Muay Thai Boran (traditional Thai fighting) is the mother Martial Art that has recently developed, from 1929, into a combat sport which is appreciated world wide and known as Thai Boxing or Muay Thai. Originally “Muay” was the art and science of fighting, as it was visualized and developed by the ancient Siamese Masters. Traditional Muay owes its origins to ancestral fighting methods of the people of Siam, elaborated and refined thanks to a continous process of trial and correction. Pichaiyuth, Dti Muay, Pahuyuth, Sillapha Muay, Mai Muay Thai and Muay Kard Chiek: under these and other labels the murderous Siamese bare handed techniques have been practised for centuries, united today with the common name of Muay Boran.
Consecutive developments of Thai Martial Arts have followed distinct phases and have been subdivided according to the varying techniques imposed upon the fighters during the “sporting” matches fought in times of peace. That is to say what is generally labelled Muay Boran is actually a masterly melange of elements characteristic of different technical settings defined by scholars as the Regional Styles (for example; Muay Chaiya, Muay Korat, Muay Lopburi and also Muay Luang, Muay Uttaraditt or Muay Ta Sao) and fighting principles that follow a common logic Monkey techniques or those of a purely military battlefield style such as Muay Ler Dritt) actualized and made usable by modern western disciples thanks to a well structured teaching system.
In this sense it is correct to say that present-day Muay Boran is at the same time both an ancient and modern discipline: ancient because of it’s strategies and traditional techniques which date back to ancient times and modern due to the contemporary codification of a diverse and diffuse technical background made by Muay Thai experts and scholars of Siamese martial traditions immersed in the reality of today and directed towards future development.
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