gongfu

 Some people want them. You’d have to be a pretty advanced fighter to actually use them they say, but you never know, you could be carrying something heavy in each hand and the upper half of a two part door swings shut on you. You never know if high kicking skils are usefull until you have them. I can kick comfortably over my head all day long. I would say, the only real benefit, is improved circulation in the legs from the flexibility. The height of a front kick is entirely dependent on the ability of your leg muscles to stretch in a ballistic way. That is, the muscles elongate, with tension as you kick up, and shrink back after the kick. Thus there are two factors which determine the height of a kick, strength and flexibility.

 There are a few simple exercises for kicking power, these are pretty softcore but will get you all the height you need.

 Lay on your back and rest your hands behind your head. With your feet together, and your toes pointing out, lift your legs until they are perpendicular to your torso. Lower them back to about an inch from the ground, spread them apart, still pointing the toes, and hold that position for 3 seconds. Bring your feet together again, and bring them up to 45 degrees, or half way, spread and hold, bring them back together and perpendicular, spread and hold, then back to 45 degrees etc.

 After resting a few seconds, or minutes if you need it, lift your feet again a few inches off of the floor with your toes, again, pointing straight out. Kick your feet, as if you were swimming, just little flaps. Do they for as long as you can keep to the form.

 Lift your legs and roll onto your shoulder blades, using your arms to brace yourself at the hip. Ride an imaginary unicycle. Forward, and backward. It is good to vary the speed and duration of each direction. Using this method, you can use this same exercise for a very long time without your body getting used to it and see improvement consistently.

 The front fold. Standing with your feet together, fold at the waist keeping your back ramrod straight, but with your head up, looking forward. Bend as deep as you can toward your feet, but make sure your back is straight, and that you therefore bend at the hips. Stand up, and don’t ever do this stretch if you are cold or have any kind of back/neck problems, fold over at the hips, but do so by relaxing the vertabrae in the neck and all the way down the spine, so that each one opens up as you bend over. Keeping the legs straight, plant your face against the shins and grab the backs of your heels. Do both of these stretches, not just frontward, but sideward, and on each side. When you do them sideways, you keep the hips facing forward.

 Try for the front splits, stretch as deep as you can, but there is no need for a static stretch, or hold, just keep stretching each side. You don’t just need to stretch the back of the legs, but the front and your spine muscles. Adding the quadricep stretch, where you stand on one leg and hold the other leg’s ankle in your palm with your thighs together, you will get the right flexibility.

 High kicks don’t take very long to achieve, but it is easy to pull muscles if your not careful, by overstretching while cold, kicking too hard too often etc. and that will set you back. Just kick as high as you can, in lines back and forth, over and over, do your conditioning and stretch everyday and high kicks will come that way.

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