Muay Thai - Thailand: meaning "science of eight limbs" born on the battlefields of the 15th century, during the legendary clashes between Thai (or Siamese) armies and their bitter rivals, the Burmese (also referred to as Thai Boxing), and Savate (also referred to as Boxe Francais). Muay Thai is the oldest known form of kickboxing and is the primary building block of all other forms of kickboxing.

Formal muay thai techniques are divided into two groups: mae mai or major techniques and luk mai or minor techniques. Muay thai is often a fighting art of attrition, where opponents exchange blows with one another. This is certainly the case with traditional stylists in Thailand, but is a less popular form of fighting in the contemporary world fighting circuit where the Thai style of exchanging blow for blow is no longer favorable. Almost all techniques in muay thai use the entire body movement, rotating the hip with each kick, punch, elbow and block.

Muay Thai is the national sport of Thailand. The history of Kickboxing in Thailand however, is clouded at best. When the Burmese army sacked and razed Ayuddhaya to the ground the archives of Thai history were lost, and along with them much of the early history of Muay Thai.

The first great interest in Muay Thai as a sport is documented to have come around the year of 1584 under the rule of King Naresuan. The King himself was well trained in the art of Muay Thai and so were his soldiers. Soon the art spread to the public and new fighting techniques began to evolve. Matches were held in every town and village on a daily basis. The sport of Muay Thai made its way to Europe sometime around the 17th century where it was embraced with open arms. The sport was modified, primarily to outlaw the use of knees and elbows, and given the name Savate.

 

Below is a video about Muay Thai from The History Channel TV Series Human Weapon

 

Please refer to our references as we have used a few different sources for the basic explanation of each martial art discipline. Many of our direct links, images and text will be from the site Wikipedia which is not known for the most accurate information when it comes to doing a thesis or studying for ones P.H.D. but does have a large collection of data that is well organized. Much of the text regarding martial arts styles on Wikipedia seems to generally sum up each discipline as good as many other sources. We do not intend to re-invent the wheel, but we do want to roll you in a good direction in order to get a glimps of each style.

References:	http://www.usgyms.net
	http://en.wikipedia.org
	http://www.thelawofthefist.com