Muay Thai enjoys an increasing popularity as a competitive sport, form of self defense, and fitness exercise. Whether you’re a beginner wanting to get into shape or an advanced student ready to fight and hone your skills, Muay Thai is an efficient striking art that will develop your stamina, power, and techniques.
Rules
Thai boxing is subject to strict rules and regulations. Amateur and professional bouts are classified by weight divisions. Fights are carried out with 8-ounce gloves; heavier divisions use 10-ounce gloves. Athletes must use mouth guards, groin protectors, and sometimes elastic bandages around the foot joints. Amateurs must also use head guard and shin guards.
Required gear: 16-ounce gloves, headguard, shin guard, hand wraps, mouthpiece
Professional fights go through five rounds of 3-minutes each. Between rounds there is a 2-minute break.
The opponent can be hit, kicked, and pushed with any parts of the body except the head. The body weapons utilize by Muay Thai are hands, elbows, knees, and feet. An attack may not be directed toward the genitals, the back of the body, or the eyes. A down opponent cannot be hit.
Holding on to the ropes, or intentionally turning one’s back is not allowed; neither is tossing opponents with Judo techniques. Biting, spitting, and verbal abuse are also not permitted.
Ceremonies
Whai Khru and Ram Muay are dance ceremonies performed by the athletes before the fight. Whai Khru is a form of greeting that lets the fighters express their respect for the ring. It is followed by Ram Muay, which combines different dance styles. Through its performance, the fighters honor their trainer and their gym.
Stamina Training
As a physically demanding sport, cardiovascular conditioning are required to practice Muay Thai. The technique drills are enough to develop stamina, but pro fighters also train with running, swimming, bicycling, and other forms of exercises.
Power Training
Muay Thai requires conditioned trunk-muscles that are capable of withstanding many hits. Push ups, sit-ups and pull-ups are necessary to strengthen the stomach and the lower back muscles. Strong neck muscles are required to lower the impact of hits to the head.
Nutrition
For better energy, fitness, concentration, and recuperation, proper diet and food selection is a must. Eat complex carbohydrates, and avoid simple carbs found in sweets and soft drinks.
Basic Techniques
Punches
The punch techniques in Muay Thai were originally quite simple 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 (jab, straight right/cross, hook, uppercut, shovel and corkscrew punches plus overhand or bolo punches).
- Jab
- Cross
- Hook
- Uppercut
- Spinning backfist
- Superman punch
Kicks
The Muay Thai angle kick has been widely adopted by fighters from other martial arts. The angle kick uses a rotational movement of the entire body. The angle kick 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 Karate or Taekwondo. The angle kick draws it’s power entirely from the rotational movement of the body. Many Muay Thai fighters use a counter rotation of the arms to intensify the power of this kick.
- Leg Kick
- Body Kick
- Inside Leg
- Front Kick
Knees
The straight knee (also known as a front knee) is a typical knee strike, and involves thrusting the front of the knee into the head or body of an opponent. A flying knee (known as hanuman thayarn in Muay Thai, and sometimes called a jumping knee) is a knee strike very similar to a front knee, except that it is performed in stand-up fighting by jumping, and often by rushing towards the opponent.
- Stright Knee
- Flying Knee
Elbows
The elbow can be used in seven ways: 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 blood also raises the opponent’s awareness of being hurt which could affect his performance. This is the most common way of using the elbow. The diagonal elbows are faster than the other forms, but are less powerful. The uppercut and flying elbows are the most powerful, but are slower and easier to avoid or block. The downward elbow is usually used as a finishing move.
- Elbow Slash
- Horizontal Elbow
- Uppercut Elbow
- Spinning Elbow
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