Tradition and the Anatomy of a Round Kick [Mawashi-geri]
Published: 8-04-2012
By Spencer sensei
I remember reading an article in an obscure martial arts publication in the early eighties addressing the proper execution of the round kick. The article went into detail on how the kick should and should not be delivered. When I read the article, I had already achieved black belt, so I had some expertise on the topic. My karate training began in the seventies, and I spent several years training in both the Japanese and Korean martial arts. Reading the article, I remember being in full agreement with its author. In 1985 I moved to Phoenix Arizona and began training in Isshin-ryu karate. Isshin-ryu is an Okinawan style of karate. When I began my Isshin-ryu training, I held the rank of second-degree black-belt in Tae-Kwon-Do. Tae-Kwon-Do is famous for its emphasis on kicking technique. One of the first things I noticed, during my Isshin-ryu instruction, was that Tatsuo Shimabuku (Shimabukuro) had removed the back-leg round kick and the back-leg side kick from his system. He replaced the round kick with what Isshin-ryu practitioners termed a squat round kick. It was executed by stepping out on a 45˚angle. The Isshin-ryu side kick was another oddity. It was delivered sideways from a horse-stance, and not from a long forward stance off the back leg as I had been taught. These changes were considered revolutionary on Okinawa when Shimabuku sensei made them, but now his changes are grudgingly accepted by his peers. Now, here I am three decades later looking at Nakayama’s book “Dynamic Karate” questioning what I once thought was an unquestionable doctrine. After training in Isshin-ryu and watching my son train in the full-contact arena, I began to see possible flaws in the back-leg round kick as it is delivered in traditional karate. This kick may have been a formidable weapon against the untrained assailant, but it is too slow and awkward to be effective against a skilled fighter if delivered the way I had been traditionally taught.
When I was beginning student, it was sensei say and student do, yet three decades later I see some problems with the anatomy of the round kick as it is taught in the traditional dojo. The purpose of this article is not to change your mind, but to make you think about alternative methods of delivering this kick. So… is there only one way to properly deliver the round kick?
Some karateka will find this article heresy because their minds are rooted in tradition. Granted tradition is part of karate but being stuck in the mire of tradition can limit the karateka’s growth. Do not allow tradition to limit your life preservation skills. Still… I do not want to throw the baby out with the bath water or adopt a non-traditionalist philosophy that disregards all ancient technique. All I ask you to have is an open mind. Tradition has its place, but we must not be imprisoned by it nor allow it to limit our growth. We must study the anatomy of all our karate techniques to become better karateka and better instructors.
You may question, who is this Spencer guy that disputes the ancient masters? What right does he have to question the masters? My answer is a simple. We are all students of karate, whether beginner or master, and we should be in search of practical technique from the first moment we step onto the dojo floor to last karate technique we perform. We can only find the truth in karate through examination of its technique, and it must be done without the rigor mortis of someone’s traditional beliefs. Here is a thought… Is your style’s founder incapable of error? Could he/she have misinterpreted their instructor’s methodology? The search for meaning also cannot be obstructed by the fear of tainting the memory of a system’s master. All karate students owe a debt of gratitude to those that went before, and we must know our history because we are all links in the chain that goes back to founders, but we also must not blindly believe that the techniques we are taught today are exact replicas of those taught by Matsumura /Sakugawa and his peers. An open mind is not heresy. It just might make you a better karateka.
Karate has a rich oral tradition, but I believe the message could have gotten lost in translation. There is an exercise performed in most high school psychology classes where the students are placed in a circle and information is whispered into the ear of one student with instructions to pass it on to the next student. When the message reaches the last student and the content of the message is revealed, it rarely matches the original information. From this simple exercise we must question how certain we are that our basic techniques are exactly like those taught be Matsumura or Sakugawa. These techniques were handed down through the oral tradition until the late nineteenth century, so is it possible that the message got garbled?
