Watch the Fight
4 March 2007 -- Round Kick
I saw over on Karate Underground somebody critiquing my round kick on the basis that it didn't comply to the standard shotokan mawashi geri. I know this was meant as a criticism, but I can only take it as a compliment!
From my perspective, any effective strike has got to be the result of total body movement, simultaneous or sequential. The power and the depth of the penetration come from the entire body being used to violently launch, drive, or whip the striking part into the target. That's what I was demonstrating on You Tube, particularly with regards to the way that the arms are used to increase the velocity of the front kick, round kick and knee strikes. This is similar to the way a runner uses his arms as part of the transfer of the momentum from the upper torso through the waist, pelvis and legs into the ground. Just try running with your hands in your pockets to see what I mean.
Like I say on the film (if anybody was listening) I use the entire body. The head, the arms, the upper torso, the trunk, the pelvis, and the support leg are all connected and involved through the axis of the spine and hips, and they act to drive out the fold of the striking limb. It's like cracking a whip. The kick most definitely isn't flicked, or swung like someone with a peg leg might do.
When learning the round kick, or any move for that matter, initially it is most important to learn how to increase the mass velocity of the entire body and transfer that momentum into the striking limb. You get the accuracy later. Indeed, any concerns with accuracy at this point will inhibit the release, as will any attempt to consciously control the separate motor events taking part within the motor skill. At this phase of learning it's important to have a holistic visual and kinesthetic representation of the move; you get this by observing and 'taking in' the impression of the movement of someone like Buakaw (below). With this representation in mind you go about ordering your movement as a whole, based upon what you need to do. I advise that you do this rather than focusing upon trying to fulfill the key elements of the move as they might have been described to you; the latter method of learning simply leads to a motor-oriented response rather than a stimulus-oriented one.
Remember that the kick is part of a dynamic equilibrium and not a static one. It involves the whole body. That's why not only another kick, but any other movement, can follow on immediately . The momentum from the previous release provides the momentum for the next and the next and the next. It's like running. You just keep going. It's a natural process; it's just that the innate relex and behavioural patterns of the body have been been dynamically and tactically modified for a kick.
Natural movement process has got to work in accordance to the laws and principles of force and motion and in consideration of the requisite tactics; those three things have to be integrated in a dynamic, explosive way. And this is done by the impression of needed response, which is emotionally driven.
See an example below: Buakaw, the 70kg K1 fighter from Thailand. This should be the gold standard if you are a kicker. If you are MMA you've naturally got to modify it (which I've done, and on my films you see how that modification has evolved). But in terms of natural movement and explosive power, total body movement and recovery with no fucking production: this is the gold standard. One bullet fires, BANG, it's gone, next one already loaded. And the next and the next and the next. This is what I mean by cyclonic movement, or Uzi mentality.
Take a look. And there are lots of other great clips of this guy on You Tube. This is just one.
Now, let's look at the mawashi geri, something I have experience of because I practiced karate. Like me, the guy you're going to see in the next clip is getting on in age. But that's the only way in which he's like me, because we've got two completely different approaches. In fact, we could almost be from different planets. His skill is about total control of the movement at every moment. Total control is the prerequisite for the mastery of the skill, as opposed to knocking the guy out in a chaotic fight situation. It's more about aesthetics than combat.
This kick is the creation of Funakoshi Yoshitaka, who could be said to be the father of modern Shotokan. He had a preoccupation with exaggerated postures and movements; hence the high knee action. Funakoshi Yoshitaka's karate was more gymnastic than combative, and this emphasis on aesthetics has persisted to the present day. Somehow, even in the light of ring evidence of Muay Thai, for example, Shotokan practitioners have continued to uncritically accept the kick as handed down to them.
Undoubtedly there are going to be those who will defend this kick on the grounds that it's a 'basic' upon which further modifications and refinements, more suitable to fighting for example, can be made. However, the fundamental pattern as presented here, together with the principles and concepts that underlie it, is flawed. Therefore, any further modifications and refinements will be equally flawed, unless these underlying patterns are completely altered; but if that's the case, then the result is no longer the same kick. And why teach one thing as a basic and something completely different as an advanced move? That would be just confusing.
This kick is based on a static equilibrium rather than the rapid, dynamically changing one required of a violent exchange. Here the arms function to balance, rather than to create momentum. The dynamics of the axis (spine, hips and support leg) are not contributing to the release of the kicking leg. The axis is virtually static
It's an example of the tail wagging the dog. Rather than contributing to the development and release of the kick, the axis in this case is acting like a door post: static and dead. The momentum for the kick is coming from the kicking leg. There are no forces, linear or rotary, being generated through and around/about the axis of the spine and hips, and it is those forces that need to be transferred to the kicking leg. In other words, in this example the whole way of performing the kick is back-to-front.
And in fact, when the axis is held inert, it actually brakes the development and release of the striking force, not to mention the follow through. When you think about it, this makes sense because the kick in karate needs to be checked from hitting the target. But using the axis of the spine/hips in this way to brake or check the release can have devastating effect on joints of the spine hips and knees. Personally I'd rather have someone else suffer the effects of my blows rather than, some years down the line, suffering them myself!
Even when you rotate passively on the supporting foot, you are still acting to brake the shot when in fact any repositioning or rotation of the support foot should be active and contributory, not passive. Otherwise, the friction will simply slow the movement down.
