How proficient are Muay Thai guys at throws compared to Judokas?

[vcmmafan]

How good are Muay Thai guys at throws compared to the martial art where the main goal is to throw your opponent? lol great question

 

[Balto]

I have some experience with both styles.

Throwing in Muay Thai means something way different than throwing in Judo. It's due to the rules. So in that sense, it's not really comparable.

If you mean how would they match up in the clinch under some kind of MMA ruleset, the Judo guy will dominate in the clinch easily. At least that's been my experience with the general level of both in the USA. I know the Thai guys are probably better in Thailand, but the Judo guys are also better in Japan. All things equal, the Judo guy will have no issues in clinching range.

There's a reason you don't see much old school, traditional Muay Thai clinching in MMA. That clinch style is very vulnerable to a grappler. Against a Judo guy, wrestler, or even a BJJ guy who knows one takedown, a traditional Muay Thai clinch gets taken down fast.

Of course there will be exceptions. But I've seen this general rule hold many times in MMA training.

 

[Balto]

Yes 45 minutes was a very very long time. It wasnt all out, or anywhere near it for that matter. It was just practicing the pummeling with light knees using the inner thighs and dumps. Still was exhausting.

I've sparred in the clinch for around that length of time in America too. It is common enough to find in a traditional type Muay Thai gym I think, even in the USA.

 

[Balto]

Do they actually teach throws in MT or is it just something people boot leg over the course of their experience, and just feel like it is a cool thing to do, and I can probably get away with it?

They're taught as actual techniques on par with the strikes. There is a definitely a real technique to them. It takes years to get good at them.

I'm pretty horrible at Muay Thai style dumps actually. One major block for me is that the techniques are designed to work within a rule set that bans the most effective grappling techniques. Wrestling and Judo takedowns are just so much more effective and direct, even when strikes are allowed too.

Unless you plan on fighting pure Muay Thai rules, I just don't see a lot of practical benefit to dedicating major time to the techniques. And they are heavily timing based, so they seem to be harder to learn at a basic level than Judo throws.

 

[SummerStriker]

They're taught as actual techniques on par with the strikes. There is a definitely a real technique to them. It takes years to get good at them.

I'm pretty horrible at Muay Thai style dumps actually. One major block for me is that the techniques are designed to work within a rule set that bans the most effective grappling techniques. Wrestling and Judo takedowns are just so much more effective and direct, even when strikes are allowed too.

Unless you plan on fighting pure Muay Thai rules, I just don't see a lot of practical benefit to dedicating major time to the techniques. And they are heavily timing based, so they seem to be harder to learn at a basic level than Judo throws.

You have a ton of time to take a shot at them in a full three round match, so even if they are hard, you could eventually get around to it if you are good enough.

 

[RJ Green]

judo before muay thai will help considerably.
with clinchwork, especially if its mma sparring. muay thai before judo is better than nothing but not particularly ideal unless youre gonna randori with teeps and leg kicks.

 

[KBE6EKCTAH_CCP]

Being a (poor) judoka helps me alot with sweeps and clinching in MT.

Being a poor MT practitioner does not help me much in judo.

 

[NAKMUAY18]

There's a lot miss information in this thread.....
If a gym does 10mins of clinch per hour of training, it's a gym with shitty clinchers. If any of those gyms go above regional level they'll get owned.
Reeping or hooking the standing leg is illegal, however you can kick through the with shin or foot.
Tripping somebody over your anchord foot is not illegal, and is in fact one of the most basic throws.
Catching kicks isn't even considered clinching

Hip tossing is illegal, and that's why a judoka would would dump a nakmuay in pure grappling all day and all night. A basic premise with MT clinch is that if your hips are separated there's room to throw knees straight down the pipe, so when you bind on you square off your stance to your opponent an go "cup to cup", hips in. This takes away room for knees, however it makes you venerable to hip tosses, and bear hugs (grip hands around lower back, drive your forehead under their chin), so these have been conviniently made illegal.
To stop "cheap" takedowns from knees it's also illegal to overhook a leg when your oppo knees (you can under hook it however) and reep the standing leg.

A basic rule of thumb is if your hips are separated think about knees, if their hips are close look for unbalancing, dumps and elbows. Unbalancing is as important as throw, because the idea is to make your oppo stumble and leave openings for strikes. In that respect its the same as all the "Vs" threads, a Judoka would murder them at judo and then get smashed in an MT clinch only scenario. A Nakmuay could keep hips out, off balance and knee strike all night. Another thing this is that pure grapplers like under hooks, which is great until somebody starts elbowing you in the face.


I'm in danger of a text wall so I'll stop!!!

