How Does Physics Apply to a Jumping Spinning Crescent Kick in Martial Arts?

[Ninjabuddy]

Hey guys, I've just started my first year of Physics in High School and so far, it's really interesting! Great too see just how everything around us actually works!

Anyway, I've got a question for everyone. To introduce us to Physics and better acquaint ourselves with the world, our teacher is making us do a project on the physics of our favorite hobby, and my favorite hobby just happens to be Martial Arts, so I decided to do the physics of a certain type of kick called a jumping spinning crescent kick. If any of you do martial arts, you should know what the kick looks like, and if you don't, here's a tutorial of it.

http://www.trickstutorials.com/index.php?page=content/t_360

Any help you guys could give me would be greatly appreciated!

 

[malawi_glenn]

Well the first thing that strikes me is inertia and angular momentum. And a kind of projectile orbit.

 

[The Bob]

Hey,

You could do something based in basic mechanics, e.g. how much energy is required for a human of a said mass to get high enough to get a kick in. I dunno, just throwing really random ideas at you to be honest. I also thought of angular momentum when I was reading your post but not inertia; I like it.

The Bob (2004 ©)

 

[Ninjabuddy]

Thanks for the help and some really interesting ideas. I should have been a bit more clear in my first post about what exactly I was looking for. I was thinking of doing the basic physics behind each step in the kick, such as gathering momentum as you step into get a higher launch or something to that effect.