That brief moment when you think that the bag is levitating.

This man appears to have no first clue how difficult it is to do the things he makes look easy. His static active flexibility (holding his leg steady at height) while calmly holding conversation is awesome. DC

0:47 magic

I am age 66. I used to be able to do this 25 years ago. I am determined to get it back. The secret is to kick a bag - not thin air. If I die I will let you know. Oss

i like the way the sensei needs virtually no space to deliver a perfect kick...

THIS is the stuff the MASTERS KNOW. just by adjusting your angle a little bit makes all the difference. THIS is why it's called a martial ART.

opening the hip and bringing the knee high instantly gives you better kicking potential

I find it impressive how he can strech his legs,open that angle,so much and so fast,so he can pull off a kick like that in such a short space and time

i had the oppertunity to attain a siminar from him. He's in his mid 60's now but he is still able to stretch his legs vertically next to him!

he's so casual about it like "ya I've got my leg bent in fifteen diferent directions moving at speeds that could exceed a military aircraft at takeoff but still powerful enough to break every bone in your body even if i choose not to its no big deal"so awesome i love martial arts.

Kagawa is AWESOME!!! I had the chance to train with him in 2011 and it's just amazing what he does, he makes everything looks so easy and he isn't even arrogant about his skills and really tries to tell you how it works!

Kagawa Sensei is Shotokan, of the JKS, a Shotokan group that formed following the breakup of the JKA, which happened after the death of Nakayama Sensei, who had been Chief Instructor of the JKA since its founding. The kick is mawashi-geri, or roundhouse kick, performed with incredible control and flexibility.

It looks probably less powerful on video than when you got it on your head. I saw Kagawa sensei knock someone with a jodan mawashi geri. He's maybe 172 cm, and the other guy was 190 cm. So, thrust me, it's powerful.

Bill Wallace has nothing on this guy. Amazing control and flexibility. it would come as a total shock to me to be kicked with that fro. such a close distance

AWESOME! Thank you for allowing us to watch this segment of the DVD. It sure makes me want to go out and buy it.

even at close rang i never knew that kick could be dont like that AWSOME!!!!!

This guy is incredible.

@MrAtteTanskanen It isn't just his flexibility, it is his leg control and balance which are really impressive. That guy is a master.

Great technique. The classic mawashi geri something I struggled with all my life.

En este mundo que sobrevivimos la mayoria , tan convulsionado , el karate , para quien lo práctica y su alrededor es una bocanada de esperanza , de orden y respeto x la vida y bueno para compartir yo , que lo practique en Bs As añoro las practicas y el compañerismo( un poco de nostalgia) que generosos estos maestros Gracias!

even how Kagawa sensei is standing looks like a fearful techniques. and about Mawashi-geri....missing the words to describe....every detail simply perfect: hip, front leg, timing, position of feet at impact....Oss sensei!

You're right, Kagawa sensei knows his stuff more than 99,99% of the people on youtube.

When you thought you mastered the basic thennyou see this and realized you havent even reached the begining

Just reminds me how inflexible I am. That's why I find this kick so tough.

A most excellent video. Thank you for posting this gem.

Parabenizo o mestre Kagawa por esta grande ajuda que nos dá para aperfeiçoarmos nossas técnicas.

Very nice, Kagawa Sensei has amazing technique and power...

tengo 50 años y lo practico desde los 15 todo un modo de vida oss.

Great video. I have been taking Aiki Budokai Ju Jutsu for several years and these are the strikes that we use but do not practice them very often. Very helpful. Thank you.

This guy's belt looks like my teacher's. You have white for the beginner, coloured belts for those working their way up, and then the black belt. But then you get the super experienced ones, whose black belt is so faded and worn, it kind of looks like a white belt.

Kagawa Sensei in all videos is technically one, if not the best i've ever seen.

felicitaciones,estos videos de sensei kagawa deberian estar en todos los dojos de shotokan del mundo,saludos desde argentina,ooosss

it's funny how you can tell how old a black belt is by his belt- it goes grey along with his hair

Perfeito, simplesmente perfeito.

very interesting technique of traditional mawashi geri. Also showing short distance variations. Excellent! Thanks for uploading

The perfect Mawashi geri! Thanks for sharing.

Old worn black belts look the best

thanks for this great posting, what fantastic control,,,awesome osu

nada mejor que un oriental enseñando un arte marcial!

he is simplyyyy great

Wow . His Flexability is truly amazing

For everyone here, the kick is a goju ryu mawashi geri. You kick with the pad of the foot. For anyone that says this is not powerful, first of all sensei Kagawa didnt move his hips wich means he didnt try to kick hard but instead accurate. If this kick hits you, the power goes into a small area of the head and done properly is fatal. A normal turningkick is not as powerful because of the bigger area impacted and will probally "only" knock your opponent out. //mmacriitic

Awesome kick, nicely done!

