Muay Thai is a combat sport in Thailand that uses stand-up striking along with various clinching techniques. This physical and mental discipline which includes kicking techniques that primarily focuses on the shin as a point of contact is known as the art of the eight limbs because it is characterized by the combined use of fists, elbows, knees, and shins being associated with a good physical preparation that makes a full-contact fighter very efficient.

Muay Thai became widespread internationally in the twentieth century when practitioners defeated notable practitioners of other martial arts.

However; how practical is the art of Muay Thai for the street or a self-defense situation?

There are not many people that leave the house during the day or at night that intend to get into a street fight. There are some that do but those people are few and far between as the average Joe has no intentions of getting into a physical altercation…EVER.

Even rarer are the life threatening or life changing situations where a person may have to defend themselves because their life is quite literally at risk and to make matters worse the attacker may have a weapon, may have set a trap, or there may even be multiple attackers. In a situation such as this, the ability to adequately and intelligently defend yourself is paramount.

There are those instances when this happens and what happens when you are in a situation that absolutely requires you to fight as there is no other option? Could Muay Thai help you save your life or at least intelligently defend yourself?

“>

Neither http://www.mixedmartialarts.com nor I promote street fighting or physical acts of violence in any form or fashion, however; we wholeheartedly support the advancement of one’s knowledge and ability to protect themselves as well as those around them in situations of peril.

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…