What is the difference between Karate and Kickboxing?

Karate is a complete health, fitness and self-defence system. Practitioners seek to enhance their life through the disciplined  practice of fitness exercises and self-defence drills.  A comprehensive karate system utilises many parts of the body as tools, including, elbows and knees for striking, the open hand for grabbing as well as the feet and fists.  A good karate programme will devote a significant amount of time to reality scenarios and thus to techniques not permitted in formal competition. Kickboxing  is one section of most modern karate systems.

Kickboxing is the sporting or sparring section of a karate syllabus. Some martial arts schools choose to focus solely on this aspect. Typically, practitioners in a match adhere to a set of rules, where strikes are kept above the waist and should be light contact.  Some students choose to perform in a full-contact version of the above. Thai-boxing is full contact kickboxing where elbows and knees are often used to strike and blows are also permitted to the leg.