Hello everyone, I’ve recently been doing some research on what type of gloves and shinguards (mainly gloves!) I should upgrade to. My main options as of now would be either Fairtex or Combat Corner (CRNR).

When I asked my Coach what brands he recommended he asked me if I was more of a kickboxer or a Muay Thai martial artist. I would say I really like the boxing aspect of kickboxing but I do like the stance of Muay Thai. He mentioned that if I was more of a kickboxer then CRNR would be a good way to go, and for Muay Thai Fairtex.

I was either looking at the HMIT Boxing gloves from Combat corner, or the BGV1 Tight fit gloves from fairtex. I’ve had a pair of rdx gloves (16oz) for a while now and I will say that I dislike how thick and bulky they feel, at times it feels like my hands are moving in slow motion. I’ve heard that CRNR gloves tend to be bulkier than fairtex but I am not sure how different they are.

My birthday is coming up soon and I’m looking to get myself a nice pair of gloves and shinguards. I am mainly here hoping to get some advice on which way to go (CRNR or Fairtex) but I am also open to looking into other brands you guys recommend.

Things to note:

I have small - medium sized hands They must be 16oz I don’t want them to feel the same as my rdx pair

Thanks for the help.

Basically last few times I’ve gone to training during sparring I’ve been switching stances into southpaw and hitting some pretty nice combos from the confusion of my right hand suddenly being so close to them - is this a bad habit I should stop trying to impliment ?

Needs some film to watch

Hello. I'm 33 years old and I really got into muay thai several years ago and had an exhibition fight in March of 2024. Muay thai is really important to me, I feel much better when I'm training and I love my gym.

I'm about 6.55 months post-injury now. Playing basketball i fractured the fibula into 3, fractured the back of the ankle, tore all medial ligaments, and dislocated the ankle. Had surgery right away to put a plate over the fibula, and a chord drawn through the ankle to pull it back in place and act as ligaments. My surgeon and PT said I should be able to go back to muay thai eventually. I forgot to ask my surgeon at my followup the other day about when he thinks I'll actually be ready for that. I've been boxing on my heavy bag at home and started throwing very light kicks on it a little less than 2 months ago probably.. my PT wasn't happy to hear that lol. I threw some kicks with a little more umph the other week and it didn't seem to cause any pain. Getting more confident and wondering if I can go back to my gym yet. I have had one exhibition fight and really want to take another fight eventually.

Does anyone have experience with coming back to muay thai from this injury or something close to it? I'm concerned that kicking and checking might shift the metal plate around or loosen it over time. Or that I will either damage the metal plate, or it will hurt other people. I mean we're pretty much always wearing shin guards during sparring anyway so I feel like it shouldn't hurt others, but not totally sure. Wondering if maybe I need to switch to boxing only (which would be good for me anyway, focus on hands) and/or BJJ. Both would probably help round out my martial arts, but I don't think I'll enjoy either of them as much as muay thai. Also worried about sparring at boxing gyms, they tend to go harder more often and I don't need that brain damage.

Thank you for any advice or stories shared! =)

I am such an avid fan of British MT. Especially anyone trained by Christian Knowles, I thought I’d put this great montage together.

Hands only sparring I feel totally fine in trading and moving the pocket. Once we start adding kicks I start "foot fencing" where I'm basically staying at super long range just flicking (honestly pretty crap) leg kicks and body kicks. Goodbye hands because I don't get in range for them. How do I stop doing this and mix up punches and kicks?

Hey, fellow strikers.

This is about fighting across weight classes.

When asking about weight vs skill, ChatGPT said that a 75kg fighter is more likely to get ragdolled by a 90kg opponent than an 85kg fighter by a 120kg, assuming lean mass and a comparable center of gravity on both.

Proportionality-wise, it doesn't add up. So is the 85kg (~190 pounds) some sort of magical cut-off? Would you even agree with the AI's assessment?

Thank you all who watch my fights and enjoy them. I love beautiful Muay Thai and do my best 🙏🏻.

