CCMA Cross Training - Muay Thal, Stick and Knife

This client is currently on the CCMA cross-training programme. He has been exploring western boxing and stick/knife work. Today we made the decision to branch his training into muay Thai.  We began with the double stick work we covered previously working high and low attacks. This was then transferred onto target familiarizing before looking at some trapping exercises for attribute training. Such drills are good for building tactile awareness and blending striking with grappling.

We then moved onto boxing briefly, going back over some basic combination work. This led onto the muay Thai work, combining punches with kicks. We went through four simple progressive combinations and blocking. Then we covered footwork and angling using some simple agility and mirroring exercises. These were then taken onto the Thai pads.

The final part of the day brought us onto double knives as a means for teaching Thai elbows. Fighting is fighting and humans are limited by what works. I am very wary of getting embroiled in the hyperdiffusionism trap of many martial arts instructors who try to make direct link between different historic styles when there is scant actual evidence. Nevertheless, the cutting and stabbing motion of knives lends itself well to muay Thai. It is probably best to remember that Thailand’s most famous armed art these days is krabbi krabong and it more closely resembles the older form of muay Thai than what is taught today.

The damage a well-aimed elbow strike can do is undeniable. At clinch range a backward elbow strike can wind, crack ribs and cause severe trauma to the face and head. The Thai spinning elbow or their monkey-climbs-the-tree technique can produce some pretty dramatic victories for the user. The elbow is a dense area of bone that requires little conditioning. However, it has two big limitations. Firstly, the time it takes to move into the range where will work best is often best served by a longer range tool like the hand. Thai boxers primarily use them to create cuts to the head rather than knockouts, which can end a match fairly quickly. Secondly, elbows do not have the accuracy of hands. Even at close range they are not always easy to land and elbow strikes are typically incidental strikes rather than planned ones. To test this second point we did some clinch sparring with full-face head guards, allowing full-contact elbow striking. Landing them with force was possible, but not nearly as regularly as hand strikes.