Why is Muay Thai so good?

[Cross_Trainer]

Muay Thai is one of the few arts out there that allows full-contact use of elbows and knees, and which uses low kicks against the legs. This leads me to wonder--is Muay Thai good because of its techniques (IE how its moves work), or because it is simply able to use more weapons and kicks at a different level? In other words, if other systems simply aimed their kicks lower and were also allowed to use elbows and knees, would they have similar performance to Muay Thai? Or are there other characteristics that make Muay Thai so effective?

[delta1]

Muay Thai is one of the few arts out there that allows full-contact use of elbows and knees, and which uses low kicks against the legs.

 

Check out any of the Kenpo/Kempo systems, and you'll find you are wrong. There are many others, also. Muay Thai is an excellent fighting art for sport or street, but I wouldn't say it is a complete practical street defense system.

[White Warlock]

Within the niche of its own competitions, it excells against other systems. Same holds true for just about every system out there. Pull a Muay Thai person in a boxing competition, against a boxer, and he'll get smoked. Pull a muay thai person in a TKD competition, and he'll get disqualified. hehe

 

Pull a muay thai fighter in a street fight, and it all depends on the overall skills and adaptability of the fighters he must contend with.

 

What makes the biggest difference, as 7Star likes to preach... is the conditioning/training regimen. How intense, how often, and how much full-contact the average muay thai practitioner does, as compared to many other martial art practitioners. On the average, they're more intense during training.

[SevenStar]

Muay Thai is one of the few arts out there that allows full-contact use of elbows and knees, and which uses low kicks against the legs.

 

Check out any of the Kenpo/Kempo systems, and you'll find you are wrong. There are many others, also. Muay Thai is an excellent fighting art for sport or street, but I wouldn't say it is a complete practical street defense system.

 

by full contact use of knees and elbows, I think he means in sparring/competition, not self defense application. In which case, I'd agree with him. However, In America, it's rare for elbows to be allowed in competition.

[SevenStar]

What makes the biggest difference, as 7Star likes to preach... is the conditioning/training regimen. How intense, how often, and how much full-contact the average muay thai practitioner does, as compared to many other martial art practitioners. On the average, they're more intense during training.

 

he took the words right outta my mouth

[thaiboxerken]

Unlike many other systems of martial arts, Muay Thai derived from an actual combat art, Krabi Kabrong. During times of peace, soldiers of Siam/Thailand would have unarmed competition to try to keep up the skill within the army. They tried to keep few rules but enough to minimize the injuries.

 

Today, Muay Thai retains much of the techniques and the level of competition and the rules haven't changed too much. I think it's the combination of the less amount of rules coupled with the origination from an actual warrior art that gives Muay Thai an edge in both martial art competition and in real fights. Of course, a person should trian in more than Muay Thai so that they can deal with grapplers and weapon fighters, but as far as stand-up striking, I think only few arts compare.. and those arts are Bando as well as Panantukan.

[WomanInBlack]

Wow.... it's been a long long time Ken.

 

What has brought you back to KF??

[DaChroniclez]

i train in kyokushin karate and we also do full contact sparring/competition. We have some very conditioned fighters and are allowed knees (not sure about elbows, but i assume so) and low kicks. So dont think Muay Thai is the ultimate fighting style or something. Matter of fact, Kyokushin when 7-0 in Kyokushin vs K-1 (in which many fighters are kickboxing/muay thai).

 

But the reason Muay Thai is a great system is not because of the style itself (although it is good, but so are most other systems) but because of how hard they train generally speakin muay thai school train much harder than alot of the other martial arts, but there are some that still have very strict training regimes.

[MenteReligieuse]

Kyokushin has no elbows, and often does not allow punches to the head (or clinches and throws)

[DaChroniclez]

^^^yup, you got it. Clinches and throws are definatly something that is good to work on, thats wat crosstraining is for. But the punches the the head point is true, but wat exactly would be the point? you cant condition the head.. You see the thing about muay thai is that alot of the tournaments i've seen they used pads (gloves). So yea punches to the head are allowed. But in Kyokushin we try to conserve the true meaning of full contact, which means with no pads watsoever, bare knuckle. If we punch the head with that power, there we just be too many injuries without reason. There would be broken noses, jaws etc.. Without any pros to it such as conditioning.

 

We DO have elbows, im just not sure if we are allowed to use them in tournaments.