Back Leg Double Kick

I was assisting in class the other night when the lead instructor setup for kicking drills. One of the kicks the students were supposed to do was the back leg double kick. Several of the students were having a hard time performing the kick and despite my best efforts, they weren't getting what I was trying to tell them. The lead instructor stopped the drill and gave them different instructions which helped them a lot. I tried googling for a video of the kick to embed here but had little success so I'll do my best to describe it.

In typical double kicks (an ahp bar double kick), the first kick is performed with the lead leg as a front leg round house (ahp bar). It is then followed very quickly with a back leg round house (dol yo cha gi). The second kick starts so quickly that it begins during the recoil of the first kick. From a closed stance position, the first kick is targeted toward your opponents front side right around belt level and the second kick will be targeted higher and at the back of the opponent.

The "back leg double kick" is sort of a reverse of the two kicks above. The back leg round house starts first and is generally a little lower than your normal back leg round house at around belt level. After the first kick, the leg that was the lead leg is no longer in front but is also not in a completely switched position.  The second round house from this leg STILL starts during the recoil. From a closed stance position, the first kick is targeted toward your opponents back side right around belt level and the second kick will be targeted higher and at the front of the opponent. The second kick is the one that the kicker is trying to apply with the most torque.

What makes the back leg double kick so hard? With the back leg round house starting first, the hips are rotating in one direction. You start the second kick with rotational momentum still traveling in that direction. It is difficult to reverse that rotational momentum in the other direction while you are in the air because your feet have nothing to push against. The only muscles you are using are your core muscles. It is more difficult than the normal double kick because the amount of mass that you are trying to reverse is larger. In the normal double kick, the mass that you are trying to reverse direction on is all in your lower leg. In the back leg double kick, the mass that you are trying to reverse direction for is your entire leg.

So why do it? If you ever watch a sparring match, there are many attempts on points by doing a normal back leg round house. It's a powerful kick and if you can make contact, you will get a point. However, the "if you make contact" is the key. A lot of times, the opponent can just do a cover punch and guard against that leg making contact. So, what you are try to do is get him to commit to the cover punch while not leaving yourself exposed to it. This will leave his front side exposed for the second kick to the front side. The second kick needs to be powerful enough to score the point which is why it's important to use those core muscles to get the kick turned over. Another reason is that the front side has much more scoring area. The opponent's back has a non-scoring area right down the spine.

What did the instructor tell the students that I didn't? I was making a statement that they needed to reverse the hips and get that second kick turned over. The lead instructor stopped the drill and told them to focus on just one part of the kick, the actual second kick and to do a very small front kick at the beginning if they needed to. It was basically more important for them to get the power behind that second kick than to get the first kick done correctly. That would come later.

So what lesson did I learn as a teacher? I learned that I need to break down the kicks into relevant parts and figure out what was most important or difficult for the students to learn. I then need have them concentrate on that part of the drill first before trying to tie it all together. This would seem obvious as it's relevant to many lessons in life. It wasn't something that was occurring to me as I was trying to teach though.