Episode 923 - Does All Movement Relate to Kicking
In this episode Andrew brings a thought to Jeremy; does all movement relate to kicking. Andrew thinks it does. Can he convince Jeremy it’s true?
Does All Movement Relate to Kicking - Episode 923
SUMMARY
In this conversation, Jeremy and Andrew discuss the concept that all movement can relate to kicking in some way. They explore different ways of moving and how they can be connected to kicking techniques. They also discuss the importance of managing range and how movement can affect kicking range. The conversation highlights the value of experimenting with different movements in training and thinking about training in a new and creative way.
TAKEAWAYS
* All movement can be related to kicking in some way
* Managing range is important in martial arts
* Experimenting with different movements can lead to new insights in training
* Thinking creatively about training can enhance the learning experience
CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction to Whistlekick Martial Arts Radio
02:33 Exploring the Connection Between Movement and Kicking
06:30 The Importance of Managing Range in Martial Arts
11:30 The Value of Experimentation in Training
20:49 Moonwalk: A Back Kick
22:33 Conclusion
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SHOW TRANSCRIPT
Jeremy (00:00.466)
Welcome to another episode of whistle kick martial arts radio I really hope you clip that out and put it in as bonus content or something. You'll have to listen to the end Or me, you know what? No patreon that's not going at the end. Okay, we're saving for something different. All right If you're new to the show
What do we do here on Whistlekick Martial Arts Radio? We talk about martial arts and all the things that might be related to martial arts and your journey as a martial artist, whether it is your first day, you've been training 60 years, maybe you're an instructor, maybe you have a school, maybe you train in karate, maybe you train in taekwondo, maybe you train in something we've never heard of. It doesn't matter if martial arts means something to you, then your relationship to martial arts means something to us. And we thank you for being here. I'm Jeremy Lesniak joined by my good friend,
and OFT co -host Andrew Adams. And today we're gonna talk about the subject, how did you put it? All movement relates to kicking in some way.
I'm not 100 % sure where that leads us, but stick around and we're going to find out. Now, if you are new to what we do, check out whistlecakemartialartsradio .com. It's where you're gonna find every episode we've ever done. This is episode, I don't know what, 923. You know, well, that's kind of your job, so I'm glad that you know. Episode 923.
Jeremy (02:56.018)
What are you gonna find in those listings at whistlekickmarshallarcheradio .com? You're gonna find transcripts, which make it handy to search. You're going to find photos, links, videos, all the stuff that the guests send us for our Monday episodes. You're gonna find all of that over there as well. Now, if you wanna go deeper, because we are more than a podcast company, you can go to whistlekick .com. What are you gonna find there?
Apparel like sweatshirts and tees. I've got a hat over there. We have training programs. You can join our Patreon. If you're a school, you should definitely join Whistlekick Alliance. You can find out about our events like free training day, Marshall Summit, all in weekend. There is so much that we do here at Whistlekick for you, the traditional martial artists of the world in our efforts to connect, educate and entertrain. Did we just make a new word? Connect, educate, entertain you in
effort to reaching the goal of getting everyone in the world to train for six months. I had a hard time finishing that sentence because enter train. I mean, when I go on a train trip, I guess you do have to enter train. I'm thinking more like enter train, like instead of entertaining, you're enter training your students. Like if you come to a class at my school, you will be enter trained. All right, there we go. New word.
How often do people make up a new word? And if somebody else already made up that word first, I don't wanna know. Actually, I kinda do, because I wanna give them a shout out.
Jeremy (04:26.93)
at Whistlekick Everywhere. All right. That was a great intro. That was great. Probably set up by our pre -intro. Probably, which you won't find at the end of this. Where are we going to put that? But now they're like, but the people watching and listening now are like, is he really not going to put it at the end or is he going to put it at the end? No, I think you really should put it elsewhere. no, no, I'm going to. OK. But don't tell them that. Because now they're like, maybe he really is going to put it at the end and I'll have to listen to the end and find out.
We'll put something else at the end. Maybe. Maybe not. You know. We'll put the official definition of entertain.
All right. So I brought this as a topic idea. I was teaching a class. I can't say recently. It was quite a while ago, but the class was on kicking. I was teaching the class to my kids' class and we were working on sidekick and I went into class saying, you know, I want to, my goal for the end of the class is to work on kicking and have the students, again, these are children, understanding how to gauge their distance better. And,
so we're going to work lots of different ways of throwing the same kick. So I chose to work on the side kick.
And we started out by doing what we in our school would call a short range sidekick. So we're using the front leg and we're not moving our feet at all. We're just literally standing, lifting up, lifting up one, your forward leg. We would have been like kind of in a side fighting stance, lifting up that forward leg and doing a sidekick. And it gives you the least amount of distance to cover.
