Identify Mystery WTF TKD Kick

Question

A few years ago my kung fu school developed a relationship with a local and well-regarded WTF Olympic Style Tae Kwon Do school and we initiated a technique-exchange of sorts. A technique we learned from them that got a lot of traction in our school is a short, quick roundhouse-style kick aimed near-exclusively at the midsection that you throw without the full rotation of the hips that accompanies a traditional roundhouse.

The name I learned for this kick was something like "Pe Chagi." The reason I say "something like" is because I am slightly hard of hearing and their instructor has a notable accent, so it's entirely possible that I was mishearing him. I can not find anything like this kick on any list of TKD kicks and my attempts to Google it by name have been entirely unsuccessful. It seems unlikely to me that this is something unique to this particular instructor as their school trains explicitly and successfully for international WTF competition. I'm hoping someone here can help me identify it and spell it correctly.

Answer 1

You're probably referring to the "half turning kick" (sometimes called just the "turning kick", "twisting kick", or "45 degree kick") which goes by various Korean names, depending on your organization: "bit chagi", "paldung chagi", or a "bandal chagi".

You can see it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Su7NcOEiRgY

And if that video doesn't exist anymore, here's another one showing this kick and some different ways to perform it and train for it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEiyiZZDrCU

The bit chagi is a cross between a front kick and a round kick. Instead of the full hip rotation, you're performing a half rotation. The kick lands on a 45 degree angle instead of a 90 degree angle.

The reason why this kick exists is because it's faster and less telegraphed than the regular round kick. But the downside is that it's not as powerful. Less hip rotation means less power.

And as for pronunciation, you can hear it here on Google Translate:

https://translate.google.com/?sl=ko&tl=en&text=%EB%B9%84%ED%8B%80%EC%96%B4&op=translate&hl=en

That is for the word "biteul-eo", which translates for "twist". The first part of the word sounds a bit like the English way of saying "peed". You almost don't hear the "t" sound at the end, and so yes, it can easily be mistaken for "Pee".

Hope that helps.