My new video (And corresponding text) is on the spinning hook kick, a martial arts move that many have tried and most have faceplanted doing.

The spinning hook kick, also known as the wheel kick, is the definition of high risk and high reward. The reward has been discussed and the risks are many, not the least of which is that even if you do the move perfectly, the above-the-waist posture means you will by definition be off balance and at risk of being thrown on your head or kicked in the dick.

And of course, an even bigger risk is that you’ll do the move completely wrong and look like an asshole.

So, without further ado, lets get to how to do the kick.

Before you start this kick, PLEASE learn how to do the standard hook kick, and the spinning crescent kick. As luck would have it, I’ve done videos on both of those strikes. Check it!

Anyway, once you’ve mastered those, come back here.

There are actually two types of spinning hook kick, one with the hand on the ground and one without. We’ll only be learning the hands-free spinning hook kick, and you’ll find out why in a minute.

To do the spinning hook kick, get into your regular fighting stance, and begin to spin on the ball of your front foot. From here, half chamber your kicking leg, just like you did with the spinning crescent kick

From here, it’s pretty similar to the spinning crescent kick, for the first 60-70% of the spin, you keep the half chamber and don’t move your leg. Look over your shoulder the whole time. THEN, when you see your target over your shoulder, extend your leg out, and do the hook kick. If you’ve gotten this far you know the components, so just put them together.

What makes it easier in my opinion is to just extend the leg out and then feel as if you’re “gliding” across the opponent’s face.

Often times, when you first try to do the kick the right way, you will find yourself falling to your hands—that’s okay! That brings us to the variant of the spinning hook kick, the hand on floor kick. You should try to do the kick the right way, and only fall to the floor should you feel the need to. This kick is totally fine to do, just make sure to continue to bring the foot across the opponent’s face. But the fact that it is at its core something of a cop out means you should focus your practice the “proper” version

This variant on the kick is good for those who are not particularly flexible. Even I myself occasionalyl find myself, ahem, falling into this.

Keep the arm that matches the kicking leg extended to keep your balance. And if you can’t kick high, then practice low until you can.

I suppose you could kick the body with this kick, but…honestly, I wouldn’t. Like any kick that abducts the hip, you have to bring it across and through the target, otherwise you can risk back and hip injury. Thus you have to practice this kick on something you can draw your foot “Through”, like a speed bag or a kicking paddle (which I have in the video).

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