Non-Poll: Chambered kicks, form or process?

**Hyperion** · Posted On: 8/29/2006 9:16pm

If you watch someone who has mastered the art of kicking (not me), you could be forgiven for thinking that they are not chambering, because they move so fast. When used by masters in a real fight, you barely even see it. When training from the beginning, you must use it, because it teaches you to bring all the parts of your leg together into the right position before the final *snap* of the kick. Having your hips, thigh, shin, ankle, and foot all lined up allows you to transfer the most force through that snap and into the target.

Think of it like a baseball player throwing a pitch. If he just stood there flat-footed, but threw with all the strength in his arm, how fast would it go? No matter how strong his arm is, he's not really utilizing it well. But when he winds up and brings his body around into the right position before finally pulling his arm down and snapping his wrist in the release, he can throw the ball much faster.

This is why beginners (and I count myself in that category) learn forms, why we chamber kicks, why we do things that look really stupid and don't seem relevant to a fight, because we have to learn the basic strikes the correct way. You wouldn't sit there in a fight with your leg chambered, and then kick, you would just bring your leg up and kick in one fluid motion. But without spending all those months (or years) practicing that chamber, you won't have the muscle memory required to bring all the components of your leg together in the right place before snapping the kick.

If you want to compare it to something you've seen in MMA, look at ground and pound when you're sitting in someone else's guard. You can punch all you want, but if they're pulling guard right, you can't bring your hips into the punch, and arm strength alone isn't all that powerful without being able to put the rest of your body behind it.

Chambering is the same way, your kicks simply won't be very powerful if you just throw your leg out there, no matter how strong you are. Now again, after a while, it becomes second nature, you don't think about chambering, you don't have a pause between draw, chamber, and kick, it's just a fluid motion. But you can't get to that point without first learning to chamber.

**BackFistMonkey** · Posted On: 8/29/2006 9:23pm

Snap kicks suck ass .

**TehDeadlyDimMak** · Posted On: 8/29/2006 10:19pm

Originally Posted by Hyperion

If you watch someone who has mastered the art of kicking (not me), you could be forgiven for thinking that they are not chambering, because they move so fast. When used by masters in a real fight, you barely even see it. When training from the beginning, you must use it, because it teaches you to bring all the parts of your leg together into the right position before the final *snap* of the kick. Having your hips, thigh, shin, ankle, and foot all lined up allows you to transfer the most force through that snap and into the target.

Think of it like a baseball player throwing a pitch. If he just stood there flat-footed, but threw with all the strength in his arm, how fast would it go? No matter how strong his arm is, he's not really utilizing it well. But when he winds up and brings his body around into the right position before finally pulling his arm down and snapping his wrist in the release, he can throw the ball much faster.

This is why beginners (and I count myself in that category) learn forms, why we chamber kicks, why we do things that look really stupid and don't seem relevant to a fight, because we have to learn the basic strikes the correct way. You wouldn't sit there in a fight with your leg chambered, and then kick, you would just bring your leg up and kick in one fluid motion. But without spending all those months (or years) practicing that chamber, you won't have the muscle memory required to bring all the components of your leg together in the right place before snapping the kick.

If you want to compare it to something you've seen in MMA, look at ground and pound when you're sitting in someone else's guard. You can punch all you want, but if they're pulling guard right, you can't bring your hips into the punch, and arm strength alone isn't all that powerful without being able to put the rest of your body behind it.

Chambering is the same way, your kicks simply won't be very powerful if you just throw your leg out there, no matter how strong you are. Now again, after a while, it becomes second nature, you don't think about chambering, you don't have a pause between draw, chamber, and kick, it's just a fluid motion. But you can't get to that point without first learning to chamber.

I'll just make a few points. Snap kicks meh. Forms suck. There is an alternative to doing a snap kick and it does generate a lot more power.

**Hyperion** · Posted On: 8/29/2006 10:46pm

Forms suck if you are dumb enough to actually start walking through the taeguk poomse during a fight, yes. Similarly, I imagine that a running back who tried running through the line the way he runs during tire drills would find himself in an equally unpleasant situation.

