Muay Thai

Muay Thai
(มวยไทย)

Fighters perform the Wai Khru Ram Muay before an amateur Muay Thai match.
Also known as	Thai Boxing, Thai Kickboxing, Tharshanning
Focus	Striking
Country of origin	Thailand
Famous practitioners	Buakaw Por.Pramuk, Diesel Noi, Apidej Sit Hrun, Ramon Dekkers, Saenchai Sor Kingstar, Yodsanklai Fairtex
Parenthood	Muay Boran, Krabi Krabong
Olympic sport	No

Muay Thai (Thai: มวยไทย, RTGS: Muai Thai, IPA: [mūaj tʰāj]) is a hard martial art from Thailand. It is similar to other Indochinese styles of kickboxing, namely pradal serey from Cambodia, tomoi from Malaysia, lethwei from Myanmar and Muay Lao from Laos. Descended from muay boran, Muay Thai is Thailand's national sport.^[1][2]

The word muay derives from the Sanskrit mavya and Thai comes from the word Tai. Muay Thai is referred to as the "Art of Eight Limbs" or the "Science Of Eight Limbs" because it makes use of punches, kicks, elbows and knee strikes, thus using eight "points of contact", as opposed to "two points" (fists) in Western boxing and "four points" (hands and feet) used in sport-oriented martial arts. A practitioner of Muay Thai is known as a nak muay. Western practitioners are sometimes called nak muay farang meaning foreign boxer.^[3]

History

Origins

Praying before the match.

Thai boxing has been around for over a thousand years, However, it can be traced back using records to 400 years ago in the former capital of Thailand known as Ayuthaya. ^[4] Various forms of kickboxing have long been practiced throughout mainland Southeast Asia. Based on a combination of Chinese and Indian martial arts,^[5] practitioners claim they date back two thousand years. In Thailand, Muay Thai evolved from muay boran (ancient boxing), an unarmed combat method which would probably have been used by Siamese soldiers after losing their weapons in battle. Some believe that the ancient Siamese military created Muay Boran from the weapon-based art of krabi krabong but others contend that the two were merely developed alongside each other. Krabi krabong nevertheless was an important influence on Muay Boran and so Muay Thai as can be seen in several kicks, holds and the movements in the wai khru which have their origins in armed combat.

Muay Boran, and therefore Muay Thai, was originally called toi muay or simply muay. As well as being a practical fighting technique for use in actual warfare, muay became a sport in which the opponents fought in front of spectators who went to watch for entertainment. These muay contests gradually became an integral part of local festivals and celebrations, especially those held at temples. It was even used as entertainment for kings. Eventually, the previously bare-fisted fighters started wearing lengths of hemp rope around their hands and forearms. This type of match was called muay khat chueak (มวยคาดเชือก).

Muay gradually became a possible means of personal advancement as the nobility increasingly esteemed skillful practitioners of the art and invited selected fighters to come to live in the royal palace to teach muay to the staff of the royal household, soldiers, princes or the king's personal guards. This "royal muay" was called muay luang (มวยหลวง). Some time during the Ayutthaya period, a platoon of royal guards was established, whose duty was to protect king and the country. They were known as Krom Nak Muay ("Muay Kick-Fighters' Regiment"). This royal patronage of kick-muay continued through the reigns of Rama V and VII.

Modernization

Ascension of King Chulalongkorn (Rama V) to the throne in 1868 ushered in a golden age not only for muay but for the whole country of Thailand. Muay progressed greatly during the reign of Rama V as a direct result of the king's personal interest in the art. The country was at peace and muay functioned as a means of physical exercise, self-defense, recreation, and personal advancement. Masters of the art began teaching muay in training camps where students were provided with food and shelter. Trainees would be treated as one family and it was customary for students to adopt the camp's name as their own surname. Scouts would be sent by the royal family to organise matches between different camps.

