Make them pay – Catching Muay Thai Kicks
MUAY THAI TUTORIALS

Kicks play are important role in Muay Thai. Not only are they an obvious offensive attack in it’s simplest form, but they can also be used to maintain distance and set up your other weapons. Fighting a savvy opponent can potentially lead you to become a bit sheepish about using them. This is a minor victory for your opponent as they have neutralised some of the threat that you possess.

• 1 Make Them Pay - Technique

  The technique shared today does not specifically stop them from catching the kick. However, it discourages them from wanting to continue to catch the kick. The idea is to take advantage of the fact that they have exposed their head. Therefore, sacrificing their guard in order to catch your kicking leg. We do this by punching them in the face while their hand/glove (which would usually be protecting the face) is being used to trap your leg.

• 2 Why is this important

  Landing clean kicks to the body without your opponent catching them and then sweeping your supporting leg can be difficult. Although this may not always hurt, this becomes a big issue when the judges are scoring who won the round as they will take into account which fighter appears more dominant when scoring each round. Naturally, The fighter who ended up on the ground more times will appear to be less dominant. Luckily there are some techniques that will discourage your opponent from trying to catch your kick and sweep your leg.

• 3 Additional benefits

  If catching the leg is the only way they know how to deal with getting kicked, it can leave a fighter with no alternative but to wear the kick on their body or arms, allowing the kicker to land highly effective blows, giving them a strong chance of having the rounds scored in their favour.

• 4 Flip the script

  The first time a fighter’s kick is caught, and he/she is swept onto the floor, it can be very discouraging and make a fighter not want to throw any more kicks for the remaining duration of the fight, out of fear for being swept on the ground again. By using this technique shown in the video, we can turn their counter technique against them. This can have the OPPOSITE effect, causing the fighter who caught the kick to no longer to want to catch kicks for the remainder of the fight.

• 5 Practise makes perfect

  It may be hard to get a lot of power behind the punch while standing on one leg. However, it is a great way to break your opponent’s rhythm and disrupt their thought processes. Like all techniques, this one must be practised repetitively in order to become an automatic response in a real fight situation.

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