You know, I used to think I was pretty handy at looking after myself. I'm a brown belt in karate, and I take my black belt grading later this year. I know I'm not Superman, but I'd like to think I could handle myself if I got into a scrape. Then I went to a mixed martial arts contest and saw these guys do san shou kickboxing, and I felt like giving up there and then. These guys are phenomenal!

In case you don't know, this is kickboxing taken to the next level: seriously, these guys know no fear! I have a buddy who practices Muay Thai, and I told him about what I saw, and he said that he'd be wary about taking on someone that's been trained in san shou. If you can imagine taking all the best bits of Chinese freestyle fighting, so you can use kicks, punches, throws, you name it, then times it by ten, and you might be getting close.

So, like I said, I was knocked out (no pun intended!) by what the san shou fighters could do, so I decided to do a little digging. And what I found out just blew me away - no wonder I was impressed at the show. This particular martial art has been practiced for 2000 years, and pretty much allows any kind of combat going. I already told you that they mix in Chinese freestyle; you can add submission wrestling and ground fighting to that scary list! If you think the UFC guys are tough, you ain't seen nothing yet!

What really surprised me is how popular the sport is. I'd never heard of it before, never mind seen a bout. But now that I know what it is, I can see why the likes of ESPN carry it on pay-per-view, as this type of fighting is more exciting than any I've seen so far. The rules are pretty simple, too, so it's easy to follow for any newcomer. And yes, I include myself there!

Fighting in a ring similar to any other martial arts ring, bouts are won by either throwing or pushing your opponent out the ring, or in the more vicious bouts in China, by knocking your opponent out with elbow strikes or knee strikes. Because there are no ropes and they fight often on a raised ring, this makes for some heavy-duty knockouts and that's why I've fallen in love with it. There's no sparring here - these guys are seriously trying to knock each other spark out! This is true, full contact fighting at its best, and probably one of the best systems being taught today.

Don't believe me? Think about this then - in an annual competition between Chinese san shou kickboxers and American kickboxers, the competition (if you could call it that!) had to be stopped since the Americans were getting their butts kicked - literally! In the last competition, the san shou guys won all four fights. Not bad for a little-known discipline, huh?

So yeah, like I was saying. I thought I was pretty good. And maybe at karate, I am. But now I know that's not the be all and end all - it might be a little bit late, but I'm taking up san shou. Then I might give my kickboxing buddy a little surprise or two...