Importance of Footwork in Martial Arts

Video Transcript

"Michael Lewis with Yeshua's Ryu Martial Arts on behalf of Expert Village. We're talking today about speed drills. Okay, now we're going to talk about foot work. Foot work is key in both power and speed when you're working, when you're practicing with a partner. So, if you have, if you're working a front jab and you want to develop speed for that, you're sort of going to jump and lean yourself forward a little bit by pushing with the back foot when you do that. So when you strike, you're not just going to stay static and try to throw a strike, but you're also going to move forward you're going to sort of shift your weight into it and that way you'll be able to develop a little bit more push and power along with speed. Keep in mind that when you're hands are up, the front jab is a little bit closer, so that's going to be a quicker punch. The reverse punch has to travel a farther distance. So in other words, in order to be able to throw a strike, you're also going to have to turn your body into it. Again using the core of your body and your hips to turn that punch in and pull back. So foot work's very very key. Turning your feet inward and pushing is the key part about developing speed. If you'll notice that when I throw a jab, my head slightly moves inward in order to throw that strike. It's important to remember that you don't want to move your footwork before you throw your strike. So if I begin to turn my hips and then throw my strike, what I'm doing is telegraphing my technique to him. So he knows that I'm about to throw a technique as soon as I move and then throw a strike. So you have to work on timing, it has to be timed together, so that it moves together, so they'll be no way for him to really tell. That's one of the key parts of speed, is that they're not able to for see what's about to happen and it hits them before they really know."