Tony Jaa's Muay Thai

[disgruntled]

i am a big fan of Tony Jaa. and i have noticed that the Muay Thai he does in his movies is very different from what i am learning. of course i now that a lot of it is stunt martial arts and other styles to hollywood it up (and i was please to see a lot of hapkido in this movies.... my main style), but i have heard that part of it is because he practices an older version of muay thai. has anyone else heard this too? and if so, where can i get some info on that? in the DVD extras he demonstrates some forms. i asked my arjarn if muay thai has forms and how i could learn them. he said that they do not have any forms. so now i am confussed? is muay thai like karate, a very generic term that in reality is a group of many styles?

[Shirindo]

Looking around it seems that whether or not there are forms in Muay Thai is very dependant on your definition of 'form'.

As a pattern or sequence of defined movement and/or techniques then i would say that it does indeed include forms.

Even the ritual dance at the beginning of a fight could be considered by some to be a form (this is streching it a bit I know), never mind how personal it is to the individual fighting. Hell I have my own 'freestyle forms'! I drive my wife mad with all my 'dancing' and 'faffing' around the house; 'You're scaring the cats!', lol.

Anyhoo, that's my knowledge of the subject exhausted, anyone else?

[jackg]

I think maybe that your muay thai maybe be a ring style but infact there is another non competiton style which was its predacessor?

[disgruntled]

oh? i did not know there was non-ring styles.... my style is definately ring style. can you post more info on non-ring styles?

[jackg]

http://www.muaythaistuff.com/learn-m..._complete_ver/
It seems before it was a ring MA it was military/battlefield. don't know if there are any places that still cling to these roots but if they do i'm sure they would have forms/techniques etc

btw I managed to stop a BB in his tracks with one thigh kick yesterday at jitsu though so he wasn't expecting it

[chokdee]

he does muay boran.
Tony jaa is a gymnist that is why a lot of his things are flashy, he did however train at a camp in thailand for a while.
the reason it looks a lot differant is because most are almost impossible to pull off in the ring. but yes there is some you can use.
muay thai is very simple in most of it's application.

[disgruntled]

haha good point! i would love to see someone try that type of stuff in the ring! it the time it takes to do one super cool kick the other guy could have done at least 3 bone shattering cut kicks.

after watching that video on muay thai from the history channel, it has really gotten me insterested in the other schools of muay thai. it is just a shame that i do not have any access to training in the other styles here.

[chokdee]

most of the other styles have died out, try www.mymuaythai.com for some information on muay boran lethwei etc, or panya kraitus book "the most distinguished art of fighting"

[disgruntled]

that is a really neat blog, but i did not see the link to the info on the older styles... and i will add that book on to the list of books i am dying to buy

[chokdee]

for sure check it out, it has history, traditions training muay boran and other things in it, im sure you can get at your gym or indigo sometimes has it.
it does have a few spelling errors in it from being translated from thai to english.