Thai Boxing: The Devastating Fighting Art of Thailand
Author: Samyon Tanjawon
Published 1975

I bought this book so you won't have to. Seriously, do not buy this book. This is 80 some pages of the worst pictures ever depicting Muay Thai. It was so bad I couldn't be bothered to scan an image to show you. Edit: Found one on the web, know the face of your nemesis!

I have some other books from this time period and they look nothing like this. It can't be that the art has changed this much, as those other books look like Muay Thai. This doesn't look like any martial art. The kicking pictures in particular are horrid. Arms flailing every which way and hitting with the sole of the foot sort of like a crescent kick motion. Really I have no idea how anyone could learn from this book.

Having said that there are some interesting shots of the Mae Mai and Luk Mai in the middle section of the book. They aren't identified as such but they are in there. The Distinguished Art of Fighting is a better book for this though. Please do yourself a favour and buy it instead.

KickBoxing- Muay Thai - The Art of Siamese Unarmed Combat
Author: Hardy Stockman
Cover price $2.95 US - I paid about $20 after shipping.
96 pages

Yes Virginia there was a Muay Thai before the late 90's. Okay we all know there was but it seemed that there was a boom in popularity in North America then. Maybe it's just me but there seems to have been a huge influx of books and tapes on the subject recently. Anyhow it nice to see something from before the boost in popularity. Way back in 1976 this, now out of print, book hit the market.

As this book was published before the rest of the western books I've seen so far I guess I can't say it follows the trend of chapter order. In this case it may be the trend setter. Anyhow, the familiar History, Tradition,Basics and Combos formula makes an appearance. There are a few extras though.

An interesting section on the economics of Muay Thai is found early in the book. Found here is an interesting insight to the tiny amounts of money Thai fighters get paid for professional bouts. The numbers are from the 70's so I won't quote them here. They are outdated but I can imagine that adjusted for modern times there are kids in the ring for less than 5$ US even now.

Another interesting section is called Muay Thai vs. the rest. These 5 pages near the end of the book relate stories of Thai boxers beating pretty much everyone else no matter the styles practiced. Now I am sure there is truth to these stories and I don't question the effectiveness of the techniques having been on the receiving end enough times. I think though the rise of the Internet and the Internet/Keyboard Warriors that espouse these style vs style arguements and create their own demi-gods have desensitized me to this type of discussion. Too bad really, as I imagine in 1976 these stories may have made for better conversations than what is found out there in cyberspace now. Probably these anecdotes form the basis of the myths passed around now.

This book is well made, mine is like new though I got it used from EBay, so it was built to last. This was the first time I saw this volume offered for auction but I don't go there everyday looking so I am sure another could be found if someone is willing to try. The book is mostly text, for a thin volume there is a lot to read. The pictures are black and white, mostly decent except for a horrendous set depicting a Ram Muay that pappears to have caught the performer in between every move of any real note.

For interest sake alone I stick this in the middle of the pack of Muay Thai books I have. There are some interesting bits not found in the more modern tomes, including a pretty darn good glossary. Really the presentation, though basic and brief, is in some cases better than newer books.

MuaY Thai Kickboxing:
The Ultimate Guide to Conditioning, Training & Fighting
Author: Chad Boykin
207 Pages
$28 US / $34 Canadian

I like this book. It does not cover a huge range of techniques. The basics are well covered and clearly demonstrated. The strength of this book is in the amount of training drills provided. Only one spot near the back in the conditioning section had any typos that I noticed. It starts describing a squat thrust, runs into a unrelated picture and then skips to a new exercise. Other than this small error the layout is well done. The pictures are, black and white and easy to follow.

The book starts with a thankfully small history section. I say that as it offers nothing new compared to all the other history sections of Muay Thai books I have read. Matter of fact this book references the others. Nothing original here but I think that is ok.

