Kyokushin is above all else known for tough physical conditioning. Kyokushin fighters are used to taking bare knuckle body punches, and hard low kicks resulting in high pain tolerance and a general lack of fear when it comes to damage. This undeniable produces strong fighters and a Kyokushin fighter is unlikely to be knocked out in a three round kickboxing bout, save for a particularly severe or well timed blow.
Like it or not, the lack of head punching in Kyokushin is a problem. Every major Kyokushin fighter from Filho to Hug, have all talked about the difficulty of learning to defend their head consistently in fights. While defending your head should seem like a given, especially considering high kicks are humorously legal in the sport that pans face punching – the reality is that training routinely in hard sparring situations without head punches, dulls your reaction to dealing with them.
Kyokushin
Pros:Furthermore Kyokushin is fought at a very close range and fast pace. This is beneficial when it comes to kickboxing, as fights will usually consist of three rounds of three minutes. The ability to score often and score well in that short span of time is essential to winning a decision. For a Kyokushin fighter, adjusting to kickboxing may as well be a matter of adjusting to head punches, which brings us to the draw backs.Related Articles Around the WebThe limited clinching can also cause problems for fighters who like to tie up to avoid damage, as excessive clinching to smother punches can cause point reductions. This can make it harder unable to dictate the pace of a kickboxing bout.The art of eight limbs and usually cited as the most effective striking art on the planet. Muay Thai needs very little introduction, it’s the national sport of Thailand and Thai fighters have always dominated the top levels of kickboxing.The art of eight limbs and usually cited as the most effective striking art on the planet. Muay Thai needs very little introduction, it’s the national sport of Thailand and Thai fighters have always dominated the top levels of kickboxing.Muay Thai allows for unlimited clinching, sweeps and elbows in addition to the punches, kicks and knees allowed in kickboxing. As a result training in Muay Thai fundamentally trains you to compete in kickboxing with a fairly smooth cross over. Despite this however there are still things to consider when making the cross over.From Your Site ArticlesFounded by Mas Oyama and frequently billed at ‘the strongest karate’, Kyokushin is the progenitor of what we now call ‘knock down karate’. There are multiple styles that train for this specific ruleset, be it Ashihara, Shidokan or Seidokaikan to name a few examples, but Kyokushin is the most common of this approach.When we talk about kickboxing, we are usually talking about K-1 Rules, formerly known as Oriental Rules, or even better known as ‘the one where you can kick in the leg’. This style of kickboxing has a few influences but generally we can say that it stems from Kenji Kurosaki’s particular approach to Kyokushin karate, and his experiences in Thailand against Thai Boxers. As a result, we often see professional kickboxers coming from one of three backgrounds, the first and most common background being a gym specifically teaching K-1 rules kickboxing. This is the case for most dutch fighters, and many Japanese fighters. The other two are fighters that come from either Muay Thai or Kyokushin karate, who then adjust for kickboxing rulesets.
Conclusion
That being said both of these styles have absolutely, historically worked and no one should feel discouraged from trying out kickboxing if they’ve come from either of these two brutal styles.Mas Oyama decided that he’d prefer to lose face punches in order to keep fights bare knuckle, and while we can argue whether or not he made the right decision, we cannot argue that Kyokushin hasn’t produced tough, capable fighters in spite of this limitation. Kickboxers like Glaube Feitosa, Fransisco Filho and Tenshin Nasukawa all developed initially in this style of karate before moving into kickboxing.
