Vollkontakt

Full Contact

Born in the 1970s in the USA, karate full contact is a sport that has developed from the fusion of techniques from martial arts and boxing. It is allowed to hit the opponent with full contact ("full contact" in English) from the belt. The discipline was invented by American karate master Joe Lewis together with several other masters who were eager to experience the true effectiveness of their techniques.

Full contact (like all full contact martial arts) requires an extremely hard and complete preparation of the athlete, who must face a competition that includes victory by knockout. In full contact, the two athletes fight exclusively in a ring, while in the preliminaries and semi-finals they often face each other on a martial arts tatami. As in boxing, punches can only be delivered to the torso and face, so punches below the belt are excluded.

Duration of the fights

The duration of full contact fights can vary greatly depending on the level of the athletes, the importance of the fight and also the federation: it ranges from 3 rounds of 1.30 minutes each for beginners to 3 or 5 rounds of 2 minutes each for amateurs, up to 7, 9 or 12 rounds in the case of a European or world professional title. The interval between two rounds is always 1 minute.

Authorised techniques

Kicks and punches are executed with full contact. With the lower limbs, the aim is to strike with the forefoot, with the cut of the foot, with the instep and with the heel. With the upper limbs, the aim is to strike with well closed fists in the front part. It is valid to hit only the front and the side of the body from the belt upwards and the same for the head.

The permitted techniques are

- All boxing punching techniques (the recoil, called recoil fist, is valid by agreement);

- All foot-fighting techniques from the ground up

Protection used in combat

Boxing gloves, bandages, shoes, groin protection, shin protection, mouth protection, head protection without cheekbone protection (amateur fights), chest protection (for female athletes). As a rule, 10 OZ gloves are used for all weight classes (Velcro fastening).

Clothing used in the fight

Athletes (both amateurs and professionals) wear long trousers and fight bare chested (in light contact fights they also wear a T-shirt).