Education

Muay Thai; All About the National Sport of Thailand

If you didn’t know, Thai Boxing or, better known as Muay Thai is the National sport of Thailand and as such is held in high regard in terms of honor, respect and victory. According to the history books Muay Thai was never designed to be a sport and, believe it, or not dates back to over 400 years ago where Thailand was under attack over the years from various surrounding countries, or passers through. Considering where Thailand is situated within South East Asia, most people would have had to try to pass through in order to get where they were going, or not;

Stand your ground and never surrender

It may sound like a cliché but there’s a reason why Thailand was never successfully invaded or, taken over. The mentality of their national fighting style is to, stand and bang, make every shot a potential knockout blow and, no matter what, stand your ground and never back down. As mentioned above, the origins of Muay Thai date back centuries, it came to be when the Thai people needed a super strong, deadly form of close-combat in order to defend themselves.

The most effective way to do so was to incorporate as many parts of the body, or ‘limbs’ as possible so, they used the entire body to devise the ultimate form of self-defense and attack. What we see today and known as Muay Thai Reading is a variant of what was used back in the old days, although, throughout Thailand you will still see different styles of Muay Thai being used, one of the most dangerous is called Muay Boran which is potentially even more dangerous than Muay Thai.

The gloves are off

The fighters don’t wear wraps or gloves, instead, they wear rope bound around their hands which, when catch skin are highly likely to cut the skin open, causing some pretty serious, potentially fatal cuts and damage to veins and arteries. Fortunately, it isn’t as common as Muay Thai and not something you will be likely to see on television, a quick search of something like YouTube will probably point you in the right direction should curiosity get the better of you.

Prize fights

There are different categories when it comes to prize fighting, some fights require the fighters to wear certain protective equipment and maybe only have 3 rounds, whereas the more professional top tier bouts will be full blown 5×3 minute rounds of all out warfare, the main addition being, elbows which can be thrown from any direction the fighter chooses!

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