Jeremy (06:05.266)
And then, you know, it led to a great discussion on, well, what if they're further away? How can we still kick them? And they realized, we can kick with the back leg that you can then turn and kick with that back leg. And that gives you some more distance. Okay. Well, what if they're even further away?
And so that led to another discussion as to like, how can, if they're further away, how can we still use the same kick? Cause that was the goal. I said, we have to use the same kick, sidekick. How can we cover more ground? And so as we went through the class, I started having this going through in my head as I'm teaching.
I'm a feel like you can any way of moving from point A to point B you can somehow relate and translate it to kicking in some way and So I thought it'd be fun to think about and talk and we you know I have a few others that I want to bring up, but I didn't know if your initial thoughts on this statement
Jeremy (07:06.546)
It's funny because I have two very conflicting reactions. The first is yeah, of course But I'm also a kicker
And I know plenty of martial artists that don't do a lot of kicking and they might be kicking for them is footwork to set up striking, punching. Okay, fair. I could see that. Yeah, I mean, you're right. Not all martial arts do kick as well. Yeah, we've talked about, for example, boxing, right? We've talked about that. I think we both agree that boxing can be trained in a martial way. That doesn't have to be, not every school does, but it can be. Sure, sure. But that doesn't presuppose
my statement of all movement can relate to kicking in some way you might choose not to kick but can movement getting from point A to point B is there a way we can relate that to kicking in some way I thought you made it you said it in a more concrete fashion when you first said it maybe I maybe I heard it differently all movement can relate to kicking in some way
I don't think you used the word can, but it could be implied. All movement is related to kicking. Could roll back the tape. I'm just I'm wearing my debate hat right now. High school. That's what makes these episodes. Yeah. So just pardon me as I go through that. I think I can I can grant you if for no other reason than the sake of conversation. We throw the word can in there. I think that becomes a lot more interesting regardless of whether it was.
set or implied. All movement can be related to kicking. Can relate to kicking. Can relate to kicking. Well, theoretically, you could kick at any time, hopefully. And if you can't at any given position, then maybe your position isn't a very good one. If kicking is part of your repertoire.
Jeremy (09:02.322)
If it's in your toolbox and you use kicks and you want to use kicks, then you probably should not have stances where you cannot kick. And you can kick from any stance unless it's really long or you have weird balance things going on. That doesn't mean that you personally can kick, right? We talked about some people at breakfast that might not be able to kick so well. And that's okay. We're talking about...
most people.
And so if that's the case, yeah, I would agree with you. Especially as you broaden the definition of what a kick is. You've probably taught sweeps. How do you initially teach like a basic step behind sweep? You mean by just lifting your foot up, you mean your leg up? Sure. Do you not relate that to the students as a kick?
the children I don't, but for the adults, yes. It's not something that I typically would, that's not something that I would necessarily relate to the kids class, but yes, I do relate that to kicking for sure. We were going over hook kicks the other day and a lot of my students are like, okay, okay. And I was like, well, how does it change if it goes low?
I kicked one of my students behind the leg. It can all be kicking. It can all be kicking. I mean, I contend that the hook... Now the wheels are turning. Yeah, yeah. I contend that the hook kick is, for me, the most useful kick I use outside of class because it's the one I use to close the fridge door. Or the car door. My hands are full. I use a hook kick for that. I don't know why. I just do.
Jeremy (10:56.786)
I don't know that that's related, but. Well, it is movement. It is. So in class, we talked about, you know, if there was slightly further away, you could take your front foot and step forward before doing your what I would call a turning. So, you know, your move your front foot forward and then use your back leg still to kick. That gets you a little further.
Well, what if they're still, and that movement would be just taking steps, just walking, right? You're just walking. If they're even further away, you could.
kick with your back leg, but then as your kick comes out, you could lift up your back leg and slide forward a little bit. And that would be like, or if your feet are together, you could shuffle your back foot to your front and still kick with your front front leg. Right. So there's your shuffle step of, you know, doing laps around the gym. You can run forward or you can go sideways, shuffling your feet towards each other. There's your shuffle step. Here's, here's where my viewers, if you're watching this, right, you've seen the wheels.
turning and I've been 70 % paying attention to you because I've been trying to process this.
Because our legs are longer than our arms, then perhaps there's someone out there whose legs are not longer than their arms, or perhaps there's someone out there who has the same length, or they don't have arms, right? In general. I'm not talking to you, I'm talking generally for 99 % of people.
