Muay Thai is a martial art and combat sport originated from Thailand. It was initially created as a way to protect ancient emperors from enemies, and it slowly began to spread to other means of use. There are many different varieties of Muay Thai, and many different ways to train using it.
Description
Known as the art of eight limbs, Muay Thai differentiates itself from typical kickboxing styles by not only using punches (Chock), kicks (Te) and foot-thrusts (Thip), but also elbows (Ti sok) and knees (Ti khao) as well as holding some point of focus with clinching techniques (Chap kho). Alongside the wide variety of attacks a fighter can use, most attacks require the whole body itself to move in conjunction with the former.
The elbow in particular is an incredibly deadly tool included in the fighter's arsenal and can be thrown from many directions. Acting metaphorically similar to that of a knife, a swift and precise elbow strike can cause great damage, including cuts to an opponent and will usually result in a knockout. A known tactic is to deliberately cut the opponent's brow, resulting in the blood from the wound getting into their eyes and obscuring their vision.
Practitioners
- Bryan Fury - (Applies some techniques)
- Mokujin - Through mimicry.
- Tetsujin - Through mimicry.
- Unknown - Tekken Tag Tournament only; through mimicry.
Non-playable
- Kinjin - Through mimicry.
Trivia
- Muay Thai is recognized as a very effective striking base within MMA, and is very widely practiced among mixed martial artists, such as Wanderlei Silva, Anderson Silva, Maurício Rua, Jose Aldo and many others.
- Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior, a very successful 2003 Thai martial arts action film, starred Tony Jaa as an extremely skilled Muay Thai pratictioner.
- Muay Thai pratictioners in other fighting games include Sagat and Adon from the Street Fighter series (Sagat was known in the main games' storyline as "The King of Muay Thai"), Joe Higashi and Hwa Jai from the Fatal Fury and King of Fighters series, Brad Burns from the Virtua Fighter series, Jax Briggs from the Mortal Kombat series and Zack from the Dead or Alive series.
External Links
- Muay Thai at Wikipedia
