Went to the Muay Thai fights Saturday night for something different...

First thing that hit me was the crowd wasn't what I expected... Huge mix of people. Guys in suits, girls dressed up like going to a ball, biker sorts, me, and your usual average people. Good to see.

First fight was interesting.. a 15YO boy V a very much novice 15YO girl. Had to feel for the kid. If he won he was a bully if he lost he was... well you could imagine Im sure. Diplomatically they called it a draw, then the more 'serious' fights started.
I don't know what I was expecting, but it was more 'familiar' than I at first envisaged. I guess two people going at it hammer and tongs cant be much different no matter how you do it. The use of knees perhaps but mostly it was punches and front kicks, with a surprising amount of head high roundhouses. Given we've discussed how ineffective it is (and for the most part on Saturday it was) I thought this unusual.

Highlight was - just when I was thinking to myself Muay Thai was aquite effective fighting art - a guy from Choy Lay Fut Kung Fu steps in and does some SERIOUSLY impressive fighting. Again, very little difference in actual techniques (apart from the definitive circularity to strikes) but for sheer power...yikes! Another good point was the females fight. I dunno theres something about watching chicks fight joking you lot

Lowlight was seeing the ego of an 11 YO after winning his match against a much smaller 10YO. His trainer picked him up and carried him around the ring like he was the great Ali himself. He then did a second lap, fists raised. Sure confidence is good but this kid is going to be a real shit...

Anyway - if you see something like this organised and wonder if you should check it out do it. Its a great night and quite educational also.

Been bugging me this. I guess I direct this at the loudest advocate of low kicks ( Mike!! ). The fights saturday certainly cant be considered sport in the context that sport karate is. A kick is meant to hurt and they were trying to knock each other out. Low kicks and knees are a major part of it so I had to wonder why anyone would 'waste time' trying a roundhouse? I didnt see any have any real impact on the fight but then again, I only saw a few fights. They must be a proven technique for so many to be attempted. Is it still a good technique for the young and nimble?

Must be. Were there many low kicks involved? I can only go by what i`ve seen on UFC and similar programmes though - not actually having been to a Mauy Thai event yet.

Hi Matt

I think there are a number of factors that together explain why you might see so many 'unrealistic' kicks.

First off, I may be wrong, but I got the impression from your earlier post that some of the participants were not strictly Muay Thai people, but students of other arts having a go under Muay Thai rules? Presumably that might tend to produce more high round kicks than you might normally see in a Muay Thai fight. That said, you certainly do see Thai boxers use them, so they must have some value.

Although Muay Thai allows some grappling it is limited - and therefore allows more opportunities for long range kicks and punishes people less for trying them than, say, MMA competition. But even in MMA you see some high kicks (but certainly far less than you'd see in a karate or even kickboxing competition).

So if it works in MMA surely it must work in 'the street', right? I'm not convinced. In an MMA ring the floor surface is dry, flat and reasonably (but not too) smooth. None of things can be guaranteed in a self-defence situation. So any deviation from flat/dry/smooth is going to make high kicks a riskier proposition. There is of course also the fact that the participants have had time to warm-up sufficiently. So in MMA / Muay Thai you won't be hampered by your own inflexible, cold muscles, never mind potentially unhelpful trousers and shoes.

Another couple of factors spring to mind:
1. Balance - I think we'd both agree on the fundamental importance of keeping your balance during combat. One way in which sport differs significantly from self-defence is the potential for dealing with multiple assailants. Even if I'm confident that I can throw a high kick and catch you off-guard without losing my balance, I might not have taken your mate(s) into consideration. One of them could all too easily unbalance me whilst I'm kicking you.
2. Range - in self-defence (even involving trained kickboxers etc.) the range usually closes to grappling range and concludes there. Whilst it does happen, its rather less common for fights to break back to kicking range. So your opportunity to throw a high, long-range kick is likely to occur right at the start of the conflict - if at all - and be very short-lived.

And finally, sometimes in sport its worth taking a risk. A high round kick could - if it comes off - end the fight there and then, they can be powerful techniques after all. If it doesn't work, what'll happen? You could be taken down, you might lose the fight, you might get a few bruises etc. But you're not likely to be maimed or killed as a result. But in self-defence the chances of that are higher. I think its worth doing a risk/penalty/benefit analysis. For my money, in self-defence the risk associated with high kicks is, like the kicks themselves, very high. The potential benefit is reasonably high too, at least if you practice sufficiently to be able to deliver your high kicks with a good amount of power. But the potentional penalty is massive. Regardless of the possible benefits, the combination of high risk and high penalty make high kicking a fools errand in my view. And of course, as we've discussed before, that leaves me much more time to practice other skills with much lower risk and much lower potential penalty.

Mike

I heard about this fight night from my Kung Fu instructor a few weeks back. Unfortunately I couldn't make it cos I work away.

Thanks for letting us all know how it went Matt. Hopefully I will be available to make it to next years fight night.

Cheers Mike.
I gather it was a Muay Thai fight night open to other styles. There was a huge difference in appearance between the schools, some (to my naive eye) appeared highly traditional, others appeared like a standard boxing club. All seemed to like the head high roundhouse. Thanks for a very informative post.

just FYI...



A small snippet from the Buk Sing Gwoon website. This school is run by Dave Lacey and his son Shane. Dave Lacey is half of the "Lacey Brothers" that brought Choy Lay Fut to Perth in the 60's. Teachers of George Michaelson, who teaches Marco, the guy that won his fight with a knock out. The Perth schools are actually listed in the "schools" section.

Hi Susan

Interesting comments from Bruce there.

Just out of interest, do you have any thoughts as to what it is about CLF that might make it effective against
a) Thai boxers
b) multiple assailants

Mike

Hi Mike.

I'm still just a beginner so my thoughts are still pretty limited unfortunately.

Not sure about the multiple attackers. I doubt i'll ever be able to fight of multiple attackers. But the legendary fighters of the style i believe were VERY fast. and aparantly HAD fought off multiple attackers.

against thai boxers? i guess one of the reasons is because it is very different to the more well known styles of kung fu (like wing chun) but it has similarities to thai boxing. Some of the kicks and even the strikes have been taught to me as "just like in muay thai"


I'm not really the best person to ask stuff like this. I know VERY little about the secrets behind the style. It's all still a big mystery. Probably one of the reasons i enjoy it so much. There is so very much to learn.


i find i google for info most of the time. As most of the web info on CLF is connected to the school i attend in some way.


sorry i cant be much of a help.