated, I'd say. For a rear-leg side kick, sure, but not for a turning kick. I train against a hanging heavy bag that sits there laughing and sneering at me unless I do everything right, and what I've found works best is a 90-degree rotation---but the trick is, you must use your quads above the knee to get that lower leg moving fast---really fast---so that by the time you've completed the rotation of the support leg, the striking leg is just about to slam into the target. If I do it right, I can get a grunt or two out of the bag, but if I don't put the two components---the rotation and the strike---together just right, the bag just sits there grinning...

One other thing that you didn't say anything about---is your lower leg moving in a plane that that's dead parallel to the floor? If your arc is moving from lower to higher, you're going to lose a lot of impact. This is a problem that I notice with the roundhouses that a lot of the lower-color belts at my school use---they don't get the chamber high enough and they don't make sure their foot is rotated so it lands on the target completely flat; instead, they do something that looks more like a cross between a proper roundhouse and a front snap kick. It takes them a long time to feel what the right motion would be, and when they do, they suddently realize---sometimes unfortunately in a kind of discouraged way---how tough it is to achieve a really good, technically correct roundhouse.

Very well said. I found my kicking partner over rotating last night in class. He was having a hard problem until I corrected him.

 

[Kacey]

It depends on what you're doing - for speed and height, no, you don't need to rotate as far; for power, however, if you don't rotate far enough (much closer to 180) then you risk what happened in a testing a few years back; a woman who was testing for II Dan (I think; might've been III Dan) set up to break several boards with a turning kick, didn't turn her foot (just her leg) and broke her own ankle. I've been pretty careful with my rotation since then; it was a pretty nasty thing to see happen.

 

[terryl965]

It depends on what you're doing - for speed and height, no, you don't need to rotate as far; for power, however, if you don't rotate far enough (much closer to 180) then you risk what happened in a testing a few years back; a woman who was testing for II Dan (I think; might've been III Dan) set up to break several boards with a turning kick, didn't turn her foot (just her leg) and broke her own ankle. I've been pretty careful with my rotation since then; it was a pretty nasty thing to see happen.

Kacey you are exactly right, power comes from the turning completely around and if it is not done properly bone will and have been broken

 

[Touch Of Death]

Foot placement depends on where you are in relation to your opponet dimensionaly.
Sean

 

[Last Fearner]

Hello wynnema! You have received some good insights from others already, but I would like to add my perspective.

First, let me address the following portion of your post:

I was working on my roundhouse Kick last night experimenting with a few foot positions after watching the Power High Kick Video from Stadion.

While I believe everyone should "experiment" with their techniques to fine tune them, I wonder what input your instructor has on this issue more than what you get from a kicking video.

Next:

I have always struggled with the height of this kick but realised last night that I have probably been overturning my hips all these years...

Don't be too quick to condemn the 180 degree pivot, or think that you have been doing the kick wrong "all these years." There are different methods of executing every kick, depending on the circumstances. The roundhouse or "turning kick" (dollyeo chagi: 돌려 차&#44592, can be performed for speed, agility, and power.

Ok, now pay close attention to this one:

I think the way I have been taught is the traditional WTF TKD technique which is a powerful kick but unless you have an extraordinary range of motion in the hips, you will struggle to get this above shoulder height.

As an "old timer" I often get a kick out of the attachment some assign between techniques and organizations such as the WTF. "Traditional WTF" has virtually no meaning to those who learned all of these skills before the WTF, ITF, Kukkiwon, or anything else was created. These "traditional" methods of kicking do not come from the WTF. They come from generations of instructors of various Kwans who handed this knowledge down long ago. Most Taekwondo instructors (of any legitimate training) will teach to pivot further and turn the hips more for a level (horizontal) approach to a power kick. In more recent times, the diagonal sparring kick has become popular for faster, initial strikes with less telegraphing.

You mentioned "extraordinary range of motion in the hips." Most students can stretch enough to kick head high with a fully pivoted roundhouse (180 degrees), but if this kick is limited to chest high, or knee high due to a lack of flexibility then so be it. It is still a proper kick, and can be used in self defense. If your hips have limited agility, a 90 degree pivot is appropriate, and will free up the hip socket for more height, but might sacrifice some potential power (it will still do damage). I am 46 years old, and I pivot 180 degrees for my power roundhouse kicks, and I can get them over 6 feet high - but not everyone will work for that flexibility, or injuries might inhibit it.

