Kara is a Japanese term that literally translates to "empty". 'Kara' is used not as a stand-alone term, but as an affix for others. Kara-throw, kara-palm, kara-srk are all examples of such. The functionality of it is that the game system allows you to cancel a startup of the move to a special or a throw. The true-application of this is that a lot of normals in the game moves the character sprite forwards or backwards during startup. Cancelling these frames into a throw or special greatly extends the range of said throw or a special. Most widely used kara is the kara-throw. Ken has an amazing kara-throw in SF4 with his f+forward, and it pretty much triples his throw-range. Zangief also has a kara in SF4, but it's a kara-greenhand with his standing roundhouse. This allows you to punish blocked Blanka balls that you normally can't. There are a lot of positives of using a well-generated kara move. A negative is that because you are utilizing another move and THEN cancelling into your throw or a special, the timing is slower than normal. This means you can be hit before your move comes out, or the opponent will have enough time to late-tech your throws, etc. This is just another tool you can use to create mixups and confuse your opponents with your spacing, but it is not a requirement whatsoever.  

Last updated on February 8, 2010 by haunts