Thai boxing
Thailand is hot. Thailand is humid. Thailand is buggy. Thailand is beautiful. The people are wonderful and most importantly to Elite Training Center’s staff, Thai Boxing is top notch.
Most people have travelled via airplane and landed in a city where immediately that city’s top sports team has posters up i.e. Dallas-Cowboys and Cheerleaders, San Francisco-49’ers and Giants, & Chicago-Cubs and well sausages, but you get the point. During our instructor’s vocational studies trip, we landed in Bangkok’s airport to see posters and monitors showing young men competing and/or training in Muay Thai.
Thai boxing is steeped in tradition dating back to a time where a country’s borders were dictated by who was strongest. Thailand and Burma were at odds for hundreds of years. As a more civilized time dawned and the practice of the militarized version, Muay Boran wasn’t a large neccessity, Thailand’s royalty saw it fit to maintain the warrior tradition and made its fighting art into a sport.
Muay Thai boxing was born from war like most martial arts (not sure when the sport version of Krav Maga will make its debut, but one can dream). What is most impressive to me on our trip was the maintenance of tradition. Thailand is a country who is proud of the old ways and happy to keep it that way. Often to the dismay of westerners, who on more than one occasion saw the economic progress or lack there of as frustrating.
Economically, Thailand is poor. What is poor? Poor is a state of mind. Unless someone is told they are poor, how do they know? We saw people living on a river washing their clothes or banging out carpets. Do they think they are poor? I recently discussed the idea of poverty with someone who grew up in the Philippines 40 years ago. He didn’t “know” he was poor until he came to America. What does that say?
The through line of Muay Thai is huge in most of Elite Training Center’s programs. Krav Maga takes many of its combatives from Thai boxing. The Mixed Martial Arts’ (MMA’s) stand-up game consists of Muay Thai boxing and Western boxing, but primarily Muay Thai boxing. And although Kali / Silat is a Filipino art, it is always interesting to see the similarities between Filipino boxing and Thai boxing, both systems having been created in relative proximity.
We were also introduced to Krabi Krabong, the weapons system of Muay Boran. At Elite we have the opportunity to train in Kali / Silat. There were many similarities between Kali and Krabi which enabled those who partook to excel faster.
I would love to sit here and say Elite’s trip was all around spectacular. It wasn’t. There were times where it was hard training. It made us stronger. There were times when not everyone wanted to follow the rules. Logic brought us closer. And if it ever became obvious that one of us was in trouble, then 2 were there for 1.
I would encourage everyone to travel. Young people in particular. Young American’s more so than others. Be adventurous and learn about other cultures. Thailand is a fantastic spot for westerners. Moreover I would encourage Elite’s student body to become culturally conscious about the arts you practice. The world seems big, but once travelled, the world gets smaller with each journey (that is until you have a bad experience and no one speaks English, but that’s a different blog).
S. Derhammer
Elite Training Center
1628 South Pacific Coast Highway,
Redondo Beach, CA 90277
(310) 543-1600
www.elitetrainingcenter.net
Thai boxing
Thai boxing <<<Facebook Link