Chapter 2 is the basic strikes. As noted nothing extravagent here either. Once very nice thing in theses 55 pages is the inclusion of a basic defense move following each demonstration of the strike. I like this format a lot. Also this section includes a decent intro to the plamb clinch. I always like to see that.

Chapter 3 is the money well spent. It starts with the basics of pad hitting. (Authors listen up: we need a good section on holding, it is an art) The it moves to page after page of ideas for combos to train on pads, bags, alone , with a partner, drills for every occassion. Really as a person who runs a class I have lots of experience thinking up decent drills (some not so decent too) but it is nice to have a resource of things to try out. Now these weren't all new to me but with over 200 combos listed I will be looking here for fresh ideas when I need them. If you need help thinking up drills, buy this book now.

I could have stopped reading the book at this point and been happy. The Thaiboxing for the street section is too small to be worthwhile and though the conditioning section was very well done I could just rip out the weight training. I am no expert but I don't see how tricep kickbacks belong in a serious weight trainer's program. There are good exercises too; the squat, deadlift, powerclean, it's just that in my eyes a beginner won't know which are which and treat them all equally. The bio in the back credits Mr Boykin as certified personal trainer, I just don't put much stock in those courses unfortunately as they are designed to train the casual gym goer/soccer mom, not a fighter.

Still I liked the book. I put it number 2 on my list behind, the tied for first, Distinguished and Legacy books. It does cover lots of good info, even in the sections I scored lower. Chapter 3 really is worth the purchase price for reuse value.

Muay Thai Basics: Introductory Thai Boxing Techniques
Author: Christoph Delp
Blue Snake Books
211 Pages
Cover price 26.95 Canadian.


I happened to pick this up at a Chapters store in Moncton, NB while passing through. My wife rolled her eyes as I got back into the car toting yet another Thaiboxing book, especially another marked basics. Oh well I am a sucker.

This book follows the all too common progression of martial arts books. Part 1 is background and tradition, Part 2 is basic skills and so on. You won't find too much new in these sections if you have other Muay Thai books but the author does have some interesting presentation.

The quality of the book is A-1. Pictures are all clear, in sync with the text and relevant to the flow of the work. In so many book yoiu get a picture of a person in mid move that really could be a shot of any technique. Not so in this book, good quality photos throughout.

Parts 3,4 and 5 are the meat of this book. Again it is an introductory text so nothing too exciting. If you are a beginner though the techniques found in these pages will lend you an understanding of the moves you should be working on first and gives you a taste of more advance items like the spinning heel kick and jumping round kick. Something I really liked about these sections are the big bright yellow boxes at the end of each weapon section. These boxes have a good amount of wisdom on common mistakes made during the preceeding attack types. It is worth the chapter just to read those.

Part 3, Chapter 7 is a nice find, a chapter in a Thaiboxing book on the plamb clinch. Many books leave this valuable set of techniques out all together, so if it is important to you, you may want to pick up this book for these 10 pages of explanation. It covers the basic stance, offbalancing and a series of knee strikes. More than enough for a beginning clincher.

Most of the rest of the book covers some simple combinations to use to train the basics covered. Again nothing too fancy but the point is to kick thousands of times to get the technique right not to learn some fancy thing you can't really do. The book goes over different combinations on pads and against a person, lots of variety should keep the boredom away.

One highlight right at the end is a small section on historical training. I always like these bits. It helps remind me that I get to do this sport for fun. Some people, historically and presently put themsleves through hell for what I would consider little recompense but to them is a treasure and a way to keep their families alive. Practice, have fun but remember the roots of the art and if you are new to it, this book would be helpful to you overall. Though I think the Legacy book is slightly better.

Fighting Strategies of Muay Thai
Author: Mark Van Schuyver with Kru Pedro Solana Villalobos
Pages: ~130

Another skinny Muay Thai book. I bought mine cheap on Ebay but last I looked it was still available online at Chapters.ca and Amazon. There is no cover price on my copy but it runs low. You should be able to get it for around $20.

