huey

are there any differences between punches in muay thai, kickboxing, and western style boxing?

MuayThaiFighter

No difference at all. The 3 arts do jabs,right cross,uppercuts,hooks(to body and head) however in Muay Thai unlike the other arts you mentioned we also use our elbows for striking.

Besides the elbow in MuayThai the only other difference is the way we do our round house kicks and the way a kickboxer does theirs and then there is boxing that has no kicks.

Damian Mavis

Dude, MTF, we told you before that was not true. Western Muay Thai has adopted western boxing as it's foundation for hands, but this is not so in Traditional Muay Thai in Thailand. In the past Muay Thai's punches were lacking the real fire power of western boxing, they didn't commit their body to it, it was mostly arm power. Ever since many European fighters started coming here and knocking people out left and right with powerful boxing Muay Thai here started adopting Western boxing at many camps. There are still many camps that do not use Western boxing though and still punch like the traditional Muay Thai fighters. It doesn't mean they can't kick ass, it just means it probably won't be with punches.

Damian Mavis
Honour TKD

MuayThaiFighter

I already knew all that but he didn't say whether he was talking about traditional MuayThai or not ? I assume he is talking about today's Muay Thai.

MuayThaiFighter

I already knew all that but he didn't say whether he was talking about traditional MuayThai or not ? I assume he is talking about today's western Muay Thai.

huey

sorry more info on my part needed. yes i meant todays muay thai.
a few more questions that i am curious about:
are injuries due to punching in muay thai as common as they are in boxing? rotator cuff, muscles issues and that sort of thing?

and you brought up kicks, i have seen a lot of kicks from muay thai and kickboxing (as well as other styles) are they the same as far as power, timing, hip release, etc?
i was also wondering if anyone in either art (m/t or k/b) uses kicks that are chambered (learned that term on this forum) because many of the kicks i have seen don't seem to follow the idea. they make a pretty good impact don't get me wrong, but they all seem to stop right after impact. is this because of follow up striking that should happen after a round kick, or is this kind of a feeling out of your opponents reaction? (probably both but i'll ask it nonetheless)
how many kicks do you guys practice, and is there a kick called a crocodile kick?

thanks

MuayThaiFighter

I'm sure punching in MuayThai can cause just as much injuries as in boxing although I've never been injured by a punch.I have been injured with kicks though,because muay thai kicks can be very damaging due to its power.

No the power from Muay Thai kicks are not the same as those in Kickboxing and other styles,in fact MuayThai fighters have the most powerful kicks of all martial arts styles due to the fact that we use our shins to kick and don't pull back,we always go right through with our kicks both in class and competition but will put more power into it in tournaments of course.Many martial artists will argue about the kicks of muay thai saying muay thai isn't the only art that kicks with shins and wasn't the first. It is true that Muay Thai is no longer the only style using shin kicks but many stylists don't realize and refuse to believe that those kicks originally came from the muay thai fighters and have just been incorporated in their styles.Some kickboxers,karate and tkd schools have gotten rid of their original kicks and incorporated the shin kicks of muay thai realizing how powerful the muay thai fighter's kicks are. History proves that we had those kicks first and that others copied due to its power.

Our kicks don't stop at compact and we still follow up with other techniques so no following up has nothing to do with pulling back on kicks and punches.It's more because of fear of hurting opponent and because styles of karate and kung fu are not properly trained for full contact and can't take as much of a powerful hit.I know I will be disagreed and argued with on this but this too has been proven several times yet other stylists again refuse to admit it.

MuayThai has had a long history of conquering other styles in fights and still continues to do so,however that is only as a stand up art.To beat a muay thai fighter you'd have to know both that and grappling.

We practice alot of kicks but I'd say it's about 50 % kicks and 50% punches.You have to realize though shin kicks aren't our only powerful kicks.We have front and rear kicks like any other style but we also have powerful knee kicks originally from MuayThai as well.We don't do much of side kicks though because they can easily be sweeped at least from a Muay Thai fighter.We have a kick where we can also use foot as a hook to throw a person off balance while kicking with the shins.

What the hell is a crocodile kick? I've never heard of this even in karate.

To get an idea of how many kicks we do lets just say for single kicks we sometimes will do 50 shins kicks non-stop with speed and full power and then same thing with other leg,then after we've done that we go back to original leg and do double kicks on each side.

We also do front kicks back and forth for 2 full minutes non-stop. We often do alot of knees from clinching position twisting and turning our opponent around for 3 rounds of 3minutes while throwing knee kicks,it's hard on opponents neck and hard on our knees.A good way to develope power in knees and a good way for other person to strengthen neck.

Then comes punches and different elbow strikes and after that combining the punches and elbows with different kicks like the shin round house kicks,knees,front kicks etc.

Most of our kicks are shin to shin,shin to inner and outter thigh,back of knees,and to body.We sometimes kick to head but not too often as high kicks don't have as much power and muaythai is based not only on technique but power which comes from the speed of our techniques.

Muay Thai is mostly drills and sparring,only time shadow boxing is done is for warming up at beginnng of class and is done for only 3 rounds of 3 minutes.

