In an earlier blog entry I explained the meaning of gedan (下段, げだん, ge-da-n) as "low(est) level". The other two levels we use in GKR are chūdan (中段, ちゅうだん, chu-u-da-n) and jōdan (上段, じょうだん, jo-u-da-n). These literally mean middle level and upper level although we mostly use the terms stomach level and head level which is how these levels relate to the human body. Similarly we use groin level for gedan.

The Japanese writing system uses kanji, hiragana, katakana and romaji. Kanji, literally Chinese characters, are ideographs, that is they are images that convey an idea. Hiragana and katakana are phonetic scripts and romaji are the Latin characters that we use in writing English. The simplest three kanji to see the idea that they are trying to convey would have to be ichi (一), ni (二) and san (三) being one, two and three respectively.

Another three kanji whose idea or meaning is not that difficult to see are those used for ge, chū and jō in gedan, chūdan and jōdan as shown below.

From left to right they indicate below the line, the middle of the line and above the line. The kanji on the left which is the ge in gedan is also read as shita (下, した, shi-ta).

When we train we wear a gi 着 (ぎ, gi) which is short for karategi (空手着, からてぎ, ka-ra-te-gi) or dōgi (道着, どうぎ, do-u-gi). Gi means clothing, wear or uniform. Under our gi most of us probably wear some form of what the Japanese call shitagi (下着, したぎ, shi-ta-gi), literally "underwear". While Americans may refer to their underwear as their "shorts" the kanji 下 has no such connotation.

It probably comes as no surprise then that the literal meaing of shita zuki (下突き, したずき, shi-ta-zu-ki) is not "short punch". If you consider the target area of a shita zuki relative to a chūdan zuki then the literal meaning of "lower/below punch" probably makes sense. The Japanese adjective for short in length is mijikai (短い, みじかい, mi-ji-ka-i). In Japanese a person is not short, their height/back is low.

There are many homophones, words that sound the same but have different meanings, in Japanese and the word for joke is also jōdan (冗談, じょうだん, jo-u-da-n). Hopefully your jōdan zuki is not a "joke punch".