October 4, 2014
Sylvie’s Tips: The Floating Block
Sakmongkol was the first person to tell me not to turn around on kicks. He was adamant about it. It’s very awkward when you first try and your kick can be really flicky and horrible, but the more you get it under control the more you realize how much this increases power. Basically you want to have confidence that you can control your kick at any time, so if you miss your target you’re not going to spin all the way around. Honestly, you’ll seldom if ever see this in a Thai fight and when I see it now in the octagon or in western fights, I cringe.
I got control by practicing stopping my kick and pulling it off of the bag. It’s good to have a reference point – Kaensak used to have me kick the wall, which was padded at AMA – and a bag is a good tool for that. But I really honed the skill in shadow. Lots and lots of shadow. This Sylvie’s Tip was in answer to a request from a follower who said he had trouble turning over his hip too much in his kick. I think this control exercise can solve a lot of hip turn and even confidence issues.
You can see video of Sakmongkol teaching it to me back in February (2014) here: 15 New Techniques That Will Improve Your Muay Thai – From My Training in Pattaya.
The full Sylvie’s Tips Playlist can be seen here:
