10 INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT MUAY THAI

1) Muay Thai originated in Thailand during the Medieval period as a form of hand-to-hand combat in times of war.

2) Muay Thai consists of eight weapons: elbows, fists (strikes), knees, and legs (kicks).

3) Muay Thai has been the fastest growing martial art in the world for the last 80 years.

4) Muay Thai is over 2,000 years old.

5) Training gear for Muay Thai includes padded gloves, hand wraps, and shin guards.

6) Hand wraps are used in Muay Thai to stabilize your wrists and protect your knuckles.

7) Muay Thai is an excellent cardio workout, and it’s great for toning arms and shoulders.

8) Muay Thai is the most common striking style used in Mixed Martial Arts (MMA).

9) Muay Thai uses the body to mimic weapons of war (for example, in Muay Thai your hands mimic a sword or dagger).

10) Muay Thai’s technique is taken from the more lethal art of Muay Boran, which has fewer rules and uses the head as a weapon.

Just Starting Muay Thai? 10 Things You Need to Know

If you are just starting out learning muay thai then let me say that you made a great decision. If you stick with muay thai there are so many benefits that you will gain, physically and mentally.

Muay thai is a brutal and also beautiful martial art with a rich and long history and your decision to get started learning and training in muay thai will no doubt have you asking a lot of questions of yourself and perhaps many self doubting issues will begin to arise in your mind before you even go to your first class.

Let me try to help you ease your mind and offer some potential helpful answers to those questions and self doubting issues in your mind.

“If you take to heart the 10 tips in this post then you are well on your way to getting started in muay thai and sticking with it!“

1. You Don’t Need to Be ‘Fighting Fit’ Before You Start Muay Thai

This is one issue that holds a lot of people back from going to their first class. We all felt a bit self conscious about attending our first muay thai class, imagining that everyone in their would be ripped, shredded fighting machines.

And while fighters who are actively competing are in incredible shape, most gyms and instructors when you first walk into their gym will assess your current level of fitness and work with you to help you achieve your goals.

2. You Don’t Need to Buy A whole lot of Gear Before You Start

Gloves, mouth piece, shin guards, muay thai shorts, groin guards, compression gear. When you are starting muay thai, these pieces of equipment really are not that essential.

Don’t let a lack of the right equipment stop you from starting muay thai. Just about every gym you visit will have equipment you can borrow or hire for your first lesson and first few weeks training.

So don’t worry about all that equipment, and questions about what is the best gear to use etc. Just get your butt to a gym or muay thai class and get started!

3. You Don’t Have to Spar Right Away

In fact any good gym wont even let you spar on your fist class or your first few weeks starting muay thai.

But I guarantee once you start improving and being comfortable with your techniques – you will want to spar to test them out!

So don’t let those YouTube videos of hard sparring beasts smashing each other stop you from starting muay thai. Most of the time those videos are of guys who have upcoming fights or who have ego issues.

4. Don’t Try to Learn Everything At Once

There is just so much to lean in muay thai that if you try to take on too much at once you will get overwhelmed and probably feel deflated and demotivated to continue.

Take it one step at a time.

A good trainer at a good gym will probably have you doing ‘boring’ footwork and stance drills for your first lesson or eve first few lessons. But these are the foundation and without good fundamentals every other technique you learn wont be based on that solid foundation of your stance and footwork.

Spinning back elbows, jumping knees, superman punches are all flashy and beautiful techniques but are based on first starting with a solid foundation. So be prepared to put the time into the basics and doing these over and over again.

5. Don’t Expect it To be Easy

All martial arts are not easy to learn and train. Muay thai is no exception.

Expect to feel awkward and uncoordinated when you are starting muay thai. This is all normal and unless you are naturally gifted then expect it to be difficult when starting out.

The muay thai roundhouse kick itself is simple in terms of execution but takes years to really master in all its aspects. No matter how may YouTube videos you watch don’t expect to get it perfect right away.

Starting out in muay thai will be difficult – difficult in terms of hard physical training and difficult in terms of learning the techniques themselves.

So be prepared for this. But don’t let this stop you!

6. You Don’t Have to Commit to the First Gym You Attend

Check out a few places to train at. Read reviews and ask people about their experiences.

Don’t feel pressured into signing up for a long term membership. A lot of gyms will have free trial sessions you can use and make your decision on whether to join long term or not.

My suggestion would be to make full use of the trial sessions gyms offer and also research online on potential gyms to join.

7. You Can Learn a Lot From Home Before You Start Live Training

This website, Fiji Muay Thai is based on this premise. Muay thai in comparison to other martial arts has relatively simple techniques and there is a lot of quality online instruction you can access to get started learning muay thai from home.

Before I even attended my first live training in Thailand I trained solo for a few months. And this help me tremendously. However the trainers did point mistakes in my technique which was really helpful.

Getting the basics of stance and footwork down before you even set foot in a muay thai class will go a long way to help you get started in muay thai the best way possible.

8. Be Prepared for Your Shins to Hurt!

This is all part of muay thai training. The shins are a major offensive weapon as well as defensive asset that you will need to develop and condition.

Bruising of the shins and aches and pains are to be expected when starting muay thai given that the shins are such a vital component of muay thai.

Have a read of a post I wrote about shin conditioning (you can access at link above) to help you condition your shins the right way.

And no, it does not involve kicking trees!

9. You Don’t Have to Fight to Train Muay Thai

This is totally up to you. Don’t let any person, trainer or training partner ever tell you that you absolutely have to fight to learn muay thai.

The desire to fight will probably fire up within you after training for some time.

But you absolutely don’t have to fight at all if you don’t want to.

If you exhibit some talent and the trainers encourage you to fight and this is what you want to do then go for it. Trust your trainers and work hard. Then, Win, Lose or Draw you will be satisfied and happy within yourself about the work you have put in.

But if you want to learn and training muay thai thought ever having to fight then this is your decision and you absolutely don’t have to fight if you do not want to fight.

10. Understand that Muay Thai Training Is Very, Very Repetitive

Images of sweaty ripped fighters performing complex pad drills and hard sparring come to mind when it comes to Muay Thai training.

But the truth is that the daily grind of muay Thai training is pretty repetitive.

Be prepared to repeat simple drills over and over and over again. While this may take some cardio and endurance to drill techniques over and over, in my opinion it also take some mental fortitude to be able to concentrate and stay in the moment and keep repeating movements over and over.

There will be times when it may even get boring to do, but stay focused and remember that each session the focus is to to improve ever so slightly and keep coming back to improve more over the long run.