I have mixed thoughts on this book. It is well written and clearly explained. The production quality is good. Unfortunately the whole book reads more as a commercial for Villalobos' school than a book about Muay Thai. To me it comes off resoundingly tacky.

Although clearly presented there is nothing new in the history or technique sections of this book. Usually there is some insight to why a move is done or an explanation that tackles the art from a different perspective, that is not the case in this volume.

The book moves into a training section where more advertisement occurs: "Since Villalobos has 12 bags in his school..." Who cares, is this guy the only person to have bags hanging? Would have been better presented as 'with access to a heavybag you can do this...' The book is full of little appeals to the person Villalobos not the art of Muay Thai. It drove me nuts.

The weight training section of this book is thankfully short. Ignore it completely and get a better book on sports conditioning. What is printed in the book is once again credited as Villalobos' personal workout, like we should do it just because he does, no science or logic at all.

The sections on fighter types and battle strategy are almost as hokey. Questionaires help you determine which type you are so you can better adjust you training. Not bad in theory I guess but I sum my thoughts up this way: One of the photos in this section shows Villalobos looming over four kneeling fighters and the caption reads "Villalobos and all four types of fighters: aggressive, elusive, counter and tricky. As a universal fighter, Villalobos uses all four styles." How does this guy stand up with his head swollen up like that. Considering he is credited with 15 fights in the back of the book I question his right to the title Universal Soldier or whatever.

There are some good parts to the volume. The glimpse of Villalobos curriculum is interesting and the standard Muay Thai training regimen is worthy of a quick look. There is a short vocabulary included which may make a nice reference.

Overall the book is low on my list of recommendations. These two: Legacy and Distinguished are much better use of money. The section on Thailand which is noted in the subtitle "Secrets of Thailand's Fighting Camps" is a few pages long, the rest is a basic commercial.

Thai Boxing Dynamite: The Explosive Art of Muay Thai
Author: Zoran Rebac
116 Pages

First thing you'll notice is this is a skinny book. Because of the small number of pages there isn't a lot of room to be real thourough in covering the art. Like most books on the subject it has sections on history and origins of Thaiboxing, basics of stance and attacking weapons. Just compressed into a small space, affording only a page or two to each topic.

The print is very small in this book, the chapter and section headings are so similar to the body text it is extremely hard to tell when one section ends and a new one begins. Also the descriptions in the text refers to the pictures, in some cases these pictures are on other pages. Sometimes the page ahead and other the page behind. This inconsistency makes for another hurdle for reading clarity.

There is good info in the book. Tips on when to use the techniques, some rudimentary items on setting up combinations and sparring information. Also the pictures are quite clear and have captured some good action.

It is an older book and though I just recently purchased it via Ebay, I could imagine in 1987, when this first came out, it would have been a breath of fresh air. Now, it is really a second tier book when compared to other newer titles. Buy it second hand or from Amazon.com cheap if you are a collector, otherwise check one of these two books: Distinguished or Legacy.

Muay Thai: The Most Distinguished Art of Fighting.
Authors: Panya Kraitus & Dr. Pitisuk Kraitus
244 Pages.

I bought this online here: www.dcothai.com/product_info.php?products_id=186
It was 12$ US there, shipping seem a lot at first but added up it was still cheaper than getting from North America. I can't remember exactly what it came to in Canadian dollars, but who cares buy it anyway. Shipping took about 3 weeks.

What can I say about this book that hasn't been said. Pretty much the most thorough book on the subject matter ever produced. I'll get to that but first that bad news.

Unfortunately this book suffers from some awful production quality. The text's font changes in mid paragraph and for no apparent reason. Sometimes it seems as though it is for emphasis but other times it just appears to be a whim. It is quite distracting in some cases.

Adding to the distraction is the sentence structure etc.. The book was clearly written by someone who speaks English as a second language. Much better than my Thai so who am I to complain? However in the sense of learning and understanding the work it is a negative.

