Styles of Muay Thai

SAAMAG

SAAMAG

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So while I’ve been away for a bit because...life...I’ve started to re engage in my former circles and noticed something different.

Where Muay Thai was just Muay Thai (as Americans go)...I’m noticing a lot of buzz now about the sub-styles, e.g. Muay Mat, Muay Te, Muay Khao, and Muay Femeu.

What struck me as odd is while this has always been part of Muay Thai...no one really talked about it as a subject of significance even a few years back. As descriptors go it was akin to saying someone was a puncher, a brawler, an out fighter, a technician, etc.

All it really means...as Nak Muay go...is that someone favors punching, or kicking, or pressure fighting with clinch, knees, and elbows. Then there’s the pinnacle muay femeur where a fighter is considered a specialist of all areas and very technical.

Has anyone else noticed the heightened attention to this as it pertains to Muay Thai?
 
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Yes, man. In Brazil it's the same, but probably different reasons. Muay Thai here has gone through a huge revolution from the belt stuff (its still there), but major changes happened towards legitimizing it as the same Muay Thai that is practiced in Thailand. A lot of thais came here to teach and a lot of brazilians traveled there to learn and came back with more authentic technique. The different styles stuff came along and everybody started throwing the names around.

sometimes I think that specializating in a particular style may be something more proeminent nowadays even in Thailand... for example, watching fighters considered a muay mat from the golden era is very different than watching a current one. Back in the day they seemed to be knockout punchers too, but not as limited as 1 2 3 low kick as muay mat fighting today

Great to have you back, man. I still go back to my old threads looking to revisit the advice you give me
 
It's a very western thing. It's good for branding and key words on blog websites about Muay Thai. Sure it's a thing in Thailand in that they would describe a fighter as Muay Mat, or Muay Khao but I don't think it's as big a thing to them, as it is to Westerners. I trained under a Thai for years and never heard terms until I saw them online.
 
someone favors punching, or kicking, or pressure fighting with clinch, knees

There, for example, I think it depends from opponent's abilities and your ablities, at least from KB perspective. Some guys are too good with hands to allow them too much use them, some others better goes with legs, this should be taken into account ….what opponent uses better, where he is weaker.
About MT styles there in forum i read, that Nak and old Boran exists….
 
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Isn't anything new to me, but I've also been discussing Muay Thai with folks for over 10 years. From my perspective it's way more common for the sub styles to be discussed in Thailand. Most Westerners think Muay Thai is just one style, so the fact that you are seeing it more is a good thing.
 
SAAMAG said:
So while I’ve been away for a bit because...life...I’ve started to re engage in my former circles and noticed something different.

Where Muay Thai was just Muay Thai (as Americans go)...I’m noticing a lot of buzz now about the sub-styles, e.g. Muay Mat, Muay Te, Muay Khao, and Muay Femeu.

What struck me as odd is while this has always been part of Muay Thai...no one really talked about it as a subject of significance even a few years back. As descriptors go it was akin to saying someone was a puncher, a brawler, an out fighter, a technician, etc.

All it really means...as Nak Muay go...is that someone favors punching, or kicking, or pressure fighting with clinch, knees, and elbows. Then there’s the pinnacle muay femeur where a fighter is considered a specialist of all areas and very technical.

Has anyone else noticed the heightened attention to this as it pertains to Muay Thai?
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Probably cause Muricans just figured it out, and it has now become somewhat common knowledge in the Murican MT community. As you already stated, its just names given to MT fighters that typically favor a way of fighting or a weapon. Just like theres different styles of boxing. If we were to apply the MT styles to boxing, you could call mayweather a muay femur. I have been training for 2 months shy of 19 years to be exact as I started at the age of 18. Anyways, way back then I didnt know anything of it and I dont think the majority of people here in the US did either. 20 yrs ago barely anyone knew what it was at all. The sport has grown a lot since then, specifically within the last 10 years. in another 10 years or so USA will be a top country competing similar to europe and the aussies, etc are now.
 
I admit that I was completely ignorant to these things too until I started watching Sylvie Von Duuglas's videos. She would often talk about them.
 
