FAQ

What is Muay Thai?
Muay Thai, when translated into English, means Thai boxing and is termed “the science of eight limbs” because blows originate from the elbow and knees as well as the hands and feet.

Brief History of Muay Thai
No one knows exactly when Muay Thai was first practiced but it was considered a high art and part of the Thai Royal Court curriculum from around 1230AD. Apart from hand-to-hand uses in warfare, Muay Thai was considered a prestigious activity-with former Kings of Thailand sending their sons to train with temple monks as it was believed that bravery and fitness from training would lead to great to brave rulers. Around 1604, King Narai, a lover of sports, helped to make Muay Thai widely available and soon many local playgrounds featured roped off areas for boxing training. In 1767, Thailand was at war with the Burmese, and a champion boxer Nai Kahnomton was captured by the Burmese King Angwa. King Angwa called for a boxing match, the first Muay Thai match outside of Thailand and Nai Kahnomton defeated all ten Burmese challengers in succession, with no rest at all between the ten fights. As a result Nai Kahnomton was honored as The Father of Muay Thai and the day of the fight, March 17th is now officially named “Muay Thai Day” in Thailand.

Conditioning In Muay Thai
Unlike other martial arts such as san shou, karate, or tae kwon do, Muay Thai is specifically designed to promote that 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.

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. The trainer will often also wear a belly pad around the abdominal area so that the fighter can attack with straight kicks 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, counter-punching and are also 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, clenching and kneeing only, cutting off the ring, or using reach and distance to keep an aggressive fighter away.

Muay Thai Today
Muay Thai has demonstrated its effectiveness against other martial arts in a ring setting, many times, in Thailand and internationally.

Due to the rigourous fighting and training regimen (some Thai boxers fight almost every other week) professional Muay Thai fighters have relatively short careers in the ring. Most professional Thai boxers come from the lower economic backgrounds and the fight money (after the other parties gets 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 practise the sport as amateur Muay Thai boxers.