Once last thing pretty much the only colour, glossy pages are advertisements. Yep in a book, a few sections of ads, that look like they belong in a magazine. Pictures of past seminars are one thing but some are obviously paid for advertisements. Not normal for a book in my experience. The rest of the pages are plain paper, black and white but all very clear photos and fonts (with the font change exceptions).

On to the good, and there is lots. Like many books on the subject, this one starts with history, ceremony, equipment and the Wai Khruu. It is very thorough in these aspects and the pictures are very interesting. The comprises about 90 pages of the book afterwhich the gem of the volume is discovered.

Chapter 23 shows clear drawings of the Mae Mai and Luk Mai. To me this is the greatest part of the book. Some of the techniques can be hard to follow at first but well worth the time to reread until you figure out what is going on. This section proves there is so much more to Muay Thai than round kick and teep. Buy the book for this section and everything else is a bonus.

The last half of the book is dedicated to the different attacking weapons of Thai Boxing. Lots of good pictures with plenty of description of when and how to use the attack and how to defend against it. I found it had quite a lot more variations than other books on the subject, the elbow and knee sections among my favourites. One thing missing, like in other books, is the clinch.

This book is considered "The" Muay Thai book for good reason. Really no practioner, or even fan of the sport should be without it.

Check out this related book : Legacy

Muay Thai: A Living Legacy
Authors – KatPrayukvong & Lesley D. Junlakan
~300 pages
$40 US or $62 Cdn cover price

I picked this book up in a Barnes & Nobles on a recent work trip to San Jose . You should be able to find it anywhere, including Amazon.

Right off the bat; this is a great book. I rank it tied for first with my other favourite Muay Thai tome, The Most Distinguished Art of Fighting by Kraitus et al. Both are wonderful books for slightly different reasons.

Where A Living Legacy stands out is in production quality. The back of the book credits at least twenty people as part of the team. A mixture of consultants, models, photographers etc. I am sure others books have large teams working on them to but this group did a wonderful job.

Absolutely beautiful full colour pictures and maps adorn pretty near every page and a pull out Wai Khru poster is included in a rear pocket. Those combined with clear, well formatted text makes this book a joy to read and one that hasn't made it onto my shelf yet. It takes a preferred location on the living room coffee table where I can pick it up and browse and even share with friends who know little of martial arts.

The book opens with a great history section. The first four chapters are devoted to giving an understanding of where the art came from and gives a small glimpse into why it is so important as the national sport of Thailand. I like this part of the book, and though I have read some of these legends before they are presented in a fresh, clear style that makes them among the best tellings I've seen. Three full colour, pictures show the differences in equipment used in the traditional, modern professional and amateur aspects of the sport the some wonderful pages on the various rituals involved with different aspects of the art lead the reader into technique.

Three chapters, about 150 pages of this book is dedicated to technique. This section begins like many other books with discussions on warm-ups, stance, target areas and hand-wrapping. A stand out in chapter 6 is a three page foldout depicting the movements of Yaang Saam Khun, forwards and backwards.

The book moves smoothly to a collection of basic moves. Each type of move; punch, kick, knee, etc is given its own section. Good lead in paragraphs contain tips and tricks for each weapon and then pages of detailed photos and descriptions follow. There is a lot of basic stuff here. That isn't a complaint, I have been doing Muay Thai for a few years and still found these pages captivating. I always feel I can learn something when seeing it from a different perspective anyhow.

There are a few things that a beginner may not see for a while in class, like the jumping round kick and the infamous Jerakhae Faad Hang spinning kick. Mostly though this book contains a good solid base of simple techniques with the added bonus of having the techniques named in English, Romanized Thai and Thai Script.

The last chapter is called Basic Plus and is a quick look at putting combos together or defending and countering. The version of this book I have is labeled Vol.1. There are other hints that more books will be on the way. Hopefully they will pick up from Chapter 8 and show us more of this material and more on the Clinch.

The last line on the back cover is ...No lover of the martial arts can afford not to buy this book. I agree.