Lost Origins of Muay Thai

 How Muay Boran is coming to represent an entire family of Thai martial arts

I began training Muay Thai in 1994. Most Muay Thai gyms, by large, teach the modern kickboxing adaptation of Muay Thai, and I was lucky enough to find a school in the San Francisco Bay Area that offers the older style of the Muay Thai (Muay Chao Cherk /Muay Chao Chur) and modern military version of the style known as Lerd Rit).[1] Since then I’ve witnessed Muay Thai rise out of obscurity to become one of the most sought after fighting styles in use today.  

In 2012, I got the research bug in my head, and kicked off a project to learn what I could about the older Muay Thai styles anda more complete history of the system. It's surprising how few resources are available that touch on where Muay Thai came from. There are plenty of sites that recall the legends of King Naruesan and Nai Khanom Tom. But in the course of my research, I found that many online resources that provide information on Muay Thai’s history contradict each other, or include statements that are not properly validated.

Redundant information on Muay Thai’s history, largely legends of kings and warriors, abound across the Internet. The story is essentially the same, with variations depending on the article you read or website you visit. This is largely because much of the earlier written accounts had been destroyed in multiple sackings of Thailand’s original capital, Ayutthaya.[2] The lack of open sources of historical information on Muay Thai is further compounded by the fact that Thailand is a highly nationalistic society. Thai’s hold close teachings of the older muay Thai systems, teaching foreigners, or ‘farangs’, only the most basic concepts of a rich and complex fighting system.  

Muay Thai's origins are also debated among scholars, which makes validating one theory over another a challenge. On top of that, web sites containing information that actually cite their sources are exceedingly rare. 

 So here I am, hoping to shed a little light on the origins of Muay Thai based on my research, with sources that I have cited.  

Two swords, many branches, one name

My research shows that modern muay thai originally came about from a sword-based combat system called Krabi Krabong, which evolved into other open-hand derivative systems including, Muay Chaiya, Muay Chao Cherk, Lerd Rit, Muay Korat, Muay Lao, Muay Khmer, and Lethwei to name a few. Terms such as Thai muay, Muay Thai, Thai boxing and muay boran (ancient boxing) are umbrella terms that are often mistaken for a specific style of Muay Thai, recently popularized in films by Thai actor, Tony Jaa.

Modern Muay Thai, the national sport of Thailand, is a form of kickboxing in which the contestants use fists, elbows, knees and kicks to subdue their opponent. Westerners were first introduced to Muay Thai in the early 1900’s. The sport has grown in bursts of popularity, beginning with the emergence of kickboxing in the 1970’s and 1980’s, and is now widely popular due to its integration in Mixed Martial Arts, the style used in combat sport leagues including, but not limited to the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and K-1 Challenge in Asia. Muay Thai is known for being a ‘hard style’ martial art, in which the strikes are powerful and fighters aim to destroy targets, not just hit targets.  What is not widely known is that Muay Thai is a blanket term for a scaled down fighting sport, borne from a family of regional combat systems forged from over a thousand years of struggle and surprising influences. 

Like many other major martial arts, modern Muay Thai evolved into a safe way for combatants to train and maintain their skill sets during time of peace.  The empty hand style of Muay Thai is rooted in the older combat form of Krabi Krabong, in which warriors fought with a sword in each hand.  In his essay, A Short History of Krabi Krabong, filmmaker Vincent Giordano noted that the origins of the Thai people came from nomadic Ai-Lao tribes that migrated from India and eastern Tibet into the Yunnan Plateau of China sometime after 3000 B.C.E.[3] Generations of local warfare scattered the tribes into three distinct ethnic groups: the Shans; the Ahom; and the Lao-Tai, eventually each settling in Burma (Myanmar), Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. In 250 B.C.E many of the tribes fled southern China to escape slavery and migrated into the lower forests of what is now Thailand. Control of this region of Southeast Asia often changed hands between warlords for hundreds of years.  The people of Thailand lived in a state of constant warfare. According to Giordano, a deep knowledge of natural medicine was developed from their time spent living in the forests.  By the twelfth century C.E the Ahom people had settled the lowlands of Thailand which are rich in fish and agricultural resources. 

