Kickboxing is a relatively new sport that has been refined from old traditional systems.

The kicks used in western kickboxing are drawn from ancient martial arts of the Asian countries, including Korea, Japan, China, and Thailand. Thousands of years ago, Asian warriors discovered that the human body could be used as a weapon for both attack and defence. Through disciplined practice, they trained their bodies to twist and flex Over many years they perfected their techniques, and learned to explode into quick devastating bursts of power.

Western Kickboxing is primarily derived from Karate. Karate is a Japanese method of unarmed combat. The word Karate means 'empty hand'. When Karate first came to the West, it was a none/semi contact sport. Fighters won points for accurate near misses, not for solid definitive hits. But to many people, winning a Karate match without touching an opponent seemed wrong. They looked more at Boxing and Mauy Thai, where the goal was to out-tire and knock your opponent to the ground. They also looked at wrestling where the goal was to pin your opponent's shoulders to the mat. Together they combined all this with Karate and came up with something slightly better - Full Contact.

In the 1960's Master Jhoon Rhee, a Karate teacher, developed his own new style of fighting that used hard blows with both hands and feet. This was known as Sport Karate. From the very beginning, Full Contact & Sport Karate were very popular. Both athletes and spectators loved the speed, action, and 'freestyle' of the sport. In 1972, an American named Mike Anderson promoted the first official large-scale Full Contact/Sport Karate tournament. The tournament was a huge success. More and more martial artists began to switch from traditional systems and began to practice and develop the sport. It soon became clear that this freestyle was not just another form of Karate. It was the beginning of a totally new art -KICKBOXING