Nak Muay Nation

Yes, I received a dry fit Nak muay T shirt for completing certain amount of Phases in Fighter Body Group. The shirt is totally awesome and comfortable. I've won other T shirts from other groups , but the Nak Muay shirts are far better quality . Thank you Sean

With some time to spare, I walked around the premises to take some pictures. Seeing the murals of nak muay demonstrating various thai-boxing techniques gave me chills. It reminded me of the Muay Thai Live performance.

At Khongsittha Muay Thai though, They really do mean it when they say they welcome people of all levels. My experiences there as a beginner was awesome. Farang nak muay (Foreign fighters) like Aaron Jahn have also rated it rather positively.

Muay Thai (Thai: มวยไทย, RTGS: muai thai, pronounced [mūa̯j tʰāj] (listen)), sometimes referred to as Thai boxing, is a combat sport that uses stand-up striking along with various clinching techniques.[1] This discipline is known as the \"Art of eight limbs\", as it is characterised by the combined use of fists, elbows, knees and shins.[2] Muay Thai became widespread internationally in the late 20th to 21st century, when Westernised practitioners from Thailand began competing in kickboxing and mixed-rules matches as well as matches under Muay Thai rules around the world. The professional league is governed by The Professional Boxing Association of Thailand (P.A.T), sanctioned by The Sports Authority of Thailand (S.A.T.).

In 1993, the International Federation of Muay Thai Amateur, or IFMA was inaugurated. It became the governing body of amateur Muay Thai consisting of 128 member countries worldwide and is recognised by the Olympic Council of Asia.

In 1995, the World Muaythai Council, the oldest and largest professional sanctioning organisations of muay Thai, was established by the Thai government and sanctioned by the Sports Authority of Thailand.

In 1995, the World Muay Thai Federation was founded by the merger of two existing organisations, and established in Bangkok, becoming the federation governing international Muay Thai. In August 2012, it had over 70 member countries. Its president is elected at the World Muay Thai Congress.

In January 2015, Muay Thai was granted the patronage of the International University Sports Federation (FISU) and, from 16 to 23 March 2015, the first University World Muaythai Cup was held in Bangkok.

According to IFMA rules, Muay Thai is a full contact martial art that uses the fists, elbows, knees and feet to strike an opponent. For a strike to count as a point score, it has to connect without being blocked by your opponent. Strikes do not score if they connect with your opponent's glove, forearm, shin or foot. Strikes to the groin were allowed in Muay Thai boxing until the late 1980s, and are still permitted in Thailand itself, and in club or competition events that abide to the traditional rules. While competitors do wear groin protection, such as cups, the rules for club level sparring and competition events may vary regarding the protective gear that may or may not be worn. Mixed-sex fights are not practiced at international level, but do occur in club and inter-club sparring and competition events. If the fight goes the distance and both fighters finish with the same score, then the winner is determined by which fighter landed the most full contact blows.[21]

Formal muay Thai techniques are divided into two groups: mae mai (แม่ไม้), or \"major techniques\", and luk mai (ลูกไม้), or \"minor techniques\". Muay Thai is often a fighting art of attrition, where opponents exchange blows with one another.[23] 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.

The punch techniques in muay Thai were originally quite limited, being crosses and a long (or lazy) circular strike made with a straight (but not locked) arm and landing with the heel of the palm. Cross-fertilisation with Western boxing and Western martial arts mean the full range of western boxing punches are now used: lead jab, straight/cross, hook, uppercut, shovel and corkscrew punches and overhands, as well as hammer fists and back fists.

As a tactic, body punching is used less in muay Thai than most other striking combat sports to avoid exposing the attacker's head to counter strikes from knees or elbows. To utilize the range of targeting points, in keeping with the centre line theory, the fighter can use either the Western or Thai stance which allows for either long range or short range attacks to be undertaken effectively without compromising guard.