Up until the 1600’s Thai weaponry consisted largely of farming tools augmented for battle as well as swords. According to martial arts historians Donn Draeger and Robert Smith, a key milestone in the development of krabi krabong came about in the seventeenth century when Japanese Samurai Yamada Nagasama was conscripted to quell public disturbances following the death of King Song Thom in 1628. [4] Thai soldiers discovered a two-sword fighting system that proved effective against the Japanese single-hand sword fighting style employed by the Samurai.  

A different perspective

However, the late David K. Wyatt, considered by many to be the foremost western expert on Thailand, proposed that much of the techniques in Thai martial arts were founded not through Krabi Krabong, but in Buddhism.  I tend to believe that truth is likely to be found in both theories. Chinese as well as Indian Buddhism have influenced Thai culture. For example, the legend of Rama, and the concept of kingship in Thailand came directly from the Indian epic of the Ramayana.[5] Concurrently, much of the nation’s history is spent at war with surrounding states and fending off Western colonial empires.  

Your enemies will influence the way you fight

Thai’s have proven over the course of history that benefit can come from absorbing ‘what works’ from other cultures.  Thai rulers have been successful at recognizing strengths in other cultures and integrating them in order to improve national stability without greatly diluting their own cultural identity.  Some scholars argue that this ability to observe and adapt is partly why Siam (Thailand’s official name prior to 1939) was never colonized by European empires, since the rise of Western powers.[6] For example, during the seventeenth century, the Thai government leveraged relationships with surrounding countries and trading partners to counter trade competition from the Dutch and English. 

Instead of going to war against these competitors, Siam embraced potential opponents, enlisting Indians, Malays, Portuguese and Japanese soldiers to guard palaces. They leveraged Chinese and Persian experience as merchants to serve in an official capacity in the trade ministry. If you think about it, their ability involve third party states into the mix made it trickier for world powers at the time to colonize them. The Thai government also outsourced ship building and engineering to Dutch, French and Italian experts.[7]

Given that Thai’s have proven their proficiency in evolution through adaptation, one could also argue that Krabi Krabong was influenced, to an extent, by multiple martial arts including the Chinese, Japanese, Malay, and the perhaps even the ancient Indian fighting system, Kalaripayat. 

Economic destruction

What is unique to Krabi Krabong, Muay Thai, and the Thai/Loa/Khmer/Burmese variants of the Thai combat styles, as well as other styles indigenous to Southeast Asia, is the inherent aggressive nature in which the combatants engage. Southeast Asian martial arts systems tend to focus on destruction and incapacitation, whereas Eastern martial arts focus more on self-defense. Ajarn Jason Webster describes this offensive mindset, when he explained a core philosophy behind Krabi Krabong: “This apparent simplicity, on the surface of the art, reflects the underlying emotion inherent in it. That is the quick, economical destruction of the opponent.” Webster continued, “Therefore, at the core of the Thai martial arts exists the belief that if fighting must take place, the wholesale destruction of the opponent is warranted – and in the quickest, most powerful fashion.”[8]

 

In battle, when soldiers lost a sword they did not have time to stop and pick up another sword.  Soldiers used their fists, elbows and kicks in lieu of swords to continue the fight until another weapon could be won or obtained. This adaptation of using the body to mimic weapon strikes enabled soldiers to survive battle empty handed. A natural result is the confidence in the reliability, power and efficiency of their own skills, which evolved into an open hand combat system. 

From Krabi Krabong sprung a myriad of ancient open hand variant styles of Muay Thai that eventually devolved back into a single system in modern sport Muay Thai where boxing gloves have replaced hemp or cotton wraps, and a large portion of the techniques have been banned to improve fighter safety. This, along with the mass commercialization of the sport and its absorption into hybrid martial arts (MMA) is, in my opinion, watering down what is perhaps the most powerful martial art in existence. 