Let me begin by stating that I firmly oppose violence and strive to avoid conflicts at all costs. However, I am curious about a specific scenario. I have been training Muay Thai for three years now, and I am wondering at what point, if I defend myself or use my hands as “weapons”, I could potentially face legal consequences in a court of law.

So a bunch of higher class students are telling me that i have to go harder to the body in sparring (since im mostly passive and spar super light). I have regonzied that i can be quite passive, which they are telling me is bad and im also too nice, having problems hitting with any actual power. I think its cause i want to control but i either go too hard or light. I also do a lot of single strikes and spamming jabs. Any drills/tips to help alievate this? Im a beginner btw (about 6 months in) if that makes a difference.

Thanks 🙏

Basically the title - just finished sparring for the first time. This is my first year training. No boxing/martial arts experience. I was gassed after the first round - couldn’t even keep my gloves up. What’s the best way to build stamina for fights? More sparring? HIIT? I work out regularly but want to adjust my workout so I can last longer in the ring. I’m also wondering how I can use the heavy bag to prepare when I’m solo (most of the time - training once a week at the moment). Thanks.

This question is geared towards someone experienced in Thai culture as well as westerner culture.

In Thailand there is a saying “Jai Yen” meaning cool heart. It means a fighter who’s relaxed, composed, void of unnecessary tension, maybe a smirk on his face. I believe this style does help a fighter see openings they otherwise wouldn’t, remain composed, tactical, and methodical.

When I first started training in Thailand I remember the thing my coaches kept telling me “relax, relax, sabai, sabai” and kept telling me to ease the tension I didn’t know I kept in my traps and shoulders whenever I sparred.

Westerner style (esp at lower levels) I’ll just call “seeing red” for now for lack of a better term (not meaning it’s classical meaning of a guy who just sees red, but the mindset of tension). It’s full of tension, “destructive intent”, “toughness”. I was the same because I thought fighting is about toughness through tension especially coming from weightlifting background. I would call Ramon Dekkers the master of actually seeing red, though I think with most beginners-intermediates, it’s to their detriment to be that tense.

I’m wondering how to reconcile these two modes of fighting as they both have benefits. When I keep a cool heart in sparring, I see openings I otherwise wouldn’t, remain technical, I stay away from guys that I see want to punch hard and counterstrike and frustrate them. Before Thailand I would just brawl with them. I still got that dawg in me it’s not that I’m scared of brawling but I’m working on my weaknesses.

Basically, if you were a cool hearted technical fighter who had to fight an overtly tense Westerner pressuring forward for a knockout, I can see how you could use his own tension against him and be super technical, “flow”, deliver precise strikes when needed, stay out of range, and win.

I can also see the tense guy just walking forward and knocking out the other guy with pure overpowering tense fighting if the other guy wasn’t skilled enough to out-technique that or too relaxed.

So overall thoughts and insights on the balance between these two philosophies, if one is actually better than the other, and how to implement both effectively. Finding the right time to go in with full tension and destructive intent vs the right time to be flowing, at ease, frustrating, technical. Balance a cool heart with a heart on fire, gaining the benefit of both with as little of the downside of both.

Been training 5-6 days a week majority 2 sessions per day for almost a year consistently. Still, no matter what gym I go to I always seem to have the worst cardio there.

I am 25, 6'0' weight about 71.5 kgs or 159 lbs, always eat good amount of carbs before training, sleep at least 7-8 hours before training, eat relatively clean.

My max HR is around 195 and my resting is around 55 but whenever I do any basic things that should only get me up to zone 2 (shadow boxing, skipping, slow running) I find myself at 80-90% my max.

The image I included is from a short 3.5km run (where I started walking around 10 minutes in). My hr seems to rise fast and decline slowly. Here is another image of my HR for 30 mins of sparring.

Has anyone experienced this or have any advice for me.

Last week, I had my first pro rules MT fight. Good news! I won!