Jeremy (12:30.226)
legs are longer than arms. So when we were talking about distance and that was how you started this conversation was talking about range. We have to account for kicking range and that while there may be some specifics of environment where I can reach more efficiently using a hand strike than a foot strike.
the majority of the time it's the kick that is going to set up the distance, the range of the exchange, whatever that exchange is. If we're sparring.
if it's a typical martial arts school, we're talking about you're either outside or inside kicking range. And we talk about, well, if your opponent is taller than you, you want to be inside their kicking range, but hopefully at your kicking range, right? We're still talking about kicking range. And so now that I'm looking at it in that way, I absolutely see what you're talking about. That that range becomes incredibly critical to manage your simultaneously managing your own
range of kicking while managing the kicking range of your opponent or opponents. Ideally in a way that sets you up. Advantages don't manage it in a way that sets you up at the disadvantage. But part of a training is entertainment. I'm going to keep derailing myself every time I use that word.
I suspect as you've taught this and thought about this, it's potentially spidered into the way that you think about things and maybe you do a bit of training on your own, am I right?
Jeremy (14:12.754)
Not a ton, but here's what I will say. I went into class the next time and we continued the spot process on kicking and I ran an experiment. I didn't tell the students I was doing an experiment, but I was running an experiment. And I just hold. Yeah.
To those of you out there who have not had schools, there is a good chance your instructors have experimented on you. And there's a good chance that they started teaching because they needed guinea pigs. Yeah, I'd stand by that statement.
So I had the kids on one side of the gym and I said, I want you, this was like, we were doing some warmup stuff and I said, all right, I want you, every student, there were like four or five students in class, I said, I want you to go from one side of the gym to the other side of the gym and you can get there in any way you want to, except walking. And I didn't give them any other parameters. Whatever way you want to get there. And.
We did it a few times and you know, if like the first time I think they all ran. I was like, okay, that's great. You did a good job. You did what I asked. We're gonna take running out as well. Not that running doesn't relate to kicking, but running is just fast walking. And walking we already know can relate to kicking because you're just putting the back leg forward. What's the difference between walking and running? The actual definition, you know? No. Walking, one of your feet is always on the ground.
Interesting. Running, there's a period where... Yeah, okay, makes sense. So I said, okay, running is now off the table, but do it again. And some of them did the shuffle sideways step, which was great. Some of them skipped, and it made me think, okay, how can we put skipping into kicking? And if anyone has ever done a jumping front kick...
Jeremy (16:01.49)
kicking with the back leg, you are essentially skipping. And I hadn't thought of that before. And I was like, okay. And then I noticed someone, one of the kids doing a crab walk. And for those that are just listening, picture hands on the ground, both feet on the ground, but your butt is also just above the ground.
and they're walking very funny. And you scuttle. Yeah, you kind of scuttle. And it's not very fast, but I started thinking, OK, can this somehow relate to kicking?
Jeremy (16:35.986)
And my mind immediately went to a kick that I teach in class. So again, I'm going to describe this for the people listening. So you're sitting down on the ground. Both of your legs are bent and your hands are behind you. And you lift your butt off the ground and you do a front kick in front of you.
and you kick the person that's standing above you. We practice this in class. We do the same thing with sight. We turn our body on the side. We lift our hip off the floor and we do a side kick or a hook kick from the floor. But that lifting up of the hip and kicking off the ground with a front kick, well, there's your crab walk.
And so we went through this with a bunch of different variations. We, you know, some of them did this weird like shuffle thing with their feet and we found a way to make it relate in some way to kicking. And that's when it got me thinking that all movement.
And I guess I should clarify. Forward movement, movement from point A to point B. I mean, I could just be sitting here waving my arms around. That doesn't necessarily relate. I think we all went to the same example. Relate to kicking. If you're only a listener to this show, you really need to check out the video sometimes. But forward movement, I think, really can relate to kicking in some way. Yeah.
Yeah, if I'm looking for the counter example, right? If you're a boxer, but you're fighting someone who kicks, you still need to manage that range. Your movement still relates to kicking. You still need to know what's going on there.
Jeremy (18:10.386)
Yeah. I think this is a great example of looking at your training in a very specific way and seeing what it gives you, because it's going to show you the good and the bad. Yeah. But it's not limited just to kicking. You could look at it as all movement relates to not falling over. Sure. Where's your balance? All movement relates to not getting grabbed from behind.
All movement relates to not getting choked, not tripping over things, right? Like you could come up with a whole bunch of ways. Now I think looking at, looking through some lenses will deliver more than others. This probably gives you as much if not more than anything else. And I think it's really valuable. Yeah, I like this. Yeah.
It just, it got my wheels turning and it was something that I wanted to chat more about with other people. You're another person. I am another person. We sometimes, the audience may not realize that, we agree quite a bit on quite a few things. And you being a person is one of them. Ouch. I don't think there's much discussion as to whether or not I'm a person. If you're someone at, okay, hold on. Pause.
