Mawashi geri

Technique

Mawashi geri, a roundhouse kick found in Karate, Jujutsu, Kenpo, and related disciplines, can start from different stances and follow a few distinct paths. What stays the same across all versions is that the kick travels inward, striking at an angle between parallel to the ground and 45 degrees upward. It is a lateral kick, and the striking surface is usually the foot. While the grounded foot ideally points directly away from the opponent, a position between 90 and 45 degrees away is also workable.

When thrown with the lead leg, that leg lifts straight off the floor, bending the knee so it points back toward the intended target. Without pausing, the upper leg rotates inward to the chosen angle, and then the lower leg snaps out to hit the opponent before immediately recoiling. If the kick comes from the rear leg, a different method exists. Here, the rear leg rises with the knee bent and aimed to the side, and the whole body turns as the knee swings around to the front—similar to swinging a leg over a bicycle. This body rotation and lateral leg motion add force to the lower leg, which flicks out and back just as in the lead-leg version.

The foot itself offers the last set of choices. The strike can land with the instep, keeping the ankle and toes extended, or with the ball of the foot, with the ankle and toes pulled back. Alternatively, the foot can be set aside entirely, and the shin used as the striking surface.

Targets

The roundhouse kick, known as mawashi geri, has several common targets. In competition, the head is a frequent aim, along with the knees and floating ribs. Practitioners of Kyokushinkai karate often use a low version of this kick to hit an opponent's thigh, a technique less common in other styles. There are many variations of this kick. One delivery method starts by raising the knee, then quickly rotating the hip and snapping the lower leg outward to strike with the ball of the foot. Over time, some schools have adopted kicking with the shin, which has long been the standard in Muay Thai. Another common contact point is the instep, typically used during sparring for safety reasons. An increasingly popular technique is the cutting roundhouse kick, where the attacker lifts the leg higher than the target and brings it down in a chopping motion, an effective way to attack the thigh.