My footwork is terrible!!!! help!?

Question

I am a red belt in karate, (choi kwan do) I am terrible at moving back during our block and counter drills, i am pigeon toed too! it is terrible, my feet want to cross, otherwise my kicks, punches, patterns, and so forth are fine. what could help me? besides more practice of course which i have had alot of. I am very frustrated with this.

Answer 1

I am reckoning that the best thing for you to do is to focus on your foot movement. During drills even if you are yellow belt or even have only been doing it for a month or so your muscle memory becomes so good that you don't need to think about blocking punching etc. there for just relax, focus on your foot movement and let your hands/arms instinctively punch block etc.

hope that helps. I had the same problem when on my red belt and now I am a second dan so it can be done.

Answer 2

Practice the drill at home without a partner, over and over, paying attention to being in exact position every time. Video tape your self every week. This way you can concentrate on yoru footwork without having to worry about getting popped.

The only real answer I am afraid is to practice correctly, over and over, and over, there are no shortcuts. After a month of say 10 minutes a day on this, compare the last tape of you to the first tape. My guess is you are going to be pretty amazed at the improvement. BTW what you sudy is not karate. Karate is Okinawin or Japanese. What you train is an offshoot of TKD which is korean.

Answer 3

try to practise your foot work in front of a full length mirror . after getting a constant good posture and leg work all the time. practise against a partner and ask them to go slow first then speed it up. tell him/her to stick to one attack first (punching or kicking) and once you get better go faster. then slow down again but mix it up. then speed it up while mixing the attacks. as you already know the faster the attack the harder it is to defend. the main problem with leg work is that every body starts off really fast and picks up bad foot work as a habit. that's what we do any how

currently studying ninjuitsu

Answer 4

Your footwork is terrible and you were promoted to red belt?

Your footwork training is your forms.

Pay close attention to what your forms tells you to do with your feet, and you will start to develop your footwork.

My guess is that you don't care much for forms practice. All of your arts footwork is there.

Answer 5

Danielle,

I don't know why you are emailing me these questions? I know nothing about Karate. Seems to me you should ask your Sensai (sp?)

Good Luck!

Carol