One thing all arts have in common with kicks though is that we all use our hips to execute the kick unfortunately other styles snapp their kicks bring them back to position at immediate contact as you stated before.

here is more about MuayThai kicks,knees and elbows and the history of MuayThai etc. http://members.aol.com/Thaiboxing2000/press on the link "The Belt is in The Ring" on left side menu.

S.Anucha

Muay Thai comes from the group of Thai fighting systems called Pahuyuth, Thaiboxing is a ring sport, Muay Boran is the ancient art of Thaiboxing.... Pahuyuth in its fullest is all you'll need to know to fight a fight anywhere! Muay Thai has a very intricate way of standup clinch grappling, however, many western based gyms tend to forget this very important side of Muay Thai. Muay Boran style of clinch grappling is the same shit as Muay Thai only with more techniques that are illegal in the ring.

I just seen a show of Muay Boran, holy shit! thats all I can say, the way the guys punch is nasty, because their hands are wrapped with coarse rope and knots in the end they kind of scrape their fists in a downward motion to gouge and cut the flesh of their opponent. Hitting when on the ground, kicking when on the ground! headbutting, groin kicks, eye gouging are all allowed! I think this is very similar to Burmese Lethwei, Muay Thai is a kind of sanitized version of what Thai fighting really is, well I wouldnt say sanitized, more like regulated as all the techniques in Muay Thai are from Muay Boran. You have to remember, Thais, Burmese and Laotions, Cambodians etc, all fought in jungle terrain, sometimes with rude weapons improvised from farming tools, they have a very effective way of ending a fight be it on the ground or standing up or on elephant back lol.... Thaiboxing the ring sport is where nearlly all practicitoners of Thai fighting arts begin.

so....

a crocodile kick, I think its called (correct me if I am wrong) "the crocodile sweeps the tail", this is simply a reverse spinning hook kick, a high roundhouse kick in reverse and striking with the heel.

This is part of Muay Boran.

__________________
"...Don't worry. When you are in the ring, you're all by yourself. No one can help you. So, all you can do is fight. So fight! Don't back down. Like in life, no one is going to live your life. So, no one is going to fight your fight for you. Muaythai is not winning or being better than the other guy. It is learning to lose before winning and to give from your heart before receiving. In muaythai, you always win and lose. So, don't worry. (Smile)..."

Damian Mavis

Western Muay Thai is a drop in the bucket for Muay Thai internationally.

Damian Mavis
Honour TKD

Tom Yum

Very True! Not only in the intensity, but in the clinch work too. The clinch work could be a style on its own!

__________________

Love it, leave it or fix it.

huey

clinching could be its own style? i have to hear more on this. there can't be that many ways to clinch are there? i mean there is the standing clinch which boxers use too, there is the clinch that i have seen muay thai fighters use where one opponent grabs the other behind the head with both hands and delivers knees to whatever part of the body happens to be open, but that's all i know.

a few friends of mine have fought in the cage for wec in california, and have all studied muay thai as well as bjj. they were working out with another friend of mine, that studies the same system that i do, and when it was his turn to do kicks on the shields he didn't go hard but they were impressed with the kicks he was delivering so the statement mtf made about kung fu not having the power i would have to say is false. you were right in your early assesment of being disagreed with.

i happen to study a chinese system that uses its shins as well so i know what it is like to go shin to shin sometimes, but i don't want to practice that all the time. you guys must have little to no feeling in that area if you train that way all the time. i saw that footage of the kickboxer or muay thai fighter that broke his leg doing a kick in the ring and man i had to grab my leg in pain. conditioning of this training must be a huge undertaking.

mtf i wish that you lived in california so we could get together and swap training excersizes and material. i think it'd be a lot of fun.
i read through your workout and like it. i will probably add peices of it to my own workout in the near fuiture. though i will not be in the ring, i am very interested in the clinching since i do not do this now. however we do teach how to get out of the typical clinching scenario, i would like to hear more about the variations.

thanks for the feedback.

MuayThaiFighter

You're right clinching in itself can be an art since it can be used as stand up wrestling which we also use the clinche for,and using it to get back position when popping partners head forward and downwards.There is only one way to clinche as far as MuayThai is concerned anyways.

That is the difference between your friend's training and ours we go hard all the time as do most schools that teach Muay Thai.To be honest I hardly ever leave a training session without red shins from practicing kicks. We do wear shin pads for sparring either way we go hard though. You are right most of us don't have any feelings in the shins. I don't feel it any more when I get kicked in the shins even if I do go red there sometimes and you wouldn't either if you went full out all the time in training. The thickness and strength in our shins is amazing.

We do clinching exactly how you explained MuayThai practitioners do it and we also learn how to get out of a clinching scenario.

If you plan on adding my training as you said don 't forget to move around in all directions(forward,or having your partner move forward while you move back and kick at same time,side to side,circular motion) while throwing those kicks we never just stay still,because in a real fight a guy isn't going to just stand there while you try and kick the crap out of him and same goes with the punches.