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Original Source: www.dailymail.co.uk |
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ruly
one of the more amazing sights in the world of the martial arts is the high kick
that seems to reach so effortlessly up to the stars. Those of us who have tried
to hitch up our trousers and climb that stairway to high kick mastery know the
often long hours of stretching…and more stretching…and still more stretching
involved before you can kick the lights on the ceiling as Bruce Lee did to
James Garner’s lighting arrangement in the movie Marlow.
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Source: doriantb.blogspot.com |
How
often have I looked on enviously as a Taekwondo or Karate practitioner lifted
her or his knee up the side of the body finally extending – slowly for all to
see – the rest of the leg straight up along a perpendicular line, ninety
degrees off the floor, leaving the leg up at that incredible angle just so that
the rest of us landlubbers wouldn’t forget too soon.
Bill
Wallace, the American Karate/Kickboxing phenomenon, who is still active in his
70s, would cross the Dojo floor on one leg previously injured in Judo, snapping
out high roundhouse after high roundhouse without dropping his leg back down to
terra firma. Apparently, Wallace
stretched a minimum of one hour a day.
I
used to seesaw in my opinion of high kicks, and not just from jealousy. I’d ask
myself: “Are they really necessary?” “Are they worth the effort?” When Park
Jong Soo arrived in Toronto, I gained a healthy respect for high kicks. Park
had an arsenal of kicks that were spellbinding to witness not just for their
gymnastic dimension but for their brutal realism. In short, they worked. I recall also Mike Warren and Albert Cheeks
coming up from the U.S. to fight as well as to demonstrate. And of course, there
was Wallace. Taekwondo, I found, could
slice and dice an opponent with high kicks from all sorts of unpredictable
angles, some at remarkably close range.
To
the contrary, I’d like to have said that “by the time you bring that kick back
down, I’ll have punched you a dozen times” but, as logical as that might have sounded,
old school Taekwondo speed just didn’t want to co-operate.
On
the other side of the fence is Tan Tuei, the martial art from Northern China,
and its famous mainstay form, either with ten or with twelve segments, an important
set of movements taught in the old Ching Mo school. We do the set in My Jong
Law Horn Kung Fu. Some practitioners kick somewhat higher; I was taught to kick
low, to attack the opponent’s foundation. For me, if I kick high, I find that I can’t
use my hands at the same time. The expression “northern kicks, southern hands”
is indeed applicable to some demonstrations but I’ve found the northern systems
like Tan Tuei and Eagle Claw and especially Mantis, involve not just their legs
but their hands at the same time which requires that the kicks be kept low. And
there aren’t too many southern styles that refuse to add low kicks to their
methods of attack either.
My
thoughts nowadays have changed. I don’t swing back and forth from the “high
kick good” to the “high kick bad” side of the debate, if that debate still lingers
within the martial arts world. I go more by respect: the best high kickers, and
this includes everyone from Savate to Kyokushin Karate, don’t limit themselves.
If they require low kicks, they’ll use low kicks. If they require the use of
their hands, they will surely do so. Just because there is an old saying:
“Taekwondo is seventy per cent legs, thirty per cent hands” doesn’t mean a
Taekwondo practitioner can’t punch. A Taekwondo fighter is a fighter; a Tan
Tuei fighter is a fighter. We adapt to what we enjoy doing, and we learn to
adapt our skills to our capabilities. And in the end, we respect each other.
Of
course, I still endure pangs of jealousy over not being able to master really
high kicks. Now if I can just get my feet up off the couch…
It is a very infesting blog. Martial art has taken over many of the fight style. I prefer martial art as I feel it a game of mind. Both girls and boys can venture this art.
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