Footwork

Posted by Reuben at 12:04 AM

Focusing back on the stance before moving first:

  • Hips square
  • Feet are square, helps to point both feet forward to keep hips square (found this awkward and hard on the ankle. Perhaps due to lack of flexibility as it was a constant fight to get it to point forward.)
  • Right leg forward, left leg back for southpaw stance
  • Knees bent
  • Back foot is lifted up to give you a springboard to push off from and to keep it light and moving.
Actually moving with it:
  • Keep distance between feet as even as possible even when moving.
  • DON'T BRING FEET TOGETHER!!!!! This reduces balance and easily deteriorates to a bad posture to punch from. Maintain the same distance as far as possible.(this for me was the hardest part to do and I found that as I got more tired, the legs automatically started coming together. Calves ached)
  • Neutral/Normal Stance > Wide Stance (loss of mobility) > Narrow Stance (unstable platform)
  • Hips continuously facing the opponent
  • Push off with the left foot when moving to the right and vice versa.
  • Movement begins with the push-off, and NOT the extension of the leading leg. (incorporating this made the movement a lot easier).
  • Knees relaxed
  • Do not end up tiptoeing on both feet!
Footwork Drill
  • Place a central marker on the floor and keep a 1 metre distance around it.
  • Circle around it imagining it's your opponent.
  • 5 revolutions clockwise, 5 revolutions counter-clockwise.
  • Do not change footwork
Notes: Found it tougher to go in the direction the back leg is in (in my case the left side). Also realized that in sparring with the other new students of CMD, their tendency is also to move in the direction their front leg is in.

Since my natural tendency is to go counter-clockwise, while orthodox stance students is to go clockwise, think of using the movement instead to sidestep and block them off from turning. I can forsee this gets less important as students get more used to moving both directions but perhaps it is a natural tendency to watch out for to take advantage of (wishful thinking :P)

 

0 Comments:

Post a Comment



Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)