The majority of modern Japanese karate styles were influenced by one man. Gichin Funakoshi is the father of Japanese karate. He modified his traditional Okinawan karate to please the Japanese palate. His changes are now written in stone and cannot be challenged. The Japanese karateka seem to have forgotten that Funakoshi sensei changed his Okinawan karate to meet the demands of the Japanese people. I heard a story about two schools of Shorin-ryu arguing over the way a middle blocking technique should be delivered. Both school’s instructors had descended from Kyan sensei arguably the father of Shorin-ryu. One school said their master blocked with his elbow perpendicular to the ground while the other school argued the elbow should be a fist and a thumb’s distance away from your ribs. Each school claimed that the other was in error. Finally an instructor that had known both masters intervened. He trained on Okinawa while both masters were still alive and explained that one master blocked with his forearm perpendicular to the ground because he was very short in stature while the other master being much taller had kept his elbow in tight to protect his ribs. Each master went on to train American servicemen. The shorter instructor modified his middle block, so that it would be effective against his larger American students. The American students took their version of this block home and now teach it as dogma. Tradition keeps it written in stone, and to block in any manner than their method is to be wrong. Neither school modified their block that I’m aware of, but each school believes they’re following the correct path. Sometimes the message becomes distorted and because of tradition it is unchangeable.
Karate was not as rigid in nineteenth century Okinawa as it is today. It was modified, in some schools, to accentuate a student’s body style. As mentioned already, it became more inflexible as its popularity grew in Japan because the Japanese preferred a more structured approach. Under Funakoshi sensei’s tutelage each student would be required to reproduce each technique identically. This rigid structure made karate ideal for introduction into the Japanese educational system as a form of physical education. Let me make this clear, I’m not saying that the rigid structure is good or bad it was simply part of karate’s evolution. Many karateka believe that this structure was the refinement that karate needed, while others believe the rigidity limited the karateka’s life preservation skills. Funakoshi sensei’s changes were politically powerful and would eventually influence the way karate was taught on Okinawa itself.
The goal of this article is not to change the way you deliver a back-leg round kick but to get you to examine the strengths and weakness of the technique. My goal is to make you think. Do we know everything there is to know about the back leg round kick? Could the understanding of the mechanics of the kick have been lost? Let us look into the mechanics as described in Nakayama sensei’s book Dynamic Karate.
Mawashi-geri (Round Kick) p.139
- Keeping the body in hanmi raise the knee to the height of the abdomen, and raise the foot at the side close to the hips, with the toes pointing to the side and the sole facing the rear.
- Raise the leg so that the thigh and the lower leg are parallel to the floor at the same height. [Knee & calf perpendicular to the floor]
- Bend the knee fully so that the heel almost touches the hip.
That ends the description in Nakayama sensei’s book, but the karateka knows that from this point the hips are rotated and the lower leg snaps forward striking with the ball of the foot, and after the strike is delivered the foot is withdrawn as quickly as it was delivered. The student would then step down or back into a forward walking stance. In Robert Master’s text The Complete Book of Karate he describes the delivery in this motion. “Lift up your leg, keeping it horizontal to the floor and then propel it rapidly forwards without interruption. While you are doing this, turn your body along with the motion so that your supporting leg is turned 45º degrees to the side. Strike sharply and snap your knee back quickly, then resume the starting position again with your supporting leg turning back in.” In Richard Chun’s book Tae Kwon Do he describes this technique in a similar manner, but he also gives an alternative method as well as the traditional delivery on page 169. In the alternative method the leg does not go horizontal to the floor. I did not know of Chun’s alternative method, of back-leg round kick delivery, prior to my research for this article, but he confirmed that I was not the only karateka that had thought about the back-leg round kick’s delivery. Keeping the thigh of the kicking leg 90° to the floor is the method taught universally in karate systems. If most karate styles, deliver the kick this way can the mechanics be wrong?
You may wonder why Richard Chun’s round kick is like the Okinawan and Japanese versions. Many Korean students claim their art evolved independently and had no Okinawan or Japanese influence. Sorry kids, but when you make that claim you only show your ignorance. If the diehard Korean student compares early Tang So Do kata to Shotokan kata, they will get a shock. In John Sells book Unante on page 145 he writes about a place called the “Kanbukan” or Korean Marital Arts Hall located in Tokyo prior to World War Two. While the Koreans attended trade school in Japan they also trained in Shotokan karate. When they returned to Korea, they brought karate with them. After the war, General Choi made changes to Korean karate and called it Tae Kwon Do. During that time Korea was searching for its own identity, and it made every effort to separate themselves from their Japanese occupiers. Korean karate came from the same source as all karate. This is why all karate kicks look very similar.
