Mawashi Zuki

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Mawashi zuki (廻し突き), literally turning punch, is delivered in an arc, called a roundhouse punch in English, unlike the straight choku zuki. The body turns on the rear leg while the front leg stays in place, and power comes from extending the arm and rotating the hips. The strike lands with the first two knuckles of the fist, seiken, on the side of the opponent's head or body. Overviews of karate strikes place it among the advanced punches alongside the hooking kage zuki; its path is not straight and suits a shorter distance. An extended arm at the moment of the strike, however, leaves the practitioner open to a counter-attack, and correct execution demands good coordination. The Kyokushin organisation KWF lists seiken mawashi tsuki among the supplementary techniques for kumite, outside the basic sixty techniques and without a grade assignment. In kumite under WKF rules, a zuki strike to a scoring zone is judged yuko, one point.