Wednesday, May 25, 2011
I have come to the conclusion that Muay Thai is awesome.
The more matches I watch, the more I love it. It's too bad it's so expensive to learn in Canada. Especially considering how cheap it is in Thailand. People who can't afford their children literally give them away to be raised by trainers in muay Thai gyms. Many of them are run almost like orphanages. And yet over here it can be more than $100 a month in some cases. Pathetic.
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90% of fighters trained in a real Thai gym will kick North American MT trained fighter's asses anyways.
ReplyDeleteI have no doubt about that. It would still be fun though. I did find a muay Thai gym here in town that's only $50 a month after some looking which is not a bad price but the boxing gym I already go to is only $25 per month and it's literally right down the street from me.
ReplyDeleteMost of the best Muay Thai trainers left Thailand already along time ago. Because there was more money to be made in the West.
ReplyDeleteThai fighters in Thailand are hard, but a decently trained (and this is the biggest problem) North American or European fighter should have little trouble fighting them.
Most of the problems arise because of the bad food they get in Thailand (almost all-carbs), the stinkin' humidity that can reach near 85% and the shitty accommodation (Thai villages, especially the larger ones are noisy 24/7).
Most guys I know from my old MT days, were in it to have a workout 3 times a week with the trainingscamp every 2 years, for kicks and giggles. If you train everyday because it is all you have, that's something special.
Hardest MT fighter ever is Ramon Dekkers and he's from the Netherlands.
http://youtu.be/A6s_qxEciZQ
K1 seems to show a lot of good Dutch kickboxers.
ReplyDeletePart of what I like about muay Thai is that it's a straight sport and it's open to the whole world. There's no impression that they're holding back any "secrets" in Thailand like you might find in Okinawa or China. It's probably not true in those countries either but karate and kung fu still seem to have this mystery about them that muay Thai doesn't and that's because since it's a sport there are no fluff techniques involved. I like Okinawan karate in theory but competitive karate is more of a game than a sport. Guys can argue all day that it's because the "art" is too dangerous for competitionn but then when these karate or kung fu guys get in the ring with a Thai boxer they get rocked because they end up throwing nothing but haymakers with their heads down. Real "artistic."
Yeah, I agree wholeheartedly. I don't know if it's the art or the way the art is taught. I can only tell by observation that those Kyokushion guys are pretty tough, okinawan practioners as well when trained right.
ReplyDeleteBut most guys who do sportskaraté are indeed limpy weaklings, too bad.
Muay Thai holds back some secrets, most of the times there are some old techniques from Muay Boran (the original art), but they don't teach them anymore because they are downward dangerous (double elbow blow on the back of the head for instance, I think the Ramon Deckers movie shows a one arm variant) and also lost in time in favour of more direct techniques.
Also, handwraps were palmvines with glass back then, hahahaha.
Well, Ramon Dekkers is the only guy I know of who was "on top" in Thailand. Buakaw, if I remember, dominated in K1, and Benny Urquidez got absolutely murdered by a few Thai boxers.
ReplyDeleteMuay Boran was awesome since, originally, they contested matches which would last until someone died.
Since it seems relevant:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvFDjvAf10o Andy Hug vs. Changphuak Kiatsongrit
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRs0T7nGJq0 Random Buakaw highlight
Put guys like Peter Aerts, Badr Hari, Ernest Hoost and Semmi Schilt against some thai's and you'll have an all out brawl.
ReplyDeleteThe Netherlands contain some awesome fighters and have a high level of thaiboxing.
It all depends on the amount of training a fighter does and recieves.
TKD would be a good martial art if they ditched all of the gear and focused on hitting instead of points.
I never did TKD, but those guys are fast. Really fast.
