Bruce Lee's famous Side Kick Pose?

Question

Remember ENTER THE DRAGON?

The scarred antagonist enters Bruce's room to see him training, holding an extended leg up in a transfer from front to side kick...

I want to get that strength.

Does anyone have any tips or training techniques in that reguard???

Thanx n advance.

===Saci Pererê

Answer 1

I used to be able to do that back when I was still in college and one of the most important muscle used for this is the abs. You need to be able to squeeze your abs and hold it for as long as you can while breathing slowly. Believe me, this makes for one great ab workout. The secret is not to lift your foot up, but to lift your knee with your leg bent up first, then slowly extend your leg. When it's fully extended you need to shift your weight on your standing leg to shift into the side kick and twist your extended foot's heel up with your toes pointing down in a 7 o'clock position while constantly pushing your leg in a forward extending motion. It's actually easier to do this with the heel above waist level than to do it waist level since the angle helps lock the leg and hip in place and aids in keeping your leg up longer. You can practice flexibility by putting your leg up on the back of a chair in a side kick position and then slowly bending and stretching to touch your heels. The pulley and rope idea is good way to train too. When you're flexible enough, you can practice by throwing a side kick while holding on to the back of a chair then holding your leg in an extended position as long as you can. The only drawback to all this training is that when it comes to the time when you need to kick someone for real, you'll have unconsciously developed the habit of striking a pose and holding it in place before withdrawing your leg. Not a good idea against a trained opponent who can grab it and take you down before you can blink. Which is why I gave up the practice of throwing kicks above the waist altogether.

Edit: Saci, what I meant by the 7:00 position is the way your foot is positioned during the sidekick, most people position their foot horizontally, meaning when doing a right side kick, their heel would be pointing to the right or east and their toes to the left or west. In a seven o' clock position like in a clock, your toes should be pointing southwest and your heel points northeast, this is because you'll be pushing forward with your heel and pulling back your toes, the angle and alignment created by this position helps to lock your hips and relax your leg muscles and raise your foot above waist level compared to if you're pushing with your whole foot in an awkward position which would make your whole leg tense, cramped and tire you out easily, it's also harder to raise it above waist level at this angle with your foot parallel to the ground. Try to compare side kicking with your heel and side kicking with the whole sole of the foot and you'll notice the difference.

Answer 2

if u do stretching  a lot  then do mawashi kicks in de air also try snap kicks,then if u keep on doing that the u 'll be able to lift ur leg high

Answer 3

This is what he did. He got a pulley and a rope. He used the pulley with the rope, and tied a loop at the end of the rope. He then wrapped the rope around his leg and pulled the pulley giving him that pose. He didn't do that in the movie, but im sure thats what helped him to get that pose later on.

Answer 4

You can use the back of a chair or the wall to help aid your balance and in doing so it allows you to focus and direct more of your strength to holding your leg out there or extending and retracting it slowly and making sure you use good form in the execution of it.  This is an old school training method for giving you better and stronger kicks and as you use the wall or back of a chair by resting your fingertips evermore lightly also develops your balance.  For things like hook kicks and ax kicks you position yourself at a protruding corner where two walls meet.  As your muscles and kicks get stronger and your balance better you will then be able to do it without using anything to aid you like the wall or chair.

Answer 5

I've seen over weight people do cartwheels, rolls, and even back flips. I've seen very thin and weak looking individuals do the same stunts and we all seen Fuergi the singer do a one hand cartwheel.

what I'm getting at is that we put too much emphasis on physical strength when in fact a lot of the stunts including the one that you talked about in your question were performed by people  who are very flexible , loose jointed and  had tremendous relaxed muscles giving them good balance.

I say work on your balance and  flexibility and you will be doing amazing things and learn that nothing is as hard as it looks if you know how to do it and what it takes to do it.  Tight muscles keep us from doing amazing feats.

Answer 6

There was talk about that particular shot being set-up as in Bruce's leg being held up by fishing line however, knowing about his body strength and suppleness, I'd guess he could have and probably did do it.

Bruce used a number of different exercises for his legs and this particular exercise requires strong upper thigh strength and a lot of flexibility on your hamstrings.  The first thing to try is to hold both kicks individually for as long as you can and as high as you can.  This in itself will build stamina in your muscles. Once you can hold each kick at a decent level for about 10 -15 seconds start to practise turning each kick slowly 90 degrees while transitioning your hips accordingly. The hips play a massively important part in this action as the front kick extension requires a square on hip and the side kick requires a parallel hip alignment. As you turn from front to side kick your supporting foot should rotate slightly to allow the side kick extension. When you are completing the turn, you need to lock in your hip on the kicking side to produce the proper side kick.

It might be worth practising leg raises with weights on your legs. Also deep squats will help develop the strength.  Finally don't neglect to work on your balance and flexibility as both are as important as strength.

Hope that helps

Answer 7

Whether or not Bruce Lee actually hit this pose I'm not going to debate. The fact this pose can be hit is a possibility and many martial artist (both on the big screen and off) are capable of hitting this pose. The truth of the matter is that it takes allot of hard grueling work and most of the action items you already know. There isn't any sort of magical short cut, just train hard, increase your flexibility and practice holding your leg up in that pose for extended periods of time. At first you will look nasty doing it, but as the muscle grow and adapt, you look have a stronger stance. Once you can hold out a side kick at mid torso level start adding ankle weights. When the weights are off, your kick will be crisp and clean.

Good luck

Answer 8

hey i love Bruce Lee and would like to kwon how to do that as well if you get any good answers contact me ok

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