What is Muay Boran? A perspective.

The translation of Muay Boran is ancient boxing, ‘Muay’ meaning boxing and ‘Boran’ meaning Ancient but I believe there is a lot lost in the translation, from my point of view ‘Muay’ represents fighting as the term boxing by definition relates to sport and the ancient fighting skills referred to in ‘Muay Boran’ came from the battlefield in life and death situations. Therefore the ‘Muay’ in ‘Muay Boran’ encompasses all the fighting styles of the Thai nation which include all skills including the use of weaponry (Krabi-krabong) and fighting strategies.

Krabi-krabong in translation is sword (Krabi) and Staff (krabong) but is really in reference to the weapons used in Muay Boran of which there are many, if you consider the fact that the Thai people where farmers they would not always have swords they may use simple farming so the weapons would be; bow & arrows, spears, swords, farming tools, knives, Axes or maybe a club fashioned from a tree branch. A great example of the use of this weaponry can be seen in a movie called “Bang-Rajan the Legend of the Village Warriors” the movie which is based on a true story has many quite gory examples of how these weapons may be used.