 

[GloryOfIran]

There was a video on facebook recently where they got a thai and a judoka to test this and they had a good spar. In free rules the judoka will have better grappling, but if you only allow the grappling of muay thai they would not win. Clinching is a huge part of muay thai. Its not really a striking art, its a hybrid art.

 

[rmongler]

"Let's ban their techniques to prove we're better."
- t. nag moy

 

[NAKMUAY18]

Being a (poor) judoka helps me alot with sweeps and clinching in MT.

Being a poor MT practitioner does not help me much in judo.

Not doubt, I'll bet that judo has improved your balance and body position way more for your grappling than MT clinch has. There can be crossovers from MT however. MT clinch lends itself to Greco wrestling styles. If you have a strong clinch and want to transition to pure grappling, arm drag, duck unders, and even knee taps become good adaptation.

"Let's ban their techniques to prove we're better."
- t. nag moy

MT is a ring sport, the rules are made made to make the fights more exciting. There's a million ways to make it more effective on "da streetz" but it's just a game.

 

[Uchi Mata]

Yes 45 minutes was a very very long time. It wasnt all out, or anywhere near it for that matter. It was just practicing the pummeling with light knees using the inner thighs and dumps. Still was exhausting.

Most of the MT sparring I've seen actual Thais do is very light. I get the impression they learn to fight in the ring from a young age, so their sparring can be more laid back and timing oriented. Personally I much prefer that style, makes your skills better and doesn't lead to anywhere near the same number of injuries and bout cancellations as hard sparring all the time. Not that it proves anything, but Floyd Mayweather and Conor MacGregor are both really big advocates of long, low intensity sparring sessions, as are Eastern Bloc wrestling coaches and Japanese Judoka.

 

[Uchi Mata]

Not doubt, I'll bet that judo has improved your balance and body position way more for your grappling than MT clinch has. There can be crossovers from MT however. MT clinch lends itself to Greco wrestling styles. If you have a strong clinch and want to transition to pure grappling, arm drag, duck unders, and even knee taps become good adaptation.


MT is a ring sport, the rules are made made to make the fights more exciting. There's a million ways to make it more effective on "da streetz" but it's just a game.

I wish more people got this about literally all combat sports.

 

[jack36767]

Most of the MT sparring I've seen actual Thais do is very light. I get the impression they learn to fight in the ring from a young age, so their sparring can be more laid back and timing oriented. Personally I much prefer that style, makes your skills better and doesn't lead to anywhere near the same number of injuries and bout cancellations as hard sparring all the time. Not that it proves anything, but Floyd Mayweather and Conor MacGregor are both really big advocates of long, low intensity sparring sessions, as are Eastern Bloc wrestling coaches and Japanese Judoka.

John smith addresses this in a coaches clinic a couple months ago when showing good chain wrestling drills to local high school coaches. A wrestling coach from the Ukraine had presented the day before and said he preferred long low intensity sparring/playing over hard drilling. And Smith talked about how while this is a good way of training, automatically saying it's the "best" way doesn't take into account "who" is practicing. The people who train like this in the eastern block and in Thailand have multiple practices a day, don't have to worry about school or a job or having teammates who didn't even know the sport existed until age 15. Smith talked about how sometimes you want chaos and the kids just hustling and putting things together and being aggressive. Another component of the slower sparring is that its to prevent burnout.

It is really hard to implement this type of practice unless you have people that have done the combat art for at least 5-10 years at a serious level from everything I've seen

 

[Thaijitsu612]

Most of the MT sparring I've seen actual Thais do is very light. I get the impression they learn to fight in the ring from a young age, so their sparring can be more laid back and timing oriented. Personally I much prefer that style, makes your skills better and doesn't lead to anywhere near the same number of injuries and bout cancellations as hard sparring all the time. Not that it proves anything, but Floyd Mayweather and Conor MacGregor are both really big advocates of long, low intensity sparring sessions, as are Eastern Bloc wrestling coaches and Japanese Judoka.

Yeah whenever we sparred our coach really emphasized light technical sparring. I very much prefer it. Less injuries and no one getting concussions in training. My boxing coach is the opposite.

 

[Thaijitsu612]

John smith addresses this in a coaches clinic a couple months ago when showing good chain wrestling drills to local high school coaches. A wrestling coach from the Ukraine had presented the day before and said he preferred long low intensity sparring/playing over hard drilling. And Smith talked about how while this is a good way of training, automatically saying it's the "best" way doesn't take into account "who" is practicing. The people who train like this in the eastern block and in Thailand have multiple practices a day, don't have to worry about school or a job or having teammates who didn't even know the sport existed until age 15. Smith talked about how sometimes you want chaos and the kids just hustling and putting things together and being aggressive. Another component of the slower sparring is that its to prevent burnout.

