2024-05-13

Teaching my regular classes at the Ross Farnsworth - East Valley YMCA.

We talk a lot about driving with the back leg in Shotokan, but it turns out there’s a lot more going on with the legs than beginners may realize, and it’s important for instructors to remember how complicated it really is. Nowhere is this more evident than in the “simple” drill of standing in zenkutsu-dachi and practicing gyaku-zuki. The hip moves forward when you punch and back when you draw. The front knee doesn’t move at all. Simple, right? Wrong!

You see, the hip can’t really move on its own. The legs are really doing the work. Think of it like this: If there’s a ball in your hand and I say “move that ball”, the ball may move, but not under its own power. You have to use your arm muscles to move the ball. It’s the same with your hips. They can’t move anywhere without the legs, whether that be pushing or pulling.

So when you drive your hip forward with gyaku-zuki, what you’re really doing is using your rear leg to push the rear hip forward. Likewise, when you pull your hip back on the draw, what you’re really doing is using your rear leg to pull that hip back. And because the leg is the one doing the work, this underscores the importance of your connection to the floor.

Similarly, beginners tend to let the front knee buckle or sway back and forth during this drill, and we instructors keep telling them “don’t let that knee move.” Of course not moving seems like it’d be easy, so why is this so hard? It’s hard because you do have to move the knee after all. It just doesn’t appear to move because of proper timing. You see, when you pull your hip back on the draw, your front knee is going to come along for the ride unless you use your abductors to open your legs just a bit. The trick is to open your legs at exactly the same speed, and for exactly the same distance that the rear hip travels, making it appear as though it’s not moving. To say that another way, your front knee doesn’t move in space because you’re moving it relative to your own body.