About Muay Thai

‘The Art of Eight Limbs’

Muay Thai is an intense, full contact martial art. Training focuses heavily on body conditioning to build fitness and toughness for combat. This makes Mauy Thai an excellent way to get into shape and learn how to defend yourself. Why not try Muay Thai in Oxford at OMAA today!

Benefits of Muay Thai:

Improved physical fitness
Muay Thai training is an intense workout. It combines cardiovascular exercise with learning new techniques, pad work and sparring. The Muay Thai workout in Oxford at OMAA will help you to increase your strength, agility, stamina and speed.

Learn self-defence
Muay Thai is an excellent form of self-defence. Not only will the training increase your strength and overall physical fitness, it will teach you strategies for defending yourself in a variety of situations.

Increase confidence and self-esteem
Improved physical fitness and the ability to defend yourself in a variety of situations can help to increase your self-confidence and self-esteem.

Stress relief
The combination of strength training and aerobic workouts stimulates endorphins and helps to enhance psychological well-being. Martial arts’ training enhances the ability to relax and to keep calm and poised under pressure.

 

 

Key Muay Thai Skills and Techniques

Classes will typically begin with a cardiovascular-based warm up session. The instructor will then teach new moves, demonstrating and breaking down each new technique to the class. These are then practiced again pads. In advanced classes, the remainder of the session will be devoted to sparring.

Strikes
Muay Thai includes a range of strikes include punches, elbow attacks, kicking, knee attacks and foot thrusts. The techniques are divided into two groups: major and minor techniques. Almost all of the moves use whole body movement, rotating through the hip to increase the power of the attack.

Blocks
Blocking is a critical element of Muay Thai. Shoulders, elbows, knees and arms are used to deflect and counter an opponent. Some of the basic tactics include: blow lock kick, block body kick, defence against teep, grab leg from body kick, grab knee and turn and turning from the back.

Thai pads
Once the basics of each move have been learnt, they are deployed in practice sessions against a padded opponent. This technique allows you to respond to an opponent’s attacks simulating real fight conditions.

Focus Pads
Focus pads are used to improve speed, agility and punching power.

Sparring
The final aspect of Muay Thai training is sparring against an opponent of a similar skill level.

History of Muay Thai

The origins and early history of Muay Thai are shrouded in mystery and myth. What is known is that Muay Thai is an essential part of Thai culture and in Thailand is seen as the sport of kings. Muay Thai was also a popular sport and pastime throughout the country. It developed mostly organically until the 1930s when the rules of the sport were codified during the reign of King Rama VII. Gloves replaced rope bindings, weight classes were introduced and the length of matches was fixed at five, three minute rounds. These changes turned Muay Thai from a battle are to a popular sport. The success of Thai fighters in mixed martial arts matches has seen the adoption of the art’s powerful striking techniques adopted by many Western martial arts practitioners. Moreover it made Muay Thai the fighting art to beat!