The turning kick was the problem, but balance was the real subject of the course. My client, aged 66, came to me with a very clear brief. He wanted to improve his turning kick so he could pass his yellow belt grading in taekwondo. It sounds simple. Lift the knee, pivot the supporting foot, turn the hip, extend the leg, recover, land. Anyone who has trained striking arts knows it is rarely that tidy once the body starts moving under pressure.

A lot of people think kicking is mainly about flexibility. Flexibility helps, of course, but it’s not the main issue when moving from one kick to another. The real challenge is this: can the body stay organised while one leg is in the air? For my client, we worked on transitioning from one kick to another without putting his foot down. In taekwondo, this sort of control matters. A student might need to chamber the leg, kick, bring it back, turn the hip, and kick again.

My 66 year-old client embarked on his sixth hour with me. This is a martial arts cross-training personal training course used to improve his movement in taekwondo and to improve his balance for the turning kick. Despite not being involved with Korean martial arts since the 1990s, I am working with a lot of taekwodoins who wish to use other martial arts, such as boxing to improve their overall game. This afternoon, being so close to his grading, I decided to totally work on

In previous sessions, we worked on balance, stance, chambering mechanics and the lead leg turning kick. His lead leg kick is improving, mainly because we have been stripping the movement down and removing unnecessary complications. In this fourth hour, the attention moved more fully to the rear leg turning kick, with the v-step used as a practical set-up.

I do not teach taekwondo or any Korean martial art formally, despite starting my own martial arts journey in them during the early 1990s. Instead, I offer bespoke martial arts personal training that adapts to each client’s needs, drawing from a broad range of disciplines and experience. This outside perspective has proven valuable.