Kickboxing - Overview

Kickboxing was first seen 2000 years ago in Asia, as Muay Thai Kickboxing, a self-defence discipline. Over the years kickboxing became more of a sport, and soon became popular after Bruce Lee linked kickboxing (as well as many other Eastern Fighting techniques) with America and Europe. There was a strong urge for a Full contact sport, with out the rigid rules and confines of Karate (where in some karate only tournaments blows had to be stopped short before they made contact), so modern full contact karate, or kickboxing gained in popularity all over the world until it became internationally recognized as both a sport and a martial arts discipline.

In the two-decade period after the first Bruce Lee films came out, many attempts were made to link ancient martial arts with modern sport, but they lacked a universal set of rules, and modern kickboxing truly became what it is today after the WKA (World Kickboxing Association) created one set of rules for all the Eastern martial arts disciplines, so when the rules of kickboxing were finalised, this changed many other martial arts so that they were all compatible. This means that tournaments can often see people who practise many different forms of martial arts fairly sparring with each other.

Over 20 million people train in one form or another of martial arts, and it is the third most practised sport in the world. Like most other forms of martial arts, kickboxing uses ranks of different coloured belts, from beginner (no belt) to black, and on to second-degree black, third degree-black and so on. A higher belt is reached by participating in a grading, a well-regulated test carried out by a kickboxing instructor, who decides the basic syllabus the trainees must do for each different grading.

Within kickboxing tournaments, there is both full and semi-contact available, and contests are either continuous with the winner decided by judges at the end, or on a points system, with different amounts of points scored for different successful techniques, and a pause in the sparring match every time points are scored, making speed vital.

Because kickboxing gained something from so many other forms of martial arts, it is easy to go from kickboxing to other things, for example using weapons such as nun-chucks and tonfas, street fighting, or even first aid courses, as special training sessions of these are offered by many kickboxing clubs.

- Article by HonourableOne