The Karate Reverse Punch - Technique Comparison Between Two Different Styles

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to compare the movement patterns of the reverse punch executed according to the traditional Tae Kwon Do (TKD) style to a sirnilar punch executed in the modern Choi Kwang Do (CKD) style. Four males, two from each style, who had attained the rank of black belt were videotaped with two NAC 400 HSV cameras operating at 200 HZ while punching against a Kistler force plate. Three dimensional coordinates of seven body points were calculated by combining the images of the two cameras utilizing the direct linear transformation (DLT) method. The raw position data was smoothed with a cubic spline function before being submitted to further analysis. It was found that very different movement patterns existed between the two styles. The CKD punch was delivered with more sequential acceleration and deceleration of the body segments segments than the TKD punch. It also showed larger displacements of the knee, hip, shoulder, elbow and wrist joints and registered higher impact forces. The CKD punch which registered the greatest peak resultant force per unit of body mass displayed the most sequential movement, greatest joint peak velocities, greatest velocity of the wrist at impact and largest combined joint displacement. It was concluded that the reverse punch executed according to CKD style conforms more closely than a similar punch executed in the TKD style to the ideal (sequential) movement models outlined in the literature. As a result, the CKD punch is more effective since higher impact forces are generated.