Day 1 Kickboxing

1.Today class will be focused on Jab, Cross, Straight Knee strike and Front kick.

My usual warm up routine is  10 - 15 minutes:  1) Move your neck left to right and then up and down. 10 times
2) Open your arms straight and twist your torso left to right. 10 times
3) Arm circular rotation: forward and backward. 10 times
4) Hold-on something for balance, stand on one leg (leg is straight) and go up and down on the ball of your foot working your calf 30 times each. 
5) Squats with knee up.   Squat down and when you're up raise your knee up to your shoulder on the same side, then squat again and raise another knee to the same side shoulder. Do 30 squats alternating knees.
6) Sit on the floor, spread legs apart and stretch going left to right, then in the middle.
7) Stomach crunches: 4 sets of 20 crunches.
8) Stretch again.
 9) Push-ups - 2 sets of 20 for guys and 2 sets of 14 for girls. First set - Do push-up and then touch your elbow with your knee from the same side, do push-up and then touch your another elbow with another knee. Second sets of push-ups - place your palms wider and turn your palms to the sides, you will use different muscle group.
10) And last one in warm-up is Statics - We gonna hold our leg in different positions for active stretch, balance and build up muscles we will need for kicks. Each position we'll hold for 10 seconds.
1. Grab your ankle and as you stand on one leg bend down to the floor. Keep your supporting leg straight.
2. Keep holding your ankle stand up and bow your hip. Don't touch anything for balance. (in Yoga it called a Dancer pose)
3. Hold on something for balance and turn your leg which you hold in the air into a roundhouse ready position (Chamber for roundhouse). Don't hold your ankle with your arm - hold your leg with your muscles. The same side arm - push it back.
4. Extend your leg to roundhouse.
5. Turn your leg into back kick and hold it. If your right leg is in the air, bend your right arm and look over your shoulder toward the kick. Don't look under the arm! it's wrong.
6. Body stay exactly the same, turn only foot into sidekick position.

Switch legs and do the same.

This is my routine warm-up, you can do yours, which ever works best for you.

And now lets pretend that you don't know anything, I usually start with this class in the very beginning.

Get your Stance right.

      
Now we will work on the Jab:

Cross:

 Knee Strike: I don't have video on this one yet so I'll try to explain.  There are a few knee strikes which you perform - from a clinch position; on a ducking (from hook) opponent; advancing forward knee; switch knee; side knee; flying knee etc. But today we will work on a straight knee - imagine that you are putting a suck on your knee, so lift your knee, extend your arms forward like you're holding a suck and then thrust your knee forward (send your hip and butt forward as much as you can) as you leaning back for counterbalance.

Second step - lean forward on a standing punching bag with your knee and then push it as you lean backward. You have to penetrate target with your knee.  Do it until you feel that momentum and your body weight are going through the bag. Then you kick the bag with your knee. Move forward first like you are losing balance (or leaning on the bag) but at the moment of contact lean back as thrust your hip and butt forward penetrating the target with your knee.

Front Kick:

As you could see from this video that it is the same body mechanics as the knee strike, only difference is - you extending (hitting with) your shin and kicking with the ball of your foot.

At the end of the class I would like you to do 1 minute drill on the bag punching Jab and Cross none stop.
Stay in robot position (your elbows up), this way we eliminate arms (they already in right final position) and we focus only on the body mechanics.
Do not speed it up, use your hips and shoulders and count loud as you punch (one, two, three, four) so you keep the same rhythm.

I hope it helps. Till next class.

Thank you, Konstantin

The Beginning

Beginning is always tough, at least for me. As I look at a clear page in front of me I feel a sea of emptiness. It was like this for a while, but I was coming back to this stage over and over again promising myself to share my knowledge or putting it less dramatically - share my experience with the world.

I thought of myself many things and I tried many things in my life, unfortunately or maybe for the best (who knows), most of my endeavors failed terribly. Only a couple of things which did stick to me during past years, were: my wife Elena, who gently transformed me from a cocky dumbbell to a man I am today; and Martial Arts which I study and teach for over thirty years.

When I was nineteen I met this guy called Alex "the Spirit". Someone brought him to our underground Wing Chun club (at that time, back in Russia, Martial Arts were illegal) where he performed a demonstration. Ten guys were standing in line, where each participant was holding his arms straight against a back of a guy in front of him creating a solid structure. Alex "the Spirit", a medium built guy, gently placed his palm on the chest of the front-standing man and with an effortless push he moved the line, of ten men, about two feet backward. I was shocked as everybody else in the club. That was my first introduction to energy manipulation.

My friend Vasily kindly let me share his room in three bedroom community apartment (Where three families share this apartment, each family had one room)  he was living in. One day he brought Alex "the Spirit" with him and said that Alex will stay with us for a while. It was an amazing experience, Alex did demonstrations and taught us some steps into the energy world. Some was fun to do, but some I was not ready for. One night I was practicing to move the energy through my body and I fell into a deep meditation. My body was so heavy, I felt as I was falling down through the floor, driving through Earth and suddenly I saw my body lying on the bed and I was flying away. That spooked me a lot. I wasn't ready for that.