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Tau
Tau's picture
Back Kick

Does anyone include the back kick / ushiro geri on their syllabus? If so, why? What purpose or benefit to you find to its use? 

And what foot angle do you teach? Toes-to-floor? Horizontal foot? Somewhere in between?

Neil Babbage
Neil Babbage's picture

Yes we teach it, toes to the floor (although we're not hugely fussy). It's used in multiple attacker drills and attacks from behind. E.g., bear hug from behind, strike groin / rake shin / break grip and step forward, deliver back kick to knee if assailant is in range before making escape. 

PASmith
PASmith's picture

As I don't (formally) control the syllabus it's something I do. Both as a back kick, spinning back kick (toes down), reverse side kick (foot horizontal) and jumping versions too.

Even if I did control the syllabus it's something I'd probably still include because...

They are fun and they require good body control, proprioception and athleticism to do well.

Personally I also find a good jump spin back kick one of the most satisfying techniques to throw. The whole body feel of it, the contraction and expansion, leg extension, the power generated, the bag or pad folding around the foot as it lands. I love that feeling in and of itself.

I was talking to a mate one time, who did Aikido, and asked him what he liked about it. He said "I like the feel of air between my toes". In other words, quiet apart from considerations of practicality or effectiveness, he simply liked the "feel" of aikido as an expression of human movement. And ever since then that intagible quality of martial arts (which is different for different people) is something I've valued.

When I do teach (I'm an assistant instructor) I stress that I think there are kicks for "showtime" and kicks for "go time" and as long as you aren't throwing jump spin kicks in a real violent situation (go time!) or groin kicks or knee stamps in TKD rules sparring (showtime!) then all is well. So long as we keep in mind ideas like Iain's martial map, training matrix and the appopriate context for things then martial arts can be a broad church IMHO.

Iain Abernethy
Iain Abernethy's picture

Tau wrote:
Does anyone include the back kick / ushiro geri on their syllabus?

I do … but we should probably define what we individually mean by “back kick” as I’m sure different people will be visualising different things.

To us, back kick is a simple stamp to the rear. It is not a “turning kick” where we start facing, turn our back on the enemy, and then kick out. I know of people who can turn so quickly that there’s little time to react; and they use the turn to add power to the kick. So, for highly skilled people turning kicks like that can work … in the context of a consensual exchange where there is more often the room from them. As Paul points out, they can be fun to do too!

Being someone who does not have a turning kick of such quality, and who would prefer to spend training time in other ways, that’s not the “back kick” we do. Ours is a simple “mule kick” to the rear.

We sometimes turn to practise it in linework – because different grades will be doing different kicks at the same time, and safety demands they are all kicking in the same direction and not at one another – but it’s made very clear the turn and the reset are not part of the kick (position, kick, reposition done in distinct stages and not in one flowing single movement). We also practise it in place too of course.

Tau wrote:
If so, why? What purpose or benefit to you find to its use

So we can kick backward. This can be because the enemy is behind us (as in the examples Neil gives) or because we have moved behind the enemy. As an example, we were recently working escaping from being pinned against a wall. After the enemy’s head had been driven into the wall, we run past them delivering a back kick was we do (so the enemy can’t turn and give effective chase). The back kick was done as part of the escape and it does not require us to turn face the enemy as we move past (see images) in the way other kicks would.

Back kick is never going to be used as often as the likes of front kick or roundhouse, but it definitely has its uses and the “mule kick version” is super easy to learn; so very much worth practising in my view.

Tau wrote:
And what foot angle do you teach? Toes-to-floor? Horizontal foot? Somewhere in between?

For the formal version, it is toes to the floor because we want the knee pointing down and the thighs close together. Foot horizontal would mean knee out and an angle between the thighs, which is what I would call a “turning side kick”. For a “pure back kick” is would be toes down; accepting that the situation always dictates i.e. in the photos above, I’ve ended up passing wide so has became a 80% back kick / 20% side kick hybrid.

All the best,

Iain

Marc
Marc's picture

We teach Ushiro-Geri, toes to the floor.

Our association provides two different syllabuses (syllabi?) for students of our style. One is basically a 3K syllabus but for the higher grades also includes competition style randori and bunkai. This is the one that also requires Ushiro-Geri in kihon from 4th kyu onward.

The other syllabus puts kata at the core of the exams. It has kihon based on kata and therefore does not necessarily require Ushiro-Geri because it's not part of any kata. This syllabus lets students chose between kata bunkai, self-defense, and competition style kumite as the sparring element of the exam.

Students are free to chose which syllabus the want to be tested by for the next grading. Because we still have some instructors and many students who like the 3K syllabus, we do teach the required kihon.

The applications I teach are (almost) entirely based on kata. Therefore Ushiro-Geri is very rarely used. Of course we use things like stamping backwards on the enemy's foot when in a bearhug, but that's not really Ushiro-Geri as we would see in kihon, is it?

All the best,

Marc

Iain Abernethy
Iain Abernethy's picture

Marc wrote:
The applications I teach are (almost) entirely based on kata. Therefore Ushiro-Geri is very seldomly used. Of course we use things like stamping backwards on the enemy's foot when in a bearhug, but that's not really Ushiro-Geri as we would see in kihon, is it?

The only back kicks I can think of in kata are the ones done from the floor in Shito-Ryu’s Unshu (Shotokan’s Unsu doing roundhouse kicks from the floor at the same point; which are the only roundhouse kicks I can think of in kata), but they are quite different from the standing ones done in Kihon.