I used to compete in taekwondo back in high school, doing a tournament every two months. Occasionally every month but usually every two months. Good things about taekwondo are that it's extremely competitive. If you're one of those guys who is just in it for the art or the exercise, you disappear pretty quickly because nobody gives two shits who you are. If you're not bringing trophies home you don't matter. It sounds like things have changed since the mid to late nineties but when I was competing in taekwondo the idea was to knock your opponent out. That's another good thing if you ask me; fuck points. The downside to that, however, is that you're not allowed to punch in the face. The Koreans needed to set taekwondo apart from other martial arts if they wanted to get it into the Olympics and make it the worl's most popular martial art. They've done that successfully so it's hard to knock them for that. Korean fighters I've met are tough as nails butI don't think they've got the overall toughness of the Thai boxers simply because they're not used to the ongoing punishment that you're likely to see in Thailand. You see, a power shot in taekwondo will tend to be a jumping, spinning kick that will either miss entirely or knock you the fuck out. One or the other. Problem is if he misses he ends up on the ground which would get him stomped in any other situation. Taekwondo is a great combat sport. It has to be classified as a sport rather than a game because it is full-contact. It does have a lot of flash and fluff though. A few quick roundhouses to set a guy up and then you're off the ground with an all or nothing spin kick. It just wouldn't work outside the context of that particular sport's rules. I guess we have to call it an artistic combat sport. Stuff like Muay Thai, judo, boxing, wrestling, MMA, etc. are just straight up sports.
ReplyDeletePeople who bitch and whine that all the truly dangerous stuff has been diluted out of these sports can fuck right off too. Bottom line is that stuff isn't necessary. I love these retards who train in non-competitive, imaginary martial arts and claim they're too dangerous for sporting competition buecause everything they do is for "the street." Most of these pussies haven't been in a "street fight" since they were in grade school so what the fuck do they know anyway? Some of them even go so far as to say that a combat athlete might be able to beat a well-trained martial artist in the ring but the martial artist would win in the street. That's like me saying that Lance Armstrong might beat me in the Tour de France but I would totally smoke him in a race to work down Woodward Avenue. It makes absolutely no sense.
True that.
ReplyDeleteStyle doesn't matter as far as I see it. A well placed shotokan punch will knock out as much teeth as a well connected straight punch from boxing. But the boxer is slightly in favour, because he's more trained at punching out teeth. If those pyjama warriors would shape up and train more, shotokan would have a better place. Look at Machida! With his kick versus Randy Couture, he has proven that oldskool or traditional arts can have an impact (unfortunately, most pyjama-warriors now have their panties creaming instead of training).
My main art has and always will be kobudo (japanese for Old Budo). Awesome stuff and certainly viable when faced with agression, but it needs to be trained way harder than shotokan to get it completely down. it has some dangerous stuff like throatcrushing when your opponent is floored or joint-breaking techniques, but they get taught alright. Too bad no small joint manipulation is allowed in MMA-fights, I would have a blast.
For competition I train in a second art that is more straight-forward.
My brother is in TKD, so most of the technical stuff I get from him.
Dangrous muay boran techniques just got dropped (or forgotten), like TKD dropped the face-punching.
Fuck me you lot are a super hard bunch, at least with your keyboards!! And didn't I just know 'SuperDray' would be the first one in there with a comment! Dray, you'd beat EVERYONE, in fact anyone would be mad to take you on looking the way you do!!:
ReplyDeletehttp://a8.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/227220_10150177425967389_692322388_6684284_5775013_n.jpg
Here's Dray in a fight. I take it all back.
ReplyDeletehttp://i.imgur.com/RxAxs.jpg
Kobudo is an Okinawan weapons-based system as far as I know.
ReplyDeleteThat's true.
ReplyDeleteIt's also a term loosely used by other systems to show the line where they come from.
Some of the ninjutsu branches use it, as well as some karaté-systems and ju-jutsu systems. I avoid naming the arts I practice because of the political fuzz that surrounds some of them (amongst eachother that is) and to avoid trolls starting a discussion without the relevant knowledge, resulting in obnoxious and idiotic discussions as to wheter the system would make it into the ring or is better on the streets. Pure idiocy that should be handled by the idiots on their forums.
I took advantage of a free training session in a Muay Thai gym tonight. Even went in the ring three times. A six minute round and two two-minute rounds. Lots of fun. My shins need a lot of toughening up.
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