Muay Thai Begins at Kingham Hill (diary entry)

21.11.2018   My first lesson of the day was with Kingham Hill School. We got straight into attribute training for their self-protection course. The previous weeks have focused on personal security and self-defence. This week we begin looking at other arts that have functional benefits for self-defence hard skills. This took the form of Muay Thai.   The warm-up began with line work. Here we looked at a basic stance, explaining how this can be developed from a simple talking stance that was adopted during the “interview” stage of a self-defence conflict. The high guard, popular in Muay Thai, might be viewed as a development of the passive double-handed fence. We moved backwards, forwards and laterally. The jab was then introduced, taking into account not to telegraph the punch not to compromise the guard and to retain the dynamic nature of the stance and footwork. The cross was then added to the combination before the first kick – the teep – was taught.   We then moved onto focus mitts. Here a simple jab/cross/teep was practised. The techniques were trained with partners and I also individually held the pads for each student.   The round kick was next introduced. I discussed the difference between the Southeast Asian version of this kick and other versions. We first trained it as a kick to the leg. This was then combined with a jab and trained on the focus mitts, where I repeated the same coaching procedure.   The lesson finished with an introduction to the clinch and the spear knee strike. We first isolated the plum position and did some neck wrestling. Then the knee was brought into play.