Dutch Style Kickboxing: As effective as it is exciting.

Kickboxing is becoming more and more popular thanks to the new and highly regarded GLORY World Series of Fighting promotion. Now many people get confused about kickboxing and use the sport interchangeably with Muiy Thai. They are completely separate sports, and although they have similarities in that both involve the use of feet and hands, they are trained for very differently. For example, Kickboxing has a much deeper focus on boxing techniques and prohibits the use of elbow strikes and thai clinching with only single knee strikes allowed. Where as Muiy Thai is known as the art of 8 limbs due to the use of pairings of the hands, elbows, knees and shins. Elbows, multiple knee strikes and clinching and even certain throws and sweeps are permitted in Muiy Thai events depending on the rules of the promotion.

Now when it comes to sport often there is one country that truly excels and sometimes just flat out dominate the rest in. In Rugby Union its New Zealand, in Basketball its the USA and in Kickboxing, it's the Netherlands that reign supreme. The question is, what makes them so dominant? The answer lies in the style that they adopt their fighters with. Without too much of a history lesson in the origins of the dutch kickboxing it was influenced originally from Japanese kickboxing  and integrated with Muiy Thai. The four famous dutch gyms are Mikes Gym, Mejiro gym, chakuriki gym and Golden glory.

Whats so special about the Dutch Style? The Dutch style emphasises the use of rapid firing boxing combinations in order to get the opponent to 'shell up' and while the opponent is covering up from the boxing barrage, kicks are then utilised to compliment the hands with a massive focus on the low kick, although all types of kicks as well as single knee strikes are used. Essentially the dutch style uses traditional boxing combinations to set up singular kicks A great example of an excellent dutch style fighter is multiple time world champion Andy Souwer. Andy's hands are so impressive that many believed he could have been a boxing world champ as well. Below you can watch the way he uses his incredibly quick hands to set up vicious low licks high kicks and knees.

Note the combinations at 0:30 and 2:24, A rapid hand combo to get the opponent to shell as I mentioned earlier and a chopping low kick to follow up, this my dear friends is Dutch kickboxing 101.

Another equally important point to note is the movement aspect to the Dutch style. Unlike traditional Muiy Thai where fighters often stand very upright, flat footed  and back foot dominant , the Dutch style tends to adopt a hybrid style of linear foot work ith a tad lower center of gravity with a closer similarity to what is seen in amateur boxing.  This is made possible by the more equal weight distribution on each leg, placing less of the back heel on the ground and more pressure on the ball of each of the feet to maximise mobility. This is often characterised by the more open linear stance (as opposed to the feet closer together as seen in traditional muiy thai).

Don't get me wrong, there are Muiy Thai fighters who utilise a more boxing style of linear  footwork, its just more uncommon. The other simple reason is that Dutch approach is heavily showcased by getting on the inside/midrange with quick hand combinations to step up what is stereotypically a single hard low kick, then popping back out(often to to the very outskirts of their opponents range as to make it easier to pop back in if required). The reason they pop back out so frequently is because the lack of inside game involved. No use of elbows are permitted with throws being negated too and only a singe arm clinch is used to deliver a single knee strike. Think about it, with so little inside game to utilise it makes more sense to stay in a range where you can utilise more weapons. In Muiy Thai however it makes perfect sense to transition mid range kicks into a close distance battle of brutal knees, slicing elbows, and disabling throws from the infamous Thai Clinch.

It would be hard for me not to mention the fact that the application of Dutch style kickboxing in MMA makes for a highly effective transition when in conjunction with a focus takedown defence. This is credit to its merits as a highly mobile striking style which leaves the athlete less susceptible to take downs. As discussed above, with weight distribution more equal on each leg, one finds it easier to use backward linear footwork to avoid the takedowns (and potential counter strikes) whilst maintaining balance as opposed to Muiy Thai's traditional back foot heavy front foot light stance which makes it harder to sprawl and defend takedowns. A fighter who has Fantastically transitioned to hybrid a more dutch style of Muiy Thai is Jose Aldo, the UFC's Featherweights Champion. Check his highlight out below, devastating striker!

For other examples of excellent dutch styled fighters check out these guys on youtube:

Ramon Dekkers
Ernesto Hoost
Tyrone Spong
Gohkan Saki
Albert Kraus
Melvin Manhoef.

By Andrew Sheridan