Don't Take Away My Muay Thai Round Kick!

There's a lot of dogma surrounding muay thai's most fearsome technique - the round kick. Krus and ajarns, and fighter/instructors teach us that in muay thai the round kick is thrown one way, and one way only (their way). He throws the kick as his instructor before him, and the master before him. The shin bone is a miniature baseball bat; K-1 morphed into a muay thai tournament due to the style's domination; MMA fighters have adopted it as their primary leg strike; it is arguably the most feared technique in modern martial arts. The round kick is steeped in this mystique of indomitable aggression. There just isn't any room for improvement, is there?

I say yes, but not improvement through evolution, but improvement through digression - taking the muay thai round kick back to where it was first used: on the battlefield. Over the past 100 years or so - since Westerners introduced gloves and fighter promotions to muay thai (muay boran) around the turn on the 20th century - fighters and their trainers begin to modify their offense and defense to better protect themselves. Certain techniques that were known to cause severe damage were removed. Fighters' careers begin to last longer and everyone involved made money. Hence, muay boran was relegated to become a sort of sideshow demonstration for tourists. Over time safety techniques were perfected, and that's what we have today in modern ring style muay thai. The widespread popularity of MMA has further degraded muay thai techniques due partly to their trainers, partly due to the "crash course' style training a lot of MMA schools practice. But I digress.

Back to my point. - I'm getting there - We've got to go back to explore what the purpose of the muay thai round kick was originally used for. It wasn't used to score points or wear down an opponent. The target was the side of the knee - it was used for incapacitation. If the warrior lost his sword, his elbows and legs became the replacement weapon until he could rearm himself. Muay Chao Cherk is Krabi Krabong without swords. The kick would have to be thrown quickly, without a windup. And chances are slim that the desperate warrior had the time and opportunity to throw that kick from the "appropriate" distance. He could have been uncomfortably close, or out of reach, they may have had to throw it from a run.

So what I'm saying, and can prove is that the popular muay thai round kick that 99% of the martial arts schools in North America teach is not the 'end-all-be-all' kick. It can be further modified to generate up to 40% more force. It can be thrown from inside of elbow range - lerd rit CQC kick; from 5 feet away, from a walk, a run. The muay chao cherk kick was thrown with a drive from a standard range. With just a little bit of bio-mechanics knowledge and simple application of basic physics (f=ma, torque) you can modify your cookie cutter muay thai round kick into a strike that can end a fight when it counts (outside of the ring). Oh, and inside the ring or cage, your opponent will only block the first few strikes before having to resort to an evasion strategy.

Outta My Way! Shedding the back-and-forth mentality in fighting

We've recently seen a spike in new student enrollments at the Muay Thai Academy International, a number of which have defected from Fairtex and Master Toddy. Others have a background in TKD & other sports oriented martial arts. Regardless of their respective backgrounds, they all tend to have one trait in common - they have the 'exchange' mentality.

Almost all sports oriented martial arts teach students to always stand in front one's opponent. Body movement is much like that in fencing - get in, strike, and back out - but always be in front of your opponent. Whether we're doing shadow boxing, pad drills, or sparring: most new students want to strike and wait to counter, thus exchanging blows with their partners.




If I'm in a fight, the last place I want to be is in front of my opponent trading punches. I've been trained to use continuous movement and react on the fly. Instead of simply blocking, I move in at angles to get myself close enough so its uncomfortable for him to attack. That's my comfort zone. If I don't move in, I'm trying to get behind him because, where else could you be safer than behind you enemy?

Its really just a matter of your mindset. If you train to stay dynamic and reject the rule that states you have to stand still and absorb blows you'll find your movements more fluid and your sparring partners more frustrated.

Using drive to add power your strikes

Stationary strikes can become fairly strong with a tweaking of body mechanics. But in my opinion, stationary strikes carry two inherent problems. They limit the amount of torque and thrust you can generate, and they also inhibit body movement - arguably the most important aspect of a fight. If you aren't moving in a fight/combat situation, you're a target that's going to get hit.

