Muay Thai vs Kickboxing

In some Muay Thai gyms, the term Muay Thai denotes a clear and strict lineage to Thailand and its masters and champions, and to the exclusion of all other martial arts and often within an atmosphere of expected competition from all attending students. In other gyms, more typically MMA focused, classes may be equally called “Muay Thai” or “Kickboxing” and even experienced practitioners would struggle to tell any material difference in terms of the classes being coached. There are also gyms that strictly adhere to a Kickboxing syllabus and ruleset, with no use of clinch, knees or elbows.

Here at Hayabusa Training Centre in St Albert, we call our striking classes “Kickboxing”. However, the vast majority of prospective Muay Thai students will find their combat requirements of combining classic Thai clinching skills, elbows, knees, punches and kicks well catered for in our world class Mixed Martial Arts facility. As Mixed Martial Artists, our goal is to take the very best of Muay Thai training whilst also correcting or addressing the drawbacks of some traditional Muay Thai approaches such as appropriate postures for takedown defence that may differ for self defense or MMA competition. Even those who are simply wanting to train Muay Thai skills for fitness, health, and fun as many of our students do, enjoy being educated and skill in these expert level nuances.