Learn the best Karate training exercises for back kick (ushiro geri) technique, strength and flexibility by Jesse Enkamp - The Karate Nerd. Visit www.karatebyjes... to learn more!
Thanks for sharing. A very concise description about foot placement and turning relative to your target. This is something I've always had trouble with.
Fun fact, if you do those "hip thrusts" with the foots further apart and closer together, you train "accesory muscles" wich means muscles that their primary use is not the "back kick" but if you train them they "help" with the back kick anyway... And the one "further apart" if you have your feet far enough, they help with the side kick too n.n Another fun fact, the back kick is the best kick to kick down a door... Well... Its not a fun fact if you are a door...
Very well done. That demo hits home with me. I was a student of karate for years. The school I attended closed and I took a break for a few years. Later I started back in a local TKD school. They didn't do a turning back kick. They said it was old school and obsolete. They did turning side kicks instead. Later I became one of the instructors and I taught all the students I had all the techniques. Back kick, turning back kick and turning side kick. The back kick with the foot perpendicular to the ground can slip in between your aponents guards. There was one more we learned in karate. We called it flying back kick. I'm sure you are familiar with it. Jump by lifting your knee like doing a basketball layup. Turn 180° in the air and throw the back kick with the opposite foot/leg. The back kick is arguably one of the most powerful kicks. I got caught by one sparring right below the sturnum. It took what seemed like forever to get my breath back. Lol Thanks for the demo and do a video on the flying/ jump spin back kick.
I have trained with a lot of instructors over many years & seen 100's of karate videos. Sensie Jesse, I humbly suggest U R one of the best instructors I have ever seen. So glad I discovered your channel, to help show us the traditional way, with such a clear explaination, with exercises. Awesome.
Jesse, I've just come across your YT channel and I must say I'm so much impressed bu the amount of work you put into every video and the quality of knowledge you pass to people. Thank you!
great lesson, such an under rated kick, specially in taekwondo when most fighter do a turning kick with their back foot which opens their body to your back kick to counter :D thank you again, the flexibility and tips definitely help to speed up the kicking speed
Hi, Jesse. It's always a pleasure to see your videos, not only for the aspects of the karate itself but also for the very sympathetic way you communicate with people. Really. Except karate, the most beautiful thing in you is your soul and open mind spirit...Karate has certainly brought to you a real spiritual and psichic balance and it's a real pleasure to feel the way you're full of life. When we see you, we feel the need to be your friend spontaneously ! Thanks a lot for your way of communicating life and simplicity through the things you share in your videos. Maurice from France
Hah! That's funny, because I love kicking stuff (hard)! Let me know if there's any specific kick you'd like me to do a video about! :-) Thanks for supporting my work!
man if you're taking requests, it would be so cool to see a video that highlights your striking work, like on a bag or a sparring partner. do you think you could make that happen? that would be awesome
Jesse Enkamp maybe your brother if you both have the time? I spar with my brothers, but yeah we don't have a lot of free time that coincides simultaneously
Jesse, makes a small cross step then turn and kick me, YES!!! Oh my god, how many time do I have to tell my guys to step to make a better pivot. That's the key and the only reason why they always miss their Ushio Geri. Osu to Jesse.
Cool! I'd prefer to film myself kicking and punching a real human being instead. Working with a heavy bag is great for a lot of reasons, but personally it limits my natural fighting capacity too much. I prefer the freedom of pressuring and manipulating a moving person rather than adapting to a static bag. I only use bag for isolated technical practice.Thanks :-)
Jesse Enkamp Yes I agree. But for power purposes hitting a bag you can demonstrate. Unless you can talk Oliver into letting you kick him as hard as you can a bag. Lol. Either way any video you put up I enjoy. Thanks for all you do.
Again I find that your old videos are helping me in the present. All my muscles for this kick are lacking, for the very reasons you said. But now I can strengthen my body as well as my technique. Thank you yet again
My wife approves of that warm up 😂, It’s amazing I’ve had a few instructors back in the day say I should look under my leg when doing this kick, it was always awkward and threw me off balance, I got quite good at it but definitely lacked power and accuracy, I wonder how many others have been taught that way, thanks 🙏 Jesse Sensei
Excellent video as usual Jesse. The bridge is way more advance than the previous exercise. I like the progressive variation you showed in order to achieve the final posture. I still struggle doing this at yoga class, and one advice I got was to first bend my neck as support and then push with the arms to extend the back. Hope this helps
I have been practicing martial arts for years and the back kick has been a very troubling kick for me. You have given me great clarity thank you so much
Oss Sensei. Sensei with back kick I remember, everyone is doing the bottle cap challenge, so sensei we would love to see you trying it too 😀😀😀 oss sensei
thankyou jesse sensai, i couldnt get my ushiro geri to work before but these exercises and techniques will help me out and improve my ushiro geri massively, thankyou
Looks like a very strong/fast kick, but what do we think about telegraphing it first by moving the front leg? Couldn't you get the same "free path" by just pivoting on the front foot (quickly)?
