Just watched some Muay Thai from Bangkok

[rogue]

My goodness what an overrated art for the street. Their training is great but the techniques just cry out "dump me on my head, please".

Oddly I didn't feel this way when I was taking it. It's hard to think while trying to throw 100 knees into the thai pads. :D

Elbows were rare, few low kicks and the Thai (the winner) was good at getting points rather than putting away his opponent. IMO the Thais hands were weak, but he was good in the plumb with his knees. I thought the fighting in Shidokan was nastier and more applicable to the street. Maybe it has to do with the size and weight of the fighters.

[HuangKaiVun]

"Ring" and "street" are totally not the same.

Always remember that certain arts are tailored for certain venues.

[SaMantis]

I just watched that, too.

The championship fight -- the little western guy (brazilian?) just kept sweeping the thai fighter, dumping him on his butt. he was getting constant warnings for that, but on the street that move would be fine.

But then, if I got a knee in the side in any fight I think I'd be doubled over. I'm just not that tough. :(

[rogue]

Oh it does suk, and it does hurt.:D

The way some people talk about MT you'd think it was the ultimate striking art. It's good, but not that good.

I really need to get my hands on the Muay Thai versus Sanda tapes.

[Stranger]

Tong Po would knee the sh1t out of you. :D

[rogue]

My one legged arthritic granny would knee the sh1t out of me. :D

[SaMantis]

Royce would choke Tong Po out. :D

[SanHeChuan]

yeah well i was watching globe treker on Pbs in bang****
and they stoped by a Muay Thai school, their training looked really scary buy the match fight was lame.

[SevenStar]

muay thai tends to lack hand striking. most modern thai gyms include western boxing though. As far as it looking lame, watch some of the tapes of CMA masters - not much difference in some of those fights...

[rogue]

I'm not really downing MT as a sport or art in it's own right, I just don't see where the "reality" guys think it's the bees knees for the street. Technique wise that is.

Come to think of it though I've felt confident in my street skills three times, 1. JJJ 2. Muay Thai/BJJ 3. My TKD school. The common thing between the three was rolling and sparring at almost every class. Never felt that way while taking Kali, JKD, Shaolin Kempo Karate or some of the other things I've done.

[rogue]

As far as it looking lame, watch some of the tapes of CMA masters - not much difference in some of those fights... That's not fair S*, you have to put yourself in the shoes of the Masters. You have a fight against someone who you could easily kill with any number of secret death strikes, but lo and behold someone is there with a camera. So what do you do? If you easily defeat the other guy your secret techniques are now known to the unwashed masses, so you have resort to some funky chicken moves and throw the fight. That's where the MMA guys have it lucky. Since their skills are so rudimentary and they don't have to protect any secret techniques that have been handed down for centuries, they can fight all out.;)

[ShaolinTiger00]

rouge,

not all thai boxers are created equally ;)

take a look at a Dwayne Ludwig, John Wayne Parr, Ernesto Hoost, Noi, Coban Lookchaomaesaitong, Samart Payakaroon, Alex Gong etc and you'll see why Muay Thai has such a formidable reputation.

muay thai approaches the clinch in a dangerous yet very unrealistic manner imho. while they can elbow and knee they are prohibited from grappling (they have a little I know..) And as a ringsport the rules are going to keep the fighters on their feet and striking as much as possible. (although muay thai was a "war art" it has moved considerably to be more of a ring battle where two guys stand square to each other and bang it out until one gives) (Sanshou's origin is also from the military and is still based upon combat applications with only a spectator fanbase just coming since the mid 90's.)

Why do NHB/MMA guys love muay thai? The way they train. pure and simple. Take a thai trained fighter out of a muay thai match and he's still going to be one of the best strikers and best conditioned guy you'll know. problem is the gap between muay thai and bjj. That's why I love san shou/ bjj

;)

[DragonzRage]

I notice from your profile that you study TKD. Buddy if I were you I'd take a good look at the type of habits YOUR art fosters through its competitions before talking about how unrealistic Muay Thai matches are. We all know how realistic TKD is :rolleyes:
Get a clue

[jun_erh]

The mauy thai matches with thai guys are way better than the k1 fights, technically. the K1 guys are like big lum0xes in c0mparis0n. just big... well lum0xes.

[rogue]

DragonzRage, are you saying that Muay Thai fighters aren't open to being taken down? I did'nt say it wasn't a good art it just has alot of holes in it as a street art. Holes that the street fighting crowde rarely acknownlege.

[SevenStar]

Originally posted by rogue
I'm not really downing MT as a sport or art in it's own right, I just don't see where the "reality" guys think it's the bees knees for the street. Technique wise that is.