King Rama the VII pushed for codified rules for Muay Thai, and they were put into place. Thailand's first boxing ring was built in 1921 at Suan Kularp. Referees were introduced and rounds were now timed by kick. Fighters at the Lumpinee Kickboxing Stadium began wearing modern gloves during training and in boxing matches against foreigners. Rope-binding was still used in fights between Thais but after the occurrence of a death in the ring, it was decided that fighters should wear gloves and cotton coverlets over the feet and ankles. It was also around this time that the term Muay Thai became commonly used while the older form of the style was referred to as muay boran. With the success of Muay Thai in the mixed martial arts, it has become the de facto style of choice for competitive stand-up fighters. As a result, western practitioners have incorporated much more powerful hand striking techniques from boxing although some Thai purists accuse them of diluting the art.

Nai Khanomtom

The most popular folklore regarding muay boran is that of Nai Khanomtom.

At the time of the fall of the ancient Siam capital of Ayutthaya in 1767, the invading Burmese troops rounded up thousands of Thais and took them to Burma as prisoners. Among them were a large number of Thai kickboxers, who were taken to the city of Ava.

In 1774, in the Burmese city of Rangoon, the Burmese King Hsinbyushin (known in Thai as "King Mangra") decided to organize a seven-day, seven-night religious festival in honor of Buddha's relics. The festivities included many forms of entertainment, such as the costume plays called likay, comedies and farces, and sword-fighting matches. At one point, King Hsinbyushin wanted to see how muay boran would compare to the Burmese art Lethwei. Nai Khanomtom was selected to fight against the Burmese champion. The boxing ring was set up in front of the throne and Nai Khanomtom did a traditional Wai Kru pre-fight dance, to pay his respects to his teachers and ancestors, as well as the spectators, dancing around his opponent. This amazed and perplexed the Burmese people, who thought it was black magic. When the fight began, Nai Khanomtom charged out, using punches, kicks, elbows, and knees to pummel his opponent until he collapsed.

However the Burmese referee said the Burmese champion was too distracted by the kick, and declared the knockout invalid. The King then asked if Nai Khanomtom would fight nine other Burmese champions to prove himself. He agreed and fought them all, one after the other with no rest periods in between. His last opponent was a great kickboxing teacher from Rakhine. Nai Khanomtom mangled him by his kicks and no one else dared to challenge him.

King Mangra was so impressed that he allegedly remarked, "Every part of the Thai is blessed with venom. Even with his bare hands, he can fell nine or ten opponents. But his Lord was incompetent and lost the country to the enemy. If he would have been any good, there was no way the City of Ayutthaya would ever have fallen."

King Mangra granted Nai Khanomtom freedom along with either riches or two beautiful Burmese wives. Nai Khanomtom chose the wives as he said that money was easier to find. He then departed with his wives for Siam. Other variations of this story had him also winning the release of his fellow Thai prisoners. His feat is celebrated every March 17 as Boxer's Day or National Muay Boran Day in his honor and that of muay boran's.

Today, some have wrongly attributed the legend of Nai Khanomtom to King Naresuan, who was once taken by the Burmese. However, Nai Khanomtom and King Naresuan were almost two centuries apart.

Techniques

Muay Thai match in Bangkok, Thailand.

Formal Muay Thai techniques are divided into two groups: mae mai or major techniques and luk mai or minor techniques. Muay Thai is often a fighting art of attrition, where opponents exchange blows with one another. This is certainly the case with traditional stylists in Thailand, but is a less popular form of fighting in the contemporary world fighting circuit where the Thai style of exchanging blow for blow is no longer favorable. Almost all techniques in Muay Thai use the entire body movement, rotating the hip with each kick, punch, elbow and block.

Punching (Chok)

      cross

The punch techniques in Muay Thai were originally quite limited being crosses and a long (or lazy) circular strike made with a straight (but not locked) arm and landing with the heel of the palm. Cross-fertilization with Western boxing and western martial arts mean the full range of western boxing punches are now used: lead jab, straight/cross, hook, uppercut, shovel and corkscrew punches and overhands as well as hammer fists and back fists.

As a tactic, body punching is used less in Muay Thai than most other striking martial arts to avoid exposing the attacker's head to counter strikes from knees or elbows. To utilise the range of targeting points, in keeping with the centre line theory, the fighter can use either the Western or Thai stance which allows for either long range or short range attacks to be undertaken effectively without compromising guard.

