|
ABOUT MUAY THAI
The Art of Muay Thai
Muay Thai is the martial art of fighting with
one's bare fists, utilizing elbows, knees, feet and fists as weapons.
No one knows when Muay Thai first began, it is assumed that Muay
Thai had been practiced since the beginning of Thai history.
 In
the old days, Asian men of Mongolian descent from China down to
the Malaya peninsular fought their wars face to face, fist to fist,
unlike their Caucasian counterparts in Europe, who concentrated
on developing weapons with which to fight. For this reason personal
capabilities played a major role in the art of fighting and an
efficient martial art was extremely important. Muay Thai is one
of the most efficient martial arts.
Since modern technology did not exist in ancient
times, Thai children did not have mechanical toys to play with.
Instead, they used their bodies to play games. Those simple games
served as basic exercises for Muay Thai. They made parts of the
bodies ready.
Muay Thai involves all parts of the body. The
students of Muay Thai learn about the body's weak points and understood
how to exercise one's physical parts.
'Nawa-attawut' or the 9 principal weapons in Muay
Thai include head, two fists, two elbows, two knees, and two feet.
In addition, there are combination weapons which are two shoulders,
arms, bottom and the outer parts of the ankles: The practice of
using both the principal weapons and the combination weapons in
Muay Thai requires not only hard work, but the proper steps and
great endurance.
The training involves rigorous physical training,
similar to that practiced by Western boxers. It includes running,
shadow-boxing, and heavy bag work. Much emphasis is also placed
on various drills with the so-called "Thai pads". These
pads weigh five to ten pounds, and cover the wearers forearms.
In use, the trainer wears the pads, and may hold them to receive
kicks, punches, and knee and elbow strikes, and may also use them
to punch at the trainee. This training is vaguely similar to the
way boxing trainers use focus mitts. The characteristic Muay Thai
round kick is delivered with the shin, therefore, shin conditioning
is also done.
Little or no free-sparring is done in training,
due to the devastating nature of the techniques employed. Thai
boxers may box, hands only, with ordinary boxing gloves. Another
training drill is for two fighters to clinch, and practice a form
of stand-up grappling, the goal of which is to try to land a knee
strike. However, full-contact kicks, knees, and elbows are typically
not used in training.
|
