Is Muay Thai Dangerous?

Muay-Thai Is No Joke

When it comes to this sport it’s not all about just putting on your Muay Thai Gloves and beating the daylights out of each other with the hopes of doing Sagat from Street Fighter proud. And while you won’t be donning an eye patch and throwing ‘Tiger Punches’, you will be throwing a variety of strikes from 8 parts of your body as opposed to 4 or 6.

Muay-Thai is referred to as the art of 8 limbs – a left and right punch, elbow, knee, and kick, and if it’s known for anything, it’s known for its deadly ‘Muay-Thai’ clinch. A Nak-Muay should never be taken lightly, these guys train to destroy. Heck, they are often referred to as ‘Wrecking Machines’ – that in itself should give you an idea on the mentality of Muay-Thai practitioner.

If you’re thinking of closing the distance to throw strikes, beware, the Nak-Muay will meet you with venomous strikes both at short and long range. With an arsenal of strikes to fire from different angles you must worry about distance strikes where unlike boxers, Karetekas or Taekwondo students they’ll throw stuff that’ll feel like a train just hit you.

Close-Range Weapons:

• Elbows

Elbows are just downright NASTY. Throwing elbows is such an ugly ordeal at times, fighters will make an agreement with each other not to throw them because boy will they slice and dice you. A Muay-Thai elbow is seasoned and sharpened by decalcifying the area they use to strike with. Imagine repeatedly strengthening your elbows against flexible but HARD banana trees, cutting them down like a blade; now imagine getting hit by one of those.

• Elbows (or Hooks) and Clinch

Like boxing, Muay-Thai is also considered ‘Kick-Boxing’ where they’ll throw hooks if you’re not in elbow range, but more often than none, the hook is used to disguise a clinch. Where he’ll fire off one hook and grab you from behind the neck with the other. This is where he’ll either start throwing those devastating elbows or the most destructive weapon yet.

• Clinch and Knees

If you don’t know how to get out of a clinch, then pray you never get stuck in one. You’ll be swallowing razor sharp elbows and devastating knees either to the stomach or the face. Getting hit by a well-placed knee to the solar-plexus will utterly destroy you, it will shut you down and probably even squeeze a tear or two out. You’ll want the pain to go away so fast, you’ll wish amnesia was an option. Actually – the pain will remain, as breathing feels like you’re inhaling a sledge hammer down your diaphragm. There are variations to the clinch that’ll open areas in the body like the kidneys or liver to be rammed in by knees. And when all else fails, elbows and uppercuts.

Long-Range Weapons:

• Kicks

The Muay-Thai roundhouse or switching round-house kick is one of the scariest strikes one can endure. I mean, those shins are trained to break baseball bats, imagine what they’d do to your ribs. The kick is normally set-up with straight punches to distract you from a kick that would blast you into oblivion. The same technic is also applied for the head where body kicks and straight punches are used to setup the head-kick. Rest assured if you get hit by one of those, you’re done. Gone. If you haven’t trained for these, then good luck, no amount of training was going to help you anyway.

• Straight Punches

Nak-Muays are not very known for their punching techniques, but they are definitely known for their power. That is because of the stance that the Muay Thai practitioner employs during a fight is a defensive stance that also serves as an offensive stance. Muay-Thai fighters normally walk into the opponent with no sign of backing down. Hence, they dig their feet in deep to throw powerful counters that are either issued RIGHT after a parry, or by blocking and parrying the opponent’s shots using their elbows.

Long story short: Muay-Thai is a very dangerous sport and not for the weak hearted. If you feel queasy looking at blood, huge open pouring gashes, broken shins that makes your leg look boneless rubber or pushed in ribs from a nasty Muay Thai Knee Bomb then this sport is not for you. But if you can, then this sport will turn you into something hard and diamond like – fearless and hungry. The only way you’ll learn in life is to move forward – just like how Nak-Muay’s are supposed to.

Elina Jhon is a fitness expert. elina lives in London and loves to go to the gym. She’s a writer and an analysts as well. elina works out regularly and shares useful tips regarding working out and staying healthy.