American kickboxing

The word kickboxing represents a sport of combat of striking which is practised on ring. In the years 1960, in the United States, the sharp interest for the karate and for the other martial arts (kempo, kung-fu, taekwondo, bando, etc.) and the desire of several mass media does developping the things.

Various styles of martial practices developped with the various forms of contact. Many champions wanting to know the special end easy recognized qualities of their techniques, helped in causing their gradual change. Competitions were arranged in lot of different styles of combat; like Jhoon Rhee's United States National Karate Championship, the Ed Parker's Battle of Atlanta, and from the 1963 they opens on ring of Bando kickboxing (form come to have of the ancient Burmese boxing brought in from another country by the person with special skill Maung Gyi). Other important competitions like Mas Oyama's All Worth America Championship (Karate Kyokushinkai to the K.O.) has changed the traditional competitions of karate from yet arranged without contact.

Also, the Bruce Lee's (famous cinema actor, in the middle of the years 1970) and Jhoon Rhee's (Alan Steen's, Jeff Smith's and Gordon Franks's teacher) idea of fighting with protections and gloves, has opened a new way for all the persons who like "real combat". At the beginning, American kickboxing is rules of competition. Such rules allow the competitors of the various martial practices to compete in a certain kind of fighting (at the beginning that ones of the WKA - World Karate Association). If is so much the main opinion that is become one of the forms of sport of combat produced by the martial arts more practised in the world.

Among the most known world systems, loaded with the management of the professional and amateur designations as champions in the _boxes pieds-poings_ we have: the WKA (World Kickboxing Association) that had been founded in the USA in the 1976, the WAKO (World Association of KickBoxing Organizations) that had been founded in Germany in the 1978 (WAKO has its origins in the organization of amateur gatherings), the ISKA (that had been founded in 1986) that came from the PKA that did the development of the full contact at the beginning and the WKN (that had been founded in the 1997).

### References

- Japanese kickboxing

### Other websites

- Mikes Miles, _A History of Kickboxing_

**International federations**:
- WKA-Head office, World Kickboxing Association  that had been founded in 1976 (Founder, Howard Hanson, USA)
- WKA-Europe, World Kickboxing Association Europe (Germany)
- ISKA-Head office, International Sport Kickboxing Association that had been founded in 1986
- ISKA-Europe, International Sport Kickboxing Association Europe Europe (Hungary)
- WAKO-Head office, World Association of Kickboxing Organizations  that had been founded in 1978 (Founder, George Bruckner, Germany)
- WKN-Head office World Kickboxing Network  that had been founded in 1999 (Founder, Stéphane Cabrera, France)
- The Kombat League Federation

## Sources

- Alain Delmas, 1. _Dictionnaire encyclopédique de la boxe et des autres boxes_, Amiens, 1981-2005 - 2. _Lexique de combatique_, Ligue Midi-Pyrénées, Toulouse, 1975