Side Kick Drill With Raymond Daniels
For a while, many traditional martial arts gyms have had their techniques mocked and discharged by MMA gyms with a more old school mentality. This includes techniques like spinning kicks, jumping kicks and the classic side kick.
Despite its massive popularity, the side kick isn’t used a lot in modern kickboxing or in MMA. There’s a few reasons for this, partly being that the stance most fighters take in those sports makes it hard to throw. Another reason is that people just don’t train the technique all that much. This means that they just don’t know how to throw the technique in the first place.
Since we are starting to see more and more fighters use the side kick effectively, you might want to think about adding it to your arsenal.
The side kick can be used offensively but also defensively, even while you’re moving backwards. Some fighters call this specific use of the side kick the back kick. This technique can be hard to learn for a lot of fighters because most of them aren’t used to throwing strikers moving backwards.
Luckily we have one of the best karate-style fighters in kickboxing and MMA to show us a drill to develop this technique.
In this video, Raymond Daniels goes over a karate drill that he uses to develop his defensive side kick.
Who is Raymond Daniels
Raymond Daniels is an MMA fighter and kickboxer who competes in both under Bellator. He’s also a sixth degree black belt in American Kenpo, a sixth degree black belt in Shotokan Karate and a fifth degree black belt in Taekwondo, so he knows his traditional martial arts. If you don’t know Raymond Daniels, you probably know the insane double touch spinning back kick that he scored during his time in Glory Kickboxing.
Karate Side Kick Drill
The drill that Raymond shows in this video is a pretty standard one in Karate. If you’ve trained in Shotokan Karate before you might have actually done this drill already.
The drill has you start in your fighting stance. From your stance you will then go into what is basically a kneeling lunge, putting your rear knee on the floor. From this position you are going to push off of your lead leg to stand back on your back leg. This will get you into a half kneeling position, kind of like a lateral lunge or cossak squat.
Keep in mind that you are going to want to keep your head back to keep you safe from any attacks coming at you. From there, you can now throw your side kick with your lead leg. Think about cutting off a charging opponent when you kick.
After throwing the kick you want to cross your feet over and step out of range to keep yourself safe.
You are going to want to get in a fair amount of reps on both legs to help really develop this technique.
Eventually if you want to add a visual aid to this drill, you can do it while having a partner come at you with a pad or a shield. This way you can really develop the ability to cut off your opponent with the strike.
Doing this drill, with or without a partner, will develop the strength in your legs and especially your glutes and really put some power in your kick.
Learn More From Raymond Daniels
If you like this technique and want to learn more from the spectacular Raymond Daniels then you should check out his complete video series “The Art Of The Spin Kick by Raymond Daniels” available exclusively on Dynamic Striking!