It is really hard to implement this type of practice unless you have people that have done the combat art for at least 5-10 years at a serious level from everything I've seen

I think there is some truth to that but I would argue hard sparring should be saved for more experienced fighters not the other way around. I feel most beginners develop bad habits when thrown in to the deep end with someone trying to take their head off.

Also when I say light sparring people often think we are just tapping each other. We throw with enough speed that you still have to respect the strikes, it is just "light" in comparison to gyms that basically do smokers every time they spar.

Your thighs wI'll still be sore til you get use to it, body shots can still wind you, but no one should be getting ktfo in training IMO. I'm obviously not an expert but I think I've seen a major difference in the longevity of fighters who go balls to the wall and those who dont.

 

[jack36767]

I think there is some truth to that but I would argue hard sparring should be saved for more experienced fighters not the other way around. I feel most beginners develop bad habits when thrown in to the deep end with someone trying to take their head off.

Also when I say light sparring people often think we are just tapping each other. We throw with enough speed that you still have to respect the strikes, it is just "light" in comparison to gyms that basically do smokers every time they spar.

Your thighs wI'll still be sore til you get use to it, body shots can still wind you, but no one should be getting ktfo in training IMO. I'm obviously not an expert but I think I've seen a major difference in the longevity of fighters who go balls to the wall and those who dont.

I don't disagree but I think drilling should be emphasized way more for beginners, with every variation possible and brought along.

 

[Uchi Mata]

Yeah whenever we sparred our coach really emphasized light technical sparring. I very much prefer it. Less injuries and no one getting concussions in training. My boxing coach is the opposite.

I don't get that, especially in boxing. Heavy bags and thai pads are for hitting as hard as you can. People are for seeing if you can touch them at all, learning how to read them, distance management, timing, figuring out how to set things up and then cash in later, etc. It's not that hard to hit someone really hard if you have the opening, but recognizing/creating the opening in the first place is the hard part.

 

[Uchi Mata]

John smith addresses this in a coaches clinic a couple months ago when showing good chain wrestling drills to local high school coaches. A wrestling coach from the Ukraine had presented the day before and said he preferred long low intensity sparring/playing over hard drilling. And Smith talked about how while this is a good way of training, automatically saying it's the "best" way doesn't take into account "who" is practicing. The people who train like this in the eastern block and in Thailand have multiple practices a day, don't have to worry about school or a job or having teammates who didn't even know the sport existed until age 15. Smith talked about how sometimes you want chaos and the kids just hustling and putting things together and being aggressive. Another component of the slower sparring is that its to prevent burnout.

It is really hard to implement this type of practice unless you have people that have done the combat art for at least 5-10 years at a serious level from everything I've seen

That's a really key point, and it's one I need to keep in mind because my focus is mostly on coaching myself and a small group of training partners who have been doing combat sports for at least 8-10 years each, but it wouldn't work with beginners. I'm much more worried about injury and burnout prevention than I am trying to make people mentally and physically tough. Everyone I train with regularly already is mentally and physically tough, we just need to make it to the match/fight intact and healthy (doesn't help that we're all old in fight years, mostly early to mid 30s). I would definitely not want to take a bunch of kids who don't know shit and just say 'takedowns back and forth, moderate resistance, for the next half hour'.

 

[Uchi Mata]

I think there is some truth to that but I would argue hard sparring should be saved for more experienced fighters not the other way around. I feel most beginners develop bad habits when thrown in to the deep end with someone trying to take their head off.

Also when I say light sparring people often think we are just tapping each other. We throw with enough speed that you still have to respect the strikes, it is just "light" in comparison to gyms that basically do smokers every time they spar.

Your thighs wI'll still be sore til you get use to it, body shots can still wind you, but no one should be getting ktfo in training IMO. I'm obviously not an expert but I think I've seen a major difference in the longevity of fighters who go balls to the wall and those who dont.

Yeah, it should still be sparring. The simplest way to moderate intensity is just to leave your hands more open when you make contact rather than balling hard fists. But it still hurts, just doesn't keep anyone from being effective at work the next day.

Also important to distinguish between grappling and striking. You can grapple much closer to full speed/intensity more often, because you're generally not getting concussed, and there's not the same element of (justified) fear you get if you're a beginner going full speed against someone with some chops. I can wrestle hard against someone with not a lot of grappling experience and not hurt them at all, though it won't be a pleasant experience. If I go to strike with someone who doesn't know how to defend themselves, I'm going to really hurt them if I'm going 100%. And they're either going to quit and never come back, or they're just going to go into a defensive shell all the time and never improve.