This isolated type of movement typical of karate not only reduces power but disconnects one move from another. Because the movement is disconnected from the major axis of the spine and hips (which is the real source of biomechnical power in the body) it cannot be performed in rapid, repetitive way; nor can it be easily included in a series of different moves, all performed rapidly. Mastery of the body means mastery of the spine and hips; but in the mawashi geri we see here, the spine and hips are disconnected from the movement.
Also notice that the stance is extremely deep and in preparation for the kick, the leg is cocked. As a trainer, you're always examining skills on the basis of development time, release time, follow-through and recovery time because it is within these periods that the fighter can be countered. And so you're invariably looking to reduce these periods of time, not increase them. When I look at this clip, there is simply too much time being spent on the move and the transition time to the next move.
And it's no good making the assumption that if the shit hit the fan these moves could be speeded up. Synaptically-speaking, you are what you practice. If you are accustomed to practicing in a motor-oriented way, you can't suddenly switch and make the movement stimulus-oriented for the heat of battle, because that's not what you've trained. You've trained to fulfill a criteria of movement (even on the competitive mat, because you won't get the point if the move doesn't meet the requirement of the form). The all-important factor of chaos has been removed from the environment. But in reality, the skill is only effective if it works within a chaotic environment. That's the testing ground; not some artificially contrived environment that's been designed to highlight the effectiveness of the skill.
Equally, when you look at the positioning and movement of the head, it in no way reinforces the axis or complements the dynamics of the kick. Indeed, it rather looks like the guy's trying to balance an imaginery book on his head.
But hey, this skill is not about knocking the guy out. Instead, it's about presenting an aesthetic representation of doing so. Knockout, bone-breaking power isn't generated by some mystical force of ki or chi but has to be generated by the interaction of violent physical forces. And there's no evidence here of any of the emotion or the biomechanical elements necessary to do that. In fact, we could say that this mawashi geri is all about not knocking the guy out, in that the kick in competition cannot be delivered with full force. And if you train to restrain the forces of the kick, then you'll never experience the knockout, unless it's an accident.
Equally, if you do not train the Muay-Thai type of full power kick, then how will you ever learn to defend against it should you encounter it? In fact, when it comes to some of the ways that karate people have been taught to block the mawashi geri, they'd be likely to break their arm if they tried it against a Thai kick.
The example where the mawashi geri does work in karate is Kyokushin Kai. That kick might be a mawashi geri in name, but it has a history of its own. In nature it's been borrowed from Muay Thai. And that came as a result of the karate vs. Thai boxing matches (gloves and no gloves) that took place in the early 1960s, in which the karate practitioners were trounced. One of those karate guys was Kurozaki Kenji, who subsequently went and trained in Thailand. He was Oyama's right hand man and was very influential in the early development of the Kyokushin Kai round kick. Similarly, Oyama (with his Yakuza connections) had a financial interest in Japanese kickboxing, and it was important for him to be able to develop Kyokushin Kai fighters so that they could be used to run kickboxing gymnasiums. Therefore, the kick had to have knockout effectiveness. And of course, unlike many other forms of karate, Kyokushin Kai is a full contact sport in which guys try to knock each other out, knowing that if they make a mistake they could be the one lying face down on the mat.
In the karate clip this possibility doesn't seem to even to have occurred to the performer. Within the kick there's no consideration of the possible counters. Whilst injuries do occur within non-contact karate, they are in the main accidental. There is no real intentional threat of being knocked out or seriously injured, and the emphasis that has been placed on Ippon karate fight game is usually based upon spirited single attacks with no real consideration for defence; the first one in with his strike usually wins (and if that doesn't happen, the fight is stopped and re-started). This is not a true representation of fighting, and any skills determined on the basis of this representation are in my book highly suspect. In reality you ain't going to knock the guy out with your one delivery, let alone kill him, and if your head is overexposed you're going to get knocked out by a experienced fighter sooner or later (and probably sooner).
A fight isn't what you want it to be. It simply is, and that's the reality you have to train for. It's the reality of the fight that determines the skills, and not the other way around.
When looking at these two clips, the question becomes: which method of kicking should you adopt? Do you go for the Muay Thai kick as demonstrated by Buakaw that, together with its variants, has been documented on film knocking out hundreds of guys (within Muay Thai, K-1, MMA, etc.)? Or do you go with this other version, of which I've only ever seen evidence of a few knockouts? (There may be more, but this kick hasn't got anything like the documented record that the Muay Thai kick has.)
When I'm looking to break down the key elements of a move, I take the fight as my source of information and inspiration. And by the fight, I mean a fight in which both participants are trying to knock each other out. Not a fight in which points are scored by judges and hard contact is discouraged.
Now, although my personal experience contributes to my ability to analyze fights, I don't factor it into my decisions about choosing effective moves. My own experience is too subjective. Just because something worked for me, I don't assume it will work for everybody else. That's why I watch the fight. I look for the high-percentage moves and learn from them first. Those are moves that everybody can practice with the confidence that they will work. You can see the move work, again and again and again. You don't have to 'believe' in it; the evidence is there right in front of your eyes.
Now if after all this, you prefer the Shotokan representation of the kick over the Muay Thai one, then it might have something to do with certain mechanisms that are in-built within the human brain. The reticular activating system within our brain locks on to any incoming information that supports what we believe is true about the world, and locks out anything which contradicts that belief. And the only way to get past this innate human tendency is to question incessantly not only what others do and say, but also yourself. I question everything I do; I'm doing it all the time. I really don't know what the truth is; I'm still looking for it.
That's where I'm going with my martial arts. And if everybody else made the same effort, then maybe the martial arts wouldn't be stuck in a time warp.
