About two years ago I was talking to a woman who wanted more than anything to earn a black belt. When she spoke about it, she became very animated and it was obvious that she had a real passion for karate, but then she told me that due to a tear of the anterior cruciate ligament that she had not practiced in over a year.
It turns out that shortly after earning her brown belt she was practicing during class and got a little excited; in front of one of the senior black belts at his school, he wanted to put on a good show so he stepped forward and threw a right front kick as hard as he could … and then he remembered feeling a sharp pain in his knee left and fall. down. He had torn the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee and learned that he would be in recovery for about a year and a half. Unfortunately, when I researched it, I found that it was not that uncommon for martial artists.
About seven years ago a man named Tom came to my school. He had earned his black belt at a local Taekwondo school and wanted to see what else was out there. I started giving him private lessons and he quickly discovered that a key difference between my school and his old school was that at my school we spent a lot of time hitting things and making contact, while his old school spent most of the time kicking things. air. Having spent so much time kicking the air, his body was not used to dealing with the impact and resistance of hitting something with his punches, and as a result, when he kicked a bag or pad, he practically lost his balance and bounced. It took him a bit of time to modify his kicking technique, but he was soon able to stand in one place and run his foot through a pad without losing his balance. I remember the time when Tom realized that he could kick a pad and make the pad go away from his foot and not the other way around, he was quite excited.
Tom was still attending classes at his Taekwondo school here and there and after one class he reported that the sudden improvement in his kicking technique was not making him friends at that school. Apparently the whole class formed two lines and the first line had kicking shields so that the second line could practice their front kicks. He said that everyone in his line was kicking the shield in front of them in unison, making a steady beat … except him. Everyone else was hitting the pads with kick after kick, but each time Tom kicked the pad, he knocked his partner down about a step and a half, causing his partner to have to back off and restart. This broke the rhythm of the class, so his classmates began to notice and watch. Realizing that they weren’t hitting their partner’s butt, several of them started kicking as hard as they could trying to achieve the same results as Tom.
The problem really arose when Tom had to hold up the notebook for his partner; his partner discovered that by kicking the platform as hard as he could, he couldn’t knock Tom backward. His partner started to get noticeably annoyed because he was a muscular guy in his 20s who attended class all the time and could punch Tom, a skinny 60-year-old man who only showed up every once in a while, backing off an inch. The young man kicked harder and harder only to see that Tom didn’t move, he got angrier and angrier as his ego grew more and more bruised.
Both previous cases have the same element in common; The lady at the beginning of this article did not know the secret to kicking and got injured, while Tom did and developed a front kick that was the envy of his class.
What is this little secret and how does it protect your ACL? Tearing the anterior cruciate ligament is, unfortunately, a somewhat common injury in martial arts and tends to happen the same way in most cases. The cause is often to launch a strong kick while your base foot is pointing at your target.
When you kick, you throw your body weight forward; so your weight starts practically on your heels and then as your kick spreads and your weight moves forward, your center of gravity travels up your base foot, from the top of your heels to the top of your heels. toes. As your body weight moves forward and reaches the front of your base foot, it becomes unstable, automatically driving the ball of your foot into the ground to push yourself back for balance. This does two things; First, you take your body and body weight away from the kick, preventing you from hitting as hard as you could have, and preventing you from transferring all of your body weight. This is one of the reasons people lack power in their front kicks and one of the main reasons why, try as he might, the younger guy couldn’t take Tom down.
The second thing that happens is that when the ball of your foot digs into the ground and pulls you back, your upper body continues to move forward. The result is that everything above the knee goes one way and everything below the knee goes the other and you end up with some knee pain and a torn ACL.
How do you fix this? Just watch Tai Chi. The best footwork in martial arts comes from Tai Chi, and what do they do in Tai Chi before throwing a kick? They rotate their base foot outward. If you are going to launch a right front kick, you must first rotate your left foot outward 45-90 degrees from your target. By rotating your base foot outward, you open your hips, giving you a greater range of motion, and then when your weight is transferred forward, it simply and harmlessly passes over your heel, allowing your entire body to move into the kick. Turning your base foot outward protects your foot and knee from strain and allows you to put all of your body weight and muscle on the kick.
Tom knocked his younger partner back when he kicked the kicking shield, not because he was bigger or stronger than his partner and not because he generated more force when kicking, in fact the opposite happened. Rather, by using the correct structure, he was able to transfer more force to the kicking shield, which is a great example of working smarter and not harder.
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