It is important to explain that the aim of the Sangha Muay Thai School is not to promote any particular style of martial arts or to protect the martial arts heritage of any country. In the Sangha School, the skills that we teach are used to help humankind regardless of nationality, race or religion. The skills don’t belong to anyone, to any country, or to any association. Muay Sangha uses what is useful in the present day and gets rid of what is not. Here are the similarities and differences between Muay Sangha and other styles of Muay Thai.
Muay Thai Sangha and Competition Muay Thai – Similarities
Muay Thai Sangha uses many training routines from Competition Muay Thai – building stamina through cardiovascular workouts, striking power and developing determination and mental strength through pain tolerance.
Muay Thai Sangha and Muay Thai Chaiya – Similarities
Muay Thai Sangha has borrowed some fighting strategies and concepts of movement as well as some of the counter-techniques from Muay Thai Chaiya because of their effectiveness.
Muay Thai Sangha and other styles of Muay Thai – Differences
The first and most important difference between Muay Sangha and the other Muay Thai styles is the esoteric direction in our training. Muay Thai Sangha puts emphasis on the development of the body, the mind, and the spirit through specific Internal training methods. The ultimate goal of the Sangha Muay Thai system is to reinforce the students’ talents so they can grow as further as possible. In today’s Muay Thai world, the Muay Thai Sangha School is the only one that teaches this way.
The second outstanding difference is related to multi-opponents fighting. Muay Thai Sangha has studied, practiced, and developed aspects from many different South-East Asian martial arts. Specific footwork, attacks, and counter-attacks have been developed to be able to deal with front, side, and rear attacks coming at the same time.
Other styles of Muay Thai are mainly based on dealing with a single opponent. This can be seen from the footwork and position of the body in these styles.
The third difference is also very important – grappling. Because Muay Thai Sangha has not been built just for the ring, it has borrowed techniques from many styles of standing-up grappling and ground-fighting. Many varieties of take-downs have been incorporated to overcome the rule-based limitations of other Muay Thai styles. A brief system about ground-fighting curriculum has been incorporated to provide skills that help our survival on the ground.
Many styles of Muay Thai have not yet reached deeply into the grappling arts and we believe that to be a limitation.
The fourth difference is that in our Muay Thai Sangha style “forbidden points striking” (to the eyes, throat, groin, and headbutt) are included in the training. This means that many techniques from competition or other styles of Muay Thai are dangerously exposed for an incoming attack.
The last difference is related to our health. Students in the Muay Thai Sangha School practice internal methods to develop strong bones, tendons, and breathing patterns to increase the flow of life force in the body.
The Muay Sangha School believes in being at the leading edge of evolution. Kru Pedro thinks that is very important for martial artists to evolve rather than to be attached to a single style. We see classical martial arts as a point of reference to start learning. When the concepts of movement are understood and practiced, it’s time to become empty again and continue learning.
The main objective of Muay Thai Sangha is the inner growth of humankind and not its destruction.
