By now, we all are familiar with punches and kicks when practicing martial arts. Many practices may spend some time drilling footwork and most do not even emphasize on them. In the end, most of us know our punch and kick combos like the back of our hand but fail to execute them in a timely fashion and are left wondering, “What went wrong?”
If you further analyze what went wrong (and if you’re lucky or with an experience master), you may realize that you may be lacking in the footwork area. Your blows do not land if you are unable to maneuver yourself around your opponent while maintaining optimal distances for your hits to land. Distance is a very important factor and you will understand distance when you train your footwork.
The question then is, where do you begin?
Either consult your master about the basic footwork that your art has OR you can first, learn the basic footwork: Stepping forward and stepping backward. You can practice stepping to the left and right too. Then combine these to make your movements less predictable by Step to the right diagonally and move forward or step to the left diagonally and move forward, to strike.
Once you have the basics down, then you can apply other more advance footwork available in your martial arts’ repertoire and continuously train them with a sparring partner so that you can gauge your distance from your partner’s. Other kinds of workout that compliment footwork training include doing jump ropes, lunges, and short sprinting (which usually requires a burst of energy).
To some, footwork is only a means of getting around and about your opponent, we would like to take things one step further and also explore the idea that the basic footwork that allows you to gain distance and work into your opponent’s space can also be interpreted as kicking trajectory to make your throw your opponent’s lower body off balance and creating an window of opportunity for victory.
We are NOT saying that footwork (and especially fancy ones) will enable you to be hit-free.
There are times when you may have take some hits but at least your distance, timing, as well as how fast your reaction and flow from one action to another will increase your chances of positioning yourself and maximize striking efficiency into the takedown.
From here, you will slowly familiarize with your optimal striking distance and how you can maneuver yourself so that you can still strike your opponent while it will be difficult for him to strike back. Never neglect your footwork and always train that in conjunction with your striking combos follow by chaining these combos with a take down / potential ground fight for utilizing distance, timing, and speed.
