Talking ’bout A Revolution

In this case though we aren’t talking about the change from one regime to another, or even something novel and exciting. In this case I’m talking about an actual revolution; 360º of rotation.

Last night training started late, the guy who owns the gym we use on a Sunday evening got delayed, and some people who would normally train left assuming that training would be canceled. Once we were in though the lesson took on a distinctly ‘kicky’ flavour, and most of those kicks involved spinning, jumping, or spinning and jumping. I find some of them very tricky to get to grips with, especially combinations such as spin hook kick > jump spinning crescent kick – my feet just refuse to co-operate. For some reason though performing the kicks in the opposite order worked pretty well (at least in comparison to the other way round they did). At times I was dizzier than a glamour model on a merry-go-round, but it’s all good practise. Then came my kicking nemesis, the jump spinning hook kick.

I find these kicks infuriatingly difficult to pull off, I never seem to be in the air when the kick (which 9 times out of 10 is at knee-height) comes out. The same was true last night, from a double-footed take off I was utter rubbish. It was a sense of relief when we were told to stop, followed by a sense of impending doom as we moved on to a variation of the kick, using the rear leg to take off and kick with. I had visions of me flailing around and landing on my arse in a heap, visions which proved to be true (but at least got me a round of applause after each landing – some people must have left with sore hands). Out of sheer frustration I asked my instructor to have a look at what I was doing and to see if there’s anything obvious I was doing wrong, and what do you know – I was. It turns out I was throwing what looked like an attempt at a roundhouse in order to get elevation (the lead-in to the kick itself), whereas all I needed to do was to get my knee up. Frankly I’d be lying if I said this was anything but a total revelation to me.

For the first time in my experience it felt like I was doing a ‘fancy’ (for want of a better word) kick, and not just fudging it as best I could. Yep, there was definite air between my feet and the floor while the kick was coming out, the kick felt like it was moving a long way across (good for a hook kick) and on top of everything else, I was striking the kick paddle firmly. It took a few to get used to the feeling, and to get my landing foot under me properly, but good grief, it was fantastic! To me it felt amazing, just like I imagine a good kick should. To anyone watching I dare say it looked like a heavy-set octopus was being thrown at the paddle, but I don’t care, it’s been a long time since I felt like I got a technique down soon after being shown it.

In other news I have a cold, and for some reason keep forgetting to put the handbrake on when I get out of the car.