Originally posted by chisauking
Although MT (Muay Thai) is very fast-effective and lethal, the price to pay for success, for me, just isn't worth it. No matter what I do in life, I apply myself 110% If I were to do that in MT, I know I would be seriously damaged in mid- or old-age.
If you compete for too long, yes. The same would happen if there were a competition WC circuit. You jave to be smArt enough to know when to stop competing.
Also due to the hard nature of MT, the chance of a smaller opponent overcoming the size and strentgh advantage of a bigger opponent is substantially less than in wing chun.
you'd be surprised how much power goes into elbow and knee strikes, and also how much a leg kick can hurt. It's possible for the smaller guy to win, but just as with anything else, he will have to be that much better than the bigger guy.
To me, learning to defend one self and keeping healthy to old age in order to become one with the universe and peace with myself is the ultimate objective of learning any martial art. It rather defeats one's objective if the system you are learning inflicts more pain & damage than the possiblity of damage you may receive by attacks on the streets in your lifetime.
that will vary from person to person. I personally don't care about being one with the universe through MA. I have church for any spiritual aspects of my life.
As I have said before, martial arts doesn't turn you into a superman; it simply gives you an egde in fighting.
agreed.
A micro-second could mean the differnce between winning or losing, life or death. People who thinks that the more you learn, the more effective you would be is deluding themselves. If you were to learn WC, BBJ, MT, Preying Mantis, etc., etc, what technique would you choose in your time of need? WC or MT? BBJ or WC? The thoughts process would be substantially longer than if you only had 1 choice, would not it?
actually, no, it wouldn't. you would use what you are comfortable with. I have trained in karate, longfist and jkd in the past. I currently train bjj, judo and thai boxing. When I am in the ring, I resort to what I am comfortable with. I mainly use thai boxing techniques, but I also use a hook kick pretty well. In judo, I don't differentiate between a judo and a bjj tactic - I just react. The principles are all the same anyway, just different means of using them.
Take the example of a multiple choice question with 3 possibilities, and another with 30 possibilites. Which question would be quicker to answer, or in terms of selection of responce techniques, which one would be quicker to process? What I'm trying to say is, choosing one style is better than choosing 3 styles. Or, as Bruce Lee would say, one good punch is better than 1000 lousy punches.
More is not always better in combat.
Now, apply this to tma. you learn iron palm, qigong, various kicks, punches, palms, knees, elbows, chin na, head butts, throwing, forms, weapons... how many of those will you master? how many will you be able to use with razor sharp precision at will? Will you ever use all of the techniques you learn? For example, I've never used a tiger claw in a fight or sparring. But yet, I still had to spend time training it. will I ever be a master of it? no, because I don't use it. Not only that, but training it takes away from time I could spend training techniques that I DO use...
Now, look someone who trains thai boxing and judo... he is WAY more focused in his training in terms of which techniques he learns. While the tma guy is working all of that other stuff, the thai boxer is training the same core strikes.
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But we all have some achilles heel. Lest my potential enemies presume too much, none of this means I won't kick someone good if I sincerely need to! 
Given that I must use care in "spending" what little remains of my knees (and other parts), for the time being at least, it just means I will be rather selective about whom to kick, and when. 
