Muay Thai! one of worlds most effective arts?

[youngarts]

Hi, I have just signed up with this site and it is great to be here! At the moment I am studying Zen Do Kai (a mesh of karate and kickboxing). I studied Tae Kwon Do for 3 years and found it lacked in close techniques due to emphasis on kicking and a focus on head height which is impractical for street situations.I did ITF and WTF styles. I am no expert, but I found from studying traditional karate alot of it also appeared impractical to me. As I said am no expert, and it seems to me from watching demonstrations also, that muay thai is a practical, effective and relatively simple art to learn, not to master of course! It is a bam-what-thankyou-mam style no rubbish. Muay thai fighters are also the most conditioned in the world.

[skeptical]

Welcome, glad to have you join us. I am a TKD practitioner, been studying it for 7 years, and I have to agree that TKD by itself does lack street defense. At the school that I study at, we incorporate techniques from other arts to fill in those gaps. We practice grappling from BJJ, shin kicks adapted from Muay Thai and joint locks from Aikido (there is more, but you see my point).

In my opinion, I don't believe any one MA system has all the answers. I learn everything I can, practice and study it then take from it what works best for me. What works for me may be very different from what works for you for a whole host of reasons.

[youngarts]

Thanks, every art has it strengths and weaknesses, Tae Kwon Do is a great art for awesome flexibility and fitness. It really comes down to personal choice, what works for you. Sounds like you are studying freesyle Tae Kwon Do, what level are you at? You must be quite an expert at your art. The WTF style of Tae kwon Do I did was called Australian Freestyle Tae Kwon Do, and was awesome, and it had BJJ, weapons (im not a weapon kind of guy but going in the weapons events at local tournament are fun) and I had an exceptional instructor, I changed styles because I found another exceptional instructor closer to my home and now I am saving lots of money on travel as it was a reasonable distance away.

All the best! Stay strong!

Brad

[skeptical]

I am a 2nd dan, but I am by no means an expert in anything, I don't think one can ever really become an "expert" as there is so much to know and learn. I may be at a level where I can and do teach the under belts, but I would never claim any kind of superiority over another student, not even a white belt.

You hit the nail on the head when you said that TKD is great for flexibility and fitness. The fitness component is why I started MA in the first place, and I stayed because I was hooked. We are also WTF Tae Kwon Do, but we don't spend a ton of time on the sport aspect during class time. My master also competed in amateur golden gloves boxing when he was younger, so we do alot of boxing and kickboxing too, which I absolutely LOVE!! Being in my 40's my punches are much faster than my kicks, so I would rather be punching, which goes against the grain of TKD, but I am a go against the grain kind of person anyway.

Finding a good instructor that you are comfortable with is very important to your success. I don't think that I could have gotten as far as I have if I had any other instructor. It also helps that I was my instructor's first student. I like to say that I may not be his best or most talented student, but I will ALWAYS be number one. LOL.

I look forward to hearing more about your MA journey. Have fun!

[MadPanda]

There was a fight science episode where they tested the damage caused by tons of different martial arts attacks, and the muay thai knee and elbow had one of the most powerful stats out of all of the attacks. If you hit someone in the face with a knee while in a muay thai clinch they are going to get knocked out...the muay thai moves are personally some of my favorites.

[GentlemanJim]

Hi Youngarts,

IMO certainly the world's best striking styles. You don't say how long you have trained, but if you get the chance to go to Thailand and try one of the regional styles you will find great depth, variation & subtlety. Pretty hard to pin down the older stuff and many names are shared by different styles but it's fun going to different schools to train and pick up new techniques.
Add a good ground game and the worlds your oyster (so my friends tell me, i was too lazy).

Have a good time training

[youngarts]

Thanks gentleman Jim. I only trained in muay thai for 4 months (we'll Zen Do Kai Karate and Kickboxing). I did Tae Kwon-Do for two years + and got out of it, as many of the techniques I didn't find practical. Whereas, muay thai offers great in close stuff elbows, knee, grabs etc as well as long range techniques. I have been inivited by my instructor to go to a beach training camp around Phuket, in February 2011, if I had only known about it six months ago I would have gone for it. I already blew $8,000 on a trip to Europe February this year. What is even more awesome is the club soke Bob Jones who founded this style is going to be there (He is rated as a poineer of muay thai in australasia, as he was the first to introduce muay thai to police, security guards and emergency personnel as part of their training).oh well, maybe next year...lol