Muay Thai Stuff’s Blog

Don’t you feel strange to yourself if you are Mauy Thai fighter and performing Wai Kru Ram Muay without understanding why you have to do on what you are doing!!!

Some questions have been raised about whether a person can learn Muay Thai and being good and excellent fighter without appreciating Thai culture and norms. I believe that there are a lot of people who have this kind of question in their mind or even feeling by themselves. This question seems to be very hard to answer, could be “yes” or “no” and the reason behind these answers are also very hard to explained. For myself, I still could not say Muay Thai is the best and Thai fighters are the best in the world, even though those of my brothers are performing very well in international arena like K-1, Contender Asia etc. But I still strongly believe that there are a lot of foreign fighters who can do better than Thais, but we may never have a chance to experience their fights. This does not mean that I am Thai who do not proud of people from my own country, but I started to believe since Muay Thai has become one of the world’s famous martial arts and this is the important thing that I am proud of.

Even though you are the person who may not interested to learn Thai culture and norms as an add-up benefit to your training, or even though these kind of cultural benefit, in your opinion, will not give direct impact to your Muay Thai skills, but I would like to say that it would help you in some ways, particularly for socializing with those Thais or foreigners who also love to talk about Muay Thai and it will gives you more opportunity to gain more appreciation of being Thai!

While many of students focus on the lessons and there are millions of questions about how to improve skills and performance, the question about look fog good Muay Thai equipment seem rare in number and it seems to be the last thing that Muay Thai people ask for. I took part in many of Muay Thai forums and communities and also found that my assumption was true, but even though it this the last thing that people mention but I can confirm that equipment is one of the most important and you can not take good exercise to obtain skills without having good equipment.

In fact, the question about Muay Thai equipment is not only for learners but also many of coaches , trainers, owners of gyms and camps in the country where original Muay Thai equipments are hardly found and available in local area. For many of learners are advised about looking for personal basic Muay Thai equipment such as gloves, pad and other outfits like shorts (knees or elbows supports in some cases) that they can look around the shop in local area but sometimes it just does not work because it is difficult to find the shop that specially offer Muay Thai equipment.

This problem become even more serious for the country or region that Muay Thai is not very well recognized so the only way to get is to ask around or go to auction site and get some online stuff. There are also questions ask about the quality and the different between equipments from original local brand from Thailand and from international brand manufacturers. Many issues have been raised on quality, price, best value of money and of course that the benefits to your training.

For me, I personally believe that no matter which type of martial art we are learning, what will be automatically learnt together with the martial art is the culture and norms of the country or people that the martial arts belongs to; you should know Koreans tradition that involve to Tekwando, you should know what Japanese norms related to Judo or Jujitsu etc, and Muay Thai is not an exception! This is because there are a lot of thai norms and tradition including terminology for fighters and they have to learn, at least realise about the meaning of them. No! I am not talking about asking you to learn everything about Thai people and Thailand to be good fighters. This believe existed few hundred year ago and I don’t want to take you back to the ancient time of Muay Thai where student have to be really respect to the teacher and do some kind of religious activities in order to gain effective lesson.

It does not work that way for Muay Thai in modern era as it’s all about business!. However, the believe of respect and sonority in order to get familiar with Muay Thai lessons. This may not a compulsory for every Muay Thai learners but only people who trained in Thailand or in foreign countries by Thai “Kru” will absolutely realise the meaning of statement above. I believe that all of Thai “Kru” will have some kind of advise for student to appreciate Thai norms and tradition as well as teach students that belongs to them, no matter in which country these Krus are living in. Also, there are a lot of trainers who are not Thai but really appreciate of norms and culture and try to teach students in that way too!

The workouts are quite similar in many ways: training by rounds, emphasis on conditioning, realistic drills with bags, pads, and sparring and so on. Occasionally, the cross training would help learners to reach a place where they could understand what was learned in a way that they would have been unable by merely sticking to a single gym.

The example that I speak of is in relation to three elements that are critical to your success as a fighter. Power, speed, and technique. How do these three elements rank in importance? You may be surprised at my answer would be..

During the course of an exhausting workout, it suddenly dawned on me that power is the least important of the three factors. When you reached a point of the workout where you had almost nothing left to give, yet there was the coach, demanding you to continue striking the pads with power and if you found yourself focusing purely on the actual technique, ensuring that the body was in proper alignment and everything was in sync. You are supposed to use it next to no energy, but each strike was sharp and solid.