It's still moo tai overall, but just more emphasis on certain methods

It's not at the point where it's a seperate art like judo to BJJ
 
I originally learned under a couple Thai coaches many years back, and since then trained with many others who learned from different coaches.

I knew of it back in the day, but it just wasn’t a big deal. It was matter of fact and not something someone strived to achieve. I just thought it was weird to see it so much emphasized online and was curious to get others’ takes on it.
 
I think it's cool to have these fancy names floating around. In a practical sense it may come to serve as a way to choose what camp you're going to polish specific skills. In the actual fighting everything is different from a muay mat to a muay khao, for example. Technique, tactics (even body positioning), strategies, training...

It would be neat if we can do a collaborative instructional series on common traits and tactics of the different styles. Mostly demonstrative stuff, partner drills, bagwork. Anybody up for the task?
 
Lucas Coradini said:
I think it's cool to have these fancy names floating around. In a practical sense it may come to serve as a way to choose what camp you're going to polish specific skills. In the actual fighting everything is different from a muay mat to a muay khao, for example. Technique, tactics (even body positioning), strategies, training...

It would be neat if we can do a collaborative instructional series on common traits and tactics of the different styles. Mostly demonstrative stuff, partner drills, bagwork. Anybody up for the task?
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evovle has already done a great breakdown of all the styles.
 
Yes, probably not only them, but regardless. I feel it would be nice to have a stand up forum little project ;)

edit: the evolve breakdowns were done with a narration over clips from fights style, I was envisioning something more like these ones
 
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Lucas Coradini said:
Yes, probably not only them, but regardless. I feel it would be nice to have a stand up forum little project ;)

edit: the evolve breakdowns were done with a narration over clips from fights style, I was envisioning something more like these ones
Click to expand...


Yeah man Im down for that. I have seen that clip before, its a good drill I was having my students as well as myself practice drilling before I saw that clip actually, kick/check/return, theres so many different good drills out there, and drills = skills. with that drill A lot of guys get caught up in doing it too fast, rather than well balanced. Notice how they are able to stay stationary and do the drill rather than bounching all over the place...Getting kinda side tracked but, for instance with doing 10 kicks quickly in repetition on the pads, again you see guys do them way off balance, but because they are doing them so quickly, it can be done off balance, but they could not throw a single leg kick that same way, so its better to slow it down, and keep the balance, and slowly shorten the time in between each kick as your balance improves. Anyways, maybe I am reading your question wrong but I dont see how discussing a kicking drill is relating to discussing different fight styles of muay thai?
 
Don't worry, I'm self taught in english so more often than not I can't express myself lol

I used the Warrior Collective just as an example to illustrate their instructional style.

So for the muay thai styles stuff I thought we can record partner drills, padwork and bagwork specific to illustrate the common tactics of the different styles
 
Lucas Coradini said:
Don't worry, I'm self taught in english so more often than not I can't express myself lol

I used the Warrior Collective just as an example to illustrate their instructional style.

So for the muay thai styles stuff I thought we can record partner drills, padwork and bagwork specific to illustrate the common tactics of the different styles
Click to expand...

Ok got ya, I was thinking something like that maybe, for muay khao, the trick is to just knee a lot in training. I would always do 300 skip knees on the bag at the end of training
 
In the conditioning oriented weeks I always got my students doing 300 teeps, 300 knees and a hundred kicks at the end of the sessions, they hate it jaja

I'll try to record something this week, probably Muay Mat oriented. If its cool maybe we can do a little collab on social media or something <Moves>
 
Lucas Coradini said:
In the conditioning oriented weeks I always got my students doing 300 teeps, 300 knees and a hundred kicks at the end of the sessions, they hate it jaja

I'll try to record something this week, probably Muay Mat oriented. If its cool maybe we can do a little collab on social media or something <Moves>
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im down for that, 300 teeps on top of 300 knees and 100 kicks is brutal
 
William Huggins said:
You need to add the 200 sit-ups whilst someone smashes you in the guts with a Thai pad between reps........
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i said kick thai pads in thailand......not eat pad thai in thai town!!!

<Lmaoo>

I prefer to eat pad thai and wash it down with a singha lol
 
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