Elbow (Ti sok)

The elbow can be used in several ways as a striking weapon: horizontal, diagonal-upwards, diagonal-downwards, uppercut, downward, backward-spinning and flying. From the side it can be used as either a finishing move or as a way to cut the opponent's eyebrow so that blood might block his vision. The diagonal elbows are faster than the other forms, but are less powerful.

There is also a distinct difference between a single elbow and a follow-up elbow. The single elbow is an elbow move independent from any other move, whereas a follow-up elbow is the second strike from the same arm, being a hook or straight punch first with an elbow follow-up. Such elbows, and most other elbow strikes, are used when the distance between fighters becomes too small and there is too little space to throw a hook at the opponent's head. Elbows can also be utilized to great effect as blocks or defenses against, for example, spring knees, side body knees, body kicks or punches.

Kicking (Te)

The two most common kicks in Muay Thai are known as the thip (literally "foot jab") and the te chiang (kicking upwards in the shape of a triangle cutting under the arm and ribs) or angle kick. The Muay Thai angle kick uses a rotational movement of the entire body and has been widely adopted by practitioners of other martial arts. It is superficially similar to a karate roundhouse kick, but omits the rotation of the lower leg from the knee used in other striking martial arts like most karate or taekwondo because like Kyukushin, Goju, and Kenpo it is done from a circular stance with the back leg just a little ways back in comparison to instinctive upper body fighting (boxing). This comes with the added risk of having the groin vulnerable at all times which is against Karate and Tae Kwon Do ideology in general except for brief moments after a kick for example. The angle kick draws its power entirely from the rotational movement of the body; the hips. It is thought many fighters use a counter rotation of the arms to intensify the power of this kick, but in actuality the power is from the hips and the arms are put in said position to get them out of the way.

If a roundhouse kick is attempted by the opponent, the Thai boxer will normally check the kick, that is he will block the kick with his own shin. Thai boxers are trained to always connect with the shin. The foot contains many fine bones and is much weaker. A fighter may end up hurting himself if he tries to strike with his foot or instep.

Muay Thai also includes other varieties of kicking such as the side kick and spinning back kick. These kicks are only used in bouts by some fighters.

Knee (Ti khao)^[6]

• Khao dot [kʰàw dòːt] (Jumping knee strike) – the boxer jumps up on one leg and strikes with that leg's knee.
• Khao loi (Flying knee strike) – the boxer takes a step(s), jumps forward and off one leg and strikes with that leg's knee.
• Khao thon [kʰàw tʰoːn] (Straight knee strike) – the boxer simply thrusts it forward but not upwards, unless he is holding an opponents head down in a clinch and intend to knee upwards into the face. According to one written source, this technique is somewhat more recent than khao dot or khao loi. Supposedly, when the Thai boxers fought with rope-bound hands rather than the modern boxing gloves, this particular technique was subject to potentially vicious cutting, slicing and sawing by an alert opponent who would block it or deflect it with the sharp "rope-glove" edges which are sometimes dipped in water to make the rope much stronger. This explanation also holds true for some of the following knee strikes below as well.

Foot-thrust (Thip)

The foot-thrust or literally "foot jab" is one of the techniques in Muay Thai. It is mainly used as a defensive technique to control distance or block attacks. Foot-thrusts should be thrown quickly but yet with enough force to knock an opponent off balance.

Clinch & Neck Wrestling (Chap kho)

In Western boxing the two fighters are separated when they clinch; in Muay Thai, however, they are not. It is often in the clinch where knee and elbow techniques are used. To strike and bind the opponent for both offensive and defensive purposes, small amounts of stand-up grappling are used in the clinch. The front clinch should be performed with the palm of one hand on the back of the other. There are three reasons why the fingers must not be intertwined. 1) In the ring fighters are wearing boxing gloves and cannot intertwine their fingers. 2) The Thai front clinch involves pressing the head of the opponent downwards, which is easier if the hands are locked behind the back of the head instead of behind the neck. Furthermore the arms should be putting as much pressure on the neck as possible. 3) A fighter may incur an injury to one or more fingers if they are intertwined, and it becomes more difficult to release the grip in order to quickly elbow the opponent's head.

