Muay Chaiya And Muay Buran

[shaheediyan]

My interest in Martial Arts has lead to me find many interesting connections between Martial Arts throughout SE Asia and India.

I met/trained alongside some French guys abroad in recent months who run a massive Combat Academy in Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean. The Owner of the Academy has studied many martial arts over the last 40 years and is a respected teacher in Kali, Muay Thai, Savate, Ju-Jits, Wing Chun (Ip-Man), JKD and Grappling/MMA.

He has however devised his own devastating system which uses the destructive elements of 2 of Thailands original Warrior Arts - Muay Chaiya and Muay Buran. I was already a fan of Tony Jaa, but seeing some real life applications of this secretive art made me appreciate it even more. It also made me realise that many Muay Thai people out there pretend to have knowledge of these ancient arts and pass of improvised MT as MC and MB.

I love these 2 systems for many reasons - but sadly (as yet) it is near impossible for a foreigner to learn them (Thai are highly protective).

They vary greatly form Muay Thai in that they are not a sport but a killing art - so cannot be used in sport - Muay Thai is the highly watered down and commercial evolution.

The original arts use strikes to highly vulnerable areas, footwork, intelligent movement/positioning, locks and bone breaking/muscle tearing.

In Cinema - Tony Jaa is well known for heavily basing his amazing choreaography on these systems, in which he has received traditional training.

The really great thing is these systems is the various styles (pentrai) they include - which are based on animals and Indian deities.

Having also spoken to a very famous Grand Master/Historian of Filipino Ancestral Combat recently I found that Hindu raj actually extended all the way to the Phillipines up until the 13th/14th C. And many customs, words, martial influences from India are still highly visible in countries like the Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Burma, Indonesia and Phillipines. Most evidently - warrior dress (we compared kacherai :-) is very similar - including most warriors wearing a form a kamarkasa, long loose shorts, headwear (some decorated with ad chands in the form of a blade - to be used in combat also) sharp heavy bangles made of heavy shell which men wear on their arms and use in battle etc etc. The biggest connection is dance - traditional dance and dance dress from all these countries is so, so similar.... the GM also showed me techniques taken directly from dance (poses which exist in Indian dance).

Back to the subject - here is a tiny demo of Muay Chaiya using some manouvres from Hanuman:

Another interesting video:

And one of my favourite cinema fight scenes (sorry Ishwar - I gave you the wrong film - it wasn't Ong-bak but Warrior King that I should've given you, apologies to Bhupinder also :-) This contains some excellent examples of Muay Chaiya combat elements!

Enjoy!

[shaheediyan]

If anyone can find the animal forms Tony Jaa demonstrates at the beginning of the film 'Warrior King' and post the link here also, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

[Laadli Fauj]

you are dhan lol