The History of Muay Thai

        Muay Thai or Thai boxing is martial art and national Thai culture, it is popular in Thailand and many countries worldwide. By the way, nobody knew when the exact time of Muay Thai's origin was. The first finding of Muay Thai was in the history of Thai war. In that age, Muay Thai was a regular practice for Thai warriors because Thailand had wars with neighboring countries. In those wars, there was no such a thing like gun. Therefore, the fights were all about melee weapons such as one-hand and two-hand swords. Those warriors thought that this type of sword fights was too close and risky. Therefore, the practicing of kicking in sword fights became something very useful for them. They could knock their enemies back by kicking during the sword fight for getting easier chances for the final blow.

        Muay Thai also called as 8 ways an offensemartial art. The 8 ways meaning is the art. The 8 ways meaning is the total number of hands, feet, elbows, and knees. The types of old Muay Thai has been separated by their origin's places such as, Muay Tha Sao (North). Muay Korat (North East), Muay Chaiya (South) and Muay Lopburi and Muay Pra Nakhon (Central) and The old Muay Thai adage stated that “Korat's heavy punch, Lopburi's cunning, Chaiya's elegant move and Tha Sao, the faster one"

        There were 2 purposes of practicing Muay Thai at that age. First was to fight against foes and second was to defend themselves. After that, Muay Thai has been combined with sword fight arts for the wars' battles. Sometimes, people do Muay Thai in the fairs for sport and then, after the spreading of boxing mitt came to Thailand, the wearing of mitts became a regular thing in every Muay Thai fight but the uses of feet, knees, and elbows still kept it same ways as the old day as we can see in nowadays.

               We could say that Muay Thai is both Thai and world heritage. As Thais, we should conserve and inherit Muay Thai for our next generations as long as we can.

Refer: The Office of the Boxing Sport Board, Sport Authority of Thailand