I think this again comes back to what we mean by “back kick”. If, like me, you use that term to refer to a “mule kick”, then it is essentially a tilted stamp; and we do see stamps in kata. It would therefore be a variant (due to range and position) of the downward stamping kicks in kata. If you think of “back kick” to mean a turning kick, then I can’t think of any connection to kata for that variant.

All the best,

Iain

PS Two tangents to the theme:

Marc wrote:
Our association provides two different syllabuses (syllabi?)

1 – I quite like the sound of that approach because it provides a common home for the different branches of karate without them becoming mushed together.

2 – I believe it should be “syllabi” but that always sounds wrong to me. It’s putting the formal rules of the language over its purpose i.e. to effectively communicate. Say “syllabuses” and everyone understands you mean “more than one syllabus”. Say “syllabi” and some with get it, some will get it but assume you are being pretentious, and some will be confused so you need to explain you mean “syllabuses” :-)

Whenever I drive past the motorway exit for Liverpool, I feel the same way when I see “Football Stadia” on the sign in reference to the Liverpool and Everton pitches. “Stadia” may be technically right, but “stadiums” will make more sense to more people. I prefer efficiency of function over what is arbitrarily deemed to the “technically right” … bit like kata really :-)

Anf
Anf's picture

I like spinning back kick in sparring. I would never 'attack' with it because to so means to voluntarily turn your back to your opponent but here's how I use it.

Nobody wants to stay on centre. It's always nice to be at the opponents side, facing them. That sometimes results in two players sort of circling each other as each tries to get the better position. Now you can either chase them, or you can turn the opposite way to meet them and fire off a back kick at the same time.

Or another variant I like is when a front or roundhouse kick gets blocked sideways, spinning you round. If my opponent is kind enough to give me the energy to spin, surely it would be rude of me not to make good use of it.

Heath White
Heath White's picture

In TSD we certainly teach back kicks because, approximately, if there is a way you can kick, you should learn it!  :-)  Practically,  it's for when  an enemy is behind you (say, with multiple attackers).  It's useful in sparring, and it's also fun to do.  

We teach both the mule kick, toes-down version and the turning side kick, toes-out version.  The former is the authentic "back kick" but frequently you will hit sparring partners in the groin with that.  So for sparring, the turning side kick is encouraged.  The spin adds considerable power to the kick--the spinning back kick may be the most powerful kick in the karate arsenal.

Tau
Tau's picture

I teach more than one art so I have different syllabuseses. 

For Jujitsu it's there but I'm seriously considering removing it as I'm questioning it's validity in a pragmatic context.

For Kickboxing we have two different turns into it and they're both staying. As part of a sequence it's a great tool in that context.

Iain I think we're on the same page regards foot positioning. I would loosely call a horizontal foot a "spinning side kick" which harks back to my Lau Gar days. But again I see benefits to that in a sporting context. 

Interesting regarding using it without the turn in a pragmatic manner. I shall think about that.

Marc
Marc's picture

Iain Abernethy wrote:

The only back kicks I can think of in kata are the ones done from the floor in Shito-Ryu’s Unshu (Shotokan’s Unsu doing roundhouse kicks from the floor at the same point; which are the only roundhouse kicks I can think of in kata), but they are quite different from the standing ones done in Kihon.

True, and the back kicks in Shito-Ryu's Unsu make a lot of sense to me: You get pushed over from behind, you fall on your knees, put your hands on the ground for stability, and immediately start stomping back into the attacker's legs. Then regain your feet and turn to face the attacker. Pretty obvious I believe. It's basically a mule kick.

Shotokan's kicks are performed resting sideways on your hip and leg and lower arm, looking down your side to where you kick. Whether that kick should be labelled a front kick or roundhouse kick is up to (superfluous) debate. Anyway, it is a snapping kick.

Often the application of Shotokan's kicks is shown as a scissors takedown, like this:

 

While that is certainly a cool move (and dangerous), I don't believe that that's it. It's too sophisticated, considering that kata represents a system of pragmatic self-defense methods.

I believe the snappy kicks have (d)evolved from stomping kicks from the same position, i.e. stomping side kicks delivered while resting sideways on hip, leg and lower arm. Like this:

 

This would be a variation on the theme as seen the in the Shito-Ryu version. You get pushed over from behind, turn into the side position, so you can look at your attacker, and immediately start stomping at their legs. You can rest either on your left or on your right, and you possibly need to switch between the two positions while defending yourself, as you do in the kata. Then you get back on your feet ASAP.

It is basically the same variations we discussed for the standing back kick: Some kick straight back with the toes pointing to the ground, others turn their hips a little and kick with the toes pointing sideways. Both are perfectly fine as long as you send the opponent flying back a few meters.

In the Shotokan version your belly points to the ground when switching from side to side. You are essentially flowing through the position we see in the Shito-Ryu version. Perhaps it would make more sense to roll over your back while switching sides. Here's an interesting comment by Stephan Kesting on the side resting position.

 

Maybe we should even add two more stomps to the kata while lying on our back. But then again, kata includes only one example technique representative of the general idea: You fall, you stomp at the attackers legs, you get back up!

Take care,

Marc

Marc
Marc's picture

Tau wrote:
syllabuseses.

Thanks for that, you made my day. :)

Marc
Marc's picture

Anf wrote:
That sometimes results in two players sort of circling each other as each tries to get the better position. Now you can either chase them, or you can turn the opposite way to meet them and fire off a back kick at the same time.

Yes, that makes total sense.