Muay Thai is one of the most potent combat sports you could train. Whether it’s for self-defence or building physical strength, the list of benefits is nearly endless. At the same time, with how much training goes into mastering the sport, you may be wondering: how long does it take to learn Muay Thai?
The short answer is, it depends on what you’re looking to get out of the experience. There’s no single way to go about learning a sport as rich and varied as this. While you’ll be devoting a lot of time and energy, the rate at which you progress depends on a number of factors.
So how long does it take to learn Muay Thai on average? Read on to find out!
What is Muay Thai?
Muay Thai is considered the national sport of Thailand, and it involves the use of fists, feet, knees, and elbows to land blows and absorb incoming attacks. For this reason, it’s referred to as The Art of Eight Limbs. This is also the main thing that sets it apart from sports like kickboxing or taekwondo.
From round and jump kicks to spear elbows and clinch knee attacks, the repertoire of moves in Muay Thai is more vast than in most other sports. This is one of the reasons it takes some Nak Muays several years before they even consider going competitive.
Even still, one of the many upsides of training Muay Thai is how applicable it is in a real-world setting. The sport has gone through centuries of optimisation to ensure that each move is maximally efficient. The attacks are never flashy for flashiness’ sake, but rather the result of many years of filtering out the ineffectual approaches to fighting.
What this means in practice is, that you’re getting a fighting style that’s amazing for controlling the distance between you and your opponent, not to mention one that offers enough different moves to get you through a wide variety of situations. Given your wide arsenal, you can expect to learn the essentials of crowd control and diffusing difficult situations, as well as a mastery over kicks, which relatively few assailants will be prepared to deal with in a street fight.
Factors That Go Into Learning Muay Thai
Body type
The nice thing about Muay Thai is that it lets you attack and defend in a number of different ways. This means you can always attempt to offset your shortcomings by focusing on your strengths instead. At the same time, there are certain bodily features that make it easier to learn the sport.
People with long legs, good flexibility, and a lean, slender build will have an inherent advantage in the training process. The bulk of the action in Muay Thai boils down to landing kicks from a variety of ranges, as well as making snap-second judgments in close quarters on how to use your elbows and knees. People with a longer reach and an ability to land angled elbow strikes have a leg up on the competition.
Similarly, having well-toned legs counts for a lot more in the early stages than a developed upper body. Of course, this is not to say that punches aren’t crucial. Still, whether it’s balance or kick potency, your legs are arguably your most important asset in Muay Thai.
Training frequency
There’s no magic number of training sessions per week you need to put in to get good at Muay Thai. Generally, though, the best Nak Muays will practise every other day, if not more.
It’ll take some time before you’re ready to square off against another fighter, so the best thing you can do for yourself is take three to four days a week to practise the fundamentals and develop proper technique.
The most important thing is learning to accept when you’ve reached your limits. It’s easy to get impatient when you’ve invested significant time and energy into learning something, only to feel you aren’t making any significant progress. This is made that much more complicated by the fact that there’s no formal belt system in Muay Thai, as it helps people doing other combat sports keep their eyes on the prize.
On the other hand, the long-term payoffs of practising Muay Thai are massive. In fact, you probably won’t need a gym regimen outside of your Muay Thai training. Not to mention, when you finally get to the point where you enter the ring (assuming this is what you’re after, of course), the feeling of fulfilment is unlike anything else in martial arts.
Sparring
Both light and heavy sparring can play a huge role in training Muay Thai. Sure, the combination of running, shadowboxing, bag training, and full-body exercises are potent in and of themselves. But, when it comes to actually learning to fight, nothing beats jumping into the ring with a full set of Muay Thai gear and duking it out.
That said, Muay Thai is not just about winning matches. Respecting opponents’ commitment to the regimen and their attachment to Thailand’s cultural heritage are at the core of the sport. For this reason, sparring is not a compulsory component of most Muay Thai gyms.
Most people start to get comfortable with the basics of Muay Thai at around the six-month mark. That said, this is still too early to think about serious fighting. You can attempt light sparring around the half-year point, and a year in, you should be able to simulate a real match through a bout of heavy sparring.
FAQs
Is training Muay Thai expensive?
Whichever combat sport you decide to practise, investing a bit of money is practically inevitable. You’ll need a good pair of fight shorts, rash guards for training, and MMA gloves to help with your clinches. Then there’s the obscene number of Namman Muay Thai oil bottles you’ll go through, especially as a beginner with a tendency to overexert.
At the same time, it’s hard to say that Muay Thai requires more investment than other sports. If you’re still on the fence about whether you’re ready to commit, you can get some entry-level Twins equipment and work your way up from there.
Is Muay Thai harder than other combat sports?
In a way, “How long does it take to learn Muay Thai?” and “Is Muay Thai difficult?” are different questions. Sure, the time it takes to get properly good at Muay Thai is on the above-average side. On top of that, you have to exert yourself a lot before you feel like you’ve made any meaningful progress.
Still, graduating from knowing nothing at all to understanding the core mechanics of the sport isn’t as impossible as a lot of people might think. Also, you have to take into account that, with sparring and competing not being compulsory, Muay Thai is arguably a lot less mentally taxing than a sport where victories and competitive performance are the goal.
Then there’s the gradient of difficulty in the moves themselves, and there are a lot of them in Muay Thai. Learning the basic jabs and distance control kicks is easy enough, but things get more complicated when you start doing jumping spin kicks and segueing from punches into kicks. Add to that the amount of shin conditioning that goes into building up a defence, and things get undeniably harder.
All in all, whether Muay Thai is harder than other sports depends on how you measure it. With the right mindset and degree of dedication, no combat sport is ever completely off the table for anyone.
Conclusion
So how long does it take to learn Muay Thai? You can argue you never fully “learn” Muay Thai. Getting better is a constant process of trial and error, and no matter how much training you put in, you’ll find a person who can humble you with the amount of effort and dedication they’ve put in.
Generally, though, it can take six to twelve months to get a solid grasp on the key moves and stances. At around five years, you should be ready to go up against other trained fighters on a semi-regular basis.
Don’t let these numbers scare you off, though. The process of learning Muay Thai alone is a reward in and of itself, and it can improve your health and mindset in ways that few other combat sports can.
Boost your training IQ with more reads inside the Muay Thai blog category.