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Sanda / Sanshou Rules

Chinese kickboxing with throws: striking plus takedowns on a raised platform, where dumping your opponent off the edge is a legitimate winning strategy.

Origin

Developed in China from the late 1970s as the full-contact competitive arm of modern wushu, drawing on traditional shuai jiao wrestling as well as striking.

Sanda is the answer to a question the other rulesets do not ask: what if the throw counted? Punches, kicks and knees are legal, but so are takedowns, sweeps and catches, and a clean throw that leaves the thrower on their feet scores as heavily as a hard strike. That single addition rewires the whole sport.

The platform matters too. Competition is contested on a raised lei tai with no ropes, and forcing an opponent off it scores. A fighter therefore has to defend not only against being hit and being thrown, but against being walked backwards into open air — which makes positional awareness a live concern in a way it simply is not inside a roped ring.

Strategically, Sanda produces a striker who is permanently wary of over-committing. Throwing a heavy round kick against someone allowed to catch it and dump you is a genuine risk calculation, and the result is a style built around quick, retractable strikes and immediate clinch entries. Fighters who have crossed over into kickboxing and MMA from Sanda — Cung Le and Muslim Salikhov among the best known — tend to bring exactly that: fast kicks, aggressive catches, and a comfort with the clinch that pure strikers lack.

Legal

  • Punches to the head and body
  • Kicks to the head, body and legs
  • Knees to the body
  • Throws, sweeps and takedowns
  • Catching a kick and dumping the opponent
  • Forcing the opponent off the platform

Illegal

  • Elbows
  • Ground fighting after a throw — the referee resets immediately
  • Strikes to the back of the head, spine and groin
  • Deliberately falling with the opponent to continue on the ground

What sets it apart

  • Throws score as heavily as strikes — unique among kickboxing codes
  • Contested on a raised platform with no ropes; pushing an opponent off scores
  • Full clinch permitted, unlike every K-1 derivative
  • Rewards retractable strikes because over-committing invites a catch and dump

Scoring

System
Points per exchange, contested over rounds won
Rounds
3
Round length
2 minutes
Extension rounds
None

Judging criteria

  1. 1A clean throw that leaves the thrower standing scores highly
  2. 2Forcing the opponent off the raised platform scores
  3. 3Clean strikes to legal targets
  4. 4Knockdowns