Sonkal Yop Taerigi
Literally: side knife-hand strike
Also known as: Knifehand Middle Side Strike
A side knife-hand strike driven outward away from the body; in ITF Taekwon-Do it appears in the tuls Do-San and Po-Eun.
Quick Facts
Katas containing this technique
About
Sonkal yop taerigi, literally side knife-hand strike, is in ITF Taekwon-Do a knife-hand strike (sonkal) driven outward away from the body to the side. A 2026 study in the journal Applied Sciences classes it among the sonkal taerigi techniques as the outward directional variant. The same study, on 15 experienced black belts, compared this strike with sonkal anuro taerigi, the inward knife-hand strike: the inward strike produced significantly higher force and impulse and had a somewhat longer contact time. In the tul Do-San (ITF) it is the 23rd and 24th movement, in Po-Eun the 4th and 22nd movement, where the breakdown describes it as a side strike at the middle level in a sitting stance.