A correct clinch also involves the fighter's forearms pressing against the opponent's collar bone while the hands are around the opponent's head rather than the opponent's neck. The general way to get out of a clinch is to push the opponent's head backwards or elbow them, as the clinch requires both participants to be very close to one another. Additionally, the non-dominant clincher can try to "swim" their arm underneath and inside the opponent's clinch, establishing the previously non-dominant clincher as the dominant clincher.

Muay Thai has several other variants of the clinch or chap kho [tɕàp kʰɔː], including:

• arm clinch: One or both hands controls the inside of the defender's arm(s) and where the second hand if free is in the front clinch position. This clinch is used to briefly control the opponent before applying a knee strike or throw
• side clinch: One arm passes around the front of the defender with the attacker's shoulder pressed into the defender's arm pit and the other arm passing round the back which allows the attacker to apply knee strikes to the defender's back or to throw the defender readily.
• low clinch: Both controlling arms pass under the defender's arms, which is generally used by the shorter of two opponents.
• swan-neck: One hand around the rear of the neck is used to briefly clinch an opponent before a strike.

Defense against attacks

Defenses in Muay Thai are categorized in 6 groups:

• Blocking – defender's hard blocks to stop a strike in its path so preventing it reaching its target (e.g. the shin block described in more detail below)

• Redirection – defender's soft parries to change the direction of a strike (e.g. a downwards tap to a jab) so that it misses the target

• Avoidance – moving a body part out of the way or range of a strike so the defender remains in range for a counter-strike. For example, the defender moves their front leg backwards to avoid the attacker's low kick, then immediately counters with an angle kick. Or the defender might lay their head back from the attacker's high angle kick then counter-attacks with a side kick.

• Evasion – moving the body out of the way or range of a strike so the defender has to move close again to counter-attack, e.g. defender jumping back from attacker's kicks

• Disruption – Pre-empting an attack e.g. with defender using disruptive techniques like jab, foot-thrust or low angle kick (to the inside of the attacker's front leg) as the attacker attempts to close distance

• Anticipation – Defender catching a strike (e.g. catching an angle kick to the body) or countering it before it lands (e.g. defender's low kick to the supporting leg below as the attacker initiates a high angle kick).

Punches and kicks

Defensively, the concept of "wall of defence" is used, in which shoulders, arms and legs are used to hinder the attacker from successfully executing techniques. Blocking is a critical element in Muay Thai and compounds the level of conditioning a successful practitioner must possess. Low and mid body roundhouse kicks are normally blocked with the upper portion of a raised shin. High body strikes are blocked with the forearm, glove, elbow or shin. Mid section roundhouse kicks can also be caught/trapped, allowing for a sweep or counter attack to the remaining leg of the opponent. Punches are blocked with an ordinary boxing guard and techniques similar, if not identical, to basic boxing technique. A common means of blocking a punch is using the hand on the same side as the oncoming punch. For example, if an orthodox fighter throws a jab (being the left hand), the defender will make a slight tap to redirect the punch's angle with the right hand. The deflection is always as small and precise as possible to avoid unnecessary energy expenditure and return the hand to the guard as quickly as possible. Hooks are most often blocked with a motion most often described as "combing the hair", that is, raising the elbow forward and effectively shielding the head with the forearm, flexed biceps and shoulder. More advanced Muay Thai blocks are usually counters, used to damage the opponent to prevent another attack being made.

Conditioning

A fighter punching a heavy bag in a training camp in Thailand.

Like most competitive full contact fighting sports, Muay Thai has a heavy focus on body conditioning. Muay Thai is specifically designed to promote the level of fitness and toughness required for ring competition. Training regimens include many staples of combat sport conditioning such as running, shadowboxing, rope jumping, body weight resistance exercises, medicine ball exercises, abdominal exercises, and in some cases weight training. Muay Thai practitioners typically apply Namman Muay liberally before and after their intense training sessions.

