Luffy never officially uses anything called “Gear 1” in One Piece. Fans and most reference sites treat his normal, base fighting style as what people informally mean by “Gear 1,” even though it is never named that in the story.

What “Gear 1” Actually Means

  • The series only explicitly names Gear 2, Gear 3, Gear 4 and Gear 5 as Luffy’s power-up forms.
  • Because Gear 2 was the first named Gear, some fans and articles casually refer to his base form as “Gear 1” to keep the numbering intuitive.

So when does Luffy use “Gear 1”?

  • In practical terms, any time Luffy is fighting in his normal body without activating a Gear , he is effectively in what fans might call “Gear 1.”
  • This includes most of his early battles (pre–Enies Lobby) and many moments later on when he isn’t using Gear 2, 3, 4, or 5 but is just brawling normally.

Why there’s confusion

  • The question comes up often in forums, with people asking if he “reverts back to Gear 1” after using higher Gears, which is just shorthand for returning to his base state.
  • Official materials and the manga/anime never label that base state as “Gear 1,” so from a canon standpoint Gear 1 doesn’t exist as a named technique.

TL;DR: Luffy has no canon move called Gear 1; fans use “Gear 1” informally to mean his regular, non-gear fighting form, which he uses throughout the series.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.