Bad news: I banged my left leg up real bad. Between checking hard kicks and throwing hard kicks that got checked, my leg has been hurting something fierce. I couldn't walk for about 24 hours after fighting, and then it started it getting better, and I was even going for short hikes on Tuesday and Wednesday. Then on Wednesday night, I got food poisoning and my leg pain shot up from like a 6 to a 9. If I lie perfectly still with my leg elevated, it's not too bad; if I do anything else, I start getting shooting pain through my foot, ankle, and tibialis. It gets worse at night, making it hard to sleep.

I went to the hospital, got an X-ray, and nothing is broken. But I'm in a kind of rural area right now, so my access to specialists is limited; the doctor told me to rest and take ibuprofen. I've been RICEing it and resting. I am somewhat worried by the arc of it getting better then getting worse, though I've heard sometimes injuries just be like that. A friend of mine (who is a PT) suggested I might have a bone bruise.

For those of you who have had bad cases of lowkickitis: what was your recovery like? Are the symptoms I'm describing similar to those you experienced? Did you find any treatments that seemed to accelerate your healing?

A collection of pics of friends/fighters from Pak Chong, Dan Khun thot and Korat festival and local circuits. Enjoy

That knockout was scary. Knowles is a great fighter.

Also the belts still looking huge on a 6”7 heavyweight is hilarious 😂.

Knowles got brutally knocked out, Kryklia got to spend a year and a half on the bench for not even a round of competition, and unless this was the final fight on his contract, that'll likely be what happens again.

Hey guys, I’m almost 4 months into Muay Thai. Today we had a “light sparring session, don’t hurt anyone” — coach’s words. Before sparring, we drilled some counterattacks, so that was the focus.

First round was chill. Light, flowy, working those counters. Then we switched partners.

Everyone was wearing gloves, shin guards, and mouthguards… except this one guy. Wearing headgear, pro fighter, and sometimes class-coach. (We have a main coach, but advanced fighters usually run the classes.)

He nodded at me and I thought, “Welp, I’m getting cooked.” But it’s light sparring, right?

Wrong.

Bell rings, dude goes full power — left hook to the head, knee to the body. I’d never been hit that hard before. I was still going light, scared to go hard back in case he got angry (he’s got a Chevrolet logo tattooed on his back — nothing could go well if you’re fighting a bald dude with a Chevrolet logo in his back).

At some point I thought, “He’s gonna knock me out or break something.” So I snapped and went all in — jab-cross-lead hook-liver shot. Landed clean. Threw leg kicks, punches, teeps, started feeling confident.

Then I threw a body kick, he caught it, I escaped, ended up with my back to him and instinctively threw a spinning backfist — it landed. Not sure if it’s even legal but hey, spinning elbows are.

He got pissed and blasted me with a full-power knee to the ribs. Didn’t hurt somehow, but when I looked at the clock, there were still 3 mins left. I was like “Oh hell no.”

Coaches were laughing and yelling “go light, mate, he’s a newbie hahaha.” I was mad, but couldn’t back down. I stood and banged. Landed some, blocked some, and with like 30 seconds left, I managed to clinch and somehow swept him. No idea how, pure instinct.

After the round I asked, “Why so hard? Wasn’t it light sparring?” He just looked at me and shrugged.

After class, a guy told me, “That bald dude hit me like I owed him money.” Honestly, it felt like the coaches told him to go hard. He even went full power on a woman weighing maybe 50kg.

What should I do in those situations? Pulling out’s not an option, but maybe just clinch and stall? The mismatch was wild — felt like Real Madrid vs Brexit FC.

I wouldn’t be mad if they didn’t told us to go light. I’ve learned that I can take those punches and don’t hurt at all.

Edit: Came to the conclusion that he wasn’t going full power, I just felt like it because I’m new, and he’s probably used to other intensity. Maybe he thought that was “light”. That’s probably why I was able to connect some punches and block others.

I have to mention that in my country, the sport it’s not professionalized, he fights in some promotional companies, but it’s super underground.

Also, as I only mentioned my highlights, maybe it seems like I’m one of a kind, but he beat the tf outta me. I only had like 3 memorable moments and that’s what I wrote lol.