Japanese in Karate 14 "hikite" and "uraken"

When you do “seiken zuki”, the other hand that pulls back to the side of the chest is called “hikite”. “Hiki” means to pull back and “te” is a hand.

“Uraken”

“Ura” means ‘back side’ and “ken” means ‘fist’. Therefore, “uraken” is a ‘back fist’.

When you attack with “uraken”, the punches are called “uchi” and not “tsuki”. What’s the difference between them?

The word tsuki” originally means ‘to stab or push” while “uchi” means to hit, strike and flap.

So you can imagine that “tsuki” is the punch that you push the fist into the opponent’s body and “uchi” is the punch that you hit/flap the opponent.

It’s easier to see the difference in the eyes so here is the demonstration.

☆“Uraken ganmen uchi” = back fist punch to the face

 “Ganmen” is ‘facial surface’. “Gan” means ‘face’ and “men” is ‘surface’ as in “shoumen”(front side). When you see the word in kanji(Chinese character) : 顔面  the first kanji 顔 means ‘face’ and this kanji has 2 readings, “gan” and “kao”. When you want to say the word just ‘face’ in Japanese, you must use the other reading “kao” not “gan” (just for extra knowledge)

☆“Uraken sayu uchi” = back fist punch to right and left

“Sayu” means ‘right and left’

☆“Uraken hizou uchi” or “Uraken furi uchi”

“Hizou” is the name of the organ (a body part) as shown in the picture. So this punch is aimed towards this part of the body.

(hizou)

“Furi” means ‘to swing’. If you swing the uraken to your right or left side, the fist will hit the same part (I suppose)

☆“Uraken mawashi uchi” = back fist round punch

“Mawashi” means ‘to turn something around’. In this technique, you swing the uraken around to the opponent.

☆“Seiken ago uchi”  

“Ago” means ‘a chin’. This attack is with “seiken” but the punch is “uchi” so your punch should just hit the opponent’s chin and pull it back.