Keep in mind, fully pivoted roundhouse kicks from the back leg are used primarily as finishing techniques, after your opponent has been dazed or injured. This is often not even close to what happens in tournament type sparring where most everything is a quick, stunning blow - - which resembles the type of initial strike in the street. How many times does a tournament fighter assume a deep front stance and reverse punch? In the street, these types of stances and kicks are done at the end of the fight to finish off a stunned attacker.

On the other hand, if your using your front leg kick, a 180 degree pivot is very useful. Anyone who has done a seminar with "Superfoot" Bill Wallace knows that he throws three kicks from the front leg (left leg only): The roundhouse, side kick, and hook. All three are done with a full 180 degree pivot. Now, I know Bill has "extraordinary" flexibility, but there are many Taekwondoists who can kick head high with the full rotation. Perhaps a little more stretching will make it easier. Otherwise, it is perfectly ok to modify the rotation to get more height, if you need to, but 180 degrees is not wrong!

CM D.J. Eisenhart

 

[searcher]

I stopped rotating my foot to 180 to save my knees. Not to mention that it releases my hips better.

 

[zDom]

...they do something that looks more like a cross between a proper roundhouse and a front snap kick

It comes up at a 45-degree angle?

The MSK considers this a different kick than the roundhouse: an "arc kick."

IMO, arc kick is a bit faster and great for scoring on the belly right at or just above the belt. Really great for point-style sparring.

And really, at this level can be pretty powerful. But if I REALLY want to rock someone or a heavy bag, the roundhouse is my preference.

The most force is delivered if the kick is coming in perpendicular, it seems to me.

As far as rotation, I don't always fully rotate the supporting foot, but I feel that is more BECAUSE I have flexibility in the hips, not the opposite.

It seems to me that rotating that supporting foot so heel points at target provides MORE range of motion, not less.

Roundhouse, hook kick and sidekick are all more or less delivered at the same body position upon impact — as Wallace demonstrates so well.

Interesting that some of you feel not rotating that supporting leg gives you MORE range of motion ...

 

[exile]

It comes up at a 45-degree angle?

The MSK considers this a different kick than the roundhouse: an "arc kick."

IMO, arc kick is a bit faster and great for scoring on the belly right at or just above the belt. Really great for point-style sparring.

What I see in people who are doing this in my school is that they don't have the strength/balance to chamber the striking leg high enough to deliver the strike in the parallel plane, with the foot turned over to nail the target with the full surface of the instep in contact. So what they do is chamber it as high as they can, and then snap it using the lower quads right above the knee. Since anatomically it's almost imposssible to turn the knee donwards enough to get the plane of the striking foot's arc to be parallel to the ground, their kick inevitably comes up at the same time that it comes around, and as often as not it's the ball of the foot (or worse, the toes---OUCH!!!---that wind up making contact with the target (or would do, in air-kicking practice).

What they find discouraging when they finally understand how the kick should be executed is the amount of work they need to do to get their legs strong enough in the right way to get the chamber to a height where the knee can be properly position for the parallel-to-floor lower leg strike. There's nothing you can do, I don't think, but keep practicing the kick---I've done very heavy leg press exercises, with around a thousand pounds of iron on the machine, for many years, and that still didn't give me the strength I needed to get my chambered leg high enough to do a proper roundhouse---the only way I developed that strength was doing the damned kick thousands of times, sometime holding my leg in the chambered position `frozen' for half a minute or longer---a good training for balance as well as strength; without the balance, you can't apply whatever strength you do have.

And really, at this level can be pretty powerful. But if I REALLY want to rock someone or a heavy bag, the roundhouse is my preference.

Yup!

The most force is delivered if the kick is coming in perpendicular, it seems to me.

Yup again... but as I say, getting the striking leg to the right height, and being able to stay in balance as the knee is brought down so the impact will be dead perpendicular (i.e., the arc is parallel to the floor) is a strength/skill combination that a lot of people take forever to get. I started TKD after birthday that most of the people on MT probably have a good long ways to go before they reach, so flexibility has always been a big issue for me, and I'm acutely conscious of just how much has to go right at once to get the striking leg in the right configuration for a powerful roundhouse kick in good form...

As far as rotation, I don't always fully rotate the supporting foot, but I feel that is more BECAUSE I have flexibility in the hips, not the opposite.

