The World Kickboxing Association (WKA) is one of the oldest and the largest amateur and professional sanctioning organizations of kickboxing in the world for the sport. Its official name is "World Kickboxing and Karate Association, however the logo uses World Karate and Kickboxing Association".
WKA was created in the United States as the World Karate Association in 1976 by Howard Hanson, a Shorin-Ryu Karate black belt, and Arnold Urquidez. The organisation was the first non-profit governing body to use an independently controlled rating list, the first to establish a world championship division for women and the first to include countries from Asia. The organisation became one of the major sanctioning bodies for professional karate. Early stars of the WKA included Benny "The Jet" Urquidez, Don "The Dragon" Wilson, Kevin Rosier and Graciela Casillas. The organization went on to secure network broadcasts in the US and Japan. Howard Hanson sold the WKA to Dale Floyd in 1991.
WKA developed the field of low kicks thanks to strong Asian and Japanese connections. WKA is based in Karlsruhe, Germany with headquarters, and also in England with office in Birmingham, prospered throughout Europe and in North America. In 1994, Paul Inghram took over the organization.
Read more about World Kickboxing Association: See Also
Famous quotes containing the words world and/or association:
“She had been getting ready for her great journey to the horizons in search of people; it was important to all the world that she should find them and they find her, but she had been whipped like a cur dog, and run off down a back road after things.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)
“The spiritual kinship between Lincoln and Whitman was founded upon their Americanism, their essential Westernism. Whitman had grown up without much formal education; Lincoln had scarcely any education. One had become the notable poet of the day; one the orator of the Gettsyburg Address. It was inevitable that Whitman as a poet should turn with a feeling of kinship to Lincoln, and even without any association or contact feel that Lincoln was his.”
—Edgar Lee Masters (1869–1950)