Jesse, I've been seeing a lot of different back kick videos lately, and I think yours might be the first (so far) that kept the foot vertical during the strike. Other folks seem to hit maybe a 45-degree angle or something to that effect. Is that just an artifact of a different karate style or an influence of a different martial art (e.g., Taekwondo)?
I think this kick is the most powerful in martial arts with the roundhouse being 2nd but thats just my opinion. My old sensei started to develop this kick as soon as he began training in the early 70's. He said his sensei saw that he had a knack for it and my gosh! He could throw this kick from a very close range with tremendous speed and accuracy. Remember what Bruce Lee said...."I don't fear the man who practices 10,000 different kicks.......I fear the man who practices one kick 10,000 times".......Thanks Jesse....you are a credit to the martial arts
Many people do it wrong in the beginning, that is why they lack power ☝️ They do the spinning side kick instead. That is why RU-vid is helpful and or training with an experienced back kicker ☝️ Make sure you master the back kick first, before practicing the spinning back kick
Dang I love you man...i always saving your videos for training. I'm testing black belt in June Shorin Ryu. Then I wanna go on a road trip. I would love to do a couple of sessions at your dojo, then go see Tom hill in the uk, then to Mecca, Okanawa 😁 but your will be first for sure. Then maybe one of your seminars I want me a pink belt lol
While I believe you are technically correct, I dislike pointing the toes down as I tend to strike with the ball of my foot, risking injury (like in the cover photo of video) Also, I think most people lack the extension required in the hip and so will possibly have to lean forward a lot. People also tend to turn slightly to look behind while kicking to assist with accuracy, making the hip rotate up. Glutes will still engage even with foot pointing to the side and the first kick you demonstrate on the bag in your video, your foot is pointing out to the side. I don't believe there is any such kick as a spinning side kick, and so to me at least it is still a spinning back kick. But of course the purists will disagree 😁 Great video!
I am a contortionist and when you did the bridge and put one leg up, then said i'ts advanced, I could not help myself but stop what I was going and do that XD
Karate instructors in my area is bullshit and they do karate for money. Please teach me karate for free . I love karate. Please teach me kara and bumkai
kaiten move first then a ushiro gerri without spin or turning then kaiten again , when you kick you drop gravity center an you will see how strong can be.
we call that the donkey kick in tae kwon do. and if u wanna be really nasty aim it at the balls... ^^ pls dont try at home with ur mates or siblings lol
3:50 i do this excercise at home, instead of laying in the bed i only lay mi superior back and my head over the bed and stay like that, time does the rest like a horse stance
Jesse, big thumb up for the video, and it's pretty old school techniques for improvement Ushiro geri, and full impact of kick to the target, but we think that before turning, we doesn't have to move our front leg first to do a turning or whole kick, just because of the engaging the whole body and strenght to the target that we got from that turning, because of that we must keep our front leg to the ground, also if we move first our front leg we will "say" to the opponent what we are doing, also because the balance if we are in step etc. We don't saying that this moving of the front leg is wrong, we just thinking on practical way.
Overall Jesse I like the video, only one small thing I would like to say that slightly contradicts but only slightly. You say that when a persons shoulders hunch forward and upper back do they cannot get the extension and cannot connect their whole body into the kick. I personally do not agree with that fully, but to some degrees I do as well. Let me explain better. For those starting off or even just into it a few years or so, then YES I would agree with you. However once a person has trained long enough and hard enough as well these moves become like second nature to us and now almost 50 and 3 spinal injuries later, I cannot arch my back anymore that way, its trying to fuse itself due to the extensice damage, but I will not undergo surgery as scraping is not an option that is permanent, and as long as I keep stretching several times a day it prevents it from fusing. This said by the time I was probably a good 10+ years into my training, so between my 20-30s I had developed a very powerful back kick, my actual thigh muscles were built like a sprinters, as I was once a sprinter for the 100M, 200M and relay runs. Then as the years passed with these three injuries from my Cervical, Thoracic and my Lumbar to Shoulder and other joints now effected. I learned to ADAPT as these happened to me over time. Even with these physical limitations I must overcome and adapt to constantly, certain kicks, (As long as they are not flying or flying spiin kick LO) I can still execute all the basic ones nearly as well as I did in my mid 20s. But it is NOT muscle power for sure where in those days it was both muscle and technique. All I have these days to muster up is Inner strength, Focus, Determination and excellent technique to be able to throw a "turning back kick" even more accurately than those days and only slightly less powerful AND I have an arched back as well. I cannot arch it backwards anymore not will my waster allow me to bend completely forward when sitting and trying to stretch and reach my feet, the hips no longer rotate forward even when another pushes on my back some, it only goes forward a very little bit. This is also a major muscle issue there the Doc say. So with all these limitations I now face and I am aging as well, I purposely try to focus on how to improve these things, even the things I cannot do atm and maybe with help and a never give up attitude I will succeed in far more. SO I say IF you have