Hi all. Could you help me out? During kicking practice, I often find it hard to stay on balance after executing a kick, particularly if I'm kicking with my back leg. This isn't really too bad with a front kick, but a side or round kick is giving me some bother. When I bring my kicking leg down I find it a struggle to stay on my feet. I know its because I'm inexperienced, but I'm hoping that the more experienced members could offer me some advice. Thanks folks. If you're ever in Timperley, look me up.
I don't train in Kick Boxing but in TKD I too had a problem with balance. My instructor recomended that I stand in front of a mirror and do several kicks to see which way my body was leaning. It turns out that I was often leaning to far back or to far forward. I started thinking more about my center of gravity and doing my kicks slower and with more control and before I knew it I was much more stable in my kicks. Good Luck!
Balance is one of those things which will come with experiance. In a few weeks you'll notice that it's not so much a problem. As for achieving better balance, the best way to do it is to keep kicking; look at the way you kick and see if there's anything noticeable. For example, you might be leaning back to far. I personally wouldn't worry about doing any balance oriented excersizes like standing on 1 foot for long periods of time as it's a different kind of balance required when kicking, than when standing on a single foot.
Make sure your ground foot is pivoted 45 degrees..this will help stabalize you as well as allow your hip to come around more with your mawashi-geri. Also it will prevent knee injury. If you have normal balancing problems, stand on one leg, close your eyes..and various excersizes that will improve the balance.
Where your hands are also helps. On a side kick with your rear leg, try putting both hands in front of and just below your navel. It helped me, anyway. Do you knee people by grabbing them and pulling them in as your knee goes up? Whether you do or not, that worked for me when I did round kicks. The pulling motion of your hands counteracts the pushing motion of your leg, so it should balance out. You'll start to feel your balance after a while, but as a general rule, it's better to lean too far forward than too far back.
damn i useto have MAD MAD MAD problems with this, my trainer told me to like at home just stand on 1 foot and raise the other leg for like a couple of minutes, if you can, a hour
i do it at work when nobody is looking of course they're good excercise. when you're comfortable with it, you can sit down and stand up on one foot
Just keep training, your balance will improve naturally. Before i started MA, i was surprised when i could walk ten steps without falling over, and now its excellent. it'll come, just hang in there.
i agree, i have medical conditions that effect my balance, so when i started i was falling over alot and twisting my ankles alot. Now i can kick someone while they are charging at me and not fall over, i did no specific trainign for my balance its just came over time ( along time for me tho). tho there is one exercise i know of for improveing your balance, cant remembr what you were supposed to stand on exactly but it was basically something soft and uneven like a cushion. you have to practice standing on one leg on the cushion, as that gets easier try slow kicks while on the cushion and/or close your eyes while balanceing on the cushion. you can aslo stand on one leg and hold a heavy book or weight out stretched and move it to differtn positions so you have to move you body to retain teh balance.
Hey guys; thanks a lot! I've a class tomorrow, and I will put your help to good use. Now if I could just afford those snakeskin gloves...
