C is for...

C is for Crescent kick and China

Crescent Kick: Another one of our basic kicks, this one involves moving the leg in an arc, as if you were drawing the shape of a loop with your foot.  The key is turn your hips in the direction you want the kick to go, lock your leg so that all the momentum comes from your hip and then throw.

(Chinese demonstration)

The highest kick we do, this one is designed to either strip a person's hand defense or catch them at the top of the body (it's a good way to break someone's collar bone if that's what you're aiming for).  Like any other basic kick it will later be advanced and combined with other techniques for the really flashy moves.  Spinning crescents, jump spinning crescents and multiple crescent kick combinations are commonplace in martial arts movies because they look really cool.  (I personally wouldn't use any of them in sparring, of course.  Though the grounded crescent kick is excellent for sparring to strip the hand defense or go after an unguarded head.)

China:  As Tang Soo Do is such a young art (established in 1945) it's roots and origins come from a variety of much older sources, one of which is China.  The first formalized instruction that the founder (see G) received was from Master Yang in the art of Kung Fu and this early training influenced not only the style but many of the techniques.  Those well versed in Chinese martial arts would notice a great deal of familiar (albeit altered) techniques, forms and one-step applications when they watched someone performing Tang Soo Do.  (Brief history lesson provided courtesy of "The History of Moo Duk Kwan" by Grandmaster Hwang Kee.)