Muay Thai is a very unique sport in the aspect that the shelf life of the athlete is not very long in comparison to other combat sports, however; the number of bouts that a Muay Thai fighter will have throughout their short career is mind blowing. The reason for this is simple: it has to do with their sparring techniques during training.

Muay Thai fighters will often turn professional around the age of 15, if not younger, and start being paid to fight which in turn is what normally supports their family. It is not uncommon for a young Thai teenager to be one of the sole suppliers of income for their family. Thus, it is very important that these young men stay healthy enough to fight, fight well, and fight often.

A lot of times, a Thai fighter will have anywhere from 150-200+ bouts in their career and the motivation is simple: to fight is for their family to eat. It behooves a young Thai fighter to stay healthy and to stay active so that means they must train smarter, not harder. Thus, the Thais have developed a method of sparring that is simple in its conception but effective beyond measure.

What the Thai fighters have mastered is the ability to spar at nearly full speed but only 20-30% power. This accomplishes a couple of things: one it allows them to stay in the habit of competing at full speed and two it allows them to avoid injury. Well what happens when this well laid out strategy for sparring goes wrong? What happens when the power is a little greater than expected? Check out the video below to see what happens when Muay Thai sparring goes wrong.

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Jacob C. Stevens is a lifelong athlete and cerebral martial arts enthusiast who is also skilled in the art of linguistic manipulation, his published work, Afterthoughts and Handgrenades, can be found here…