I favour my right side when sparring.... just seems natural I guess leading off my right leg.

I know there are a couple of exceptions in the martial arts world such as Bill Superfoot Wallace who developed his left leg to be his 'kicking tool'..

HOWEVER NEVER MIND BILL,

when I switch to my left or have to do line work etc I have great difficulty feeling fluid and natural with the kicks.

But I was wondering if anyone had encountered a similar problem and if so how they have countered it?

in sparring i normally flow from left lead and then switch to right when i'm hammering people. when i'm infighting (knees, elbows, head etc) i'm normally front on but with my weight on the left.

in answering your countering question... its your body reacting how it reacts. work with it rather than again it. you'll find it working how it needs to if you stop thinking about it.

sparring point of view of course.

its the line work that'll screw you every time!

when i spar i usaully use my right side it feels more antural but on the occasion i use my left

p.s very happy 2 day passed my black belt in tkd after five years of training

Well done mate I know how hard that is for anyone, am currently 2nd Dan in TKD. You must be proud. Remember this is just the beginning of your journey.
Do you study any other style?

PeteMills wrote:
I favour my right side when sparring.... just seems natural I guess leading off my right leg.

I know there are a couple of exceptions in the martial arts world such as Bill Superfoot Wallace who developed his left leg to be his 'kicking tool'..

HOWEVER NEVER MIND BILL,

when I switch to my left or have to do line work etc I have great difficulty feeling fluid and natural with the kicks.

But I was wondering if anyone had encountered a similar problem and if so how they have countered it?
It is always natural to feel less coordinated on your 'weak'side when it comes to kicking. I am right handed, therefore prefer kicking with my right leg, but I do tend to find that I can execute some kicks better with my left leg. I just tend to work my left side a lil more when it comes to the kicks I know I should be able to do equally as well with my right side, and vice versa

I know what I do is wholly different from TKD and so I've held off weighing in on this one, but in both kickboxing and muay thai it's normally the case that, if you're right-handed, the lead leg is the left one (and usually the weaker one) but you use this when kicking often as a tester - as one would use a jab with the left hand to test your opponent (their speed, resistance, etc) before you give them a good thump with your dominant fist or a good smack with your stronger rear leg. So, for front kicks one might push one's opponent away with a push kick from the left leg before bringing a powerful stamp kick with the right into the solar plexus. Or knock one's opponent with a front leg push kick before dealing them a mean roundhouse with the dominant shin.

Yeah!

That type of fighting is actually very common to many fighting styles. It is used in boxing, kick boxing, and many tkd and karate styles fight this way as well. I personally fight with my dominant side forward (to a certain extent).

You should really train to be as comfortable as possible in doing all things with both sides of the body, but it is enevitable that you will be better with some things on one side. I usually prefer to kick with my right leg, but I like to do spin and jump kicks with my left.

Speaking of Wallace, I've trained with him a few times. Guy is very funny, very personable, and and incredible fighter. I used some of what he taught me in a local tournament about 3 weeks ago and took 1st place in my division. I actually fought Wallace style because of an injured ankle (sparring accident).

Speaking of Wallace, I've trained with him a few times.

Can he still kick Ass? Ive seen him on youtube where hes landing sweet kicks on kids thirty years his younger.


Exceptional Man. If you have a contact so we could interview him, let me know.

I can probably get you an interview. My teacher is friends with him. Yes, he is still that good. I'm half his age and he lands kicks on me. I can block some of them, but eventually he gets me. A lot of his strategy is about reading his opponent and then purposely making you do something to set up a counter. The worst part is he'll even tell you what he's gonna do, but it works a lot like Pavlovian conditioning.

I find that, compared to my left leg, my right leg is pure gold and it seems that I can't really change that. My way of coping with it has been to practice to the point that it's no longer "bad leg/good leg," but rather "good leg/even better leg".
I imagine a person could potentially train both legs to be equally good, but I doubt whether it's really the best use of your training time considering you could end up neglecting your good leg.

At the moment I kick with both legs when sparring however I find that I think about the stance and then which leg it is best to execute the best technique with. I think it kind of depends on what sparring rules you are following.

TKD seems to mostly be continuous sparring where massive combinations can be used and its important to keep drilling in with kicks. Karate is mostly point stop so you need to place moves and pull them back really quickly so sometimes low (leg) kicks can be used as a distraction and then you can hit your opponent with a quick scoring punch.

When I was doing the TKD style sparring I found that my left leg was absolute trash for kicking from and was mainly used as a pivot for spin kicks on my right leg. I also found that when throwing a lot of unexpected twist kicks, hook kicks crescent kicks etc then I could hit the angles I wanted with just my right leg.

Now that I am mainly practicing karate the rules have changed. I can't make use of kicking from just my right leg because I will get my left leg swept so I continually change which leg I lead with. I tend to find that I can kick better off my left leg when I am leading with my left leg because I can then use the momentum to drop to my knee and do a rising reverse punch and spring out pulling back so I get the point. My right leg is still fine leading with the left or right but I still have to watch out for being swept.

I think what I am trying to say in short is that its important to think of how you want to use your kicks depending on the situation. Maybe I'm wrong though

sparring rules depend a lot on the region you are in and if you are doing WTF certified sparring (ie Olympic style). I HATE WTF rules.

Then again, I don't care for the stopping in between points in other styles either, so I guess I'm just the kind of person who can't be satisfied