Okay… if all systems deliver it the same way, then that must be the right way. I believe the way the kick is taught, in traditional karate schools today, was originally designed only to help beginning students develop their balance and hip rotation. I am not saying the kick is not effective. It can be very effective in a confrontation with an untrained fighter, but the downside is that it is slow in its delivery. Slow is a killer in a real attack. It also leaves the groin open, and forces all of the fighter’s weight to be concentrated on one leg or pivot point. When performing the traditional back-leg round kick, once the knee is raised perpendicular to the floor the karateka has telegraphed the technique. Once the knee goes perpendicular the adversary, if trained, knows what’s being thrown. As mentioned already, it places all the karateka’s weight on the supporting leg, so a heel thrust kick the supporting knee makes for an easily damaged target while the karateka tries to wrench his/her hip forward. Some schools teach this kick by placing a chair to the side of the student and forcing them to kick over it. I was told that doing this would allow the karateka to kick over an object if necessary. How many times will a karateka need to kick over an object in a real-life preservation situation? Does this small number of times justify the thousands of round kicks thrown in practice? Why would true masters focus on a technique that would only be deployed in a small number of situations? It is my belief that we have misinterpreted the true purpose of this kick. If it a true staple of karate, then its use must be more universal, and should be delivered without being easily recognized. Just because all karate styles teach this kick the same way does not mean they understand it completely.
Okay now that we’ve noted that all major systems that teach the traditional back-leg round kick all do it the same way, you probably want to know where I differ. This is where I differ with my peers. I believe that all back-leg kicks should be performed with the exact same motion. The back-leg front kick is delivered with the knee moving forward. Once the back leg passes the front knee, the lower leg is snapped forward at the last second striking with the ball of the foot. You can use this same motion to deliver the side-kick or round kick simply by a torque of the hips in one fluid motion after the back leg passes the front support leg. All three kicks look the same until the final delivery. Your knee never goes perpendicular to the floor, so the opponent cannot determine which kick is being delivered until the last second. It is the opponent that will determine which kick should be used by their reaction. If they react to block a front snap kick rotate the hips and hit them with a round kick. Go around the block. If they try to punch over the kick and expose their ribs, drive home a front kick. If you move and they retreat, extend your hips slam them with a side kick. By delivering all the kicks in the same motion these slower techniques are disguised and can become more effective when fighting a trained or untrained opponent.
For years I’ve watched kumite and the back-leg round kick is never deliver like it is taught in the dojo. All this extra perpendicular motion slows the kick down. Why teach the back-leg round kick using this awkward motion? I can only think of only one valid reason and that is to develop a beginning student’s technique. Still… tradition keeps advanced students walking up and down the dojo floor delivering this kick in the same awkward manner. Practice should mirror real world usage of this kick. An instructor should vary the delivery based upon the student’s time in grade. Beginners should follow the perpendicular motion while advanced black-belt students experiment with disguising its delivery.
The round kick can also be delivered from many different angles. Not all round kicks are delivered 90˚ or horizontal to the ground. They can be delivered in a downward motion on a 45˚ angle. This is done by over rotation of the hip. When this is done the target area is the thigh or side of the knee. Most fighters target the outside of the knee with this inverted kick, but it can be delivered to the inside of the knee too. The quickest delivery of the round kick is on a 45˚ angle moving upward. The hips do not fully rotate, yet a great deal of power can be generated by a quick truncated rotation of the hips. This kick can be delivered to the ribs, hip, or bicep muscle. A round kick can come at you from many different angles. Don’t limit this weapon to the horizontal plane.
Traditionally the round-kick is focused on striking with the ball of the foot, but the round kick can use other areas of the body to strike with as well. This kick is best delivered with the large bones of the shin and not the small bones of the feet. The shin is likened to a baseball bat. The ball of the foot is strong too, but broken toes may be the price paid using a round kick in combat. One Korean style I studied struck with the top of the foot. In my humble opinion this might work in tournament, but it can also break any number of the small bones that make-up the foot. A round kick can be delivered with the knee. Always use larger bones when possible. Vary the final point of contact. Strike with the shin when in close and with the ball of the foot at a distance. Don’t only use the ball of the foot.
My thoughts on the round kick, according to the article I read in the early eighties, make me a heretic. I think we need to study the back-leg round kick along with all our basic techniques and experiment, but who am I to buck tradition. Sadly, if the student demonstrates this kick without the back-leg perpendicular to the floor the technique will be failed on their rank promotion test. I can execute this kick with flawless agility, but it will always be with cognitive dissonance that I do so. Please forgive me if you think I’m wrong. Still the question begs to be asked. Does the fact that we all do it the same make it right? Just because we all do it the same only means we were taught the same. It does not make it right. All I ask is that you think about it….