Forms are for stretching, for practicing balance, certainly. But the most important part is what they do for beginners: they force you to think about where every part of your body is at all times. Surely practitioners of all styles will agree that this is important. I assume that most of us have seen MMA matches where a stray arm gets turned into an armbar, accidentally dropping your hand exposes the head to a knockout punch/kick, poor footwork putting someone in a position where a takedown is easy, etc.

Now, guys who have been practicing their art for years may not need this training, but forms are a good way of forcing a beginner to think about where all of their body parts are...at least, if they have a real instructor and are not just pretending to go through the steps in some mcdojo. The point is that your foot placement has to be perfect, your weight balance needs to be perfect, your hands need to be positioned perfectly.

Yes, I understand that you want every single thing you do in a gym to be focused only on what goes on in an actual fight. I presume this means that you do not stretch or lift weights or jump rope or run or do any of that, since it has no applicability in a fight. [/sarcasm]

Again, yes, forms as they are "practiced" in a mcdojo will not help you; forms of any kind are not the same as what you would do in a ring. So yes, they "suck" in that respect. If you only do forms and do not spar, you will never be able to fight. That is why sparring is essential (and a lot more fun, too), but it's also important to develop that sense of where your body is as well.

**Hyperion** · Posted On: 8/29/2006 11:17pm

I should probably also mention that it very well may be of no use to you. I originally started a few years ago as a way to deal with a neurological condition, and stuck with it when I found that I actually enjoyed waking up in the morning and checking my body for bruises for some odd reason :)

Anyways, balance and coordination were a little more difficut for me to learn, whereas for all I know you might have picked it up much more quickly. Whatever. My point was that some of us have difficulty with keeping everything coordinated, and forms help you learn to know where all your limbs are at all times so you don't drop your hands at the wrong moment or bring your foot down from a kick in an unbalanced stance.

You might see that as a weakness, and again, whatever. I see it as knowing I can't slack off, slow down, or cut corners, because if I don't train twice as hard as the next guy, I won't have a chance. There's no special treatment when you fight, which come to think of it is probably why I enjoy it.

**Lv1Sierpinski** · Posted On: 8/30/2006 4:55am

(Excuse the aside)

Forms are fun, but only to those people who find them fun. Ultimately there are far more beneficial, efficient and practical ways to learn anything that you're going to get out of a form. But they make a fantastic main course for rank progression.

(Returning to the thread)

Happycrow, I'm not sure I totally get your question:

is the chamber considered an essential part of correct form in your art, or is it something that must be learned, but is then expected to be disregarded

Are you asking which styles keep their kicks chambered even after 10, 15, or 20 years of training? A chambered (and I mean a blatantly chambered, TKD style snappy kick) is fundamentally different from a non- or less- chambered kick. You can't really 'disregard' the chamber so much as you just stop doing that kind of kick. Operating on that assumption (which if anyone disagrees with let me know) then I would say that very few styles (certainly none that I've ever seen) teach chambered kicks from the get-go only to totally stop using them after a while.

**inimitable_1** · Posted On: 8/30/2006 5:05am

YAY! A recent post I learned something from... I'm so happy :icon_surp

**Lv1Sierpinski** · Posted On: 8/30/2006 7:44am

In the interest of full disclosure, I am one of those that finds forms fun, hence the wushu. So I don't want anyone thinking I'm a form hater, I'm a form realist...there's a difference.

**TehDeadlyDimMak** · Posted On: 8/30/2006 9:14am

Originally Posted by Lv1Sierpinski

In the interest of full disclosure, I am one of those that finds forms fun, hence the wushu. So I don't want anyone thinking I'm a form hater, I'm a form realist...there's a difference.

I agree with your view. A lot of people find forms as a good means of exercise and entertainment.

However, if your primary goal is in learning how to fight then there are much more beneficial ways to improve balance, movement, etc. than forms. Drills with aliveness and resistance being the primary one along with hard sparring/free rolling.

High five.

**Hyperion** · Posted On: 8/30/2006 5:54pm

However, if your primary goal is in learning how to fight then there are much more beneficial ways to improve balance, movement, etc. than forms. Drills with aliveness and resistance being the primary one along with hard sparring/free rolling.

And I definitely agree with you on that. I just dislike reflexive hatred of them. For some reason it reminds me of that clip of Allen Iverson at a press conference going "So I skipped practice, so what, it's just practice."