WHo here trains Muay Thai?

[Kurt Robbins]

I train Muay Thai (along with Dutch cross boxing/kickboxing and submission grappling) with AMC Pankration (Matt Hume), I was wondering who else here trains Muay Thai.
I wanted to do some exchange of ideas.

[bailewen]

Have done in the past. Not currently, but I liked it a lot.

My coach in the middle:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/17497713@N ... 266638475/

Me and a couple of my sparring parnters:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/17497713@N ... 266638475/

That's me on the right. Matt on the left who I sparred with a lot. Guy in the middle, not so much. Once in a while.

This is our website: http://www.imissu.org/

Terrible design. I know. Loads slow. Kind of cute though.

[Kurt Robbins]

Cool Omar I never knew you trained any MT. Checked out the website but I couldn't find any material pertaining to training methods.
How far did you get into it.
Here is a link to AMC Pankration (forgot to post it)
http://www.mmawizard.com/amc/

[mixjourneyman]

I'm training a lot of kickboxing/thai kicking and boxing punches and defenses alongside bjj in the class I'm going to.
I don't specifically train Muay Thai though.

[bailewen]

No training methods on the site. It's almost more of a myspace time thing for the coach. TONS of pics of him and his students/fighters. Pics from Thailand. Pics of him when he was bodybuilding. There's even a pic of me buried in there somewhere.

I used to have some little clips I made in China of most of the basic stuff. Not sure if I still have them stored somewhere. What was surprising to me was that it wasn't nearly as "hardcore" as some people would have you believe. Much more emphasis on flow and on keeping it technical. What impressed me the most, what I really took with me from it all, was how systematic it was. It was the first time anyone had ever presented a clear and fairly comprehensive tactical and strategic picture.

We had really excellent drills for dealing with low, medium and high round kicks, jabs, crosses etc. and a step by step way of building up contact levels to where we could spar pretty much full contact (very hard anyways) but without getting any injuries besides periodic smashed ankles from the blocking elbows. That's why we try to always kick horizontally or downwards. Kicking upwards tends to get your ankles smashed in our gym.

Good simultaneous attack and counterattacking drills too. Within a couple months you pretty much had all the basics that would be allowed in any California amateur match.

I only trained there for about 6 months but it was lots of fun and I took a lot away from it. It was one of my trips back home from China. I was stuck in Santa Monica for a while while I saved money to get back to Xi'an and I really liked Ajang Kham and the way he ran his gym. I never intended to swith to Muay Thai but I still find my ability to understand what they do to be invaluable. It's just so damn much better than sitting back and critiquing their training style based on one too many movies or what some meatheads on a discussion board are saying. I did it for real and I still use a lot of it. Sometimes I still train the basics just for fun.

[cdobe]

Mr.OMMA ( L.A Muay-thai fighter and producer film for Orgide Inc...

[bailewen]

Yeah. His accent is kinda cute. I was working for "Orchid" technology at the time. I build editing equipment, still do. I never produced films. I produced the computers that films are edited on. His spelling is all phoenetic. I love him to death.

Wait till you find the part where he talks about Buddhist "maditation"

[Kurt Robbins]

The technical aspect of Muay Thai is mind boggling. The nine and tens (kicks) took me forever to get - hours on th bag. Now the clinch (neck wrestling) is proving to be infinite in strategy and pain. I eat knees all the time no matter how well I am doing. Funny note I found out the standard clinch hold is not really as great as it's been made out to be. The hold from the neck and wrapping the arm from the side holds the opponent better and offers a more dynamic striking range for the knees.

[bailewen]

I never got to do much of the neck wrestling. During the time I was there we were pretty focused on prepping for a Cung Lee hosted "Uss!" sanda tournament in San Jose. One of the tall and sexy ladies on the website took first in her division. So we focused on what would be allowed. After the tourney Kham added a couple of simple throws for the next time around. That's when I learned how to do a leg pick.

I was fascinated to learn how different different gyms would be even in Thailand. Apparently "Muay Thai" is not nearly so unified a style as people make it out. Ours was fairly defensive. Kind of "shield and club". Like those bamboo shields you see being used together with a club or sabre in southern Chinese styles on occasion. The lead arm is the shield and I learned to hide behind it kind of "peak-a-boo" style.

We were taught to really throw the lead arm back behind you when you kick. It seems like most American Muay Thai folks seem to be kind of over obbsessed with keeping both hands up. We just throw it back and use the rear hand to protect the face when we kick. One of my all time favorite drills was just taking turns throwing low kicks at each other while the "defender" would counter-attack to your face. Really, both people attack simultaneously. We only take turns who is kicking and who is punching. That way you really get used to the idea that when you kick, you WILL be punched in the face. Weather you block that punch or not is up to you.

[Kurt Robbins]

Yeah we are of the school where both hands (cross) block, to block the face with one hand and the other grabbing the opponet or blocking jabs and rights. In Seattle, Washington Muay Thai and MMA events cannot use elbows (A reason the UFC never comes here) but Matt trains professional fighters (Josh Barnett, Rich Franklin, Matt Brown ,Sakuria) so we get to train in all aspects of Muay Thai; including elbows.

[Kurt Robbins]

On a side note crocop and othe Euro Kickboxers pull the hand back - might be a balance tork thing.

[bailewen]

Well my coach trained plenty of pro's, just not for MMA. He ran a pure MT team in Hawaii for a while. We just weren't getting ready for that sort of thing during the specific time I was there. We trained elbows and knees in our pad drills but we would spar specifically for the upcoming fights.

On that side note: absolutely. Betting power. Better balance. The "other" school of thought seems to feel that it risks too much defensively but I like it better. Just look at that "cross body principle" thing going on on the other thread. It conforms better to internal principles IMO. It's more natural. (again, in my opinion) Since we drilled the counter-punching, constantly, I could never see the defensive advantage to keeping both hands up during the kick. There's really only one place you are going to get punched. Once you learn where that is, you just train yourself to throw the rear hand up in that spot and your cool. You don't even have to really pay attention to where the punch is coming in. It's coming in towards your face. Just block your own jaw and your safe.

Now as far as getting cross-kicked or maybe taken down...that's another story. But then, I don't know how having both hands up front plays into that one way or the other.

The other thing we did that I liked a lot was very creative use of teeps. We used them more as pushes than as attacks. Teep the stomach to stop a puncher. Teep a thigh to stop a kick (if your quick enough). Teep to the gut when you are stuck with your back to the ropes to get yourself some space.

[bailewen]

Oh yeah, another thing about throwing the hand back...

I really like how it combos up.

jab->cross->right round->right "hook". (not really a classic hook when coming off the rear round)

or

jab->left round->left hook.

I just like having that hand "wound up". It's not "cocked" per se because you are throwing the punch as the kicking leg is returning. The foot lands about the same time as the punch, kind of like a couple of Baji palms I like.

[Kurt Robbins]

I have a good variation off the jab->into hopping left hook ->low ten
Interesting you brought up Baji - I like how Muay Thai blocks the head (palm on the forehead) while elbowing - where as baji always seems to leave the head wide open when elbowing.

[I-mon]

I lived in thailand for a year when i was 17-18, trained muay thai almost every day when i was in my host-town, eventually moved into my teacher's house.

the neck wrestling is my favourite, i reckon all of the tai chi punks need to get some of that in their mix.