Starting off as a beginner with no access to live training, I wished I had these muay thai beginner tips available at the time.
It definitely would have made things a bit smoother and speed up the learning process from beginner level.
Below are 6 muay thai beginner tips that would have benefited me greatly when starting out in muay thai. and that will help you progress much faster!
1. Develop Your Hip Mobility
I really wished I had started this out much earlier but I feel this is one of the most under looked muay thai beginner tips.
Thai people have excellent hip mobility and this is evident in how often they squat down to eat or meal or use the toilet.
Muay thai techniques and movement such as the roundhouse kick, knees, blocking and defense all require a good amount of hip mobility.
Especially for kicking.
It would be good to plan out regular sessions per week focusing on your hip mobility in particular.
This is even more so if you work a desk job and are sitting for most of the day.
Mobility is not the same as flexibility or static stretching.
Addressing limiting factors such as lack of strength in specific areas as well as addressing the hip capsule restriction itself are crucial and cannot be worked on through static stretching alone.
Read more about Hip Mobility for Martial Arts
There are a ton, of other resources available online for free that focus on mobility.
I would suggest focusing on the hips for kicking and taking some of the free exercises and movements available online and committing to doing them every week.
In time your hips will feel much looser and your kicks will become more powerful and accurate.
2. Focus on Stance & Footwork
Laying a strong foundation is crucial for a beginner in any pursuit.
And when it comes to muay thai one of the most crucial muay thai beginner tips I can offer anyone is to focus on stance and footwork.
Your foundation comes from the ground up and having the right stance is key to your foundation in muay thai.
The muay thai stance itself is quite distinct from kickboxing, karate, tae kwan do or boxing.
There are reasons behind the unique muay thai stance and why it is structured the way it is.
Stance is also crucial to a muay thai practitioners style and whether they favour kicks over punches and knees, their mobility, implementing more defensive tactics, switching stance or aiming to engage more in the clinch.
The muay thai basic footwork in moving forward, back, lead side and rear side is more similar to traditional boxing and other striking martial arts.
Overall it is important to remember that a strong foundation will lead on to learning more high level techniques and executing them well.
This comes with spending many rounds practicing stance and basic footwork, repeatedly.
3. Focus on Strength & Conditioning
If you do intend to seek out a gym and qualified instruction, unless your getting one to one classes it’s likely you will first join group training.
Typical muay thai group training is quite tough and last up to 2 hours a session.
A big component of group training is physical conditioning which consists of a lot of pushups and situps, and running.
These are essential components, especially in traditional muay thai gyms.
Therefore I would integrate these ‘core’ exercises into your training.
For example if your doing 6 rounds for a session, at the end of each round before you take your designated rest do 10 pushups or situps or both!
Before your normal 6 round session you could start off with an easy 10-15 min jog then move onto a round or two of skipping then into your more technical/skill work.
If you are training alone it’s easy to leave out the hard stuff so you want to make sure you include some cardio conditioning as well as strength training, especially if you are planning on visiting a gym later.
This will go a long way to keeping you healthy and in the game for the long run.
Also the less quickly you tire out the faster you will learn. Fatigue and tiredness cloud your thinking and concentration.
The fitter you are the more technique you can absorb and learn and rep out with good form for longer.
4. Repetition is Key!
As Bruce Lee said:
“I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times”
Whether your’e practicing your round kicks, jabs, knees or any other technique, repetitions are key.
You have to put the reps in.
You have to find good instruction for a particular technique you wish to master and you have to drill it.
Repeat the technique and repeat the technique until it becomes ingrained in your system and becomes a natural movement that over time you wont even have to think about it will just come out naturally.
This leads onto the next beginner tip, While you may be putting in the time and reps it’s important that what you are practicing and repeating is technically sound and in good form.
5. Technique Before Power!
This is another very crucial muay thai beginner tip. And a mistake many beginners make which is going for power before developing good technique and form.
I would suggest videoing yourself practicing individual techniques either in shadow boxing or on the heavy bag.
Watch yourself and compare your technique and movement with an instructional video that breaks down the techniques.
Be honest with yourself and try to set out times at the end of rounds to work on areas where your lacking. i.e not protecting your face with your hand when throwing a kick.
If you see your hand dropping then make a point to repeat the technique correctly for 20 times at the end of a round.
Similarly check your form on your kicks and all other techniques as you improve by correcting and perfecting your form and execution.
6. Seek Help & Ask Questions!
Before or after training at a gym you could seek help and get tips from more experienced students.
In a normal group class the instructor doesn’t usually have time to review and correct every student’s technique.
Alternatively there are online forums and communities with more experienced practitioners who are always willing to help out if you are willing to post a video of yourself and put yourself out there to be critiqued.
I think this is also a great way to learn and improve – by listening to advice and adjusting your technique and training accordingly.
My high school math teacher used to tell us, “Practice doesn’t make perfect. Practice makes permanent.”
In other words if you’re practicing something the wrong way it will become ingrained in your movement over time if you keep practicing this.
You must pay attention to how a technique is instructed or taught by more experienced people and qualified teachers.
Only by following their instruction can you ensure you instill good habits and good technique.
7. Make a Long Term Commitment
Martial arts is a lifelong journey and as long as you are consistent you will improve.
Be consistent and make sure you plan out your week to include time for training and practice. Even if you can only put in one or two 30 minute sessions per week this is way, way better than not doing any training at all.
If you are consistent and improve little by little over time your progress will be remarkable over the coming months and years.
As long as you keep progressing consistently and don’t give up you will continue to improve in your muay thai and reap the benefits that you have laid in your foundational training.
Muay Thai Beginner Tips: Wrap Up
As someone starting out in muay thai, there are definitely areas you should focus on.
And while many gyms and instructors offer excellent guidance, in my experience the muay thai beginner tips discussed above are not always made clear to beginners.
And this is especially if you are trying to learn muay thai form home, solo. If this is the case then the muay thai beginner tips presented in this post will really help you develop in a solid fashion.