How could such a culturally vital aspect of a nation’s history all but disappear, out side of anecdotal and mythical evidence? The absence of a documented history of Krabi Krabong, and how it influenced many variant-fighting systems is a lesson for this and future generations. Whereas, for example, the Shoalin system of Kung Fu has been preserved via an institutionalized religious order, a number of local styles of Muay Thai went extinct with the death of last masters.  

 The possible loss of tribal knowledge to the ages, in conjunction with conflicting histories and legends end up becoming the default sources of history. It makes studying the subject of Muay Thai somewhat challenging.  It also explains why there are so many conflicting descriptions around the history of Muay Thai. 

Enter Muay Boran, a new history for Muay Thai

However, it appears that a new history is being forged on the subject: A history of modern Muay Thai, which, from what I can derive, is vastly different from the ancient combat systems. This new history will be the source of knowledge for future generations who may never know anything about Krabi Krabong; or Muay Chao Cherk; Muay Chaiya; Muay Korat, Muay ThaSao, Muay Lao and others, beyond what we see in choreographed demonstrations at tourist attractions and fight scenes in films. 

In a world where we gain our knowledge from YouTube, Wikipedia, and UFC where the media is the message – that are highly influential and very subjective –  it’s important to remember that one side of a story is not necessarily the definitive truth.  The resurgence of traditional Muay Thai styles (predominantly Muay Chaiya) through popular films such as Ong Bak, The Protector, and Chocolate have popularized the term ‘Muay Boran”, which translates into "ancient boxing".  Popular culture, kickboxing gyms, martial arts enthusiasts have lumped the unorthodox or unfamiliar techniques similar to Muay Thai into a single category: Muay Boran. Much like Kung Fu, this general term covers a spectrum of traditional and regional related fighting systems.

Preserving Muay Thai, hopefully

Thai’s are largely hesitant to teach outsiders local styles. Add to that the commercial and cultural influence that ring style Muay Thai has had on modern Thai culture and economy. According to the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT), there are between 20,000 and 30,000 gyms that train or instruct Muay Thai worldwide.  TAT recognizes the latent opportunity in the growing ‘Muay Thai tourist’ market, where even luxury resorts including The Siam and Peninsula hotels have integrated Muay Thai into their guest wellness programs. 

  

What concerns me about Muay Thai's explosive growth over the past two decades is that a new,  lexicon will be created around the subject of Muay Thai in which future generations will not have access to a clear delineation between modern sport Muay Thai, Muay Thai used in MMA and the ancient styles. Today, it's Muay Thai and Muay Boran. What happens to Muay Korat or Lerdrit? Techniques in those systems will eventually become cross-pollinated and lumped into a generic Muay Boran program/style.

 I fear a worst-case scenario – which may already be playing out in North America and Europe – in which retail martial arts gym owners and instructors independently construct training curriculum by reverse engineering techniques that they find online, or take short course ‘Muay Boran’ seminars in order to meet a growing student demand for knowledge in this subject.  I understand the business requirements of brick & mortar gyms to stay relevant in a saturated martial arts market, but the risk of further diluting an already diluted system whose history is foggy at best, is a recipe for disaster.

 What can we do?

Training and fighting does not necessarily make one a subject matter expert. Muay Thai instructors, especially those with an interest in the older and indigenous sub-styles of Muay Thai, must do the research required to educate yourself on the subject. As a kru myself, it is my responsibility to understand the differences among various styles, the history of Thai combat systems and its evolution into a modern sport, and most importantly, to provide my students with the most accurate information possible. 

We can't let Muay Boran become a category for all techniques not allowed in ring style Muay Thai competition. Nor does it mean forms.  It's also the responsibility of the informed instructor, or Kru, to understand the difference between Muay Thai for competition, Muay Thai for cultural & historical preservation, and Muay Thai for combat. 

As Muay Thai continues to grow as a part of popular culture, it’s critical that we a don’t further confuse the history of Muay Thai due to either a lack of due diligence or out of complacency.

