Muay Thai

What Is Muay Thai?

Muay Thai is commonly referred to as “The Art of Eight Limbs” due to the use of punches, elbows, kicks, and knees, using eight points of contact. It’s a more advanced form of kickboxing with the slight integration of grappling known as the clinch. Many modern-day mixed martial arts fighters train in Muay Thai due to its devastating effect it can have on a fight. You are being equipped with a larger arsenal compared to a classical boxer or kickboxer where you can either engage in combat in close proximity or fight at a long-range distance. Whether you’re a beginner or advanced student, everyone at True Strength MMA is committed to helping you grow and achieve your goals.

What You Can Expect Training Muay Thai At True Strength MMA

We are not a “cookie-cutter” gym that teaches our classes one way. We want to know what your goal is in the beginning and help create a solid path for growth for each person. When you take our Muay Thai class, you will be learning the self-defense aspect of Muay Thai. We will teach you the basic fundamentals of Muay Thai where you will be working on drills and basic combinations. Once you have a solid grasp of the basics, you will be learning the more advanced aspects of Muay Thai, such as setups, fakes, and clinch work. For those who would like to put their training to practical use, we also allow students to participate in Muay Thai sparring.

The Fundamentals of Muay Thai

If you are new to Muay Thai, you will be learning how to throw punches, elbows, strikes, and knees with proper form and technique on day one. During class training, our coaches walk around and review every student's form & technique when working on drills and combinations. We encourage all students to ask questions to our instructors, whether it’s about the drills we’re working on that specific day or if you need help with the technique of throwing a certain type of kick.

Advanced Muay Thai Techniques

• Strategy - When you learn the basics that make up Muay Thai, you not only need to know the proper way to throw each technique, but you also need to strategize how you're going to throw each attack. Students are paired with a partner and will practice on one another throwing their techniques, setting up their attacks, and working on counter-attacks.

• Advanced Techniques - Some of the basic techniques change as we progress through the different levels of Muay Thai striking. For example, once you have a solid understanding of throwing elbows with proper form, you can expect to learn throwing different variations of elbows, such as spinning elbows, upward elbow, and downward spiking elbow.

• Clinch and Throws - There are different levels of distance in fighting. You do not just start in front of someone's face and begin swinging - we may be converging at the same time and suddenly, we're so close that there's no more room for straight punches or kicks, so we lock up, grab around the neck and use what weapons we can to strike.
  
  In Muay Thai, we use clinches and throws to maintain a dominant position on the opponent. In a self-defense scenario, the clinch and throws are used to vacate a situation immediately. Within the clinch work, we figure out where we're balanced and make the opponent unbalanced by getting quick torques of the opponent's ankles to manipulating their head positions or hips to throw them off-balance. How to properly perform clinches and throws is very important in how we teach Muay Thai at True Strength MMA.

Sparring

Muay Thai Sparring is trying to figure out how to be the best fighter in terms of speed, accuracy, dominance, and inflicting damage while taking in minimal damage. Ideally, you want to get to the point where you throw effective techniques during combat without thought of what you're doing. To get to that level, you need to spar.

Technical Sparring

Technical sparring has students focused on strategy. Limited equipment is required, such as gloves and shin pads, but no mouth gear or helmet because we’re not trying to induce forced trauma. Sparring is done at a 25% to 50% rate. Things are slower and we’re learning to throw with proper form during a simulated combat scenario.

Full-Contact Sparring

Full-Contact Sparring is preparing to go into “full contact”. Students engage in one-on-one combat for one round before switching to a new sparring partner. The way to mentally prepare for that is to have some sort of experience of enduring a sparring session. Full-Contact Sparring involves giving & receiving a higher rate of punishment compared to technical sparring. Each strike will have enough force to do high damage to their opponent. Regular Muay Thai classes do not involve full-contact sparring. Full-Contact Sparring is reserved for select dates and times. Please see our class schedule for more details.

Band Rank & Promotion

If you're someone who wants to invest in your growth and development as a Muay Thai practitioner, whether you're a beginner or intermediate student, True Strength MMA offers students a path to growth through our ranked band promotion system. Similar to Karate school setups, our ranked band promotion system is based on the combat aspect of Muay Thai versus the technical aspect.

As a Muay Thai fighter, you can expect to be doing more contact work with bags, pads, and opponents (you will be required to participate in full-contact sparring during test days). For those who may want to stop short of participating in full-contact sparring, you will have a path towards rank promotion too. Our ranked band promotion system is a great option for everyone who wants to invest in their growth and development!

Muay Thai Schedule

Mondays: 7:30pm

Tuesdays: 12:00pm | 8:00pm*

Wednesdays: 7:30pm

Thursdays: 12:00pm | 8:00pm*

Fridays: 7:30pm

Saturdays: 12:30pm | 1:15pm*

Sundays: Gym Closed

NOTE: Time slots with an asterisk (*) indicates sparring class.