MUAY THAI BORAN

Modern Muay Kard Chiek [Courtesy : www.budointernational.com]
Bare Knuckles Muay Thai Fighting

The most spectacular form of empty-hands fighting (or more precisely, wrapped with rope) utilized in the traditional Martial Art denominated Muay Boran is called “Muay Kark Chiek”, or Boxing with wrapped hands. According to the most recent studies realized by the Cultural Commission of Thailand, the epochs of development of Siamese combat can be distinguished in three great eras (in turn subdivided into various intermediate periods): the archaic, in which the fighters competed with completely bare hands; the middle, in which, in order to increase the power of the attacks and defensive actions, the boxers wrapped their hands with more or less worked cotton rope; and the modern, which marks the birth of Muay Thai with the introduction of Boxing gloves.
Our analysis is focused on the intermediate period, studying the combat and training techniques of the era of wrapped hands, or Muay Kard Chiek.
To study and rediscover the techniques and the training systems that allowed an expert in Muay Kard Chiek to strike with maximum force empty handed without injuring his hands (in fact, that is the main problem that any boxer has to face these days, considering that normally he is accustomed to the wrappings and the gloves, and who has to strike the cranium of an adversary with unprotected hands in a situation of extreme necessity), as well as learning to exploit in the best way possible the grappling movements—possible thanks to the absence of gloves—in order to neutralize the arms of the adversary and block him with a grip, or in order to strike him with the knees on the head and the body, or throw him to the ground: that is the most important objective of the rediscovery of a form of fighting that has been forgotten in the motherland of the Art for decades.
However, we are currently going through a rediscovery of Muay Kard Chiek at the professional level in the East: fighters from Thailand, Malaysia, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar are venturing into wrapped hands fighting (of incredible toughness) more and more, on the rings of various areas of Southeast Asia. Rules and Regulations for those kind of ring wars allow for a wide possibility of standing techniques, including head strikes (a brutal no holds barred form of fighting), valid only until the adversary’s knockdown: that is the fighting form that has been chosen in the East for this modern return to the origins of Muay Thai.

Meanwhile in Europe, thanks the close cooperation between the Thai Grand Master Chinawooth Sirisompan (Master Woody) and the Italian Arjarn Marco De Cesaris, a brand new form of purely martial Muay Kard Chiek competition has been created and organized: a strong kind of fighting which, totally respecting the traditional spirit of martial confrontation without concessions, thanks to some technical adjustments studied by the two Masters, is able to give a more modern and spectacular result in terms of safety for the fighters and martial expression of techniques.
IMBA Muay Kard Chiek represents a valid compromise between the extreme toughness of the fights with no rules that are still popular in the Far East and the very important necessity in the West of always taking care of the physical integrity of the athletes: this form of empty hands Muay Thai currently represents the most realistic sport application of Muay Boran, of which, however, doesn’t allow the totality of attacking techniques (the ideal Muay Boran Athlete should be well versed in both Kard Chiek for the fighting spirit and in traditional Mae Mai form competition for the development of more complex and dangerous self defense actions).
Just like it has happened for sport Muay Thai in the past 70 years, Muay Kard Chiek can offer any practitioner (regardless of their fighting experience or technical level) a valid testing ground for the effectiveness of their self defense fighting techniques, and, for the lovers of the Art, a continuous test of the correctness of their strategies and tactics, leading to a continuous development of the discipline toward the achievement of maximum martial efficiency.
The main point is to create strong martial fighters who don’t need to face a “same-size-same-weight” opponent to be winners but, thanks to the big span between each weight class, Kard Chiek boxers should be able to handle themselves in more realistic situations, should the need arise.
For the first time in Europe, it will be possible to view a series of IMBA Muay Kark Chiek fights between important exponents of the various European teams of the Academy (Italy, Spain, England, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Romania, France), who will face one another and expecting there will be no organizational problems, they will fight against an official AITMA Thai team during the coming year.

Thank you for the texts & pictures that contributed by Marco De Cesaris

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