Tobi Mawashi Geri
飛び廻し蹴り
Literally: flying roundhouse kick
Also known as: Jumping roundhouse kick
Tobi mawashi geri is a jumping roundhouse kick; in WKF kumite a head strike scores ippon, three points, and in Shotokan it ranks as advanced.
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Tobi mawashi geri (飛び廻し蹴り), literally flying roundhouse kick, is a mawashi geri roundhouse kick performed while jumping. As in the standing version, the knee first bends toward the target and the shin then snaps out in an arc; the strike lands with the instep, toes pulled back, or with the ball of the foot, toes pointed. Jumping kicks consist of two linked movements: raising the knee launches the practitioner into the jump, and only then comes the kick itself. Jumping kicks are not a modern invention. Old masters wrote of Okinawan fighters famed for their jumps and flying kicks; one of them, Makabe, earned the nickname Bird Man. In today's Shotokan, however, it counts among the advanced kicks that are practised less, because the landing leaves the practitioner off balance and the kick demands speed, timing and balance. In kumite under WKF rules a kick to the head scores ippon, three points, regardless of whether it is a jumping kick, and a kick to the torso scores waza-ari, two points.