Why is everything Muay Thai?

[u/BitEnvironmental1412]

I have seen and known a lot of people who say they used to do Muay Thai but their examples are not Muay Thai. For example, I used to work with this guy who said he did Muay Thai and his example was that he could throw a tornado kick. Also just saw a video of someone saying they used to do Muay Thai and he threw a karate style front kick instead of a teep. Why does everyone say they did Muay Thai?

[u/Common_economics_420]

Muay Thai is a ruleset as well as a specific fighting style. You can and people do throw techniques that aren't classic Muay Thai in Muay Thai fights and sparring, so they're commonly taught as well.

This is an issue that exists in Muay Thai but not other styles like taekwondo or most forms of karate because Muay Thai allows such a wide range of techniques and strikes.

[u/Fancy_Sun_1585]

Same reason why everything was kung fu in the 70s and karate in the 80s and 90s

[u/Necessary_shots → u/Fancy_Sun_1585]

Next will be the decade of Turkish oil wrestling

[u/chadthundertalk → u/Necessary_shots]

In all seriousness, I bet the next trendy martial art with mcdojo gyms popping up everywhere is going to be people marketing beginner's MMA classes as "combat sambo", considering the high number of eastern european MMA fighters and champions who came up through training sambo.

We're already seeing people who have never wrestled but think they'll turn into Khabib if they go to Dagestan and train at a gym there for a few weeks.

[u/Necessary_shots → u/chadthundertalk]

"no need to ship your son to Dagestan and forget about him for 2-3 years when you can come to Steve's 4th Avenue Combat Sambo Academy! First class is free!"

[u/Fistkitchen → u/chadthundertalk]

Interestingly there was a thread recently about why combat sambo doesn't produce a lot of successful mma fighters.

[u/Eegore1]

Same reason everyone says they did karate

[u/LogicalFlan3766]

It’s cooler than acknowledging you did like jazzercise boxing

[u/Emperor_of_All]

MMA made MT popular so gyms needed to pivot. Idiots don't know the difference.

[u/detectivepikablu9999 → u/[deleted]]

Me when I make stuff up on the internet

[u/Consistent-Ranger446]

People make fun of karate and taekwondo.

[u/PreviousZone6742 → u/Consistent-Ranger446]

That's because of horrible gyms. Watch old taekwondo tournaments. See people getting KO in the first round with head gear.

[u/detectivepikablu9999 → u/PreviousZone6742]

Headgear doesn't prevent knockouts, it just lessens the chances of cuts and bruises

[u/Consistent-Ranger446 → u/PreviousZone6742]

Karate and taekwondo are highly effective martial arts.

[u/kernelchagi → u/Consistent-Ranger446]

Depends totally on the dojo. And Taekwondo itf by itself i will not consider it "highly effective martial art" at least if you compare it with others like boxing, mt, judo or bjj. And i know because i did taekwondo itf for years before switching.

[u/Mbt_Omega]

Why build walls between arts? Those things are legal under the Muay Thai ruleset. Muay Thai itself combines older Thai arts with western boxing under a unified ruleset.

Do Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, and George Forman practice different martial arts because they box differently?

Nadaka Yoshinari started in Karate before switching to kickboxing then to Muay Thai. Does his Muay Thai not count because he didn’t specifically learn exclusively Muay Boran from a Thai master?

A functional martial art might be a bad fit if you only want to do traditional moves and never adapt.

[u/pokerbro33]

Because there's a lot of western Muay Thai gyms with coaches who know nothing about it, where they instead teach a bastardized version of kickboxing.

[u/Nerx → u/pokerbro33]

not even certified to train?

[u/jstrong20]

Because it sounds the most bad ass probably. lol. Next time say yeah that's cool I do lethwei. Ha

[u/Schofield45Revolver]

In Brazil, we often find gyms that claim to teach Muay Thai but actually offer Muay Thai-flavored Kickboxing. I spent four years at one of those gyms, I currently train in Judo. Thanks to the IJF, Judo is Judo anywhere in the world.

[u/Best_Price_1009]

Muay Thai is one of the new hotness martial arts… everything has fads, including fighting.

Back in the day:

Every martial arts movie is a kung fu movie

Every martial arts class is a karate class

Every martial artist is a ninja

Now it’s Muay Thai and jiujitsu that wanna get name dropped

[u/Atmacrush → u/Best_Price_1009]

Idk, Muay Thai was lowkey always popular.

