Muay Thai Stuff’s Blog

I have to say that I really love this match. I can believe my eyes that I am watching the fight that both of fighters are not Thai and the match was organised overseas. What make me believe like that is bout the skill of the fighters and Muay Thai arts that they performed throughout the fight, it was very much similar to what I can see with weekly fight in Thailand!!. Both of fighters seemed to have equal skills and capability so they make this fight was very interesting, especially for clinching techniques. I could see no one could not gain advantage over the other but what makes different to both of them is the “fitness” of the fighter. The red corner seemed to lost his power at the beginning of the last round, which quite obvious, then the blue corner take the advantage. It’s also important for fighter to practice training improve the fitness apart from fighting skill.

This article may be not the fact but mainly about personal attitude towards Mauy Thai and other kind of martial arts, please fell free to shre you experience and opinion to this blog if you want to.

I personally unhappy when I was asked “is Muay Thai the best among all kind of martial arts” or “do you think Muay Thai can beat Judo, Jujitsu etc. I also usually avoid to answer this kind of question in many forums or personally. I don’t mean that the person who asked was wrong but it may be due to my personal attitude towards this kind of question. Many times that Muay Thai fighter is brought to fight with another martial art fighter, just because they want to see which one better than which one. It may be a kind of activity to proof something that not needs to be proofed.

When talking about martial arts, one thing I only think about the art that we use to protect ourselves while in danger. Each one of them should not be compared to the other in terms of effectiveness and how each one be able to overcome other one. That’s not make sense at all for me. And when these martial arts become sports, then it become more sensible to talk and we also see the tournament like K-1 which fighters allowed to use their own fighting arts to fight with others.

Imagine that there is one guy who search and ask around that “I am still searching for which type of martial is the best and then I will start to practice on that”

I am not really surprise as the fact that there are a lot of opinion like this and I will never blame them or offend, because it just a thought, but let’s share how you think on what I have mentioned and let’s share idea on this.

I will try my best to make this post not so boring, as many of you already know him and seem no one in international Muay Thai competition never heard of this name. I still remember the picture of Bua Khao when he was around early of his twenties, lying his chin on the head of his opponent (high head kick) and that shot is one of my favourite picture and it still at my room. Even though he is the fighter who made a lot of achievements in both international and in-country competitions but he has not different starting point from other Muay Thai fighters, began Muay Thai training at age of 8 years old and move to Por Pramuk gym when he was 15

What makes me believe the reason behind his success is the fighting style, the characteristic of “tough” and power make him unbeatable. In the same weight division, feather weight, there is no fighter who gain even equal skills to him and fight with him. However, he may not be the best Muay Thai in my eyes, compare to a lot of others fighter in Thailand, but I have to admit that he is one of the Thai proud among other Thai fighters out there.

This video is actually not Muay Thai fight. It’s a kind of traditional sport games and use “Muay” to compete. It’s called “Muay Ta Lae”, which “Ta Lae” means the ocean. The rule of this game is very simple, both of competitor have to use “Muay” to make the opponent fall down to the water. This game is really not intend or focus on the fight result (because competitors not actually fight) but just for entertainment. Muay Ta Lae is very popular game for many of special occasion or festival. I picked this video to present to you because just want to say that the art of “Muay” and “Fighting” is every where in Thailand (as you may have seen young kids start to learn Muay Thai when they are only 11-12 years old) , but in many form and characteristics, even for amusement games competition, so that’s why Thai people and Muay Thai are always together and it is one of the reason why Thai fighters are doing excellent performance in international arena.

This may not familiar words for you because they are Thai words but written in English. The words “Cherng” when refers the fighter, its an adjective to describe the characteristic of the fighter that he has “intelligent” fighting style. There are variation of the definition of “intelligent” which depends on individual, but for myself it should describes the fighters who use least power at the maximum effective to beat the opponent. By using speed and the ability to foresee the situation, he should also control his opponent throughout the fight, on the other hand the another word to call this kind of fighter is “fight by heart” or “thinker”. Mean while, the word “Boo” refers to the fighters who has characteristic of focusing to use “power” rather than “intelligent” to beat the opponent, they are also called “fighter”.

Even though it looks like Muay Cherng is good and Muay Boo looks like fight by brainless but the fact is both types of fighter has their own unique capability. Even though, in my eyes, it is very rare to see fighters who are Muay Cherng in nature, and a lot of Muay Boo all around. But in the past there were so many of both “thinker” and “fighter”. The good example for thinker is Samart Payak Arun and for fighter is Somdej Sit Or.