It seems to me that rotating that supporting foot so heel points at target provides MORE range of motion, not less.

OK, yes, it does provide more range of motion---but the problem, at least for me,, is that it puts a huge strain on the knee and moves the optimal point of impact---where the striking foot is being driven by both the hip rotation and the lower quad---much further around the circle that the arc follows---in effect, on the other side of the target! It's like, you create this huge torque by a rotation of say 120-180 degrees, but I find I can't get much power into the kick until I've already swung the striking leg much further than warranted given where the target is. And that much torque... hurts!

Roundhouse, hook kick and sidekick are all more or less delivered at the same body position upon impact — as Wallace demonstrates so well.

Interesting that some of you feel not rotating that supporting leg gives you MORE range of motion ...

There may be a matter of individual skeletal anatomy behind the differences in people's preferences here. For me, rotating the supporting leg 180 is perfect for a rear-leg side kick, but there, the body comes around with the rotation quite a bit so little or no torque along the leg/hip axis is created. But with the roundhouse, given that I don't want to allow my hips to rotate until the striking leg gets started moving, there is a moment in the 180 degree version when the support foot is twisted all the way around, but the hips are still open while the chamber is being established and the striking foot is just begining to move. During that interval, there's just way too much twisting force working on my knee. But with 90 degrees rotation in the support leg, maybe a little more, there's still plenty of `coil' built up, without that very uncomfortable twisting...

 

[zDom]

What I see in people who are doing this in my school is that they don't have the strength/balance to chamber the striking leg high enough to deliver the strike in the parallel plane, with the foot turned over to nail the target with the full surface of the instep in contact. So what they do is chamber it as high as they can, and then snap it using the lower quads right above the knee.

Very true. That is the reason, I am certain, that the roundhouse is required at white belt in MSK TKD and HKD while the arc kick isn't taught until blue belt.

That way we make sure they don't just substitute the arc kick as an "easier" way to do a roundhouse.

But with 90 degrees rotation in the support leg, maybe a little more, there's still plenty of `coil' built up, without that very uncomfortable twisting...

Just a thought, but have you tried letting the lifting motion of the chambering motion lift you up onto the ball of the foot to reduce friction and strain during the pivot? Not quite a "jump" as you never really leave the ground, but similar.

 

[wynnema]

First of all the video is very good and I would recommend it to anyone involved in a martial art with high kicks. My instructor like many instructors although very good at TKD relies on what he was taught by his instructor when it comes to conditioning. These are often outdated methods such as static stretches as a warm up. I have done a little more research and found that a side chamber for high roundhouse used in karate and TKD can ruin your hips. According to the source Japanese Karate stylists demonstrate a side chamber but those who can kick really high do it differently—chambering in front. You can see this on Sabaki Method by Joko Ninomiya from Enshin Karate. The demonstrator shows it one way (wide side chamber) and then when he does it fast he chambers in front. La savate and La Boxe Francaise (French boxing), French self-defense and sport, use the front chamber for roundhouse kicks.

Bizarrely my instructor has just returned from Korea and is now showing beginners more of a front chamber than a side chamber.

 

[exile]

Just a thought, but have you tried letting the lifting motion of the chambering motion lift you up onto the ball of the foot to reduce friction and strain during the pivot? Not quite a "jump" as you never really leave the ground, but similar.

Hi zDom, yes, that's what I do, and what my sahbumnim teaches. I know just what you're getting at! It works fine for me---always I try to pivot on the ball of the foot, and have developed quite a callous there, now that I think about it. And as my striking leg comes around in as flat a plane as I can, with my foot turned over as far as possible (and both Terry and I have complained on another thread that this is an important feature of the kick that we seem to be finding harder to do as we get older), the momentum of the striking foot naturally pivots me around to where my balance foot has been displaced about 90-100 degrees---maybe 110 at the outside limit. It's when the balance foot has been brought around that far that the striking leg makes impact with the target. In order to bring my balancing foot around 180 degrees---I've done some experimentation with this using a heavy bag since this thread got going---I have to add a bit more power from my hips, which gets my balance foot to turn at a faster rate than what is dictated by the angular velocity of my striking leg as it comes around---and then, at the point when it stops, bang, against the heavy bag, I've got too much torque still applying to the balance leg---I can't come around far enough to relieve the pressure of that torque because the striking foot's impact against the target stops my further hip rotation while there's still 70 degrees or so between the position of my striking foot on the one hand and the position of the outside hip, the one attached to the striking foot, on the other. And there's a lot of twisting force on my knee as a result...