My personal journey with Muay Thai is twenty four years in the making and has profoundly affected the way I think about how I could preserve my own culture’s customs and traditions ,espeically since I'm American and popular culture is always shifting. At the current rate, future generations may never know anything but a grotesque permeation of Muay Thai as we know it today unless we work together to record and validate what we can find on the subject, and share the many different styles that came about from Thailand's history. 

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[1] http://militarymuaythai.com

[2] Giordino, Vincent, Wat Buddhai Sawan. http://www.usmta.com/Weapons-historical-brief.htm

[3] United States Muay Thai Association, http://www.usmta.com/ancient-history-1.htm

[4] Draeger, Donn F., Smith, Robert W., Comprehensive Asian Fighting Arts. 1980, Kodansha International, Tokyo, Japan.

[5] Poolthupya, Srisurang, The Influence of the Ramayana on Thai Culture: Kingship, Literature, Fine Arts and Performing Arts. The Journal of the Royal Institute of Thailand. Vol. 31 No.1, January-March 2006.

[6] Loos, Tamara; Subject Siam: Family, Law, and Colonial Modernity in Thailand. 2006, Cornell University Press.

[7] Baker, Chris; Phongpaichit, Pasuk, A Hitsory of Thailand, Second Edition. 2010, Cambridge University Press.

[8] United States Muay Thai Association, http://usmta.com/thai-weapons.htm

As muay thai gets more popular, what will happen to the older muay thai systems?

For me, it started with a bootleg VHS tape of fights at Lumpinee Stadium in 1992. Then, a couple weeks later I caught Paulo Tocha in Bloodsport on HBO, and in my teenage mind I was convinced. I didn't know what they called it, but whatever this fighting system was two things were certain: i. the style looked both brutal and at the same time elegant, and ii. those shorts with the writing on the front looked really, really comfortable.  Hence begun my search to learn what was to be introduced to me as muay thai.

For the better part of the 1990's (and even today to a large extent) I'd get blank stares if/when I tell people that I train muay thai. Top three typical responses are "What's that?", "Mai tai?", or "Is that like kickboxing?". The system has been on the outside of the stable of popular martial arts until MMA came along and has made the name muay thai more common (I would largely disagree with the application of muay thai being used in MMA as an accurate representation of muay thai). K-1 popularized muay thai in Europe and Asia in the early part of the twenty-first century, but the USA has football and the NBA, oh well, call us late adopters.

Outside of the occasional episode of Human Weapon on the History Channel, or the occasional documentary about the exploitation of children through muay thai in Thailand (which I agree and yet, disagree with), mainstream media never covers the Thai national sport, and its official martial art.

This is beginning to change, however. CNN  recently did a little spot on the growth in popularity of muay thai on the international stage. It's good to see this kind of exposure for the sport version of muay thai. Watch the short segment below.




The History Channel produced the series, Human Weapon where the two hosts traveled around the world receiving crash courses in martial arts from various masters or well known practitioners.What I did like about this episode is that they touched on a few of the various branches of muay thai. They trained for modern ring style muay thai, the covered lerd rit, the militarized application of muay thai, and they also went up north and got some exposure to one of the older system, Muay Chaiya.

Here's the full episode, but the commercials can get annoying.

 I'd still like to see more exposure of the older systems such as muay chao cherk, lerd rit, and chaiya  - which BTW, are lumped under the umbrella of muay boran. If someone opens up a muay boran school in your area and markets it as a single martial art, they're simply marketing it to you. Tony Jaa has done a great job of including the various subsets of muay thai in his Ong Bak and The Protector movies.

If you're lucky enough to find and train at a school that covers one of the older systems, be prepared to have others in the outside world (retail thai boxing gyms) say that your techniques are wrong. Not to worry, I've been training and teaching muay chao cherk, lerd rit and a subset of the Burmese system (boar bando) for 18 years (half my life, ugh I'm old). Just know that what's taught at the typical modern muay thai gym is a watered down version of what only scratches the surface of what a muay thai practitioner would have learned over a hundred years ago. You are among the lucky few burdened with the responsibility of continuing a dying tradition.