enough training and practice with your Ushiro Geri, then if you can properly shift your upper body weight snapping parallel to the kick from a chambered position, meaning bring the kicking leg up to your lower stomach even belly button than explode outward and with the kick, of course LOOKING over the same shoulder you are kicking with and throwing your hip and using a slight arc upward motion so it does not quite kick out linear, but with a slight low curve up to the target area while exending out. THIS for me and other students older and one even handicapped has made huge improvements for them. YOU ARE correct on one major thing, its not SPINNING, I tell them all to start in fighting position then turn 180 so your facing opposite way, rising the let that will kick and turning the head as well, then when it reaches low stomach level or so, it thrusts outs as explained above. Turning 180 is a key for them to understand as you stated they will just SPIN around the target, which if they were using a spinning Mkazuka Geri Chudan or Soto then the full 360 spin is needed... do you have a video on executing actual true spin kicks? Thanks and my students love your videos, so I watch them to know what they are learning and for a year now I have approved of everything pretty much with small things like above only. We much on the pages and if I was 20+ years younger and we had the Internet Tech and RU-vid Facebook etc, I TOO would have made many videos on topics you are making for years now. Trying to teach others that there is far more to Kara-Te than meets the eye when you go back to not just Funakoshi Sensei but those before him in Okinawa to China's Te. Where students in the West are mind boggled to learn that UKE does not mean BLOCK but it means to receive, and much more like a Block can also be a strike, a grab or a throw when you view a Kata and go over Bunkai, to learning the different stages of Kata and Bunkai, this then explains to them WHY it takes so long to REALLY learn a Kata well and not just memorize movements. So keep up the good work young Man, you give my students a young face to view Karate questions even if its not Shotokan/Shotokai because they learn so much more than just that. Regards
Where were you when I was trying to figure these things out when I was 20???? yeah... not born yet!.. ha... Thanks!! You're explanations are always awesome!! I want to go out to the shed and throw back kicks at the bag now.. It was always a good powerful kick for me that wasn't too flashy and still practical without risking too much in kumite. I grew up as a Shotokan guy in a world of Jean claude van Damme and bloodsport movies.. We would laugh at how people wanted to always turn their backs to opponents doing some crazy spin kick that lacked power when mixing with other styles at the time. Traditional karate was a tough sell to people but this kick was always impressive at demos.. ...
I got to say, thank you so much for this tutorial. I am a WTF Taekwondo fighter, and I love sparring. The back-kick(Dwi Chagi in Korean) is one of my favourites, but I found it difficult, so I didn’t just look at Taekwondo fighters, but every style. My Back-kick went through stages, I first thought to spin and swing it like a spin hook kick(Dwi Huryeo Chagi in Korean) but ended up doing in inaccurate spin-side kick. Then later guys like Kwonkicker and my Master told me that it was a linear kick, and to stomp it rather than swing it. Then you told me to flick my feet to turn back for the kick. Now even I think it looks a looks and feels a lot more powerful and explosive, so thank you so much!
This is one damned effective technique. It's fast, efficient, and deceptively powerful. Years ago, in my lack of experience, I had a lapse of control, and put someone in the hospital with this technique. Learn it well, and it will serve you well.
I love your videos Sensei Jesse, you really motivate me :) I was thinking if you could do video such as "Mindset tips for beginners" or something like that; for lower tier belts but instead of technique it could be something like i mentioned? Also how long have you trained and which Dan. are you at?
Geat technique and exercises, will definetly integrate them in to warmup. However I wonder why I would do a Ushiro geri in the direction i originaly faced. I would imagine it against a target already standing behind me? I would think that an opponent standing in front of me would have a lot of time to avoid or block that kick, as it is already indicated by the side step with the front foot.
That’s how we are shown it ... I was watching another RU-vid clip of back kick and they didn’t seem to move front leg they just twisted body .... seemed very unstable 🤔 thanks for your video most helpful 👊
When I did goju ryu/goju kai we did the back kick as you described. When I did world oyama karate (kyokushin offshoot) we did ushiro Geri in a way that I would describe as a spinning side kick.
omfg... i think most of my training as a instructor has now excercises from you... easy 75% its so much, that i cant remember what i have done in the pre-jesse era. the last exercise is just awesome! and whenever i see something like this, i hate myself a little bit. i mean... its soooo obviously to doing this... maaaan. i know i repeat myself... but you are just daaammmnn awesome! soooo i will give em a try tomorrow. thx for this and best regards from germany.
Wish I had seen this vid when I was training to grade for my black belt two months ago. Still passed but my Ushiro for padwork could have been better. :)
So your ushiro Geri differs from ours. We are taught to look over the shoulder, bring the knee straight up and chamber the kick finally thrust it straight back toes down heel up , strike the target and then return it to the chamber position before setting it back down. The power comes from the hips and that chambering of the kick.
Really good video. I really never thought about using the back kick on kumite, thanks to this video I will start to apply it. Would be cool if you did videos like this but with the mawashi geri or ura mawashi geri.