As I can see, even in Thailand now we have a lot more fighters than “thinker” but sometimes this is what to market and Muay Thai business wants. As long as the result of the fight is less important than the fighting style that many of Muay Thai fans want too see. When promoter and organiser realise that they have to match fighters who perform very exciting and use “power” to fight and attractive for audience, that is good for both of the fans and their business.

www.tigermuaythai.com

I am very proudly present this famous Muay Thai gym in Phuket province. Tiger Muay Thai, in my opinion has now become more than famous Muay thai gym which has large number of students each year from both local and international. The gym also has many of training programmes such as mixed martial arts. However, these are not the highlight of this fantastic gym, they also regularly organise Muay Thai events throughout the year to let their students and fighters have more opportunity to perform the fight as well as to promote the camp, so you can be sure that you will have chance to test what you have learned as well as to see the quality fights to learn for your own improvement.. This is very unique benefit of tiger Muay Thai among any other gym in Phuket. Do not worry about the expense which you may think you have to spend a lot of money to join the gym, they have variety of programmes and accommodation packages to fit the budget too.

I picked this video not because I want to show which martial art is better than the other, because I know that each type of martial ast has its own unique characteristics and advantage in specific circumstance. But I chose this one because I want to show you how Muay Thai could benefit to yourself not in terms of fight for competition, but for the martial art. When you are having specific situation that have to protect yourself from street guy who may use some kind of martial are also. This video demonstrated the basic but effective Muay Thai strategy for martial arts. You can see that the TKD guy could not even make a single hurt to Muay Thai fighter because he was under controlled by kicks and foot thrust. The other reason of why the TKD kicks seemed have less power than MT kicks. I personally believe that TKD kicks were not losing power but it’s due to the fitness of Muay Thai fighter. Muay Thai is not only give people skills of martial art, but also fitness and toughness of the body so that’s why TKD kicks seemed useless this time.

Yes of course the definite answer is the “proper mixture of both”. However, I can see many of Muay Thai fighters who have very unique capability of using speed or power alone to beat the opponent. The word “speed” seem not to have much meaning to me, I don’t really know how fighters are trained to improve speed because I am not a fighter, but “speed” for me is definitely not about “moving quickly” but it, for me, refers to ability of the fighter to foresee the situation such as what is going to happen or what his opponent is going to do and response to the attack very quickly. Meanwhile the term “power” is quite obvious in meaning, which could be ability of the fighter to attack very hardly and difficult to defense.

According to the fact that even though the good answer is the perfect combination of speed and power will help fighters to win the fight, but I still believe that not many of them could do perfectly. In stead, some one only just sit and think about discover which type of skill that he will be good at, speed or power, and then focus on the skill that suitable and “possible” for him the most.

However, to clarify my statement above is that this should also be aware of that the fighter, nevertheless, should develop of both skills in order to have both of the skill and to win the fight. I encourage them to find what they can do the best, “speed” or “ power” and focus on one of them in order to create unique advantage over the opponent but lack of other skill may not enough to win the fight.

One fighter who has excellent speed but he will not win if he has no power of attack at all. Also, the fighter who is very strong may be waste of his power if he can not even make single attack to the opponent.

www.thaiboxings.com

Sor vorapin is the gym that provides training programmes for both Muay Thai anf boxing. The name Sor Vorapin may not familiar among Muay Thai fans even though it is quite a big gym and very famous, but for its boxing fighters, Rattanapol Sor Vorapin The World Champion I.B.F ( International Boxing Federation ) and Rattanachai Sor vorapin W.B.O ( World Boxing Organization ) Champion, so this can guarantee the quality of the training programme. Even though the Muay Thai fighters from the gym are not very famous in Thailand, compare to other gyms which has the number of students and fighters, but for international competition, fighters from Sor Vorapin gym gained reputation, particularly if you are the real fan of K-1, the name KaoKlai Kannorrasing may be the name that you can recall. KaoKlai is the fighter from this gym so should be no doubt about how this gym becomes one of the most popular Muay Thai gym for international students.

The instructor of this video showing how to approach and grab for clinch and knee kick. What I can see from this video is the correct way of catching the neck and the strategy how to switch the arm and escape from being grabbed. However, it seems that the instructor should introduced more about the defensive technique during the clinch. This is because, in reality of the fight, there is no way of opponent will be still and being grabbed like demonstrated in the video, he will try to offend himself too! And the basic strategy that use to over come clinch and knee kicks are elbows which should be added into the video. There are million of situation when the boxer who gaining advantage of clinching and knee kick but suddenly fall down to the floor by elbow attacks!! Using hands to protect yourself from knee kick is also rare in Muay Thai, even though it is one of the good example, but it means you will be losing advantage of strike back by the elbow.