Core Kickboxing Kicks

Kaesha Matthews: Hi! My name is Kaesha Matthews, owner of X Factor and I am here to show you kickboxing for the core and now we are going to go over some basic kicks. We are going to go back to our basic horse stance or ready stance, knees are slightly bent, body is comfortable, hands up on guard. Now its basically a balancing act when doing kicks, when you are shifting over to one side you want to make sure that you have all of your balance on that one leg for you know shifting to the other and of course the other leg by having your knees slightly bent this will help with that action. Make sure that you always bring your guard over to whatever you are actually aiming at with your kicks; if you are kicking forward, have your guard up facing forward, if you are facing to the side and you are kicking out to the side make sure you bring your guard out the side as wellWe are going to start off with the basic forward kick, get into a horse stance and you are going to kick forward. Now with this you are actually trying to push the opponent away from you with the forward kick, so when you get into your ready stance you shift your weight over to one side; make sure that your balanced on one side of your body and then you bring your leg up and kick it out, okay. Bring it back in and down, now this will be more of a fluid movement when you do it altogether so you are shifting out, kick, kick, kick, okay. So notice that when I bring my knee up its going to close to the chest, my guard is still with me and I am kicking out more or so with the heel of my foot than the ball of my foot otherwise you are just pointing at someone with your toe. So again basic stance, shift your weight, kick it out, bring it back down. Okay, that was a basic forward kick. Now what we are going to do is a round half kick, with this around half kick you kick someone basically with the shoelace part of your sneakers. So again back to your ready stance, shift your weight over; you want to bring the leg up and have your leg bent, bring your guard to the side you are going to snap it out with the shoelaces of your sneakers, okay. So we will do it again, basic stance, shift your weight, bring your guard up, leg up, have the knee bent and then kick it out to the side, okay. So more fluid movement out to the side and of course the more comfortable you get -- actually lean further out when you are doing the kick, okay. So shifting the leg again, bringing the guard out and out to the side. Now what we are going to do is a side kick, or a side push whichever way you want to call is fine; basic stance, shift your weight. This time we are going to kick with the blade of the foot which is actually the outer portion of your sneaker. So basic stance, shift your weight and out okay, so you are actually pushing out this time, pushing out. Now the main difference between the round half and the side kick is that the round half you are kicking with your shoelaces; the side push you are kicking with the blade of your foot. So round half you are snapping out and then the basic side push you kick out with the blade of your foot, okay and of course this is something you would want to practice as well at home before taking any Turbo Kick class or any type of kickboxing course. So those are the basic kicks we will review them real quick, forward kick, side kick or side push with the blade of your foot; do it again and the round half. Okay, now let's go into some alternative core movements that you can use in kickboxing.