Tekki Nidan Combination Mawashi Enpi

The Secret to Powerful Karate Combinations: It’s All in the Hips

We’ve just finished a live class working on Tekki Nidan and I wanted to quickly share one of the combinations we’ve been practicing. While it’s easy to focus on your arms, the real secret to generating power in karate is to use your whole body, especially your legs and hips.

Let’s break this combination down and see how we can use the legs and hips to improve our movements.

Starting from the low, left gedan uchi-ude-uke. From here, you’ll move into the enpi kata starting yoi position, then a technique similar to the first move of Bassai Dai 45 degrees forward to your right, and finally a mawashi empi (roundhouse elbow).

When you practice this, don’t just use your arms. I’ll demonstrate how to use your legs and hips to make this movement explosive.

From the left gedan uchi-ude-uke, pull with your left hip, then as you bring your arms in to the enpi kata yoi position, snap the left hip back to a square position. This feeling of pulling and snapping adds a lot of power.

For the moroto uchi uke (like the first move of Bassai Dai) movement, drive from the left leg and hip, then on impact snap the left hip back square.

For the mawashi empi, You’ll fire from your right leg and drive your right hip forward. As you make impact, snap your hip back to a square position. This creates a powerful, whipping motion.

Using your legs and hips like this makes your movements much stronger and more dynamic. It’s a lot harder than just using your arms, but that’s the key to a powerful technique.

Also important is the timing on this Tekki Nidan combination, one, two, slight pause then again, one, two. This rhythm helps you synchronize your body, ensuring that your hips and arms work together.

Tekki Nidan is one of the 27 shotokan karate kata and is classed as an advanced black belt kata.

There are many different applications, or bunkai, for this combination. Sometimes it’s about pulling someone in close before striking. Other times, it’s a block followed by a strike. It can even be a technique for grabbing and pulling an opponent down. But no matter the application, the fundamental power comes from your legs and hips. Keep practicing, and you’ll feel the difference!