Frequently Asked Questions...
How can I increase speed of my kicks?
Alright so I have been training in TaeKwon-Do for about seven years. Right now I feel that I can throw punches/hand techniques out fairly quickly. However when it comes to having to do kicks, I feel as if they are fairly slow compared to other people I train with. Are there any ways that I can increase the speed of my kicks without having to worry about starting to do the kicks wrong?
Answer:
Is your stance balanced? If NOTHING else is working, i.e. practicing your kicks isn't speeding your legs up, it might be that you're starting out with your weight distributed incorrectly.
If you're heavy to the front (think boxing style), your hands will be fast, but you'd be faster to put a stamp on your toes and mail them cuz FedEx would get em there faster than your feet! If you're not stepping appropriately to load a kick, then your delivery will be slow too. Look at where you're kicking from and work from there. If your foundation is good, look at your set up, if your set up is good, then look at your kick, if you're still slow, at least you know EXACTLY where.
Other than that, just practice on snapping your kicks onto target. I kick Muay Thai, so I'm not as familiar with TKD, but I know the easiest way for MT to speed up is to work on pivoting the hips. From what I've watched of TKD (I could be totally wrong here), it looks like the speed of kicks is controlled by the speed of indexing your hips, and snapping the lower leg into the kick. Work on each component of your kick individually in slow motion to help fine tune the travel of your leg, then speed things up to develop your muscles.
Speed Kicking
Muay Thai speed kicking
Self Defense: Speed or Power?
When you think about safety, and how you might deal with the issue of an attack; would you think speed or power to be more effective?
The sad fact is that most people don't give a thought to personal safety to begin with. First, we've got to change our thinking about crime and violence. If you want to stay safe and happy in life, you need to first get to the point where you stop imagining that violence and crime happens to "other people". Just look up some crime statistics…or watch the evening news, and you'll see that violence and crime occur closer to home than you think.
The point of this is not to scare you. The point is to get you to see that there is a reason why self defense classes exist in the first place. Some people get into studying one of the many martial arts styles; other people enroll in a one-time self defense clinic like a rape clinic. Some people learn one of the martial arts styles or self defense through a DVD program. Any of these is better than nothing at all. However, the very best option is ongoing training.
Bottom line: learn to protect yourself; because if you go through life pretending that crime could never touch you, you actually place a sign on your head that you could be a victim. Who would want to do that? There isn't a person on Earth who wouldn't like to go through life safely.
Now, flash forward to an actual attack. You have learned self defense and you know how to protect yourself. You have learned that you need to act quickly to give yourself the best chance of getting away safely. Do you need to use power or speed to get out of there as fast as possible?
The answer is not that one is better than the other; but that instead of using one, you need to employ both. In terms of speed, first you need to think and act quickly. This is the most effective use of speed. More effective than super-speed kicks and punches like a Ninja. When you learn to stay calm and think quickly, you have more power even against a stronger opponent.
In terms of power; you do not need to be stronger than your attacker. In fact, chances are you will be smaller and weaker – that's why you are targeted as the victim in the first place. Where your power comes from is the actual moves you have learned and how you implement them.
Protecting yourself doesn't have to be a difficult thing. You can learn the best ways to use your elbow, your feet, your finger or your car keys to surprise an attacker and earn yourself some freedom to get away safely. Speed doesn't have to mean you can run like the wind; and power doesn't have to mean you're built like the Hulk. You just need to take some time to learn effective moves and you have increased your personal safety.
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