Semi or Full-Contact

**Da-RiSiN-sMoKe** · 09-29-2006, 17:05

I've never been in a full-contact tournament before, and I hardly see any of them around.

What do you prefer?

**davidmitchel** · 10-19-2006, 09:32

I have not seen or heard of any full contact tournaments in my area. My preference will be semi-contact. If my face gets rearranged by some tough guy in public, that is one thing. Going up against some tough guy voluntarily with no cause to defend, is quite another. I have always like my nose where it is.

Dave

**Yang Wei Xin** · 10-19-2006, 11:01

Amateur "full contact" tournaments are frowned upon in most of the US.

You will find some "point kickboxing", which has stipulations against excessive head contact or face contact, wears full gear, and doesn't have knockouts. These matches do get pretty rough tho, seems people have varying ideas of what "light head contact" is.

Then you have semi pro, or pro am type fights, which are usually prearranged, meaning you are fighting one guy only, and you already know who he is. Typically no gear except 10 oz. boxing gloves, groin cup, and mouthpiece. 3 two minute rounds for exhibition matches, 5 two minute rounds for regional championships. Standing 8 count, tko and ko rules apply. Knees allowed to body in international and muay thai divisions, but no elbows.

Johhny "Superfoot" Davis does a lot for point and amateur kickboxing in CA and across the country.

http://www.akpromotions.org/
Heres his website, its a little old school, but it has all the info necessary, check it out if your interested.

**skatergirl** · 10-25-2006, 18:19

When I was younger we had full contact tournaments for my first year in Karate, but the karate school was investigated and those were stopped (wasn't old enough, nor a high enough rank to join back then anyway) imeadiately.
Most semi-contact is just fine with me, I've been in too many fights on the street to like full contact (espeacially full contact with 2x4's

)

**Cla68** · 10-26-2006, 03:07

Most "full-contact" tournaments by Kyokushin or its offshoots (Enshin, Ashihara, Oyama, Seido, etc) don't allow punches to the face in their tournaments (but do allow kicks to the head). Also, the "junior" level matches (non-black belt) usually allow the use of light gloves, shin pads, chest pads, and head protection. Therefore, unless you're fighting in the black belt division, your chance of injury is much less than the "full-contact" label might indicate.

**TEA** · 10-31-2006, 13:20

Oly style TKD is full contact, kicks to the body or head, punches to the body only, no kicks bellow the belt.

**shinbushi** · 11-09-2006, 13:52

Originally Posted by Yang Wei Xin

Amateur "full contact" tournaments are frowned upon in most of the US.

Many states have amateur Muay Thai which is full contact
Just no elbows until pro

**Yang Wei Xin** · 11-13-2006, 13:35

Originally Posted by shinbushi

Many states have amateur Muay Thai which is full contact
Just no elbows until pro

Next time you may want to take the extra thirty seconds and read the rest of my post, but oh well.

**shinbushi** · 11-13-2006, 13:43

Originally Posted by Yang Wei Xin

Next time you may want to take the extra thirty seconds and read the rest of my post, but oh well.

I READ your whole post. There is more than Pro AM Muay Thai fights. there are also a lot of smoker fights out there.

**Yang Wei Xin** · 11-13-2006, 13:51

That would be the point kickboxing mentioned in my post, where they make you wear headgear and head contact is supposed to be less than full force.

If they are having fights with no headgear and full head contact in an amateur tourney, I can guarantee that the local boxing and athletic commissions would be unhappy with them.

Since we are both in Cali, we are talking about the same commisions, and I know for a fact that they don't allow unlicensed fighters to fight full contact.

I'm also making a distinction between "tournament" fights, versus a scheduled fight.

**Scott Bolinger** · 02-11-2007, 12:55

well, the type of tournaments I run is countinuous point tournaments wich is 3 X2 minute rounds. For running a tournament it's a bit easier to run than a regualer tae kwon do or karate tournament. Because your doing one wright after another and your able to tie into other events as undercards. I do alot of that with the MMA events. But you can also do that with full contact kickboxing or karate. But on the costs, there should be plenty of competitions. Not to long ago they were having east vs west cost competition, I believe it was IKF. Nationals on that it in August, but thats in Chicago. But there should be IKF on eather coast. But also out towards Washington, there is also WASKO there a national kickboxing association based out of Turkey, but started running tournaments on the east coast and there looking at expanding into different states

**mjd** · 02-13-2007, 07:41

What type of contact fighting are you looking for???
This would help to give you the info on that type of fighting!

**Da-RiSiN-sMoKe** · 02-23-2007, 17:21

Anything would do.

I want something like heavy contact or of sort; not the old-school no gloves style or Sabaki Challenge.

The last tourneys I went to were too controlled; I got docked for making the guy's head move on a ridgehand.

**seidogirl** · 02-25-2007, 10:18

I'm not sure what you mean by "heavy contact". Do you mean you want something with no protection at all (besides gloves)? It might be tough to find that sort of thing these days.

**zatoichi3154** · 02-28-2007, 10:10

I have never understood semi-contact, this martial arts thing of ours should not a point system thing. Either you have the skills and force to put down an oipponent or you don't. I feel that point sparing or fighting is unbalance to martial arts. To me you either know how to fight and take down person or you just tap people and pretend.

**kumite** · 03-10-2007, 20:44

I've been trying to finds semi or full contact karate tournaments for a couple years now. Either kyokushin, enshin, heck anything that will let me in the door and isn't a huge drive from Arkansas. If anyone knows of anything, please let me know.

**jjaje** · 03-11-2007, 13:45

While it's a long drive from Arkansas, Kerry Roop (former Kickboxer) has regular fight nights. They are about as close to full contact open ring night as one can get.

http://www.superkicksforamerica.net/

**Da-RiSiN-sMoKe** · 03-13-2007, 13:23

Yeah; the Sabaki challenge is the only thing I know about. I really want full contact because it will teach me actual contact. Semi-contact has too many rules and restrictions.
-Groin is questionable target.
-Can't hit hard enough to move head.

**Scott Bolinger** · 03-25-2007, 01:48

with my kickboxing federation i'm working on a few projects that will help me expand it into different stats, hopefully pretty rapidly. I just gotta get a deal worked out with a insurance company, then I could work with different instructors in other states and expand. Wright now i'm just running tournaments in Nebraska, South Dakota and Wyoming. But I have request to run tournaments in Tennesse and Georgia and that'll probably be 2008 before I do that, unless I get the insurance issue taken care of soon. But my style of competititon is the simi contact 3X2 minute rounds. But to expand into different states, i'd be looking for representatives in those states.