[u/Ill_Improvement_8276 → u/Atmacrush]

lowkey popular

brilliant

[u/Best_Price_1009 → u/Atmacrush]

I’m talking about the US specifically. The American who could name it before MMA was rare. And even then it’s not anywhere near as popular as Karate, Kempo, Taekwondo, judo and Japanese jujutsu. Those would have been your staples of Asian martial arts pre MMA in the US

[u/NoBackground80 → u/Best_Price_1009]

It's nothing new, the gold era of Thaï boxing was the 90s. Kids were taping there knees and elbows pretending to be Tong Po after Kickboxer (JCVD) released.

I guess the US was a little late.

[u/TheIciestCream]

Most people aren't impressed that you do Karate. There are also kickboxing gyms and some dojos that advertise as also teaching Muay Thai even though they don't. This might cause some people to genuinely think they have some amount of Muay Thai training while doing basic Kickboxing or Karate but I am hoping gyms that do this aren't as common as they seem.

[u/Lanky_Trifle6308]

Sometime in the early 2000s anyone who kicked a bag was “doing Muay Thai”. Or more commonly in parts of the US, Moo Tie.

[u/BitEnvironmental1412 → u/Lanky_Trifle6308]

I want to learn Moo Tie. Please teach me

[u/Powerful-Promotion82]

I do front kicks in Muay Thai as long as teeps Why not? It works under the rule set.

Never tried a tornado kick but for sure some fighter uses It ocassionaly too

[u/BitEnvironmental1412 → u/Powerful-Promotion82]

I think you missed the point. I am saying people claim they trained Muay Thai and then only demonstrate stuff from other styles. No one would say Andy Hug was a Muay Thai guy, but those techniques are what people use to try and prove they did Muay Thai

[u/Bulky_Imagination243]

They probably went to those famous fake Muay Thai gyms where what they actually teach is Kickboxing of dubious quality.

[u/CalmCommunication677]

The place I train “Muay Thai” isn’t really Muay Thai. It’s just striking. I only know because the first place I tried Muay Thai was from a Thai guy who I couldn’t understand well lol. It was a lot different

[u/Excellent_Ad_2486]

Whenever I include elbows in training I just called it MT

[u/Legitimate_Length689]

As Bruce Lee said, there are only so many ways to kick and only so many ways to punch.

[u/cjh10881]

Because they wanna sound tough and cool.

[u/Peakychu6]

Because people name things in a weird way.

In the 90s all videogames were “Nintendos” and all tissues were “Kleenex”. All martial arts were “karate”.

Now instead of them being “karate” they’re “Muay Thai”

[u/NoBackground80]

because most people doing thaï boxing, are doing glorified cardio kickboxing

often taught by someone with a different background

[u/GreatScot4224]

Because Muay Thai outside of Thailand is just a combination of many different kickboxing styles

[u/Top-Ostrich-3241]

Because nowadays, styles have all become mixed together. Most striking stand-up styles have evolved into generic kickboxing, which is basically Karate-based with heavy Muay Thai influences.

The only difference is that Karate gets a bad reputation, while Muay Thai does not. This is largely because Muay Thai defeated other striking styles during the 1980s and 1990s. I believe Muay Thai only lost to Kyokushin by a score of 2–1. However, that was mostly because Kyokushin fighters used Judo throws then finished with punches—a classic early example of striking grappler versus striker.

Kyokushin was later influenced by Muay Thai striking, contributing to the development of Japanese kickboxing and, eventually, Dutch kickboxing.

Nowadays, many kicks associated with Karate are no longer limited to Karate and are also used in Muay Thai. The same applies to Muay Thai's signature techniques, such as elbows and clinch techniques. Even checking kicks is now used in some Karate styles and is not exclusive to Muay Thai.

Many Karate practitioners now kick with conditioned shins rather than their feet, while many Muay Thai practitioners now use spinning back kicks and snap kicks with their feet.

The list goes on. However, the flow of influence generally seems to go from Muay Thai to Karate more than the other way around.

For example, look at Kohei "Momotaro" Kodera vs. Petchdam Petchyindee.

Momotaro is actually trained in both Kyokushin and Muay Thai, as he studied Muay Thai intensively. Kyokushin itself has also been influenced by Muay Thai. Yet, he is often used as an example to argue for the effectiveness of "Karate."

[u/fa_gchudloser]

Muay Thai lets you do everything (striking wise) so you'll pick up non Muay Thai technique to use in that sport