Front Kick Mechanics Playbook

Mat Manual companion guide to "Ap Chagi: The First Kick Is Not a Warm-Up." Print it. The article rebuilds the front kick as a four-part cycle: chamber, extension, contact, rechamber, with the hip driving through and the body upright. This playbook turns that cycle into standards you can check against a wall and a line on the floor, paddle progressions that build the hip drive without the lean, stop-hit timing cards for the sparring setting, poomsae-setting standards kept clearly separate, and a fault table keyed to what a partner or a pad actually shows.

Name: ______________________________ School: ______________________________ Current grade: ______________ Kicking leg trained first each set (then swap: train both): ______________

BEFORE ANYTHING: SCOPE AND SAFETY ☐ Contact in this book is to pads and paddles, or pulled at the agreed distance in partner timing work. Nobody's body is a target for full-power front kicks in these drills. ☐ Toes are protected by the technique, not by luck: ball-of-foot contact with the toes pulled back is a pass/fail standard (Part 4). A student who cannot set the foot yet kicks at reduced power until they can. ☐ Knees and hips set the limits. Sharp pain in the knee or hip, or pain in the standing leg's knee, ends kicking work for the day and is raised with your instructor. Muscle effort in the thigh is training; joint pain is information. ☐ Partner timing work (Part 12) runs at agreed speed and range, with the stop-hit finishing on a held pad or pulled short, per your school's sparring convention. ☐ Clear the floor behind and beside the kicker. A rechamber trained honestly involves a leg traveling back fast; nobody drills inside its path.

Part 1: The Kick Card