First time I see a mawashi geri with the ball of the foot. Interesting!

Now that's the perfect Mawashi geri. Thanks for sharing this exceptional bit of video. Osu!

damn every karate video on youtube is full of elite super saiyan fighters who know everything about hand to hand combat

@maofas I was only stating out of my experience (14 years of it working on my own) not statistics. I have been training in Martial Arts now for 25 years and still compete in Kyokushin Knockdown tournaments. I do not dispute learning ground work is a good idea, i teach it as a compliment to my Kickboxing and self defence classes, all i said was you don't want to go to ground in a street fight (i should have added 'through choice'). OSU

The proper karate kick.....that's how it's done correctly......

Genial! no hago Karate, pero me gusta desde hace décadas y estos videos son excelentes!!

i can get a maximum of about an inch over my head this guy is amazing!

Unique skills .Kagawa sensei shows that he is worthy of his title!!! Ossssu!!!!

@pound4pound92 the technique being show is Mawashi Geri Chusoku which is with the ball of the foot, the standard one with the instep is Mawashi Geri Haisoku, it is used for getting the kick round the guard where the instep or shin would just land on the guard. It is the most advanced form of the kick. OSU

That is how a high kick should be executed... in ufc I dont know if there are more than 10-12 fighters that have the ability to execute high kicks with such technique... Crocop,barbosa, pat bary and only a few more come to mind... am I right?

Mawashi geri é um tipo de chute da arte marcial karatê(karatedõ)o chute é muito bem usado nos katas e kirrons.

oh for the love of God, what a sweet rounhouse....and dead on target.....beautiful

The perfect kick of samurai

Perfect technique! One can see how solid are those kicks.

Mawashi geri with the ball of the foot as impact surface: 1. Enhances target penetration 2. Circumvents blocks 3. Provides smaller harder striking surface (see 1.) 4. Requires rigorous striking surface training and ankle strengthing. 5. Once developed is good for crushing skulls, shattering neck and spinal vertebrae, breaking ribs, cracking sternum, and dislocating shoulder, hip, coccyx, and knee joints among others. 6. Equally effective for soft-tissue damage.

Retraction of the leg allows the kicker to end up back in the strong position he was in before kicking, stable and all. Landing forward makes you prone to punches, for you literally "fall" right into them. Since you'd be off balance as well, the enemy could possibly take you down, experienced or not. That is if he's still standing from the kick... Retraction has been proven more applicable to fighting. Simple.

This kick is so hard, amazing technique by Kagawa Sensei.

Kicking w/ shin is more of a power kick - easier to pull off and prone to less injury, but that doesn't necessarily mean better (or worse), just different. Just like there are several ways to do the front and side kick, there are several ways to do a roundhouse. This method is old school, more accurate and focused, hence more advanced. Old school masters worked on hardening the toes so that they could withstand impact like fists. Hence, beginners wouldn't learn this right away.

Hai, Masutatsu Oyama developed his own style after learning Shotokan and Goju Ryu styles. Kyokushinkai Kan is likewise a good foundation to build ones own path nothing more and certainly not the best. There is no 'best' in Martial Arts.

Ouss! KAGAWA Shihan. O namae wa kanegane ukagatte imasita. O shihan gokufukuo oinori itashimasu !

I'm not criticizing the sensei's techniques. Actually, his kick looks very elegant. My point is to compare the mechanism and the power of the techniques between these two systems of Karate. So, guys! Try finding some Kyokushin clips and watch them first before bashing my comments.

very interesting way of kicking The way he turns and places his knee toward his oponent is interesting . he needs very little space for his round kicks. you need too be flexible in your hips too do this. Excelent technique

He can probably round kick himself in the head.

remember he is just showing the one singular technique, not the real time application of it. this dropping forward is a great opening for the kicker to keep going with a jab then a gyakuzuki, or jab then sweep and hook. its quicker doing that than taking the time to retract the leg, also if you focus too much on bringing it back in actual aplication, your kick power may suffer because you think too much about bringing it back

Best technik,old school..

I need to know how to train for those types of kicks... do i have train my hamstrings for it?

This video is excellent. I don't care what your view is on kicking with the shin or the instep or the ball of the foot, fact is this guy uses the ball of his foot and it works for him well. I like to try different approaches to techniques and this is a real eye opener. thanks

well and the crispy clear sniffing every time he kicks eh, just memorize that breathing technique as well lol

@Yamtendo nice one !

he quite clearly, pulls back his toes at the start and shows the point of the foot he wants to kick with in basics, whilst saying quite clearly 'koshi' (ball of the foot). As he performed quite alot of kicks and didn't hurt his toes once, I think its safe to say he wasn't kicking with his toes. Good training

@ismailalmaleki ok gracias, sin duda el mejor estilo de karate do tanto por su filosofía como su estilo tradicional

I'm far to be sure at 100% of what I'm saying, but mawashi geri is a circular kick. So, if you point the knee forward, you decrease the angular velocity of the kick, and he become less powerful. Like only the rotational motion will do impact (because of where the target is), adding translation motion will be wasted energy. But this is a demonstration kick, I don't think at 100% he would perfectly raise is knee on the side like this, because it increase the moment of inertia (so it's more slow).

