Balance exercise: Two mae geri and kick hands held up high with 180 degree tenshin between the kicks

Asai Karate: 2024 Mumbai seminar

浅井空手: ユニークなバランス運動、同じ足で二回手を蹴る(手は代える), 蹴りの間に180度転身・インド・ボンベイ講習会

At Asai karate, we practice the flexibility by kicking the hands held up high. The kicking kinds include Mae geri , Yoko geri , and Mawashi geri .

Initially, just one kick in front of you. I have posted these kicks in the past. Now the participants in India became well familiar with this exercise.

I introduced a little more challenging exercise as an extension of this kicking hand exercise.

What you need to do is to kick one side of hand first. Then, without touching the foot on the floor, you will body rotate 180 degrees. As you face to the rear, switch the hands and kick it with the same foot.

An example:
Step 1: Assume Shizentai. Raise right hand above your head.
Step 2: Kick it with the left foot. This is important that you kick with the other side foot.
Step 3: Rotate your body counterclockwise direction, keeping the foot off the floor.
Step 4: Switch the hands (now left hand held up) and kick it with the same (your left) foot.
Step 5: Place the foot on the floor but keep the left hand above your head. Assume Shizentai.

Now you are ready to kick with your right foot and repeat the steps of 1 through 5.

It can be confusing when you are not familiar with this exercise.
Remember a few points:
* You will kick twice with the same foot.
* The first kick is the opposite hand.
* As you rotate your body, you need to switch the hands.

The key point is how you must manage a 180 degrees rotation on one leg while keeping the other leg in the air.

If you want to check your balance ability, this is an excellent method to find out. You are in good shape if you can do 20 times without a failure or a mistake. Try it.

There is another similar yet a little more challenging two kick balance exercise. I will share it tomorrow.