Japanese Kickboxing V American Kickboxing V European Kickbox

[Dobbersky]

All, looking through various You tube Videos and our favourite Wikipedia, apart from on paper, what are the real differences between Japanese, American & Western versions of Kickboxing compared to Muay Thai.

Where did they originate from, which arts? Some sources say American Kickboxing comes from Taekwondo. Western Kickboxing comes from Muay Thai. Ans Japanese Kickboxing comes from a mix of Kyokushin, Muay Thai & Western Boxing.

Which styles allow thigh kicks and elbow strikes and which don't?

Looking forward to some good responses

OSU

[moriniuk]

This is from my website

A Brief History of Kickboxing

"Japanese Kickboxing" was originally developed by Japanese boxing promoter, Osamu Noguchi, who combined techniques from Muay Thai, Judo and Karate to form the hybrid martial art in the early 1960's.

Traditional oriental martial arts were becoming popular in the USA in the late 1960's but the competitors were becoming increasingly frustrated with the rules which didn't allow contact to be made. They were looking for something a little more realistic.

"American Kickboxing" was born in 1970 and re-born in 1974 as Full-Contact Karate.

Fighters wore "Saf-T-Punch" and "Saf-T-Kick" protection on the hands and feet and the techniques were more akin to traditional Karate than modern Kickboxing. Nowadays western style boxing gloves are worn but the foot protectors are still the same. The hand techniques used are now the same as western boxing with the addition of a few strikes such as the backfist strike.

Members of the traditional Karate community were unhappy with the use of the word Karate being used as they felt that it degraded the art. They wanted the sport to be known as "Kickboxing".

However, at the time, the sport could only be sold to TV companies because of the popularity of Karate. "Kickboxing" was associated with the more brutal Muay Thai and Japanese Kickboxing and seen as being too violent, so there was a push for the sport to be known as "Full-Contact Karate". It wasn't until the 1980's that the term "Kickboxing" started to be used instead of "Full-Contact Karate".

The first time Full-Contact Karate contests were held in the UK was in early 1976.

Western kickboxing definately doesn't come directly from Muay Thai because Muay Thai arrived in the west after kickboxing.

Like it says above, both American and western kickboxing came from Karate both Japanese and Korean versions.

I think that only Muay Thai allows elbow strikes, some styles allow low kicks and this is sometimes known as 'oriental rules'. Competition kickboxing is also known as 'full contact'.

[Dobbersky]

Much appreciated, so Kickboxing was "shunned" by the Karate people, but no Kickboxing has been replacing most Karate classes because the classes for Kickboxing have been more popular!

[xo-karate]

Same in Finland. Karate classes for beginners have a hand full of students but kick boxing is full and cannot take all the students.

[KingDiesel]

Honestly i would say i would agree with all here but in my experience most american kickboxing is just tkd kicks and some half baked boxing punches, Japanese kickboxing is a little more potent better upper body techniques like elbows and they allow leg kick and never tried euro kickboxing

but Muay Thai is in my opinion a better choice for someone who wants a more complete striking game due to it have good boxing elbows leg kicks knees and the clinch game

not saying that any other style is not effective or anything like that but just that MT will cover most aspects of the striking game very well