High kicks have an arguable use in self defence although they display excellent athletic performance and look great.  In combat sports, particularly in full contact ones, many people have adopted techniques that limit kicks level to the waist and below.

Bill “superfoot” Wallace retired in the early eighties as undefeated world champion in the middle weight of full contact kickboxing: his combat strategy was always based on fantastic kicking techniques that often caught by surprise his opponents and knock them KO.  Wallace was not just good and superfast in kicking but he could shoot double of triple kicks with a single leg, using these techniques in the same way most boxers faint punching techniques.

In this video he shows some stretching for kicks, one of his legendary training exercises to help improving the central split particularly useful for round, side and hook kick.  Please enjoy the view and leave a comment:

Posted under fitness, video_review

I bumped into these videos and I decided to create this post for a few simple reasons:

• The drills are well explained starting from the correct posture and stance all the way to their complete execution;
• The performer continuously refers to boxing techniques and shows how the weapon attack can always be adapted to the bare hand strikes;
• Using Eskrima/Kali sticks is a great workout even if you are practicing other martial arts.

The only little problem is the low quality of the audio and the interference from various vehicles passing by.

Enjoy!

Posted under video_review

Bill “Superfoot” Wallace is one of the kickboxing legends that built his fame and career on great kicking techniques.  Here is a short clip I found on YouTube, taken from one of his commercial videos.  It shows one simple exercise about how to improve the central split.

Enjoy the view and comments are always appreciated.

Posted under educational, video_review

I found this video (see below) on you tube and it shows, supported by scientific evidence, a number of facts about what martial art deliver the strongest punch, kick and so on: the video is a National Geographic production and it’s very well made.

Here some of the facts that emerge:

• Boxing delivers the strongest punch.  Boxing is solely based on punches so boxers continuously refine their techniques until is well polished and super powerful.  Another interesting aspect to consider is that there are many people that practice oriental martial arts for a number of reasons outside sport fighting.  Boxing on the other hand is for fighting and punching hard is part of the specs.
• The power of any kind of strike is very much based on proper footwork and the co-ordination of the whole body.
• The most powerful kick is a spinning back side kick: as know it is the combination of using the large groups of muscles from the leg and the bottom, together with a fast spinning action that adds momentum to the technique.
• A knee strike from a professional Muay Thai fighter may deliver the same impact of being hit by a car travelling at 35 Mph.

I enjoyed watching this video that alternates real life scenes of martial artists striking a dummy in a lab, together with some computer graphics animations that show the physics of the impact while it’s happening.  There are also a few scenes from kung fu movies typically choreographed in Hong Kong style.

While I agree with the general conclusions shown in the video I would like to point out a main factor that makes it a bit unfair.  It is a fact that number people of similar size and body shape might have completely different muscle density and deliver very different results in term of strength and power when striking.  At the same time body weight plays a very strong role in the power delivered in a strike.

I don’t agree in measuring and comparing in absolute terms the over thousand pounds of strike from the boxer, to the lower result obtained by the kung fu master who is obviously much lighter than the rest of the people in the show.

Posted under educational, video_review

I recently found this video (see at the bottom of the post) on YouTube and I was impressed simply because it’s rare to see somebody using his legs in such an efficient, powerful and effective way.
When I started karate and kick boxing, in the early eighties, it was noticeable a strong predominance in kicking techniques.  At that time people like Bill Wallace and Dominique Valera were dominating tournaments worldwide and most people entering competitions felt they had to be great kickers.  I remember my master going to seminars run by these legends of kick boxing and coming back with more and more tricks about strategies and combinations of kicks to be used in training and competitions.

Then, within a few years, a new generation of kick boxers started to populate the world.  These new people were not excellent kickers, not very flexible in the lower part of their body, so they started to develop techniques and strategies to use a minimum amount of kicks in any given fights while using more and more boxing techniques.

By definition a kick is a powerful technique: it delivers a lot more power and damage then a punch but it also uses a lot more energy and it’s usually slower.  These simple rules changed completely the trends in full contact and professional fights: in the last few years you can see all fights being dominated by good punching, a few round and front kicks and literally no much else.  In K1 or in MMA people tend to punch, kick and knee in the former or, often, looking for the grappling in the latter.

Nonetheless it’s nice to see that occasionally a good kicker enters the professional arena and when that happens he/she usually dominates for a some time, at least until a better kicker comes out or somebody studies very carefully how to avoid being kicked and defeat the kicker by using different techniques.

Posted under celebrities, styles, teaching, video_review