jodan and gedan mawashi geri

[evergrey]

OSU,
I'm curious about the focus I see on jodan mawashi geri. I have heard that decades ago it wasn't focused on as much, but as it became more popular in tournaments, it became more popular in knockdown styles in general. Do you folks who have been around a while (or studied knockdown history for a while) find that to be the case? Or has gedan become more popular instead? Were both of these common "back in the day?"
Did they start to come in a lot more because of Muay Thai?

I've been thinking about them, while my knee recovers. I see a lot of videos where a knockdown is a result of a jodan, but I know that not everyone has the flexibility and strength to execute a good, clean, powerful, CONTROLLED jodan mawashi geri. I was working on it before my knee injury, but now that I know more about my knees, and have some chronic limitations because of them, I am thinking about working on my gedan instead... toughening my shins, toughening my thighs, working on that.

My thought is this:

If you cut down a tree, you don't have to climb it to reach it's crown!

Thoughts?

OSU!

[GJEC]

You've got to use the right tool for the job. Some will never have a good high kick, equally others will never have the 'grunt' to drop someone with a low kick ...

Train both as well as you can, then when you compete favour the one that work best for you.

Gary

[evergrey]

OSU, for sure, I will try to learn about many tools, and then pick the ones that work for me and try to get very good at them. :}

[MMX]

I see it as a vicious weapon but you have to know when to use it.

If you overuse your Jodan they will use it against you.

Variety is good but not too much. Switch it up between all 3 levels is what I do.

[powerof0ne]

Feb 13, 2012 10:57:53 GMT -5 MMX said:

I see it as a vicious weapon but you have to know when to use it.

If you overuse your Jodan they will use it against you.

Variety is good but not too much. Switch it up between all 3 levels is what I do.

I have a student that overuses his jodan, to the point of me being able to purposely drop my hands and ashi barai him every time he does . That was this past Friday's class.

I do this out of tough love, and I generally don't even spar my students much these days. Typically, only at gradings, and maybe once a month'ish, maybe for 5 minutes a student. No point in sweeping my student every kumite session but I think it's good to dot his every once in a while for them to learn.

I'm able to jodan mawashi and gedan mawashi, but I remember when I was 14 or so really having to practice the jodan a lot to get it down. The gedan was a lot more of a natural feeling for me, I remember learning that rather quick. Maybe it's because I could already jodan? I don't know...uchi momo geri was easy for me to get down too since I'm a natural southpaw I found many opportunities to use it in kumite.
Osu!

[MMX]

Yes.

Same with Gedan.

If someone always uses Gedan then with Sune Uke its easy to counter.