Training that is specific to a Muay Thai fighter includes training with coaches on Thai pads, focus mitts, heavy bag, and sparring. The daily training includes many rounds (3-5 minute periods broken up by a short rest, often 1–2 minutes) of these various methods of practice. Thai pad training is a cornerstone of Muay Thai conditioning which involves practicing punches, kicks, knees, and elbow strikes with a trainer wearing thick pads which cover the forearms and hands. These special pads are used to absorb the impact of the fighter’s strikes and allow the fighter to react to the attacks of the pad holder in an Alive manner. The trainer will often also wear a belly pad around the abdominal area so that the fighter can attack with straight kicks or knees to the body at anytime during the round.

Focus mitts are specific to training a fighter’s hand speed, punch combinations, timing, punching power, defense, and counter-punching and may also be used to practice elbow strikes. Heavy bag training is a conditioning and power exercise that reinforces the techniques practiced on the pads. Sparring is a means to test technique, skills, range, strategy, and timing against a partner. Sparring is often a light to medium contact exercise because competitive fighters on a full schedule are not advised to risk injury by sparring hard. Specific tactics and strategies can be trained with sparring including in close fighting, clinching and kneeing only, cutting off the ring, or using reach and distance to keep an aggressive fighter away.

Due to the rigorous training regimen (some Thai boxers fight almost every other week) professional Muay Thai fighters have relatively short careers in the ring. Many retire from competition to begin instructing the next generation of Thai fighters. It is a common myth that Thai boxing causes arthritis; this is not true, and it is in no way more damaging to the body than other sport or even running. Most professional Thai boxers come from the lower economic backgrounds, and the fight money (after the other parties get their cut) is sought as means of support for the fighters and their families. Very few higher economic strata Thais join the professional Muay Thai ranks; they usually either don't practice the sport or practice it only as amateur Muay Thai boxers.

Rules

Muay Thai is practiced in many different countries and there are different rules depending on what country the fight is in and under what organization the fight is arranged. The following is a link to the rules section of the Sports Authority of Thailand.

Use in other martial arts or combat sports

Mixed Martial Arts

Muay Thai, like boxing, and various forms of kickboxing is a very common striking base within MMA. Fighters such as Anderson Silva, Wanderlei Silva, Mauricio Rua, Paul Daley, Diego Sanchez, Gina Carano, among others are well known for their Thaiboxing backgrounds. Countless other mixed martial artists have trained in Muay Thai.

Many techniques associated with Muay Thai are often seen in MMA, such as elbows, clinch fighting, leg kicks and knees.

In popular culture

Interest in Muay Thai has risen in the past ten years, due to the popularity of martial arts in film and television. The most noteable practitioner of Muay Thai is martial arts sensation, Tony Jaa.

Muay Thai has been represented in quite a few fighting games as well. Sagat and Adon from Street Fighter, Joe Higashi from King of Fighters, and Bruce Irvin from Tekken are all known to be practitioners of the martial art.

See also

• Lumpinee Boxing Stadium
• Rajadamnern Boxing Stadium
• Lethwei
• Muay Lao
• Pradal Serey
• Tomoi

References

Notes

Bibliography

• Kraitus, Panya (1992), Muay Thai The Most Distinguished Art of Fighting, Phuket: Transit Press, ISBN 974-86841-9-9 
• Boykin, Chad (2002), Muay Thai Kickboxing - The Ultimate Guide to Conditioning, Training and Fighting, Boulder, CO: Paladin Press, ISBN 1-58160-320-7 
• Belmar, Peter (2006), Thai Kickboxing For Beginners, New York, NY: Lulu Press, ISBN 978-1-4116-9983-0 
• Prayukvong, Kat (2006), Muay Thai: A Living Legacy, Bangkok, Thailand: Spry Publishing Co., Ltd, ISBN 974-92937-0-3 

External links

• Thailand vs Challenger Series Muay Thai Event
• Elite Boxing : We will bring Muay Thai to next level.
• WMC :: WORLD MUAYTHAI COUNCIL OFFICIAL WEBSITE.
• Muay Thai Drills
• Muay Thai Training Camp Phuket
• Muay Thai Training Camp Thailand
• Muay Thai & MMA Training Camp Thailand
• Muay Thai Technique Videos