It also dawned on me that this would carry over to MuayThai as well. Focus on the technique, because if your structure is solid, the strike will be as well. Further, speed creates its own power. So the faster you can strike with everything properly aligned, the more powerful your strikes will be. There is a terminology in aeronautics called the “trim tab”. Achieving the trim tab is the point at which you are getting the greatest amount of work or productivity with the minimal amount of effort. While this realization has helped your training and coaching immensely, it is a concept that is surprisingly difficult to master. Only through constant and diligent training can you truly apply the “trim tab”.

I find this thought running through my head quite frequently. I frequently deal with other people in the sports that leave me scratching my head. After a few minutes of conversation, I’m tempted to stop them and ask, “Who taught you Muay Thai?” I bite my tongue, though, and strive to lead people down the right path through example.

For instance, I was once had an opportunity to see demonstration of a Muay Boran (ancient bareknuckle Muay Thai) technique. The technique was an example of Muay Boran’s “Lion’s Walk” strategy, where you make two simultaneous movements from the same side of your body. In this instance, it was an uppercut and a straight knee strike. I can see that the demonstrator was met with incredulousness from a certain individual at what he was showing. The audience seemed to feel that he was making it up. Surprisingly, he was a Muay Thai championship title holder!

Fortunately, over the last few years this has occurred less and less frequently. Unfortunately, though, this kind of thing still crops up. I’ve found that the best way to deal with this is to use these instances as an opportunity to educate. Showing your frustration to these people often will only make them become defensive and unwilling to listen to you. However, if you take the time to calmly explain what MuayThai is really about, you often find yourself with an avid pupil, who is both willing and excited to learn! This is definitely benefit for others that you recommend but also for yourself to have a good opportunity to educate about Muay Thai to all people in the rest of the world. I can say that there still a lot of misunderstood about Muay Thai both in terms of knowledge and practice so please help to educate if you want to see Muay Thai become the most popular martial arts.

This first episode featured an elimination match between Trevor Smandych of Canada in the red corner vs. Naruepol of Thailand in the blue corner. Though I haven’t had the opportunity to see Trevor fight, I have read of his career for the past few years. He is one of North America’s premier MuayThai fighters.

While I did not get to see the entire episode, I did enjoy the footage of the two fighters preparing for their upcoming match in the dressing rooms. Trevor had the honor of having one of the greatest international MuayThai fighters in his corner, John Wayne Parr. Naruepol talked of his desire to win for his Mother, as a tribute to her lifetime of hard work.

It was also interesting to make note of the differences in preparations prior to a bout between Thailand and Internationally. As an example, the pre-fight massage with Thai liniment is standard practice in Thailand. Internationally, on the other hand, this is often banned as the oil is deemed a “foreign substance” over fear that it could get into a fighters eyes. Another interesting difference is in the method of hand wrapping. On the international scene, with the application of athletic tape strictly governed. No tape can go across a fighters knuckles. In Thailand, however, fighters begin by having tape packed heavily across their knuckles, and gauze wrapped over it.

I enjoyed how the program took the time to feature the Wai Kru, also called the Ram Muay, prior to the bout, explaining it’s significance. They also discussed the ceremonial headband, the Mongkon, and it’s meaning.

Related VDO http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeyudbBQz0s

“From the producers of The Apprentice and Survivor comes The Contender Asia. An exciting new television series to find the first Muay Thai superstar.”

Mark Burnett, the producer of the television hit reality shows “Survivor” and “The Apprentice” has now expanded his scope to include the sport of Muay Thai. In an age where sports broadcasting angles for the extreme, it’s refreshing to see a combat sports program that avoids these overly macho overtones. There is a lot of the human element presented in the programs, often showing how these fighters from different cultures attempt to train and get to know one another. For example, a Thai fighter on the blue “Wild Boars” team named Naruepol speaks very little English, yet the rest of the fighters really extend themselves to make him feel comfortable with them.

If there is anything that detracts from the show, it is the “challenges” that are standard fare in almost all reality shows. Of note, the first episode features a sprinting contest where the fighters run while tied to one of their teammates. One pair of fighters became tangled during the race and fell, causing an injury to one of them that could affect him throughout the contest.

