MARTIAL ARTS…for the uninitiated

Muay Thai came into existence in Thailand around 2,000 years ago, having developed from the Thai military’s hand-to-hand fighting system. Its more brutal early form was adopted as entertainment by the Thai monarchy, and fighters tasked with amusing the royal court often used to forgo gloves in favour of wrapping their fists in rope which they then dipped into glue and broken glass.

Happily things have been toned down a bit since then, with many of the norms used in Western-style boxing now in practice during Muay Thai bouts. There are variations of the sport practiced in other South-East Asian countries such as Laos and Burma (Myanmar), but Thailand is the undisputed home of the form, where fighters adorn stamps and coins and are revered to a level only surpassed by the nation’s beloved monarchy. Also known as the ‘art of eight limbs’, Muay Thai’s fighters are trained to kick, punch, knee, elbow, grapple and throw.

Six years ago there were no Muay Thai clubs in Ireland but today they’re springing up everywhere, with four in Cork, two in Galway, two in Dublin, one in Wicklow and one each in Belfast, Dundalk and Carlow.

Mike Dockery’s Warrior Muay Thai Gym, which has been run for the last four years from a hall in Loughlinstown Community Centre in south Co Dublin, moved out to a dedicated premise in Bray last month, so I popped along to check things out.

Having trained in Dockery’s old gym, I had a fair idea of what to expect when I arrived in the Muay Thai hall, located behind the Old Conagh Inn (formerly the Coach and Horses) on the main road running into Bray town centre, where training takes place every week night. I decided to ditch the beginners’ class in favour of training with the senior fighters on Friday evening.

When I arrived there were 10 guys, all wearing colourfully brash Muay Thai shorts, shadow boxing for their warm-up in and around the club’s full-sized boxing ring. Muay Thai training is geared specifically towards preparing for ring fights so the class is divided up into three-minute rounds with one-minute intervals. I was paired off with Turlough Walsh, who has been training and fighting for the Warrior Gym for the last three years. We took turns to wear a body protector and large Muay Thai kick pads which are strapped to the forearms.

“This one’s a killer,” said Turlough, as the instructor outlined a new kick drill he had picked up during his latest of two trips to a training camp in Bangkok. It involved 30 seconds of right leg single kicks followed by 30 seconds of double kicks, then triple and finally quadruple kicks, before moving onto the left leg for more of the same.

Then we did another 30 seconds of quadruple kicks on the right leg, then triple, double and down to single kicks before going back to do the same on the left leg.
We finished up by doing a full round of ‘clinch knees’. This is probably the only occasion when you would prefer to be hitting the pads than holding them, in that the pad man is basically swung around the room by the neck while their partner launches full-force knees into their body pad. Not pleasant.

Dripping with sweat and close to losing consciousness, I wondered how anyone could be willing to put themselves through this five days a week, so I asked Turlough if the classes were always like this. “No, Fridays are geared towards fitness so you get pushed far harder,” he said, grinning. “You should have come up earlier in the week,” he added, blasting a right knee into the side of my stomach pad as if to accentuate the point.

I was reminded of a documentary I watched a few months back which looked at the power various martial artists could bring to bear using their favoured techniques. A Muay Thai fighter, it showed, delivered a knee with force equivalent to that generated by a 30 mile-per-hour car crash. I could well believe it.

The Warrior Gym is about to begin hosting Muay Thai events that will bring fighters from both Ireland and abroad together, the first of which will be held this July in Cuala GAA’s hurling hall. Muay Thai events are bizarre affairs in that the organisers and fighters attempt to import as many of the Thai cultural trappings associated with the sport as they possibly can.

Fighters, wearing traditional Mongol headbands and draped in flowers, dispel evil spirits from the ring and honour their teachers by carrying out ‘Wai Khru’ dance-like blessings before each fight. The DJ pops on recordings of ‘Don-tree Muay’, traditional Thai music, which stays on while the bouts are in full swing. It makes for an interesting night, but it also shows the level of respect Irish Muay Thai practitioners and trainers have for the sport.

Muay Thai is now widely regarded as the single most effective stand-up fighting style in the world, and it has been adopted by many of the best MMA (mixed martial arts) fighters, but the strength of the style owes as much to its gruelling training methods as it does to its various moves. There’s nothing particularly fancy-looking about Muay Thai, and its kicks, punches, knees and elbows are kept relatively simple. However, they are practiced with a repetitive intensity that brings the practitioner to a point where he can deploy them with a speed, power and aggression that makes them devastating.

That’s why the classes are so demanding. But while the senior training regime is by no means for the faint of heart, I have been along to the beginners’ class and they are most certainly open to people of any or no skill level. In comparison to the other martial arts I’ve tried out for this column, there isn’t really any comparison. Muay Thai is simply streets ahead.