Come to think of it though I've felt confident in my street skills three times, 1. JJJ 2. Muay Thai/BJJ 3. My TKD school. The common thing between the three was rolling and sparring at almost every class. Never felt that way while taking Kali, JKD, Shaolin Kempo Karate or some of the other things I've done.

It's the training man, the training ;)

[Serpent]

<rant>
It all comes down to the training.

No matter how good your style, you'll be crap at it unless you train like a mother fukka. When will people realise that?

Plus, a ring sport trains for the ring, which is different to the street, which is different to a points competition, which is different to ballroom fukking dancing.

*sigh*

</rant>


Sorry about that.

[DragonzRage]

I agree with you. Muay Thai as a ring art obviously does not translate directly to the street. Neither does Sanda or wrestling for that matter. But the type of training and tools in these arts develop attributes essential to being an effective fighter.

What I was saying is that competitive TKD would get you killed in a real fight much quicker than MT would. I'm not trying to say that MT is perfect or that its always the best thing to use in a fight. But IMO, if your preferred stand up art is TKD, then criticizing MT's shortcomings as a realistic striking art would be a moot point.

[Kaitain(UK)]

I think maybe you need to establish what it is that Rogue does before dismissing his opinions on the basis of what you 'know' about TKD

At least he's judging on the basis of what he's trained and seen....

Even if he trained Tae Bo it wouldn't automatically invalidate his opinions anyway - your reasoning is akin to the 'unless you can beat Rickson you aren't allowed to slag off BJJ' logic

[ShaolinTiger00]

<rant>
It all comes down to the training.

No matter how good your style, you'll be crap at it unless you train like a mother fukka. When will people realise that?

Not totally true. its two parts.

1. the techniques you are training.
2. how you train them.

Training idealistic techniques as hard as possible will just take time away from your fundamentals.

Neither does Sanda or wrestling for that matter.

I totally disagree. In fact remove the rules and they just get more effective.

[rogue]

"What I was saying is that competitive TKD would get you killed in a real fight much quicker than MT would."

I agree 100%. What I was referring to was MT fighters going in close and being open to a takedown even by someone without much grappling experience.

"I'm not trying to say that MT is perfect or that its always the best thing to use in a fight. But IMO, if your preferred stand up art is TKD, then criticizing MT's shortcomings as a realistic striking art would be a moot point."

While the style of TKD I do is what I currently prefer, I don't see that it'd be reason for me being disallowed from make a valid point about another art. I'd never say that the techniques used in a TKD match are street effective, but very few people are saying that. I've worked out with some competitive TKD fighters and found out they were head hunters and even with padding on their jumping sidekicks caused alot of damage. But they also get away with things because they're not allowed to clinch or grab. Same way things can work in MT but may be a weakness in another venue. Just because I do TKD it doesn't mean that I don't know what can work and what doesn't. My preference (because I'm not a very good toe to toe fighter) is to get an opening and try to get my opponents side or back and go for a sweep, or catch a leg and take them down. Same thing I'd currenty do in the street. So I'm a bit partial to the sanda way of doing things. :)

I guess I didn't make myself clear in that I was trying to talk about the street fighting crowd that says things like the MT stance is the best stance for a street fight, the plumb is great in a street fight, etc based purely on it's effectivness in the ring. They're also the crowd that says only a fool would use a kick above the waist, but Thais kick to the torso and head all of the time. They're very selective about what they see.

On a side note: I still used alot of Muay Thai while sparring in TKD. I'd have to pull the elbows and knees but you can't have everything. When my TKD master realized that I wasn't going to avoid kicks by moving back, and was staying in close and using a leg sheild against turning kicks, he showed me how to make more effective use of the shin against front and sidekicks by turning the shin more parallel to the floor. Works against knees too. I'm also a 60/40 hands/kicks kind of guy.

[Chang Style Novice]

I'll say it again.

EVERYTHING COUNTS

techniques count
conditioning counts
experience counts
size counts
age counts
flexibility counts
mindset counts
strength counts
toughness counts
speed counts
style counts
knowledge counts
attitude counts

EVERYTHING ****ING COUNTS!

Can we please stop having this argument now?

[DragonzRage]

Now that you've explained your point further, I'd say I pretty much agree with you. BTW, don't get me wrong either. I don't think for a second that TKD cannot be applied in any form to real fighting. Some guys I've worked with who have a background in TKD have used stuff in sparring that I wish I knew. I wouldn't want you to think I'm one of those narrow minded Muay Thai nazis :D

As for your more sanda oriented approach towards fighting, if that's what works better for you then great. To each their own way. Its an effective approach. As for me, I prefer the muay thai mentality. I have fast and reasonably strong combos, so blasting opponents with combinations has always worked pretty well with me. I've never been very good at throws and takedowns, so I stick to what I'm good at. I'm reasonably confident in my strategy as I'm sure you are of your's.