Not bad, is he ?? Absolutely fantastic ! I'd give anything to be able to kick like that !

It's all in the mechanic of the kick. If you emphasize the snapping motion of the knee over the twisting motion of the hip, you can't put enough body weight into the kick and that means your kick doesn't have the power it's supposed to have.

Damn, he's so good it's almost comical... and inspirational for sure. I'd be interested to see a biography of him if there is one somewhere. I'm also curious how old he is, or was at the time of the video. DC

In a practical situation, I'm generally wearing shoes... hahah.

What do peopole think about being more effective to strike with using the roundhouse? Ball of the foot, instep or shin?

@maofas Not really. What I'm am referring to is the use of Jiu Jutsu as it was practiced by the samurai on the battlefield. Whenever a samurai lost his sword in battle then he would use jiu jutsu to throw his enemy down and even sometimes pull them down from a horse, stab them with their short sword (tanto), take the enemy's sword and fight on. A modern day soldier would pretty much do the same thing if they were in dire straights. That's what jiu jutsu was designed for! Not a competition.

Because black belt are designed to become white with time. For karateka, having a black belt turning on white is a sign of hard training and experience. It shows that someone has trained for years, and not that they have been wasting their time playing video games for years.

my sensei also.and because of this I had long time joint problems.very few sensei are so fit like kagawa!

very nice. I am an orangebelt (9th kyu) karateka and have recently learned how to do a mawashigeri, although I'm pretty crap at it. I cant wait to be a blackbelt.

This is good for kickboxers too :D I was in a short kickboxing -beginner's class and it was very similar to karate (2 years of YuiShinKai-style, it's a pretty rare style).

I lived in Okinawa for 3 yrs and i have heard so many names for styles and forms can someone tell me the differences in names and techniques. I didn't study Karated b/c I was deployed too much. My biggest regret in being there is to not have learned any martial arts. It is a beautiful thing to learn to master one's body with such precision. More importanly one must master the mind. But that is what I have seen from a few senseis I had the fortune to meet there.

Practique Goyu Ryu por varios años y nunca pude patear con el Koshi del pie. Cuando lo intentaba golpeaba con el dedo gordo y varias veces me lo lesione. No tuve mas opciones que continuar pateando con el Haisoku. Hi!

@jetset808: he says in the video that you can also use the shin. Obviously it's up to the practitioner to decide, which one is more comfortable for them. When the ball of the foot is used then the roundhouse kick has a bit more a 'thrust' flavour in the end, while the shin is the typically circular motion.

Beautifully done!

Asombrosa la faciidad y elasticidad para ese mawasi, sobre todo a la distancia en que lo ejecuta. OS

Karatê é lindo

Excellent technique, almost every video I've seen with people kicking at this height has people lifting their heels. Definetly a master, osu!

Best Mawashi Geri I ever seen

@torro454 Tokunaga's mawashi is the one coming at a 45 degree angle to the floor which is the one you will see used in tournaments most often. Full mawashi comes parallel to the floor or slightly downwards to generate as little gravitational resistance as possible. I've seen people use Tokunaga's mawashi as an initiator to follow up with a full (midair) mawashi by using the opponent's belt as a standing point. Very effective but very risky move. But I think the most effective application

そもそも上段回し蹴りは伝統系空手には無く、回し蹴り系の技を広めたのはムエタイなどの研究をしていた極真カラテの大山先生である。

@torro454 of Tokunaga's mawashi is against boxers (brawlers more specifically) and street fighters. They tend to angle their arms outwards and hold it close to their face. This leaves their midsection wide open from an angle with the left leg (or right leg if the opponent is south paw) Tokunaga mawashi. If executed with speed and precision, it will often be enough to bring someone down if it hits right on the sternum. Power isn't as important here.

Dammit I got this strain from doing a Mawashi with my left leg, now I've had this strain in my right leg, backside of the thigh, for weeks.

It's really a shame that the highest rated comments on this video simply note Kagawa Sensei's flexibility. While it's a wonderful attribute to admire, superior flexibility can be attained by many martial artists- and no offense to those who are this flexible- I can't even measure up to this kind of stretching- but seriously, this man's technique, as a whole, is truly impeccable.

This guy is pretty amazing!

thanks for the tip! I'll try doing that. Actually, I kind of enjoy "slapping" the target with the top of my foot but yeah, my mawashi geri still needs a lot of work. not to mention my yoko geri, maya geri, etc. lol