Women's Kickboxing: Cross Punch

Series Summary

A generic term for the martial art sport, “kickboxing” is practiced for fitness and as a full-contact sport. There are many different types of kickboxing, varying from country to country. Each kind involves different types of strikes, but all are based on the kicking style. Some styles involve strikes with the arms, knees and elbows. While most styles do not allow shoes to be worn by the kickboxer, the French style of kickboxing, Savate, does allow the use of shoes. The Japanese style of kickboxing (called shoot-boxing) allows throwing and submission of the opponents. Adithada, the Indian style, allows knee, elbow and forehead strikes. Learn basic punches, kicks, and punch combinations in this free video series on women's kickboxing featuring kickboxing instructor Linda Josefsson. She demonstrates how to do an uppercut, how to throw a hook punch, how to throw an upward elbow, how to throw a downward elbow, how to dodge a punch, how to do a jab and cross punch combination, how to do a roundhouse kick, how to do a side kick and how to do a three punch combination.

Video Transcript

"O.k. so we just did the jab; moving onto the next basic punch the cross, now the difference is cross comes from back hand; it has a lot more power because your hips have a lot more momentum turning o.k. We get ourselves into a staggered stance; hands are up by your face, elbows are tucked to make sure everything's nice and tight; now after you move in you turn those hips and you drive through the hip straight into that bag with the backhand. O.k. one more time; come back to position in between, step forward; you got to turn those hips in toward the bag, extend that arm out. Again very important; wrist should be straight and you're hitting with the first two knuckles so this hand position did not change and come back. Always make sure that other hand stays up by your face as you're going through this whole thing o.k. So we're doing it again; step into it, turn that hip; hit with the first two knuckles straight on punch and then come back. So we want to focus on the feet a little bit more; staggered stance, now keep in mind the hip is what generates all that power so that's our key to throwing that cross punch. O.k. so hands up; elbows tucked; now we're rotating back shoulder and hip for a nice clean hit strikes the face. So would like two knuckles; the first two knuckles are, that's the part that should hit that target; make sure this other hand stays up by your face while you're throwing that punch, you want to stay protected the whole time and come back. So one more; step in, rotate; look at those hips they turned almost all the way over to the opposite side. O.k. we're going to go back to the bag again and we're going to do it full power; make sure you have that hip behind that punch, tighten up that fist; if you keep it loose chances are you're going to hurt is o.k., nice and tight; step in power, take a step back away from your opponent to see what's going on; one more time, step over a little bit with our front leg; straight hit, bring that hand right back to the original position and next we're going to move on to the uppercut."