ay Thai For Women ?
Woman and Muay Thai
Muay Thai just like the other kind of martial arts that everyone can practice and become an expert. In the perspective of learning martial art, you just have to be strong "enough" to practice, because it's all about the "arts" of using head, fists, elbows, knees and feet to attack the weakest point of the rival's body. For women to become Muay Thai fighter and to entering the sport competition, there are some limitations for them, due to the Muay Thai tradition that women are not allowed to entering the Muay Thai Ring. It is believed that women in the ring will destroy boxer's ability and skills as well as against the amulets that boxers are wearing.
However, in the modern era, the Muay Thai tradition has changed to accept women to become Muay Thai boxer and they are able to entering the Muay Thai ring, but there must be separate arena only for women and they are still not allowed to jump over the top rope to entering the ring which will represent that they are over the men boxers and their amulets, instead they have to duck under the rope to enter the ring.
Brief history of Muay Thai
"Muay Thai" is what the Thai people call their own martial art. The word "Muay" (pronounce "moo-ai") mean boixng. In the ancitent times, since any kind of advanced weapons had not been invented yet, what to be used in a war were only swords, staffs, lances. Thailand had to encounter and fight with many of marauders to protect the communities. The Krabi (swords)-Krabong (staffs) arts was specially taught to soldiers to be able to fight. Muay Thai is a self-defense art which will be also taught together with Krabi-Krabong to be used when soldiers have to fight without weapons because sometime they might fall into trouble such as lost their weapons and they had to do a hand-to-hand fighting.
Muay Thai is the art of using human's toughest organics such as head, fists, elbows, knees and feet as weapons to hurt enemies. Some people said that Muay Thai is the one of many martial arts, which is the most powerful and deadly!. At preset time, as the was time has gone. Muay Thai has been developped as a kind of self-defense, fitness programmes and professional sports, which using gloves and fight within standard regulations. Muay Thai is well known not only for Thais, but also for everyone in the world. Men and women at any age can learn and practice Muay Thai for their recreation, sport or even in the real competition.
You may also interested in articles about Muay Thai history, how it was developped from military self defense arts (Krabi Kraobong) to professional sport, then read more;
»Belt is in The Ring---by Pop Praditbatuga
Muay Thai Introduction
You might be a bit wrong if you think Muay Thai is only suitable for gentle men who are very strong and has very big muscles. It might be true that in the perspective of being a kind of professional sport, you have to be strong and skillful in order to overcome the opponents. But in terms of learning self-defense art, everyone can learn Muay Thai.
The minimum age to start to learn Muay Thai is probably 7 years (I speak from my own experience when I first applied for a training camp when I was 7 and I was a youngest trainee in that camp!). But this age is not the most important thing. That most important thing is that how teacher or "Kru Muay" consider to accept someone to be a student. Because in the past time, the most important criterias are students must have a clear "objective", "mind" and "good spirit" to learn Muay Thai. This is because in ancient time, Muay Thai were trained for soldiers for protect communities and defense themself in the battle. Today, that objectives of learning Muay Thai is still the same, which is "to learn the self-defense". "Kru Muay" have to make sure that if someone want to learn Muay Thai, they want to learn "the art of defense" not for irritate others.
Today, Muay Thai is well known and famous as a kind of professional sport. Most people learn Muay Thai mainly for entering competitions and being a champion, so most of Mauy Thai gyms or training camps need to adjust their lessons. Many of deadly techniques, or we called in Thai "Mae Mai Muay Thai" are not allowed in the competition even in the real practice they are also rarely used.
Therefore, start to learn Muay Thai nowdays is only about to prepare yourself strong "enough" to get further training, it is necessary to apply for a trainng gym or training centre, because learn Muay Thai is not only about learning art of fight, you need to learn its "cultures and norms", which is really important. There is also concerning about its "ritual" and "superstition" of Muay Thai. You can not be a good Muay Thai boxer without knowing its culture, and the culture of Muay Thai is only taught only by Thai qualified teacher, the cultures could not be taught and learnt by only read books or watching videos.
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.
Nak Muay Ying (Lady boxers)
There are many Muay Thai camps in Thailand specially for ladies. These camps organise training courses seperately to suit to lady practice and they already have many of lady students from many countries.
Also, most of ladies students come to practice not only for their hobby or just spending times during their summer vacation. They join because they want to become a Muay Thai boxer sport or learn self-defence.
Muay Thai competition for ladies are also organised in Thailand and we already have ladies champions. So, if you think it is not possible for lady to learn Muay Thai or you are not strong to become a boxer, let's think again, thousand of Thai women here are being trained to become a Muay Thai professionals, I mean real professional....being a Muay Thai boxer as a career. If you are looking for a good camp, there are quite few camps in Pattaya, one of the city in Thailand.ทำบุญวันเกิด