Muay Thai at Phuket Boxing Stadium

Muay Thai

The Muay Thai Ring

Waiitng for the matches to start

Seats were quite comfortable, better than movies seats

Posters from the ceiling of the stadium

Thought this was where the Commentator sat, but it was the band.

The Band

Spectators

Timer Keeper

Garlands

Referees

 

The first fight....my heart sang when I saw they were kids, 15 years old on the right and 13 years old on the left.  Boy in the centre paid to take picture with fighters,

Praying at the side before fight

More prayers

Intense look from a spectator

Advice from the Referee

The Ring

Boys bored before the match started

The Match

Intense fight

The assistants

rubs downs and cleaning of the fighter in between rounds - 5 rounds per match

The Referee for that match

The opponents side

very fight was pretty tough

High kick

For small boys it was a good fight

The Boys amazed at what they saw

Trainer on the Blue side

Assistants

Advice from the Trainer

Phuket Dragon Muay Thai Club

Blow in th head

At the ropes - Referee breaks fight

Another lock

Match 2

Blue Team entourage watching fight intensely

watching every move

Blow after blow

Red Team mate shouting instructions

Muay Thai (Thai: มวยไทย, RTGS: Muai Thai, IPA: [mūɛj tʰāj]) is a combat sport from Thailand that uses stand-up striking along with various clinching techniques. It is similar to other Indochinese styles, namely pradal serey from Cambodia, tomoi from Malaysia, lethwei from Myanmar and Muay Lao from Laos. Descended from muay boran, Muay Thai is Thailand's national sport.^[1][2][3][4]

The word muay derives from the Sanskrit mavya. Muay Thai is referred to as the "Art of Eight Limbs" or the "Science Of Eight Limbs" because it makes use of punches, kicks, elbows and knee strikes, thus using eight "points of contact", as opposed to "two points" (fists) in boxing and "four points" (hands and feet) used in other more regulated martial arts sports, such as kickboxing, boxing, and savate.^[5] A practitioner of Muay Thai is known as a nak muay. Western practitioners are sometimes called nak muay farang, meaning "foreign boxer."^[6]

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muay_Thai