Sport and Competitions

At Carisma, sparring is totally optional and nobody is forced to fight against his/her will. Participation in competitions is a decision taken, not just by the individual concerned, but also by the Master, who can decide whether a student can safely compete or whether (sh)he must wait until a better level of fitness is achieved. When sparring, we respect fully the international rules applied by all Kickboxing associations worldwide.

From a competition point of view, there are three different kinds of Kickboxing: semi contact, light contact and full contact. In all of them, it's permissible to hit the front or side of the body from the belt upwards, including the face. Hitting the back or the legs in NOT ALLOWED at any time. The sweeping techniques must be applied to the feet or ankles: no sweeping technique can hit the shin or higher.

Let's see how the three styles differ from each other:

Semi contact (point sparring)

In semi contact, the two opponents try to hit each other using any of the allowed techniques. Whenever each of them scores (hits a valid target) the referee will stop the fight, assign the right score. The opponents have to go back to their starting spot and the referee will restart.

The fighters must show good control over their techniques and never try to hurt their opponent. Referees and judges will enforce a fair fight. During a semi contact fight, the opponents normally keep a side guard that ensures a faster reaction time; kicks with the front leg are usually preferred.

Light contact (continuous sparring)

Light contact is similar to semi contact but the referee will stop the fight only in the case of dangerous or irregular actions: otherwise the referee and two other judges will decide on a winner at the end of the match.

This decision is taken after considering the way each opponent was attacking and defending and, more importantly, the number of attacks that actually scored rather than being just blocked.

Light contact fighter normally keep a front guard where it's possible to use both arms more effectively, and where the actual number of kicks used is usually lower that of a semi contact fight.

The rules about controlling power of the techniques apply to light contact in the same way as to semi contact.

Full contact

Full contact looks very similar to light contact in terms of positions, techniques and strategies, but it doesn't have any limitation on the power that may used for the strikes.

Winning by KO is allowed only in full contact, while technical KO is allowed by the three disciplines.