First of all the video is very good and I would recommend it to anyone involved in a martial art with high kicks. My instructor like many instructors although very good at TKD relies on what he was taught by his instructor when it comes to conditioning. These are often outdated methods such as static stretches as a warm up.

You're thinking about the kind of dynamic stretch advocated by Thomas Kurz for the pre-workout warmup, yes? I agree, I prefer these for warmup and do about ten minutes or so of them before my own workouts, with the static stretches for the cool-down afterwards. But in class, we do the static stretches, though sometimes we follow up with some of the dyanmic stretches...

I have done a little more research and found that a side chamber for high roundhouse used in karate and TKD can ruin your hips.

Why would it do that, assuming that you're shifting your upper body at the correct angle as you raise chambered your striking leg higher? If you try to keep your upper body perfectly perpendicular to the floor, sure, there's a problem, but if you tilt to compensate, I don't see why there would be a dangerously overloaded strain on the hip flexors...?

According to the source Japanese Karate stylists demonstrate a side chamber but those who can kick really high do it differently—chambering in front. You can see this on Sabaki Method by Joko Ninomiya from Enshin Karate. The demonstrator shows it one way (wide side chamber) and then when he does it fast he chambers in front. La savate and La Boxe Francaise (French boxing), French self-defense and sport, use the front chamber for roundhouse kicks.

But that kind of kick seems far more useful for sport karate/Olympic-style foot tag than for high impact power kicking. Think about the relation among the forces involved. If you chamber in front, no way are you going to be able to swing your striking leg around in that flat plane that lets you slam into the surface of the target on a tanget line dead perpendicular to it, so you're going to be giving up a lot of impact via the vertical component of the impact force. Plus, you don't have as long an arc to build up the velocity component that contributes the lion's share of the potential energy you transfer to the target. It sounds like a kick tailor made for ring-sparring conditions. What I'm looking for in a roundhouse kick is something that will at least wake a heavy bag up, and maybe make it groan in pain if I'm doing everything right. :wink1:

Bizarrely my instructor has just returned from Korea and is now showing beginners more of a front chamber than a side chamber.

Is that surprising, though? My understanding of TKD training in Korea is that it is overwhelmingly aimed at WTF-style sparring apps. The kick you're describing sounds, as I say, custom-made for that use...

 

[wynnema]

here is a video of a high roundhouse with a front chamber.

 

[terryl965]

here is a video of a high roundhouse with a front chamber.

Yes but that video is in connection with the sport aspect of the revolution of TKD.

 

[exile]

here is a video of a high roundhouse with a front chamber.

Well, yes, that's what it is. It's hard to tell just how much power he's generating with the `simple' roundhouse (as vs. the spins) the video starts with. I'd like to see that kick go into the 110lb. bag we have in my school... but again, if you're looking for max power in the kick, you're not going to want it to come in like that, where so much of the vector corresponding to the force is in the vertical component. The roundhouse kick that I practice on the bag is aimed at the leg or the side just above the hips, and is intended to at least buckle or `knock open' an assailant's knee joint, coming around and in from the side, so that even if their knee is bent it's going to get damaged; the entire force of the kick comes in perpendicular to the target's body surface---there's only a horizontal component to the force.

The video is showing a classic double-point head scorer---different kick, different purpose. Thanks for posting it!

 

[zDom]

I am siding with those who believe that chambering the ankle up high with the knee out to the side allows for the delivery of more power.

I have to add, however, that very often in free sparring I will throw a front-round combination (with the front kick more of a feint than actual kick) in order to get opponents to open up their head.

It can stun most people and even probably TKO some, but for REAL power, I always do the old-style chamber.

What is good for sport is not always good for all situations.

Gotta say: impressive jump spinning kicks on that video, and the video has great production. I like the different angles and graphics they used.

 

[exile]

very often in free sparring I will throw a front-round combination (with the front kick more of a feint than actual kick) in order to get opponents to open up their head.

It can stun most people and even probably TKO some, but for REAL power, I always do the old-style chamber.

Wasn't the TKO in the last Olympics finals, won by the Korean fighter, a kick of that kind? When I replay it in what I laughingly call my memory, it seems to've been something much like what you're describing....