Muay Thai or Thai Boxing (Thai: มวยไทย, IPA: [muɛ̄j tʰɑ̄j]) is a hard martial art from the Kingdom of Thailand. Muay Thai is similar to the style of other martial arts from Indochina, such as the serey pradal from the Cambodian region, Tomoi from the Malaysian region, lethwei from the Myanmar region and Muay Lao from the Laos region. Muay Thai is a national sport of the Thai Kingdom and a derivative of the ancient martial arts of Muay Boran. At a glance Muay Thai and Kickboxing have almost the same fighting technique.
The word Muay comes from the Sanskrit "mavya" ("martial boxing") and Thai comes from the word "Tai" ("Thai tribe"). Muay Thai is referred to as "the Art of Eight Legs" or "Science of Eight Legs" because the technique is very laden using punches, kicks, elbows and knee attacks, so the use of eight "points of contact", which is different from the "two points" technique in boxing Western style and "four points" (hands and feet) used in sports oriented martial arts. A Muay Thai practitioner is known as nak Muay, while Western, white or non-Southeast Asian practitioners are sometimes called nak Muay farang, which means "foreign boxers".
The formal Muay Thai technique is divided into two groups: "Mae Mai" or "main technique" and "Luk Mai" or "minor technique". Muay Thai is often the art of full contact combat, where opponents exchange blows with each other. This is certainly based on the traditional style of arrangement in the Kingdom of Thailand, but is a form of martial arts that is less popular in the contemporary martial world circuit where the style of exchanging blows with Thai style is no longer profitable. Almost all techniques in Muay Thai use whole body movements, rotating the hips with every kick, punch, elbow and field.