Back when I was first trying to enlist in the US military, I was initially rejected due to being overweight. It wasn’t much of a surprise; I came from an overweight family. Seeking to get in shape, I signed up for a local boxing gym and stumbled upon Muay Thai. I knew very little about Muay Thai at the time, but time and practice have turned it into one of my great passions in life. Now, on the other side of my enlistment, I’m getting back into Muay Thai training. In the spirit of the New Year and seeking to get healthier, I want to share a little about the sport that helped me lose some pounds and also helped me find peace over the years.
- The Art of Eight Limbs
Thanks to media like the Rocky/Creed films, most readers will probably have at least a surface-level familiarity with boxing. Muay Thai follows a similar structure with some very important contrasts. Muay Thai translates to English as “the Art of Eight Limbs,” alluding to a fighter’s fists, elbows, knees, and shins. Another important concept is the clinch, which exists in boxing but takes a drastically different shape in Muay Thai. In boxing, fighters will often use a clinch to restrict their opponent’s movement, thereby giving them a chance to recover. Referees usually break this up quickly however. Muay Thai on the other hand features clinching as another opportunity to strike the opponent, typically with a knee or elbow. While boxing only permits strikes to connect from the torso up, Muay Thai permits strikes to connect across the entire body, with rules in place to prevent severe harm to the fighters. Whereas boxing is typically very high speed, Muay Thai fights tend to be much slower, with an emphasis on timing, distance, and power.
- Conditioning and Control
Originating from Thailand where the climate is typically much hotter and more humid, Muay Thai fighters (also known as Nak Muy in Thai) will train for hours at a time in order to develop the conditioning necessary to withstand the strikes I just described. There are the more typical exercises one would expect like jump rope, running, and lifting weights, as well as other sport-specific exercises unique to Muay Thai. In some of the more intense fighting gyms in Thailand, Nak Muy will condition their shins to become rock solid by kicking bamboo trees. This causes tiny fractures in the shin to calcify and harden over time, turning a Nak Muy’s shins into cinderblocks capable of devastating power. On top of this, fighters will do various exercises to develop neck and core strength in order to increase their body’s durability. An example of the finished product of this sort of regimen is a Thai fighter known as Rodtang, a man famous for his indomitable conditioning and iron jaw. It was this sort of conditioning that wound up pulling me from the boxing world and into Muay Thai.
- Muay Thai is for Everyone
It can be very easy to be intimidated by everything I just described. Punches, kicks, intense workouts, it all can come across as very alienating to beginners. Nothing could be further from the truth. While combat sports can give off this image in a vacuum, it’s important to pay attention to the respect inherent within Muay Thai. It’s common to see family members of all shapes and sizes at tournaments. Oftentimes, children are introduced into the sport very young, and instructors work hard to instill a spirit of respect early on. Fighters will often wear a bandana around their arms as they fight, a token from a mother or significant other. Before fights begin, fighters will conduct a ceremonial dance known as a Wai Kru that serves as both a way to honor their coaches, stretch and warm up the body and intimidate their opponents. The relationship between coaches and their fighters is a deeply spiritual one. As one of my coaches described it, Muay Thai is a sport of “beautiful violence.” While it is a combat sport and thus violent by nature, participants are taught to maintain control over their power and technique and are typically judged by how well they control the fight rather than the damage inflicted.
Just getting back into the sport myself, it can be hard to develop the conditioning of a Nak Muy. Even though my own fighting days are behind me, I’ll be happy to have just a shred of the fitness that some Muay Thai fighters have. With the coming of the New Year and ambitions to get in shape coming from all over, I hope some of my readers will look into Muay Thai themselves.
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