On 26 February 1977, in Berlin, in Germany, a German called Georg Brueckner started a world body. 40 That is how tells its own beginning. Its first name was not kickboxing at all. It was the World All-Style Karate Organization. 40
An association in Amsterdam
Kickboxing reached Europe by another road too. In the Netherlands it came in its Japanese form, with knees and low kicks. In 1976 Jan Plas and Thom Harinck started the Dutch kickboxing association. 1
The first world championships
WAKO held its first world championships in 1978, in West Berlin. There were 110 competitors from 18 countries, and the sport was still called karate, in two kinds: semi contact and full contact. 10,40 WAKO took the name kickboxing later, as its rules grew. 40
Those two kinds are still the two halves of the sport. Semi contact became : light contact on a mat, stopped after every score. Full contact stayed in the ring. 41
Mat and ring
Today WAKO has seven formats in two families. 40,41 The formats are fought on a square mat with light, controlled contact, and the judges count points. 41 The formats are fought at full power in a boxing ring. 41
This matters for families. Children can compete on the mat from the year they turn 7, in point fighting and forms. Nobody fights in the ring until 15. 41
WAKO now says it has 135 member nations and over 4 million people doing the sport. 40
One of its first big championships was not in Germany at all. It was in London.