twisting

Hello: I recently started studying Muay Thai in a group setting, and after a few weeks of 1x a week training sessions, developed achilles tendonitis. I thought it was due to all the standing on tip toes part of the art, but I did an experiment and is is definitely only after hitting a heavy bag (probably too much with my foot), that the condition gets worse.) I can throw a few dozen round kicks in shadow without any significant aggravation. It's slowly improving as I'm not kicking things and stopped taking the class (great instructor, but at 51 I think I've aged out of group training even though I do loads of conditioning, cycle through different regular workouts, get my sleep, etc). What is the best way to learn to hit the bag on round kicks so that I'm not slamming my foot into it. Any pointers, tutorials, videos, etc, welcome. I've browsed the net and youtube, but my searches have come up empty. I'm not looking to compete or even spar. I'd just like the pleasure of thunking my shins into things. At my age, it may not be sustainable to do even that, but in order to find out, I have to keep my foot from thunking into things. btw Sylvie is the Earnest Hemmingway of this martial art. great writing!

Hello everyone (first poster): I'm learning mt primarily as a movement discipline and not for fighting. (I'm 49.) I learned kicking via Tang Soo Do and American full contact fighters years ago, but couldn't take all the bloody noses and thereafter have practiced for the joy of the movements. I haven't found any free resources to help me on how to breakdown throwing a head kick in mt that makes it look much different than a TKD roundhouse. I've checked out Sylvie's video on this with Master K, and it almost looks like he is throwing a Tang Soo Do or Wushu style crescent kick to the head. (Perhaps I'm missing something though.) I found another video that breaks down the head kick, making it look like a TKD style roundhouse (knee up with chambered leg and hips square to target, then turn over hips and extend leg, the only difference from a TKD style being that the kick is delivered with the posted leg on the toes to allow more follow through.) Any pointers/tips welcome and thanks! A bit off topic, by learning the mt roundhouse (the variant with emphasis on turning out the posted leg and pulling up a straight or near straight kicking leg) I have seen that it is in a way a mirror of the Korean/Japanese/Chinese spinning wheel kick as far as follow through goes and leading with the hips of the posted leg. (With the spinning wheel kick, you lead with the internal rotation of the posted leg, as compared to the external rotation of the posted leg in the mt roundhouse.) -T