Useless techniques

[lefty]

JK-

Reverse-punch can very likely knock someone out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hO_c1WUzA5U

[dandjurdjevic]

Looked like a left hook to me.

[lefty]

better example (00:12) -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vuxXPUSBLM

[Zach Zinn]

First video is a slightly rounded punch off the rear leg, i'd call it a furi uchi if anything, still, I don't see why it isn't a reverse punch, the principle is similar.

[neko456]

Jkmann wrote - Gyaku tsuki. I won't go as far as to say it is "useless," but that it isn't really very useful. Oh! If you don't do Japanese karate, I'm talking about a reverse punch. Why isn't it useful? Well, we all practice it in our bunkai, and imagine that the other guy will simply fall down when we give him the old straight punch to the face or body. Here are some reasons it may be more problematic than we imagine:

1. Unless you've done a lot on the makiwara, punching someone in his bony head can do some serious damage to your hand.
2. Unlike a hook, it is unlikely to knock them out.
3. You need to be at just the right range. If they're closer than you thought, it has very little power.
4. If you hit the bad guy with it, to the body or head, you've probably just knocked him out of your range. He may be hurt, but he can still fight. And now you need to re-engage from a distance.
5. Aggressors are not in gyaku-tsuki range for very long.
6. It will very often leave your head exposed when performed by traditional standards.

Neko456 - That's not what I've experience whne I've hit someone with it on the street. 1st let me say that is a very, very basic concept of the Reverse punch, the punch if mastered can be done at various ranges and of course the name of these punches change with the distance. But really when we talk about punching we are talking about flowing with an oppoents movement the Gyaku tsuki is no different then a right or left hand strike off the rear leg, it can cross, it can come straight out, it can over head or tate or ura tsuki. Like any technique if just confinded to just one it would be hard to make it work on a skilled oppoent. I agree a finely tune tool is more powerful and less likely to get injuried if conditioned striking the head. As far as being at the right range that true of any technique. When I've hit people to body or head they bend over or fall down or out usually because I've just kicked them in the balls or knee or elbowed them in face and then pulled them into the punuch sometimes repeatedly. He maybe hurt can still fight until I hit him again. As for range if he falls out of range of my fiist then I'll kick him and grab him and pull him back in range, if he falls inside my punching range then I'll head butt him and elbow and knee him, then punch him before he falls. If he bends over an cover (please do) unlike boxing I see the back as a target I pitty the guy that covers and leaves his back open, down elbows to spine and knees to kidneys. Remember we are talking Karate here not boxing or play fighting. Notice there were no gaps in my responce no hitting & waiting for them to fall. I have missed some shots because they fell too fast but such is life.

Anytime you attack you leave yourself exposed the key is hitting hard and effective with skilled enough so he can't take advantage of it. As for not staying in punching range long that depends on if I can grab or hurt him 1st. They usually don't stay in punching range after that then it stomping time. Any technique by it's self is hard to use but remember a punch is just a punch, it may start GT and turn into a uppercutt whatever hurts then comes the rain. I don't care as long as it take care of business. I've actiually Ko'd and or knocked people down lifting them off there feet with the lonely reverse punch, then comes the rain of heel stomps only a very skilled person can escape this. All started by the lowly RP. If you close your mind and think basic application its hard to see it working but in combination with everything possible its easy to get it in just like any right/left hand punch.

By our schools standards and other people that I know can hit, my reverse punch is only average. My elbows, palm, shuto and upper cuts are my power strikes. The Gyaku-tsuki is my long - med range precison power strike.

Like a Combat JKD instructor told me when I was cross training with them, "Man you could kill somebody with that punch"! They could feel my knuckle through the training glove. They thought Karate was robotic and useless too, but not after I left. I will say we impressed each other. I almost laughed when he down block zentkutsu robotic like while he was trying to show the difference in Karate and what he was teahcing.

[neko456]

I know I'm not telling you master anything but in combination done in a natural and mobie way think natural or running step rather then long Zenkuts unless the guy is running and you need a long or lunging step. If done in a flowing natural way I see no difference in the right cross working and the Gyaku tsuki crossing working.

