Muay Thai or Chinese Sanshou?
Muay Thai is no doubt one of the “hardest” combat sports, along with Kyokushinkai, bare knuckle boxing, etc. Question is, which would be better for self defense, the Science of the Eight Limbs (Muay Thai), or a similiar yet more well rounded art like Sanshou, which also uses 8 limbs and clinch grappling, in addition to throws, takedowns, and basic jointlocking that Muay Thai forgoes?
It depends on where you want your training to end, actually. Muay Thai is the most efficient striking artform, while San Shou teaches throws and takedowns for points in the ring. That’s where it gets hectic.
San Shou trains harder on getting the throws from clinch than getting elbows or knees, because in San Shou the round score is based not only on clean kickboxing, but who got more throws. You could eat punches and kicks in a San Shou match and still win because you tied up and threw your opponent alot. So their training involves alot more throwing, alot less good striking.
On the other hand, Muay Thai trains just the opposite. There are actually throws and trips in Muay Thai, but why trip an opponent when you could have fun hitting them with elbows and knees in a clinch instead? Muay Thai fighters learn how to reap a lag being used to block knees to the ribs, how to pull a fighter to the side and sling them off you when you are in their clinch, or when you put them in your clinch and are done brutalizing them. But, they train the striking aspect way more. So, it really depends on where you want to go with it. I’d say Muay Thai, but I am biased since I train Muay Thai. But I’ve sparred with San Shou rules against a San Shou trained fighter, and while it was fun, I feel my strikes were far more precise, powerful, and could have knocked him out in a real match. I must admit, though, I’d trained MMA takedown defense before fighting him, so his throws had very little effect, since I could recover fairly quickly. That put him at a disadvantage, for sure.
Knuckle Choke (nogi) from Mount
Tags: arts, bare-knuckle, book, classic, historical