Karate - Front Kick
A great karate move demonstrated by a qualified professional instructor. How to execute a front kick or Mae Geri. More videos available @ WarriorPages.com
Step 1: Introduction
Hello. My name's Bart Scoville and I'm one of the assistant instructors here at the Sun Coast Karate Dojo and today I'm going to be demonstrating a front kick. When we do a front kick, as the name implies, it's a kick towards the front.
Step 2: Strike- Top Of The Foot
There are several different striking surfaces we can use with the front kick. It can be done with the top of the foot. And that would only be used against a soft target because of all the bones in the top of the foot striking a hard target such as a chin or elbow, something else hard could result in us breaking our own foot.
Step 3: Ball Of The Foot Kick
The more common striking surface when using the front kick is the ball of the foot which requires that the toes be pulled back as the foot's extended. The ball of the foot is very robust and can strike just about any surface without too much damage, maybe a bruise but unlikely you're going to break anything.
Step 4: Specialized Kick's
Some specialized styles also will kick with the toes. Very effective technique especially against soft targets. However, it does require that the toes are conditioned. It's not something you want to do if you're not properly prepared for because you're more than likely going to break your toes. But once again, if they are properly conditioned, it's a very effective technique.
And for those who wear street shoes during their day a toe kick is akin to using the tip of your toe. So not a bad technique to practice and be comfortable with especially, like I say, if you wear hard tipped shoes during the day.
Step 5: Basic Technique
The basic technique behind the kick is that we bring our leg up into what we call the chamber position. And this is a preparatory position. So we'll bring it up, with the knee pointed roughly at the target, extend the foot back and down. Now slowly, it's somewhat difficult to do when you've got to maintain your balance and two, it's using primarily the thigh muscles which is not the muscles we use when we're kicking.
Step 6: Muscle Control
The actual muscles we're using are the hip muscles and we'll bring the entire body into play so that we whip it out. So there's very little thigh used in that technique. Matter of fact, like a punch, we want to let that lower leg relax so it pops out there because that's where the power and speed's going to come from.
Step 7: Different Kicks
And what I'm demonstrating here is a snap kick. So I'm only really using my leg on that kick. We can also do the front kick as what's called a front thrust kick. In this case, I'm going to pendulum my hips into the kick. It's more of a pushing kick. Incredibly powerful but not quite as fast as a snap kick. So, that's our thrust kick. That's our snap kick.
Step 8: Front Kick's
One's meant to cause a little bit of damage but to move very quickly, the other one's more of a pushing kick. If I'm trying to drive somebody backwards, want to use my thrust kick. So those are the two types of front kicks that we routinely do and once again, you've got several different striking surfaces. This kick can be done as low as the knee, very effective against that, or it can be used as a face kick. Either way, it's a very effective kick.
