Kickboxing

Kickboxing (/ˈkɪkbɒksɪŋ/ KIK-boks-ing) is a full-contact hybrid martial art and boxing type based on punching and kicking. Kickboxing originated in the 1950s. The fight takes place in a boxing ring, normally with boxing gloves, mouth guards, shorts, and bare feet to favor the use of kicks. Kickboxing is practiced for self-defense, general fitness, or for competition. Some styles of kickboxing include: full contact karate, Muay Thai, Japanese kickboxing, Lethwei, Sanda, and Savate.

Although since the dawn of humanity people have faced each other in hand-to-hand combat, the first documentation on the use of kicking and punching in sports combat is from ancient Greece and ancient India. But nevertheless, the term kickboxing originated in Japan, in the 1960s, and developed in the late 1950s from karate mixed with boxing, having some influence, with competitions held since then. American kickboxing originated in the 1970s and was brought to prominence in September 1974, when the Professional Karate Association (PKA) held the first World Championships. Historically, kickboxing can be considered a hybrid martial art formed from the combination of elements of various traditional styles. This approach became increasingly popular since the 1970s, and since the 1990s, kickboxing has contributed to the emergence of mixed martial arts via further hybridization with ground fighting techniques from Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and folk wrestling.

Although, there are many governing bodies such as the World Kickboxing Association, the Professional Kickboxing Association (PKA), International Sport Karate Association, International Kickboxing Federation, and WKN - World Kickboxing Network, among others, the World Association of Kickboxing Organizations (also known as WAKO) is the recognized as the official kickboxing world governing body by the IOC.

At professional level, there is no single kickboxing world championship, and champion titles are issued by individual promotions, such as Glory, K-1 and ONE Championship among others. Bouts organized under different governing bodies apply different rules, such as allowing the use of knees or clinching etc.

The term "kickboxing" (キックボクシング, kikkubokushingu) can be used in a narrow and in a broad sense.

The term itself was introduced in the 1960s as a Japanese anglicism by Japanese boxing promoter Osamu Noguchi for a hybrid martial art combining Muay Thai and karate which he had introduced in 1958. The term was later also adopted by the American variant. Since there has been a lot of cross-fertilization between these styles, with many practitioners training or competing under the rules of more than one style, the history of the individual styles cannot be seen in isolation from one another.

The French term Boxe pieds-poings (literally "feet-fists-boxing") is also used in the sense of "kickboxing" in the general meaning, including French boxing (Savate) as well as American, Dutch and Japanese kickboxing, and Burmese and Thai boxing, any style of full contact karate, etc.

Arts labelled as kickboxing in the general sense include: