What is Sanshou and what is Sanda?

I have been getting alot of questions over the years the main difference in sanshou and sanda. Many variation of answers have arised over the years, some say they are the same or the other.
Essentially, they are the same art and are normally practised by the same practitioners, so why the difference in the arts.

Sanshou rules:
Sanshou is the amateur sports version and Sanda is the professional sports version, the rules as such are different too. Sanshou focus on punching, kicking, throws and catching, prohibiting strikes like knees, elbows and headbutts. Additionally they also have more protective gear like a chest and head guards. The gloves used are 10 and 12 ounces which is accorded to the weight catergory of the fighters.

Sanda rules:
Sanda on the other hand allows knee, elbows and headbutts, but in most competitions, knees are the only allowed added strike to keep the pace of the fight continously fast paced. Protective gears are restricted to only gloves, mouthguard and groin guard. The size of the gloves also vary according to the rules agreed accordingly prior to each fight.

This may sound messy, but because they are fighting on a professional level and fighters can sometimes come from different martial art background, the rules will vary accordingly to be equally fair to each competitor.

For example, early fights between Muay Thai and Sanda required fighters to don elbow pads as elbows are the anti-thesis of sanda throws and many Sanda fighters were participating in their first fight where elbows were used with great proficiency by their opponents. It was only in later years after fighters became more familiar, were elbow pads removed. However, there are times where fights elbows were not permitted between the two different stylist.

Style of fighting: Sanshou
Because of the way the rules governing both sport are very different, the way the fighters fought in each context were also different. For sanshou, points are awarded for clean techniques, finesse is a major influencing factor as brawling are not awarded any points.

For example, if you rush in and land alot of punches and kicks repeatedly, you might only be awarded one point or two points. But if you land one clean punch and cause your opponent to move, you are awarded one point, likewise for a kick, a clean shot to the chest or the head is two points.

Going on, if you throw your opponent and fall on him and you are not able to get up within 3 seconds, you lose the points. But if you throw him and get up in time, you get one points. And to futher emphasize finesse, if you throw the opponent down with dropping to your knee or hand, you get the full two points.

Most fighters normally take a slighly crouch narrow stance when fighting. The reason is that by being crouched, they can sprawl in time or counter an attempted throw and by having a narrow stance, they reduce the body profile, reducing the area their opponent can hit on.

This stance like many other arts lead fighters to becoming selective in their choice of strikes, kicks and throws. Dominant techniques like the jab, cross, backfist, lead leg side kicks, roundhouse kicks, backthrust kicks, double leg takedown, leg throws, hip throw and sweeps become the staple for most sanshou fighters.

Style of fighting: Sanda
Points are also awarded similarly to sanshou with the other variants of strikes like knees and elbows awarded one point each for a clean shot. Because of the added strikes involved, the fighters have to take a higher stance when fighting (not a good idea to have your head near the elbow or knee striking level).

Because there is a paid attendance for such fight, aggression and dominance take precedence over finesse to cater to the audience interest. Strikes and kicks are normally in combo to wear out the opponent and to show dominance. Likewise, throws are sometimes muscled through to complete the execution, even the use of the rebounding effect of the ring ropes are also used to create leverage for fighters to throws. The main reason for such crude execution is that most fighters that do reach this level are very skilled and experienced in throwing or being thrown and this increases the level of difficulty to execute a throw. The added aggresion in the throws also minimises the chance of taking a knee or elbow strike when entering in for a throw as it will cause the opponent to fight for balance than to consider hitting his opponent.

Some might ask the logic for investing so much energy for a throw, the main reason is partly spectatorship and it can wind the opponent out, thus reducing their stamina and also to mentally demoralise him.

This is but a brief description on the difference of Sanda and Sanshou and it will be no surprise that both art may at one point of time in the future will evolve in seperate direction. However, given that most professional fighters started in amateur Sanshou before converting over to being professional and still compete on an amateur level, that time is not anytime soon.

First Singapore Sanshou Blog

Welcome to Singpaore first and much delayed blog on Sanshou and all things related to sanshou or sanda in Singapore.

Many people have asked what is Sanshou or Sanda and do they refer to the same thing. Some have asked the relation between sanshou and Muay Thai. Some also question the existence of sanshou and its merit as a martial art or sport.

Hopefully this blog can help to shed some light on sanshou and help to promote sanshou locally in Singapore.