Incorporating drive (forward motion) into your strikes will increase your hitting power not only because you're adding momentum to the force mix, but also consider this:

Knee Strikes - you'll be able thrust your hips farther forward, allowing you to drive deeper into your target

Elbows and Kicks - increased range of pivot rotation and hip drive

Punches & Headbutts - Additional force behind the strike and more ability to hit through the target.

In the video below I used the basic muay thai up elbow strike to demonstrate this concept. Modern ring style muay thai teaches the up elbow as a stationary attack. Lerdrit and muay chao churd integrates drive into almost all of its offensive and defensive techniques.

So when when you're moving while you strike you're killing a number of birds with one stone while conserving movement and keeping yourself a difficult target to hit.

Drive Kick + Down Kick = Ouch

The muay thai drive kick lets you leverage you weight and momentum to deliver power. The muay thai down kick leverages torque and downward force to deliver power. Now put those two forces together and you have a strike causes serious damage. The video shows the basics of the technique, but here are the main points:

Drive kick:

• It's used to quickly deliver a muay thai round kick from a distance, covering the distance with a lateral drive.
• You still have to turn your hips over and pivot - but the pivoting takes place during the drive.
• Lean forward - keeps the momentum driving
  
• Kick through your target

Down kick:

• Drive down kicks hurt a lot more than standard round kicks, I speak from experience.
• It's slower than a standard muay thai round kick
• You have to lift your leg higher - the strike lands downward on the target.
  
• The movement of the kick takes the form of an arc.
• Rotate the hips in a downward diagonal motion
  
• When thrown against the front of the thigh it will buckle your opponent at the hips, setting him/her up for elbow strikes or knees into the high chest/throat area.

Its a subtle difference between the the drive and the down drive kick is subtle, you can only really see it by watching how the bag holder's body reacts to the impact.

The ledrit knee: you'll never see it in a UFC match

And why is that? Because most MMA fighters are learning a watered down sport version of mauy thai that their trainer learned at some Master Toddy seminar or maybe at a JKD workshop. The ring style knee is primarily used to wear down your opponent, and to score points, much like body punches do in western boxing. Diesel Noi proved that knees were powerful enough to end a fight.

But what I see from fighters in MMA matches is, in my humble opinion, an utter disservice to muay thai in general. I cringe when I see fighters go for a knock out knee to the jaw. Look at the location of the knee in relation to the face. Do you really think you'll generate that much force and maintain that force 5 to 6 feet high? The knee is meant to drive into the lower abdomen, groin of thighs. Thats the old style muay thai knee. It's meant to buckle your opponent, its your entry into the head/throat strikes that will incapacitate. high, low - that's the secret formula. But I guess until these MMA guys gets a knee full of teeth (no one taught them to turn the head) they'll keep aiming high.

Her's the difference between a ring style/MMA knee and a ledrit knee.

School Profile: Muay Thai Academy - Santa Clara, CA

For those of you who are not interested in ring competition or MMA fighting I recommend the Muay Thai Academy International (MTAI) in Santa Clara, CA. MTAI, the oldest muay thai school in the US offers old style, military and street combat training based on ledrit, muay baron, muay chao churd and Burmese Bando styles. The school rarely advertises and provides a hard core training regiment that focuses the student on efficeincy of movement, building power and preparing the student for fighting multiple opponents. The school specializes in close quarter combat, and I mean close.

In the MMA, commercialized 'Fairtex' world of retail martial arts MTAI gets little respect, due mainly to the fact that the school refuses to compete. But it must be remembered that many of Muay Thai Academy students are law enforcement officers, military special ops, executive protection professionals (not bouncers), and federal officers. Sport muay thai and MMA does not work in a counterterrorist situation.
Another thing to note is that MTAI spawned many of the most repected names in the MMA world. Javier Mendez, founder of the American Kickboxin Academy in San Jose, home to many UFC fighters got his start as a student at MTAI, along with the late Alex Gong of Fairtex fame and the founder of Rey's Muay Thai/Wing Chung in San Jose.

Here's a link to the site: http://militarymuaythai.com/

Its a bare bones site, but what they train is lethal and more effective than anything else out there (includine krav maga). Its worth a look.