recipe says 'degas the dough' - am I supposed to punch it or what?

The movies lied for drama, as movies do :)

Degassing (knocking back) is a firm PAT-DOWN with flat fingers - pressing the risen dough to push out the large gas bubbles. Not a punch. The fist is cinema; the flat hand is baking.

What it's for: after the first rise, the gas has collected into big uneven pockets. Left alone, those bake into random caverns. Degassing redistributes everything into fine, even bubbles, so the final crumb comes out uniform - the difference between sandwich-able slices and Swiss cheese.

The calibration: firm enough to deflate visibly, gentle enough not to tear the surface or wreck the gluten you built. Press across the whole dough methodically, edges folded in, done in fifteen seconds.

One exception to know: rustic open-crumb breads (ciabatta family) skip or minimise degassing - there, the wild holes ARE the point. For everything soft and even: pat down with confidence, punch nothing 🙂