Hopefully the continued growth in muay thai's popularity will bring about a renaissance for the older systems used for the purposes of combat instead of sport.

Are we all closet Fairtex mauy thai haters?

I'm a marketer by day, a chew toy for my dog by night, and a few evenings every week, I share my experience in muay thai with others. In marketing, I've learned that if your competitor mentions you (usually not in a nice way) in a press release, you've done your job.

So I'm about to make sure that someone at Fairtex has earned their paycheck. Someone out there has been going through my posts and pointing out on how I frequently rail against Fairtex, in particular. His/her name - Anonymous. So, Anonymous, here you go.

I agree with Anonymous on a number of points: I think that the popularity of muay thai is a great thing, I agree that 12 rounds of boxing isn't very efficient, and 2 guys grappling for extended periods of time in an MMA match isn't exactly the ideal way to handle a fight in the street.  I also understand that in Thailand, you grow up to either be a poor agrarian, get pulled into the sex trade, or, the only way out of poverty, train to become a muay thai fighter. Muay thai is the national sport and deep  rooted aspect of Thai culture, of which I have profound respect for. Otherwise I wouldn't have dedicated my entire adult life to learning and sharing muay thai.

My rationale is based on the the fear that mass commercialization of muay thai by profit driven enterprises such as Fairtex, Master Toddy, Tiger, MMA gyms etc., however much widespread attention it brings to the (sport, style, art, what have you), will have an effect similar to what the McDojo model did to TKD and Karate during the 1980's and 1990's. The retail muay thai gym business model is this: bring in 100 students: perhaps 3-5 of those 100 will become a champion fighter. Those fighters will bring in another 200 students, of which, another 3-5% will go on to be champion fighters. This stable of fighters will bring prestige to the gym, which will drive larger numbers of students - driving revenue, credibility and opportunity for expansion. This model is scalable in a business context, however, it makes it very difficult to maintain the quality of instruction over time. We can see this happening right now with Krav Maga. It's explosive popularity has made Krav THE system to learn for self defense. The path to instructor certification is fairly short, because the more paying certified instructors you have, the stronger the system (as an entity) will become. 

But popularity does not mean quality.

Here's a prime example: Master Toddy's instructor training program states "In 5 days you will learn what it normally takes 5 years to learn". The 5-day program comes with a price tag of $3,000. To me, Toddy's entire muay thai instructor / kru / ajarn program is entirely based on driving revenue. What can you really expect to absorb and how do you achieve long term retention over 5 days? Dude, proper elbow technique can't even be achieved in 5 days.

I'm just as passionate about muay thai as  you, Anonymous, but I'd say my passion has a different focus. That's all. Just like Ajarn Lek who works to preserve mauy chaiya, Tony Jaa who's done wonders to bring muay boran to a worldwide audience,  I work to spread the word about the older battlefield forms of muay thai (muay chao cherk) and demonstrate how muay thai can be integrated into effective close quarter combat. BTW - in no way am I putting myself on the same level as Tony Jaa and Ajarn Lek, however, I bet I'm taller than both of them.

There are a few others, like Daniel Sambrano who are willing to share for free...sort of. The price you pay - you have to listen to our rants about the bastardization of an ancient and inherently efficient fighting system.

 We all drink the muay thai kool-aid, just different flavors. As far as the fate of muay thai as a sport / martial art, all we can do is hope for  the best. And thanks, Anonymous for your comments.

Speed kills... the other guy in the world of muay thai

"The stronger swordsman does not necessarily win. It is speed! Speed of hand, speed of mind."

That's one of my favorite lines from one of my favorite stories, The Count of Monte Cristo. It is a common belief that power and size go hand in hand. Well that's bad news for a guy like me. See, I'm  5 foot six, a hundred and forty-something pounds - a self professed little guy.  I'm certainly not big, and I don't want to be big. I never had big muscles. In fact, growing up I had the metabolism of a squirrel. I tried bulking up, but my body just burned off every type of protein muscle-max weight gain product I could blow my allowance on. When I started training muay thai, I was hoping that this high impact martial art would get me yolked.