And after you hurt someone bad you can almost do anything to them Trad RP or haito uchi if done fast or timed right will deck them. I don't have to Ko them with one strike but I can still fix it that tey don't want to or can't get up.

[Gaijin]

I don't think any technique in karate is meant to be perfect and useful for each and every situation. Of course, a good shuto uchi to the neck and nearly everyone is down, but you could argue that you can't always use a shuto.

Kihon, as Zach and Dan said, is there to teach you principles. I guess you could say these techniques are to give you an idea of what you can do when in a fight. As you practice gyaku tsuki, you develop your hip movement, which is useful not only for the reverse punch, but also for nearly every technique in karate, where the power comes from the whole body, and not just from the arms or the legs - so you actually are learning a lot of karate just with one punch.

Perhaps someday you get into a fight (Pray God you don't ) and, after doing some taisabaki, you find yourself sideways to your opponent, with his ribs full open to you. Heck, I say a gyaku tsuki is good for that. Then run - or, as neko456 prefers, kick him to the ground and destroy him - poor fella!

When I think something is useless, I stop doing it. Would you stop training gyaku tsuki?

[Zach Zinn]

Gyaku zuki is just a punch off the rear leg, no need to make it into a discrete "technique", that's just for early training. You punch off your rear leg all the time, it works fine. For that matter Oi zuki is a punch off the lead leg where it is necessary for you to move forward in space to reach the target.

I haven't seen many useless techniques in Karate, what i've seen is just things missing from the execution, which can make them seem useless. I know there are plenty of things i've learned that I was convinced were useless, until someone showed me the principles need to actually use them, at which point they made perfect sense.

[JKMann]

OK. To clarify, I am talking about the specific full extension, full rotation, seiken punch that one sees quite often in sport karate. If you want to say that any punch thrown with the corresponding foot behind the body is a gyaku-tsuki, then fine. Of course no one talks about it that way. It should be clear that I was not talking about a hook, ura-tuski, or any other punch. Also, talking about "useless techniques" is a bit of rhetoric, intentional overstatement.

One "use" they may have is to train the practitioner as to how to throw a variety of punches. Fine, and I would agree. But if you look at a lot of karate, they are the punch of choice for a lot of people. (Hooks and uppercuts aren't even permitted in JKA, WKF, etc.)

My point is that a classic gyaku-tsuki, what most people are referring to when they use that term, is a strike with quite limited applicability for self-defense, despite the fact that many karateka treat it like the golden standard of punching.

[Zach Zinn]

One "use" they may have is to train the practitioner as to how to throw a variety of punches. Fine, and I would agree. But if you look at a lot of karate, they are the punch of choice for a lot of people. (Hooks and uppercuts aren't even permitted in JKA, WKF, etc.)

And that is really the problem maybe...I don't mean to pick on sport Karate or some Japanese Karate, but often it seems they have confused what is training and what is usage, i.e. they think of kihon like what you describing as the way you are supposed to literally do things..it doesn't hurt that if you do exaggerated movements they are easier for the tournament judge to see too;)

Again I think it's an issue of not understanding what certain things are for, training the classic gyaku zuki isn't done that way so you can go out and use it in exactly that way, any more than training Sandangi in Goju ryu is literal usage of technique. I think in the case of the gyaku zuki misunderstanding you are describing, it's seems like it's mostly people focusing on aesthetics qualities over function.

To me a kihon movement like that isn't a technique per se, it's a sort of shorthand physics lesson that applies to many different techniques. This is the same with some other arts, when you learn to backroll in Judo or Jujutsu for example, you are learning a physical principles that applies to a crapload of stuff, guardwork, sacrtifice throws etc...can you imagine a Judoka who is stuck on the idea that a backroll is just a literal single technique? I would be a flaw in thinking, I think it's a similar flaw when people view kihon as literal descriptions.

You are right that when they are approached that way, the application window for them is very narrow.