Post Creative or Useful TKD Drills Here...

Post some drills you know to enhance various TKD skills. Or, if you want, post opinions on drills others have posted if you've tried them or suggestions for variations.

I'd recommend including the difficulty of the drill and specific skills it improves, but write them however you want.

Here's a few cool ones:

52 Step Combination
Difficulty: High
Improves: Ability to chain different moves in combination that you wouldn't usually use together; Also good for general practice.
Assign a different technique (offfensive or defensive) to each card (or each type of card to simplify things). Shuffle, Draw, and do the cooresponding move 10x. Have someone else (or you if you're alone) draw another, and do the 1st move and then that one 10x as a combo. Repeat til you have a 52 hit combo to practice 10x.

More later...



[This message has been edited by Vicious (edited 12-01-2004).]

This isn't TKD specific, but is something to try if you're crazy and have several martial arts studying friends ( preferably of different styles ) who are also crazy.

Create your own fight club. Each person keeps everyone else informed of their daily itinery, so the group always knows where you are at any time. Every couple days, either by lottery or periodic scheduling, one member of the group is selected as the target. Another member of the group is chosen to be the attacker. Lottery's best, as you can have one person draw, and then select another person to attack the target and keep the target totally out of the loop. The attacker can attack the target any time, any place, and the only technique restrictions are no inflicting semi-permanent injuries ( bruises are ok, crushed eyeball or broken elbow are not ).

As your group gets used to this, add in the possibility of weapons ( safetyrized to some degree, apply duct or electircal tape to a knife's edge and point, wrap a stick in foam or bubble wrap, etc ), or multiple attackers.

The above text is for entertanment purposes only, and should not be taken as training advice unless you're absolutely crazy. The poster takes no responsibility for any injuries you may receive as a result of reading and following this.

Kyle: A Fight Club? That's pretty f***ing hardcore man. I guess if everybody knows the risks and agrees to them I'm cool with it, but I'm sure someone here's gonna break your balls about it.

I know tons of other drills. I'll post more soon.

This one improves skill w/ my favorite kick, the lead side kick.

Side Kick Targeting
Difficulty: Varies
Improves: Control, Accuracy, and Speed w/ the Lead Side Kick; Balance
Put the leg you're going to kick w/ forward. Imagine a 3x3 Keypad (Like 1-9 on a Telephone in 3 columns of 3) like this

123
456
789

with a kick to 5 being a strait mid lead side kick forward. Imagine an opponent in front of you while you kick the various targets on their body. Kick in various patterns without dropping your leg. Here's a few examples.
-Go systematically from 1-9
-Columns or rows
-Any phone #, or any combinations of #'s.
-Any randomly generated pattern of #'s.

That's why I emphasized the craziness so much. I did it when I was younger, and it's great for not only developing your ability to fight on the street, but also your awareness of surroundings and your ability to think outside the style and box. On the other hand, I had a number of injuries during the time, including a finger injury that ended my piano playing and taking an improperly padded nunchaku to the face that was two millimeters away from crushing my eyeball. There's no doubt that the training helped my art immensely both physically and mentally. But if I had known the potential cost more clearly back then I'm not sure I would have done it.

I've only done this in our TKD class a few times but we used to do something similar to this in football training. You put a person (normally a blackbelt) in the centre surrounded by all of the students who are all given numbers. The person in the centre does not know what number they have and they are not in a specific order. The instructor will call out a number and you will attack the person in the centre in any means you want. You can jump them, tackle them, kick them, punch them, pull their hair ... anything. They must react and defend themselves. Here's where it gets interesting. Sometimes he will call out more then one number at the same time so they have to defend against multiple attackers. Sometimes he will call out 1 number and when they are engaged he will call out another number. The instructor will end each attack if he figures one or the other is being over powered or if one of them taps out or he figures somebody stands to be really hurt.

Sometimes this can get very brutal and bumps, bruises, scrapes and black eyes can happen. You have to check your ego at the door and not get mad at people and understand this is training, nothing more. Like I said this doesn't happen much and this is probably the reason why. It is fun though being the attacker ... I have yet been the centre man ... one day though!

[This message has been edited by Dereck (edited 12-03-2004).]

This one enhances kick strength & balance for various kicks.

Kick & Freeze
Difficulty: Depends on you
Improves: Kick control, balance, leg strength
Throw a side kick, roundhouse kick, front kick or back kick as full speed and at the moment it's fully extended, hold it there in place (not w/ your hands, obviously) for as long as you can. When your leg starts to bend or when you stumble, start over.
Shoot for 10 seconds, then 30, then 60. Some ways to vary the workout or make it more challenging include:
-Do a fast combination, ending w/ the kick you're gonna hold
-Try to increase the heighth at which you hold the kick
-Practice holding your side kicks while cooking, watching TV, reading, or being preoccupied in other ways
-Try keeping total control of your frozen kick while pivoting 360 degrees on your standing leg.

Challenging Height, Control, & Accuracy Drill:

Find a chair, table, countertop, or any similar thing of decent heighth that would hurt if you kicked it wrong; practice control & accuracy by throwing roundhouse, hook & other kicks over it, or, when you get good:
-Try throwing side kicks just over the thing, holding them, and retracting w/out touching it.
-Try more complex techniques over the object, like spinning hook kicks, jumping side kicks, or even 360's or 540's if you can do them.
-Try maintaining the control & accuracy to kick over your object while blindfolded.

That'll help improve your skill at headshots as well as your overall accuracy & control.

Hi,

I remember a drill we did at my dojo some time ago now where we all had to pair up. We had one person facing the other about 10 feet opposite you. We then had bean bags and had to do kicks and try and get them across the room to the other person. This develops focus, control and power cos you had to kick at the right point and actually get it as close to the other person as possible. Oh, and it had to be relatively straight too.

Regards

Scott

Here are a few suggestions for forms pratice.
level of difficulty: Good for a beginning student, as well as an advanced. The level of correction just becomes subtler.
They are designed to assist you in incorporating the principles of um and yan (yin and yang/hard and soft) into your practice.
Pick any poomse (kata) you know inside and out.
First do it in slow motion, as slowly as you can, including kiyups. Then repeat it as fast as you can. Notice the difference. Then do it again, this time using all yang (equivalent to sanchin power in Karate) energy with every technique. Repeat the same form, this time with total um (yin) energy very flowing without any outward power.
Notice the difference.
Lastly, blindfold yourself and do your form at your normal pace, relaxed in the beginning of each technique and firing with power upon completion of each technique.
One more thing to notice: If you chose to do a Pawlge form, that is based on an "I" formation, are you in the same spot on the floor at the end of your form as you were when you began your form?
This can be a useful gauge of how balanced and even are your stances.
Enjoy and thanks to everyone who posted their suggestions
[IMG]http://www.fightingarts.com/forums/ubb/smile.gif[/IMG]

Hello all, this is my first post on these forums...the drills mentioned before are interesting, and attractive to my desire to better my martial arts skill with whatever means necessary. I especially like the 52 move combo idea; I personally haven't tried it yet though I think I would only get to the twelfth move or so on my first try.

Here's one of my own that I personally enjoy:

Do normal drills such as 50 punches or 50 side kicks, but instead of doing them normally, do them slower than normal while flexing all the muscles involved that you can. Let's say you're doing punches. As you punch, think of all the muscles that you are utilizing (AS MANY AS YOU CAN) and flex them as you are staying fluid in your actions. This will help develop some of those muscles we don't even know we have, and if you use this along with normal training, you will find increased power in your punches/kicks/whatever.

I hope this helps someone, but hurts only those that deserve it.

Anj