To the members of the audience, if you have ever found yourself questioning the reality of my personhood, I want you to let one of us know. Not me, because you wouldn't be a person. Well...
You can either... Jeremy at whistlekick .com, Andrew at whistlekick .com. Anyway, this unpause. So it got me thinking like, I want to discuss this with more people and get other people's thoughts. So I want to bring it to you and you, the audience listening and or watching. I'm curious if you have any thoughts on this too, movement relating to kicking. Can you relate all movement and work it into a kick in some way? Yeah.
Jeremy (20:21.042)
When we started doing this, I wasn't quite there. In part because I didn't understand what you meant. I knew there was something in there worth discussing. But now that we've gone through it, I get it. I get what you're saying. I'm with you.
Like let's let's let me come up with a couple other weird assures. I love examples Again, I'm gonna describe this while I do it if you're watching these are feet my hands are my feet So your feet go move like this on the ground. So I'm my toes my heel toe heel toe Yeah, so like I'm moving both of my toes one way and then the heels follow and then the toes and the heels, right? How can that relate to kick because that's a way of moving. Yeah, so how can that relate to kicking? Well?
when I lift up this foot to kick, I often will pivot that back foot. How you pivot impacts range and it impacts power. It either restricts or improves your mobility as it relates to kicking. Certain kicks require you... If you're...
heel is in front of your toe, you're probably not throwing a front kick unless you have some really weird hip stuff going on. And so, again, think of weird ways to move from point A to point B and see if that is a way that you can somehow relate that movement to kicking. One of the things we often talk about on the show is that if you have everything available to you,
It can be overwhelming and that's what we're used to. We're used to having, you know, if I ask you to shadow box, you're going to use all of your techniques and you're going to default back to the techniques that you're most comfortable with. Use the most often in the most common ways. But if I said, okay, I just want you to use the left side of your body. It's not limiting. It might feel like it is the first few seconds, but you realize, I have a ton of stuff.
Jeremy (22:26.322)
but it actually gets you to think about yourself and your training differently in a way that can be really positive. And we've talked about that a lot, this idea that I call them artificial parameters, that applying these artificial parameters to your training can make things a lot better for people because when everything is wide open, where do you start? It's the reason with improv, they ask for a suggestion because to get on stage and just go, do anything about anything,
Be funny. Is too much. Yeah. And if you know anything about improv, just having that tiny little common anchor among the people is all you need. Yeah. So think about it, you know? I'm going to think about it. Moonwalk. It's a back kick.
You know Michael Jackson had a pretty solid front groin kick he out of that motion actually Actually, I will do a shout out to you skein I'm gonna know who? Runs a YouTube channel. Yeah, actually on the show. Yeah, he actually a few weeks ago released an episode of his on his YouTube channel about actually with you look at Slow motion Michael Jackson's kicks. He actually was an incredible kicker
his front kick is locked in my brain because you know whenever he moonwalked it was sideways right so you had that great profile view and it was always heel toe bam and a lot of snap yeah but anyway yeah the moonwalk like that to me relates to a back kick.
So have fun with this listeners. Like think of some fun ways to move and see if you can relate to kicking. Yeah. And for those of you out there that have schools, give it a try. Like try running a class, a basics class with this as your broad concept and see what you and your students come up with. Remember some of the best stuff in training comes from not knowing what the output is going to be. You have an idea, you're testing it, right? I told you, guinea pigs. And seeing where it takes you and your students.
Jeremy (24:32.692)
and make an experiment. It can be a lot of fun. We did an episode recently on, you know, martial arts as an experiment. It's a science experiment. You're constantly trying things and see if they work. And if you're not experimenting. Yeah. So here's your next lab assignment. There you go. In class. 40 % of your grade. Somebody just got anxious. Somebody out there just got... And that's appropriate because we're on campus right now. We are on campus. Yeah.
Sweet. Anything else you want to say? No, I think we're good. All right. To those of you out there, thank you for joining us yet again. We appreciate you spending some time with us. Hopefully we made you think. Hopefully you were enter trained.
If you want to follow us on social media, we might give you some more bad puns at Whistlekick everywhere you might think of. I already gave you the email addresses. Whistlekick .com, Whistlekick Martial Arts Radio .com. If you are a martial arts school, check out Alliance, WKAlliance .com. It is the thing that wraps together the most stuff that we do to the broadest benefit. It's been great. I'm loving leading that group.
And if you're not a school owner, you could join the Patreon, p -a -t -r -e -o -n .com slash whistlekick. Starts at a couple bucks a month. We let you in on upcoming episodes and so much more. Thank you to those of you who do that. We do not name names, unlike a lot of podcasts. They put your names out there. Until next time, train hard, smile, and have a great day. Is that how you're supposed to do it? Well, we're in person. We could do it together.
Train hard, smile, and have a great day.