Friday, May 2, 2008

Is Muay Thai What You Are Really Looking For?

In summary, there is always only one answer for this question : If you would like to discover whether Muay Thai is suitable for you, just come to visit several Muay Thai gyms and try a first lesson (certainly most of Muay Thai gyms offer free introduction class) and see whether you want to learn it!!!

As I mentioned that everyone can learn Muay Thai. However, I would like to explain more on that as there may be some of you who have different background of martial arts training, from beginner to expert boxer, then I want to contribute some suggestion which based on my personal opinion to several group of Muay Thai learners

I. New to martial arts, no previous experience and looking for something to learn to find out which martial art is the best.

Every martial arts have their own uniqueness and are the best of its kind. Some of you who are in this group may have seen many of tournaments that Muay Thai wins against other kind of martial arts or have seen what Tony Jaa perform in the movie and think that "Yeah Muay Thai is awesome, I need to learn that". I can say that if you want to learn Muay Thai because of this, it's not wrong, but this is only a bit of Muay Thai philosophy that you have seen from those fights or by watch the movie. And when you decide to apply for a camp, start to learn it and be with it for a while, you will see Muay Thai is much much more than in the movie or in the ring fights. The process of training itself, especially, for ones who want to be a professional boxer, is hard and requires a lot of dedication. More than anything, Muay Thai has a lot of history and believes behind the arts, believes and the fighting technique can not be separated.

I am quite disappointed that even in Thailand today, some Thais learn to be a boxer just because they want to earn money, some Muay Thai camps now have become more commercial and the worst thing is most of Thais who love Muay Thai keep watching the fight and turn it in to a betting game!!!.
So if you are about to decide to learn Muay Thai, please make sure that you find out more about it's history, style and believes in order to understand more about it, and then let's go to the answer I mentioned above.

II. Have some background of other kind of martial arts and want to learn Muay Thai to gain more experience and learn variety of martial arts.

If you are the people in this group, I would like to say thank you for interested in Muay Thai. Your background and knowledge of martial arts will benefit to your Muay Thai training and you will find it easier to practice than who have just started. As I suggest above, it is good to learn Muay Thai philosophy and believes along with the art of fight which I think it's necessary for Muay Thai learners at any level. So let's move on and learn Muay Thai to get variety of martial arts and maybe you can mix all of techniques that you learn and apply for your best performance in actual self-defense situation.

III. People who are interested in Muay Thai from the start, dedicate to the training and intend to become a Kru/master or grand master of Muay Thai and teach others.

If you are a person in this group, I have no further suggestion because I can assume that you have made a great commitment to learn Muay Thai and see it really suitable for you. Please receive my great appreciation for interested to become one of the Muay Thai heritage. Just one thing that I beg you please keep doing is to teach others on what you have learnt from Kru, as well as maintain the Muay Thai philosophy along with the art of fight, then people will learn Muay Thai "BY HEART" not only learn for the fight.

Submitted By: Isara Sukgrarongka

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