How about kicking?

What sort of drills would you guys recommend for someone interested in increasing their speed and ability?

Bruce Lee said, "If you want to learn how to kick, kick." Meaning you must kick many times in order to develop your kick. Many kicking styles such as shaolin and TaeKwan Do, advocate leg swings to increase flexibility and strength. Do you know how to do leg swings? Some are performed free-standing, others with one hand against the wall. I do 8 different legs swings, up to 25 total each leg. Then I do kicking drills from Wing Chun, in combination with hand techniques. I might finish off with a few sets of TKD kicks.
All in all, I have gone up to 700 kicks in my recent sessions, but I remember that the TKD class used to do 1000 kicks, not beginners of course.

There are people who do even more than this number.
Once again, it's usually a combination of Swing kicks with a straight leg, as well as your regular kicks. And always be careful not to hyperextend the knee, and remember to warmup then stretch beforehand.

Oh yeah, and horse stance practice will increase the power of you kicks. So will kicking the air shield.
-FJ

I was throwing 1800 Kicks, of all sorts in about 40 minutes 2-3 times a week.

If you want to be a good kicker, this is what you must do.

I think by counting your kicks it makes it harder to get through them. Just do each kind of kick until you are exhausted. Kicking the focus pads gives you power but should only be done after years of perfecting the technique of a perfect kick.
How do you keep track counting to a thousand while concentrating on spirit, focus and picturing the enemy when moving?
This is going to sound arrogant but in shaolin training we kick so much that by the end my legs are destroyed. I don't know the exact number it took to get there. Does it reallyh matter?

Most of the drills I do are kicking with one leg at a time. So, I need to count to make sure I do the same number on both sides. I rarely have to count past 25, so it doesn't bother my concentration. The wing chun kicking drills are either the 5 kicks, also easy to count, or a set with hand motions that adds up to 60 kicks each set. When I think back to what I've done, it's pretty easy to add up the kicks. Then, I have a total for the evening, which I can work on increasing as a way to gauge my progress.
Of course, this doesn't take into account how hard I'm kicking, or how high. But it works for me.

You might as well say, don't look at the mile markers when you run, just forget about it. You have a point, but's it's still tempting to look at those markers.

-FJ

Try some Lower Body Plyometrics. It might help along the way.

fa_jing, what are leg swings?

These are straight legged, you don't bend your knee. Example, stand about 18 inches from a wall, facing the wall. Now, put your right hand on the wall. Turn your left foot so that it is parallel to the wall, turn your head so your looking to the right. Lift your right leg up into the extended side kick position with a swinging motion. It's ok to swing slightly in the other direction beforehand, to get some momentum, but not so much that it's too easy. Play with it. That's just one kind of swing kick.

-FJ