This past Thursday, for the first time since 14 March, we trained with the other people from our dojang, though of course, not at the dojang. Instead, we were outside and separated by safe distances. One the one hand, it was really nice to see our friends IRL. On the other hand, the range of training activities in which we can safely engage has been dramatically reduced. Social distancing and other infection mitigation steps mean that there’s no close-range training. No air shield drills. No defense drills. No partner drills. Ground defense? Forget about it. Just patterns, combos and speed drills. sigh.
Since the Stay-At-Home recommendation went into effect and the dojang was closed for safety reasons, I have been training a lot in the basement, probably putting in more training time than when we were at the dojang three times a week. Over time, we’ve been converting a corner of the basement into a training space. Bookshelves were moved. Clutter was organized. A nice punching bag from Century as well as some fold-up gymnastics mats were really nice additions. If one was feeling particularly generous, one might call this basement corner a “dojang”.
Training regularly at home has had quite a few unexpected benefits. My guiding principle has been two fold. First, to try to maintain some level of aerobic fitness and second, to train in a very conscious way, looking for where a technique feels awkward or off-balance or weak.
During the several weeks before the arrival of the new punching bag, I spent a lot of time on patterns and speed drills. I put a length of blue painter’s tape on the floor and used that to help develop more precise foot placement in both speed drills and patterns. The presence of the tape helps with speed drills because one can throw a swing kick, plant the kicking foot, and then look down and evaluate if one has landed in a good side stance, ready to execute the spinning side kick.
As for patterns, well, the tape really didn’t make much of an impression until, several weeks in, I got bored with doing a full set of patterns every day and decided to make things more interesting by doing my patterns blindfolded. Wow, does a blindfold ever help to highlight issues with balance, center of gravity, and foot placement. Before long I noticed that I could feel the tape on the bottoms of my feet, and that’s when I really started to make my foot placement more precise.
Conscious practice of patterns has been interesting. One of the earliest insights I had during this continuing Stay-at-Home period came during practice of the orange and green belt patterns. In those patterns a side kick is followed by a side fist. I noticed that, for maximum power, one must wait until the side-kicking leg has returned to the ground before launching the side fist. Having two legs as a base from which to start the side fist is so much stronger than starting it early, when only one foot is firmly on the ground. I think, fundamentally this is the same kinetic chain mechanism that is at work with the front inward punch. A side effect of this observation is the reminder that the kick isn’t over until the kicking foot is back on the ground. Focus on a fast recovery.
Early on I noticed that my left, front-leg swing kick was slower and more “lumbering” than my right, front-leg swing kick. Why did a front-leg swing kick with my left leg feel like a such a heaving motion? I spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out where the difference lay. After working for a couple of days on front leg swing kicks with the new bag, I discovered that when performing a front-leg swing kick with my right leg, I keep more weight centered above my left leg, making my kicking leg far lighter. After noticing this difference, and a week of regular practice for around 10 minutes per training session, I think my left leg’s performance is now much closer to the front right leg’s performance.
I noticed while working with the bag that I tend to blink as a kick or strike (especially a strike) lands. This means that for a moment I don’t see what my opponent is doing and I don’t see what is happening at the moment of impact. I’ve started to train myself to keep my eyes open at that moment.
Front-leg reverse swing kicks have been another project, one that was even part of the “Yearly Plan” that I put together, like I’ve done for years, in December of 2019. (Boy, does that feel like decades ago now…) I feel like I’ve made huge progress on this kick, and in the process I’ve learned that there probably really isn’t a way to make it as strong as a regular swing kick. After a lot of study, I talked it over with Sebastian. He agrees with me that all one has to work with in that kick is the muscles of the back of the thigh and the glutes. I was looking for some sort of magic kinetic chain to turn that kick some sort of monster, and such a thing just doesn’t exist.
Speaking of kinetic chains, early on with my experimenting with the new punching bag, I worked on the front inward punch. (It’s just fun to punch the new bag.) I had intuited that there was more power to be found there, but had never really had the time and opportunity to seriously look for it. My previous instructor’s description of the Choi counter-rotation pointed the way, but it took some experimenting to figure out the rest. The trick is to realize that the power in this punch comes from a kinetic chain that is anchored at your feet. You can get more power into the chain if you rotate on the balls of your feet, starting the twist in in the chain. It’s like one of those rubber-band driven balsa planes. You wind up with the counter rotation but the unwinding really comes from your feet. The ‘unwind’ finishes with the lead shoulder launching the fist out.
Front-leg side kicks. I didn’t really think there was more to discover here, but I was clearly wrong. I’ve become conscious of how easy it is to end that kick by folding the leg up at the knee as the thigh travels/falls back to the body’s normal, vertical position. It takes some work, for me at least, to make sure that the second half of the kick, the recoil, is dominated by an action of pulling the knee back into the chamber area. And to make sure that this happens every time. This motion makes a certain kind of sense in that if one spotted an “hole” and was able to “insert” one’s side kick, then one would want to finish by backing out of it in the same way. Furthermore, I’ve discovered that if, during the pre-pivot for the front-leg side kick, one sinks down at the knees even an inch, then when the kicking leg starts to exit the chamber, one can “stand up”, pushing just a little more power into the kick.
I’ve also become aware of how important precise targeting can be in maintaining the power of this kick. You want to strike with your heel. Failing to do so means losing a lot of power as your whole foot levers at the ankle. I’ve been regularly practicing targeting the bag, trying to get to the point where I never miss with the heel. I have improved, but have a very long way to go.
I’ve started regularly drilling my double kicks – at least from il dan plain through il dan green. My left leg kicks have always been little weaker and I’m focusing on them. I see definite improvement here.
These targeting and ‘sink a bit at the knee’ observations apply equally to the spinning side kick.
Training at home, especially with the new bag, has made it possible for me to concentrate on finding and improving the weak parts of techniques. There’s still no real substitute for having a partner against whose reflexes and movement one has to has to react. But it’s nice to know that progress in some areas is still possible during this weird, plague time.