All in all, this is must-watch TV for any martial arts or combat sports fans! This show allows the audience to not only watch some of the best fighters in the world fight against one another, but it also provides a glimpse into their daily lives, both in and out of the gym, which could also provide entertainment and excitement at the same time. It is very good idea to have a kind of programme like this because it helps people to appreciate more about martial arts rather than going to stadium and see the fights, so no doubt that’s why this program is so popular.

While it seems Muay Thai arts is spreading throughout the world. Many people think that the majority of international Muay Thai learners should be in the country like Japan, where the K-1 tournament is organised and mean while Bua Khao is creating his own reputation form Muay Thai and for himself in Japan and so many of his fans age range from young kids to middle adult interested and start to learn Muay Thai. As same as in the USA, when many of ex-famous Muay Thai fighter start building their own camps in the country, gaining reputation and it seems that there will be no more other country that will be the big market for Muay Thai. However, the fact is that we have also to mention about the UK. Although it seems that UK football is one of the most popular sport of the country and the people seem not to accept any type of sport from another. My friend who used to spend more than 5 years as a Muay Thai coach in the UK told me that the market for Muay Thai in the UK almost as big as the market for major type of sport like football!!!.

There are many of clubs and websites that talking about football but within some forum, there are more threads about Muay Thai than the threads about football. Even though there are still limited number of Muay thai camps that run by Thai “Kru” but the number of camps established by UK teachers have increased sharply in the past few years, and this include the market for Muay Thai equipment too.

This question is existing for quite a while and there are so many times that the person who asked and got the different answers. So it is not surprise me at all why this question still be asked. This is because there are so many different answers around this issue. Some of them answered by kick boxing professional who somehow do not know much about Muay Thai, and some of the answered given by Muay Thai professional not kick boxing expert. However, the definition of these two martial arts are quite clear and concise.

Muay thai is almost completely from the kick boxing. The most distinct characteristics of Muay Thai is using elbow, knees, shins to attack, meanwhile kick boxing art is a combination of Judo and boxing. Sometimes many people call Muay Thai as “Thai Boxing” or “Thai Kick Boxing” which is quite annoy me sometimes because, as being Thai, I can say that Muay Thai has only one word to call, it’s unique with no other combination. However, I think those people can not be blamed because they just called base on their information and experience. So if you are the person who is learning Muay Thai, you will see how Muay Thai is unique and seems no other martial arts can be mixed.

On the East Coast of the United States, a few “hotbeds” of MuayThai can be found from Boston down to Atlanta. One such hotbed of MuayThai is Philadelphia, PA where promoter Angel Cartagena holds his “Evolved Fighting” MuayThai event every 3 months.

This event has steadily grown in size over the last few years, and is now seeking to move into a larger arena than the facility it currently calls home, which has a seating capacity near 2000 people. The popularity of this combat sport has begun to rival that of Boxing and even the sport of Mixed Martial Arts, whose most popular event, the UFC, now draws a greater pay-per-view audience than the most anticipated boxing matches.

The Evolved Fighting event series used to feature a hybrid of MuayThai & K-1 styles of kickboxing, but over the course of the last year, the demand for pure MuayThai has caused the event to shift its focus, and the promoter and his officials have begun to focus their energies on proper training for their referees and judges. Fighters are therefore finding themselves needing to learn and utilize traditional MuayThai fighting techniques and master their clinch in order to remain successful in the ring.

On November 30, 2007 and new head official, Kru Brooks Miller, was brought in to help educate the officials on proper MuayThai scoring, ensuring that the matches were all scored fairly. Kru Brooks held a meeting with the event officials in the afternoon prior to the event to review Thai scoring practices and give the judges the opportunity to ask questions and be sure they were all in agreement on the criteria. Kru Brooks also had the opportunity to speak with the fighters themselves, helping to clarify for them what is and is not legal in MuayThai, most especially the tactics employed in the clinch.

The event itself featured twelive bouts, all of which were very evenly matched by the promoter, Angel Cartagena. Most of the evenings fighters were novices, but all were well coached and displayed good skills and sportsmanship. A few of the bouts featured experienced fighters, and these matches were especially exciting for the crowd.