540 kick practice

[IndomitableSpirit]

Hello all, I am a first degree in TKD style, and my instructors have started to show some of us the 540 spinning back hook kick (I think its called) and the tiger kick (roundhouse followed by tornado except you land on the same foot you kicked with). Anyone have any advice on how to get a more effective spin going? I can get the kick to hit, but I dont have enough momentum to land correctly. Thanks :karate:

Sahil Khanna

[Eliz]

Hi Sahil,
Welcome to BudoSeek.

What you call a 540 and what we practice as a 540 are a little different. Our 540 sounds more like your Tiger Roundhouse/Tornado.

My 540 days are about passed, but I still teach it. Break the kick down into pieces. Work each piece individually and make it strong. Than start to put each piece back together. Speed is your main component. When we start to piece it back together, we will actually use spins and hops. Than finally take the spins off the mat into a jump.

Please, please, please - make every effort NOT to land on your knees. I currently have one student is who just sort of stuck on dropping his knees down on the landing. It hurts MY knees to watch him.

[Chrono]

My biggest problem on trying to do a 540 is that I can't get enough height when I jump and, as a result, I can't get the kick in completely.

What you could try to do is what I've heard be referred to as a fake 540. Instead of jumping with the kicking leg, try jumping with the front leg and try it that way. It's not a complete 540, but to people who don't know the difference, it's all the same.

[IndomitableSpirit]

Thanks, il try to break it down, speed defintily seems necessary, il have to work on that.

Ouch, yeah that knee thing hurts, i did it once when i coudlnt complete the kick, wont be diong that any time soon.
Thanks for the tips, keep them comming if anyone has more ^^

[Sapphire]

Yes, break it down and do it slowly by the numbers.

One way to help get height is to do squats with a weight bar. If you don't have one, then do wall-squats. If you build those leg muscles up, those muscles can propell you farthur up. And one last thing, "Keep praticing them and if you perfect them, keep praticing them anyway."

[hizaguchi]

Not familiar with those specific kicks, but for spinning in general there are 2 important tricks.

One is to pre-wind yourself by twisting your upper body in the opposite direction from how you are going to spin, and then start untwisting before you jump so you build more rotational momentum while still on the ground. This is helpful for learning to spin, and you can ween yourself off of it over time once you have the rest of the technique down.

The other trick, which is targeted more at what you are describing, is to pull in your leg after the first kick. This is similar to the way ice skaters speed up their spins by bringing their body as close to their axis as possible. Your rotating kinetic energy is calculated as (1/2)*I*omega^2, where omega is how fast you spin and "I" is a term that depends on how your body is distributed around your spinning axis. If you spread out, I is large. If you keep your body straight and narrow, I is small. Since you can't pick up more energy after you leave the ground, you can increase omega by decreasing I.

[gbarnes]

One is to pre-wind yourself by twisting your upper body in the opposite direction from how you are going to spin, and then start untwisting before you jump so you build more rotational momentum while still on the ground. This is helpful for learning to spin, and you can ween yourself off of it over time once you have the rest of the technique down.


Hi Brandon,
In my humble opinion it is never a good idea to wind up your upper body to develop spin, even as a training aid. It seems to me that it telegraphs your intention and slows the execution, and most importantly can become a bad habit for newer students. If you can truly ween yourself off the windup later, great, but I'm not sure that will happen.

I believe that by leading with the upper body and head to begin the rotational movement, and jumping high with your hips and waist following, you will have a faster, more powerful, and effective kick. You can still do all that with the windup, but I'm not sure that the gain in initial rotation is worth the time delay and, most importantly, the danger of the windup spilling into a student's other techniques. Much of a student's training involves unlearning things that come naturally, but are counter productive to developing speed and power. I am very hesitate to introduce techniques that will have to be consiously unlearned later. I am not opposed to say, advancing a stance to learn turning kicks, or even a kick as simple as a jump back kick, as the modified position will naturally dissappear as the kick is introduced into sparring. But I don't feel the extra time and energy used is worth the result.

As I said, this is all my opinion and everyone has one, right?

Regards,
Gerald

[hizaguchi]

Yeah, it all comes down to how well you can unlearn the pre-winding. I've always had skating and snowboarding going along side my martial arts, so my spinning technique carries over quite a bit. Every time I've ever learned a new spinning technique (tornado kick, 540 mute, whatever), I start out using the pre-wind to get used to the feeling of the rotation and especially the landing. Then I ween myself. I don't have a problem doing it, but I could see how some could, so you are right that it isn't a good idea for everyone.