Muay Thai
Muay Thai is a hard martial art from Thailand. It is similar to other Indochinese styles of kickboxing, namely pradal serey from Cambodia, tomoi from Malaysia, lethwei from Myanmar and Muay Lao from Laos. Descended from muay boran, Muay Thai is Thailand's national sport.
The word muay derives from the Sanskrit mavya and Thai comes from the word Tai. Muay Thai is referred to as the "Art of Eight Limbs" or the "Science Of Eight Limbs" because it makes use of punches, kicks, elbows and knee strikes, thus using eight "points of contact", as opposed to "two points" (fists) in Western boxing and "four points" (hands and feet) used in sport-oriented martial arts. A practitioner of Muay Thai is known as a nak muay. Western practitioners are sometimes called nak muay farang meaning foreign
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.
In Western boxing the two fighters are separated when they clinch; in Muay Thai, however, they are not. It is often in the clinch where knee and elbow techniques are used. To strike and bind the opponent for both offensive and defensive purposes, small amounts of stand-up grappling are used in the clinch.