Advancing Kicking Skills for the Black Belt

First one must acquire skilled execution, then you have to think about how to develop how to use those skills you have developed.

 

Of course the way first must be to learn to execute the styles kicks, In my case that was the lower body chart my instructor taught, and it incorporated most of the kicks , or variation there of, of Okinawan karate too.

 

But it time, and of course a lot of practice, I came to recognize there was more involved.

For one thing the kicks must be done dealing with the attack of the opponent. And then learning how to maneuver around a basic attack to use the open space around that attack was required.

 

I developed a limited drill beginning at blue belt study, to begin to address this. It was not designed to be a complete study. Rather a long term skill building exercise, which also served to introduce the concept in the student unto dan thinking.

 

Then at black belt I began the next step with more advanced kicking drills, working the use of kicking around the attacker in a variety of ways. Again not a complete study, but useful tools all the same, and opening the dan mind that there were more possibilities to be learnt.

 

This is the first of those kicking drills.

  

1. As they attack, step back with your right foot and execute a left open hand outer parry (as from Seisan kata), then throw a right front kick into the left inner thigh of the attacker and immediately follow with a right cutting kick (the inward striking kick from Nihanchi Kata) to the back of the attacker’s right knee. This is a 1-2 kicking motion with the right foot.