The two most common kicks[24] in muay Thai are known as the thip (literally \"foot jab\") and the te chiang (kicking upwards in the shape of a triangle cutting under the arm and ribs), or roundhouse kick. The Thai roundhouse kick uses a rotational movement of the entire body and has been widely adopted by practitioners of other combat sports. It is done from a circular stance with the back leg just a little ways back (roughly shoulder width apart) in comparison to instinctive upper body fighting (boxing) where the legs must create a wider base. The roundhouse kick draws its power almost entirely from the rotational movement of the hips, counter-rotation of the shoulders and arms are also often used to add torque to the lower body and increase the power of the kick as well.[25]

The foot-thrust, or literally, \"foot jab\", is one of the techniques in muay Thai. It is mainly used as a defensive technique to control distance or block attacks. Foot-thrusts should be thrown quickly but with enough force to knock an opponent off balance.

In Western boxing, the two fighters are separated when they clinch; in muay Thai, however, they are not. It is often in the clinch that 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. The front clinch should be performed with the palm of one hand on the back of the other. There are three reasons why the fingers must not be intertwined. 1) In the ring fighters are wearing boxing gloves and cannot intertwine their fingers. 2) The Thai front clinch involves pressing the head of the opponent downwards, which is easier if the hands are locked behind the back of the head instead of behind the neck. Furthermore, the arms should be putting as much pressure on the neck as possible. 3) A fighter may incur an injury to one or more fingers if they are intertwined, and it becomes more difficult to release the grip in order to quickly elbow the opponent's head.

Defensively, the concept of \"wall of defence\" is used, in which shoulders, arms and legs are used to hinder the attacker from successfully executing techniques. Blocking is a critical element in muay Thai and compounds the level of conditioning a successful practitioner must possess. Low and mid body roundhouse kicks are normally blocked with the upper portion of a raised shin (this block is known as a \"check\"). High body strikes are blocked ideally with the forearms and shoulder together, or if enough time is allowed for a parry, the glove (elusively), elbow, or shin will be used. Midsection roundhouse kicks can also be caught/trapped, allowing for a sweep or counter-attack to the remaining leg of the opponent. Punches are blocked with an ordinary boxing guard and techniques similar, if not identical, to basic boxing technique. A common means of blocking a punch is using the hand on the same side as the oncoming punch. For example, if an orthodox fighter throws a jab (being the left hand), the defender will make a slight tap to redirect the punch's angle with the right hand. The deflection is always as small and precise as possible to avoid unnecessary energy expenditure and return the hand to the guard as quickly as possible. Hooks are often blocked with a motion sometimes described as \"combing the hair\", that is, raising the elbow forward and effectively shielding the head with the forearm, flexed biceps and shoulder. More advanced muay Thai blocks are usually in the form of counter-strikes, using the opponent's weight (as they strike) to amplify the damage that the countering opponent can deliver. This requires impeccable timing and thus can generally only be learned by many repetitions.

In 2016, 9,998 children under the age of 15 were registered with Board of Boxing under the Sport Authority of Thailand, according to the Child Safety Promotion and Injury Prevention Research Centre (CSIP).[27] Some estimates put the number of child boxers nationwide at between 200,000 and 300,000, some as young as four years old.[28]

Adisak Plitapolkarnpim, director of CSIP,[31] was indirectly quoted (in 2016) as having said that muay Thai practitioners \"younger than 15 years old are being urged to avoid 'head contact' to reduce the risk of brain injuries, while children aged under nine should be banned from the combat fight\"; furthermore, the Boxing Act's minimum age to compete professionally was largely being flouted; furthermore, quoted indirectly, \"Boxers aged between 13 and 15\" should still be permitted to compete, but \"with light contact to the head and face\".[27] He said that \"spectators and a change in the boxing rules can play a vital role in preventing child boxers from suffering brain injuries, abnormality in brain structure, Parkinson's disease and early-onset Alzheimer's later in life...Children aged between nine and 15 can take part in [Thai] boxing, but direct head contact must not be allowed\". Referring to Findings [of 2014] on the Worst Forms of Child Labour as published by the US Department of Labor's Bureau of International Labor Affairs, he said, \"We know Muay Thai paid fighters have been