Nope.

But us little guys have a strength that a lot of the bigger guys disregard - speed. I think speed is a defense mechanism that you develop when you're being chased by bullies as a little kid. When that speed is used for fight instead of flight, bullies become a non-issue

I've noticed that during the course of their training a lot of western muay thai and MMA practitioners tend to develop the mind set that the more weight one can push the harder one can strike. Not necessarily so. Strength gives you the ability to move mass, but does it enable you to cause more damage to that mass than a person 2/3 your size?

When it comes to striking, speed is king. Developing the ability to throw with explosive speed can give a person a small as myself the ability to generate devastating power. Its simple bio-mechanics, nothing mystical. When you understand that the faster you can throw a strike in a smaller period of time, and get your body into it, your opponent is in a world of hurt.

Here's a couple quick tips to help you develop explosive power with your strikes:

1. Basic physics - your mass x acceleration = force. Don't throw punches with your arm, throw it with your body. Drive forward with your strikes, punch through your target.

2. Pivot in, pivot out - The pivot is one of the most important aspects of the muay thai round kick. If you throw a kick at 20mph, bring your leg back at 25mph, and bring it back with that pivot.

3. The faster you can pivot, the harder you can strike - this applies to elbows, round kicks, hooks.

4. Commit 100% to the strike at that moment, don't worry about counter strikes because if you're training right, you wouldn't depend on a one-shot knock out. You throw at least 3-5 in a single combo.

5. If you're like me you don't train muay thai for sport, but for protection. You can't get disqualified from a street fight, so when you strike you aim for soft targets, and you attack with everything behind it.

6. Most important tip ever! When you're learning a technique, throw it slow until you are comfortable with moving your body that way. Build the speed at your own pace, the power will increase as your speed increases. You aren't going to impress anyone firing off a half ass technique with no power.

Where can you train old style muay thai in the U.S.?

"Is there a gym that teaches old style muay thai in _____ (insert city)?" I receive emails almost everyday that asks me that question. And I more often times than not have a very hard time answering that very question myself.

When someone asks me this I do leg work. I'll go online and research the area that my reader is from. I've researched muay thai gyms from Philadelphia, to Tampa, to Austin to Spokane. Yet, there are really only a handful of individuals in North America (I know of) who have training in the older systems of muay thai.

Since Tony Jaa brought muay boran into the mainstream with his movies Ong Bak, and the Protector, I've seen a huge spike in interest in the older systems. But what I've seen, at least here in the U.S. is the same techniques from the same choreographed muay boran demo that's been on YouTube for years. And trust me, you'll begin to see the mega gyms like Fairtex, Tiger Muay Thai, and probably even UFC gym cash in with muay boran programs where you'll learn to "fight like Tony Jaa."  Join now and receive a FREE TapOut t-shirt for only $35.00 - no, sir, you get the shirt for free when you pay me $35 dollars. But wait, there's more!

My readers, who I appreciate so damn much,  I need your help. If you have encountered, or trained at a gym that uses muay thai as its base, but trains for the street, or a school that trains specifically in muay boran, muay chaiya, muay chao cherk, lerdrit, or krabi krabong - and does not offer MMA or BJJ classes as well - let me know! Even if you know a hidden gem that's old school in how they train, where they don't have walls covered with pictures of the school owner hobnobbing with celebrities, where they don't try to sell you a  120cc bottle of Thai liniment for $30. Those are the schools I'm looking for. Let's find 'em, and give them the publicity they probably hate, but deserve!

Either leave a comment on this post, or send me a note at donnie (at) oldstylemuaythai dot com.  Let's help each other find the dream gyms we know are out there.

I'll start with the gym I teach at - Muay Thai Academy International - Santa Clara, CA http://www.militarymuaythai.com - no nonsense combat training based on the older styles of muay thai.

Thai Pad Drills Train Offensive and Defensive Skills

Training with thai pads isn't just for the person striking, it benefits the pad holder as well. It works your timing, range, footwork, and defensive bio mechanics. This concept is universal whether you're training muay thai, MMA or even boxing. The videos below will do all the talking for me.



