Kick Speed and Rechamber Drill Book: One Motion, Floor to Floor

Mat Manual companion guide to "Your Kick Is Two Moves, Not One." Print it. The article explains where kick time hides. This book goes and gets it: a timing battery, drill libraries for each of the three transitions, support-foot work, timed ladders, eight weeks of sessions, and logs for both legs.

Name: ______________________________ School: ______________________________ Block start: ______________ Re-test date: ______________

SAFETY, BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE ☐ Speed is earned at the speed where the path is correct. Any drill in this book whose standard is failing at the current speed goes back one step — the book's rule, not a suggestion. Fast sloppy reps are how knees and ankles collect injuries. ☐ High-rep kicking loads hips and knees. Volumes in this book are the ceiling for healthy students, not a floor to exceed. Joint pain that lasts past the session cuts the next session's kicking volume in half and gets mentioned to the instructor. ☐ Pad holders brace and hold on the true line. A holder who gives ground unpredictably during speed sets teaches the kicker to chase the pad and overreach. Holders call the set done when quality leaves (Part 3). ☐ Partner timing work (Part 9) is non-contact or pad-contact only until the coach clears live application. Nobody's face is a timing target. ☐ Warm up fully before any timed set: timed numbers from cold legs are lies, and cold legs at full speed are an injury rehearsing.

Part 1: The Timing Battery (Run First, Re-Run at Week 8)

All tests both legs, weak leg first. Record everything; this page is the block's before-picture.

Test 1 — Full cycle, single kick

Partner times (or film and count frames): from the kicking foot leaving the floor to the same foot set back down in stance, one roundhouse at full intent on a pad.

Test 2 — Ten-kick cycle

Ten roundhouses, same leg, clean reps only (a rep that misses the standard restarts its count). Stopwatch from first lift to tenth set-down.

Test 3 — The split test (video)

Film three kicks per leg in slow motion. Count frames or estimate tenths for each phase.

Test 4 — Return-only

Ten kicks where only the return is judged by a partner with the checklist: folds to chamber first · knee stays up · foot sets in stance · ready to move.

Reading the battery: A hold in Test 3 → Part 5 leads. Slow floor-to-chamber → Part 4 leads. Return faults → Part 6 leads. Everything slow with no single villain → Part 7 (support foot) plus the ladders (Part 8); the platform is taxing every phase.