Is kickboxing similar to muay thai? if no then how does it differ? Many people [including me] believe that the two are the same arts with different names..... |Cain|
Ok I'll have a go.... Kickboxing Boxing hands & Karate kicks. Often with kicks above the waist only. No knees & elbows. Kicking with the feet - wearing shin & instep pads or foot pads. Muay Thai Boxing hands, Thai kicks using the shin & ball of foot (for the foot jab). Low kicks allowed, no leg or foot protection other than maybe an elasticated anklet. Knees and elbows allowed , although often elbows are taken out in the West.
'cat strangling' music???? oh r u talking about the dance which the fighters perform before the bout? |Cain|
I'm not sure of the exact rules, but there also seems to be some rudimentary grappling allowed. Like grabbing around the head to pull onto knee strikes. All other things being equal, I'd take on a kickboxer rather than a Thai boxer any day of the week. Mike
Hmm...ya, the thai fighters also have an extremely high leves of fitness......I never saw kickboxers in action though, I thought the both were same until someone told me otherwise... |Cain|
Don't think i'd like to face a muay thai fighter - very quick ..very hard..very brutal. WOOhOO....just realised i've past 300 posts, some of them with some thing sensible to say ..i hope
hmmmmmm..... As far as I know kickboxers do also leg kicks and they also kick with the shin, I thinks they took these things from muay thai but they sure do believe me. expect a kickboxer to legkick u also. There is not that mutch difference, but muay guys are also good close fighters caus of knees and elbows I believe. You should also know kb and mt have no ground work remind this when you're fighting one.
There is a fine difference... Kickboxing drew upon the influences of Karate, Tae Kwon Do, Kung Fu and includes the boxing handwork. It flourished primarily in the West. Muay Thai is an ancient Siamese fighting technique that utilizes the so-called eight limbs of your body. Hands, feet, elbows and knees...you can include head too in the militarized version of muay Thai. In many kung-fu and karate vs. Muay Thai matches, the thai fighters easily pummeled their opponents into submission. In terms of effectiveness, muay Thai has proven time and time again that it is the dominant stand up style. When people fight in "kickboxing" nowadays it is usually under watered-down muay Thai type rules. Leg kicks are allow but elbowing isn't. Or no knees to the head but only to the body. No stand up clinching and throws. People tried to fight against the effectiveness of muay Thai by altering it's rules...things that make it what it is. To the rest of the world there is no "kickboxing" but Muay Thai. I think what's misleading is that people see a karate fighter in a kickboxing match using Thai leg kicks and they just assume that it is karate or tae kwon do. They don't know that they are just borrowing techniques from Thai Boxing. Nowadays in K-1 for example almost every fighter uses muay Thai techniques minus the elbowing and stand-up clinching. There are some ground techniques and multiple attacker techniques in older versions of muay Thai...like muay Boran, chaiya, etc
I'm not sure of the exact rules, but there also seems to be some rudimentary grappling allowed. Like grabbing around the head to pull onto knee strikes. All other things being equal, I'd take on a kickboxer rather than a Thai boxer any day of the week. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mike I don't wish to be pedantic, but the Chap Ko skills (Grappling) in Muay Thai are not Rudimentary. They are very developed. The most overlooked part of Muay Thai, particularly in the West, is it's Grappling and Throwing. Within The Ring rules Muay Thai (the Sport) there are also Throws (Wiang) but these are limited to Inside and Outside Reap, Uprootings etc from the Clinch and The Cross Buttock, Half a Hip Throw. Note that Full Hip throws are banned as a ring technique. In Muay Boran there are many other Throws and other techniques, strikes, limb destructions etc including Banned in the Ring techniques. Nicolo's post above was a good one and pretty much sums it up. Except to say that when refering to Ground Work in Thai systems, we are talking about the seperate art of Ling Lom (Air Monkey) which is not only a Ground system, but contains many Ground Techniques and Fighting. The Five Classical Thai Martial Arts are known in their entirety as Pahuyuth (Multi-Faceted Fighting Art). Three are Armed systems: Krabi Krabong-Sword, Staff etc Fandab-Knife Fighting system Awud Thai-Any weapons, all implements Two are unarmed arts: Muay Boran(Muay Thai-Thaiboxing) and Ling Lom Ling Lom is where Muay Boran (Old style Muay thai) came from, the two parted company around 1700s. Up until that time, Muay Thai fighters would still use some quintessentially Ling lom techniques (Rolls, Falls, Locks etc). Ling Lom contains the seed of Muay Boran, plus a lot more as well, including many Arm, Leg, wrist etc locks, Pressure points, Defence from the Ground against a standing attacker, Fighting on the ground etc. Most of the basic techniques are the same as old style Muay Thai (muay Boran), except there are more of them in Ling Lom. Ling Lom contains all the elbows, knees, punches (Plus some Palm strikes etc) and the kicks from Muay Boran, plus a few that are it's own. Including my bestest favourite kick in the world and the snazziest Low Roundhouse that you've ever seen. Damn, I've come across as pedantic now. Sorry....
Once again forgetting to answer the original question. Muay thai (as a sport)has nothing to do with Kickboxing, other than the fact that fighters in the K-1 are using muay thai lite techniques, which K-1 kickboxing has appropriated from Muay Thai and not bothered to mention it. Of course most of the top fighters in the K-1 are Muay thaisters like Hoost, Aerts etc etc. Of course by the definitions of the word Kick+Boxing then anything involving these two functions are that. Blahblahblah, i'll shut up now...
nah don't shutup sokklab...you're on a roll yes muay thai is only a small part of the old style arts or pahuyuth as you said. There's more to it than just a simple "kickboxing" type of style of fighting. Some of the spectacular Dancing Monkey (ling lum) techniques are a good example of this.
