Kickin' it slow

         Part of training my kicks, and reaching 10,000 reps of each kick, has been to throw some kicks slow.  I took inspiration from a drill we did quite a while back, where we threw a front thrust kick slowly through a ring.  We had to kick through and return back without touching the edges.  I have applied this to my side heel and roundhouse as well.

        Doing this at first, I definitely felt tension and discomfort in my hip flexors, especially on the front thrust.  Having to maintain that height of my crane stance and support of my leg was excruciating.  I've since gotten more used to it.  What I recognized with both my front thrust and side heel, was that I definitely cheated a bit on my chambering, I'd let my leg drop slightly from when I first shot it up.  With the round house, I'm more so focusing on where my knee is pointing in the three-point position and releasing from the knee.

        When I thrust my leg out from my hip during both front thrust and side heel, my focus is on maintaining a good foot position: toes pulled back during front thrust, and foot bladed on the side heel, same when pulling back.  Roundhouse, again the focus is on three-point and that knee position in relation to my target.  Seems pretty basic, and stuff a white/yellow belt should be focusing on.  That might be true, but I am learning something much deeper by doing all of this.

        Another focus point in these kicks is where my weight is and how I'm leaning when delivering these kicks.  It is literally a balancing act when moving this slow, so sometimes I do lean back more than I would like to in order to keep myself balanced, but i am still trying to stay true to the technique.  I'm trying to keep my torso upright and still trying to be more aggressive in the delivery of my kicks.

        Benefits of doing all of this that I have encountered so far is:

    -greater balance

    -greater control of my body and its movements

    -strengthening my legs

    -noticing there is still a lot of power behind these kicks, even when going slow

    -sharpening my technique

    -creating better habits and muscle memory

    -greater adaptability, because of strengthening that crane stance

    -better hip mobility

        The only kick I am not breaking down is the spinning back kick.  My thoughts on this is because the spinning back kick is comprised of a lot of moving parts, breaking it down to this extreme is essentially training a broken kick- a spin with then a back kick, and I don't want that.  There is a benefit for breaking that kick down like that for sure, and I may go back to that at some point, but for now that is not my focus in improving that kick.

        I'm curious to see where this will lead me.  I know there will be improvement with performing this many kicks.