Free drills allow the striker to throw any technique he/she chooses. This trains the thai pad holder's reaction skills. More importantly, it'll help improve your ability to read body language, to learn to trust your own abilities and face the reality that in a fight, you won't be able to expect your opponent to throw a prescribed set of combos at you. Strikes are gonna come from different angles at different times. Oh, and you're going to get hit in the process of learning,  but that's why you signed up for muay thai, right?

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.

Muay thai + social media = more resources for you.

I finally spent some time today to unify all things oldstylemuaythai.com. You can now stay up to date, and more importantly, interact with other muay thai practitioners. I encourage you to join my group on Facebook and follow me on Twitter. My hope is to put you in touch with other resources to help make your training experience more rewarding. So join up dammit!

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Attention other muay thai bloggers out there: join the conversation! Let's make it easier for our readers to access the information they're craving!

Train how you fight

How you train is how you fight - I've heard that adage from a number of instructors in my past and, as it goes, I now attempt to pass on that same knowledge to my students. In my experience as a muay thai instructor, approximately 50% of students have studied another form of martial arts, mostly sport muay thai, taekwondo, or jujitsu.

I train and teach lerd rit, muay boran, and muay chao cherk for the purposes of street defense, not for cultural demonstrations. A high percentage of our training is focused on multiple opponents, and I teach that when you strike, you strike to demolish, not to score points. My school (I teach there, I'm not the owner), Muay Thai Academy International does not participate in competition mainly because we don't we don't believe in watering down technique for ring or cage application.

I've seen that most western martial artists are trained to strike targets in the hopes of scoring points, or applying a form because its the "proper technique", not because it generates maximum force.

If you're training a martial art, specifically muay thai, and you find that you throw round kicks to the head more often than not, your switch kick is all but useless, and you believe that the purpose for an elbow is to cut your opponent's eye I have some bad news for you. All that training at your camps or gyms may be for naught in a real fight in the streets. You're training to win a competition, not to survive an attack in a situation where there is no referee, no bell, no one to throw in the towel if things go south. Are you really going to go to the ground against 2 or 3 guys? Just remember that the habits you form in the gym are the same habits you'll take with you into a confrontation. Now I know I'll probably get some unsavory responses for this post, and that's fine. Agree to disagree, right?

If you're still reading this and you're considering augmenting your training to apply your existing skill set for street defense, here are a few things to think about:

1. Aim for big targets: Forget about trying to hit someone in the jaw for a knockout. The head is a small target that's difficult to hit. Imagine an invisible triangle starting at the jaw and expanding down to right above the pectorals. You have a much better chance of hitting that area which contains the throat, clavicals and large nerve masses. Think center body mass.

2. Don't hit, smash: When you strike, strike through your opponent, don't just hit. For example, when doing thai pad drills, visualize your kick / elbow / knee going right through the pad holder, knocking him back.

3. Your attacker is one big target: Take the human out of the equation. You could be fighting for your life and your attacker won't certainly be treating you like a sparring partner. You need not care about his/her feelings. No more, "oops, I threw that one a little too hard."

3. No more rules: Eye gouging, biting, groin shots, head butts, and weapons are now allowed. Train accordingly. Here's a great source for info on unorthodox street defense.

4. Train in your street clothes in different environments, on different terrain. I've said before, it's important that you're as comfortable fighting in slacks as you are in shorts. Set up staged situations such as an office, a living room, a dance floor complete with strobe lights and loud music. You'll soon learn how difficult it is to defend and attack with multiple distractions and obstacles.

5. Improvise: Learn how to fight with what what you have around you. Almost anything can be used as either a weapon or as a defense tool, and then a weapon.

6. Multiple baddies: Start to put it into your head that you may be facing more than one opponent. In reality, more often than not you'll end up against 2-5 attackers.


Those are a few basics to think about and when integrated into your regular training regimen, you'll find that you're getting a lot more out of your martial arts experience.

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.