# Venn diagram



## fordtuff (Mar 1, 2012)

Can someone please explain the differences in kickboxing and muay thai to me please?

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## Jason Striker II (Mar 1, 2012)

A wide question. Generally, however, kickboxing does not use knees, elbows, and headbutts - Muay Thai does.


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## fordtuff (Mar 2, 2012)

Thank you. I ask because a gym I'm looking at offers judo, bjj, and kickboxing and they say on the website that kickboxing is punches, kicks, elbows, and knees so I was pretty confused

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## Tony Dismukes (Mar 2, 2012)

The term "kickboxing" doesn't really refer to a specific art.  It's more a general term for a sport or art where the competitors fight full-contact using both punches and kicks and wear boxing gloves.  Many people use it as a catch-all term that would encompass Muay Thai, Bando, Savate, Jun Fan KickBoxing, and K1 competition as well as the old PKA and WKA competitions.


A lot of Muay Thai practitioners don't like to use "kickboxing" to describe their art because they associate the term with the old  PKA style rules that included no knees, elbows, or kicks below the waist and they want to maintain the distinctiveness of their art.  However in the general sense that most people use the word these days, Muay Thai would be a subset of kickboxing.


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## fordtuff (Mar 2, 2012)

Ahh thank you very much

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## jks9199 (Mar 2, 2012)

Tony Dismukes said:


> The term "kickboxing" doesn't really refer to a specific art.  It's more a general term for a sport or art where the competitors fight full-contact using both punches and kicks and wear boxing gloves.  Many people use it as a catch-all term that would encompass Muay Thai, Bando, Savate, Jun Fan KickBoxing, and K1 competition as well as the old PKA and WKA competitions.
> 
> 
> A lot of Muay Thai practitioners don't like to use "kickboxing" to describe their art because they associate the term with the old  PKA style rules that included no knees, elbows, or kicks below the waist and they want to maintain the distinctiveness of their art.  However in the general sense that most people use the word these days, Muay Thai would be a subset of kickboxing.



Just to build on this answer a little...

Kickboxing is a rather contextual term.  If one of my students is going to "kickbox" -- they'll be doing full contact Bando under a specific rule set.  If someone else talks about having been to a kickbox class at their gym -- it might be Tae Bo or a similar martial arts themed aerobics class.  Generally, the term is referring to sporting competitions using boxing gloves and sometimes footpads to fight full contact, allowing kicks as well as the traditional boxing punches and some similar martial arts strikes that my be prohibited in boxing (like backfists).  The rules typically resemble boxing's rules, with some modifications for the kicks.  Some kickboxing events will allow knees and/or elbows.  Most don't allow groundfighting, though some may allow takedowns, and perhaps a single technique after a takedown.

Muay Thai is a martial art from Thailand that focuses on ring combat with knees and elbows as well as punches and kicks.  If you wanted to use a Venn diagram to illustrate the two, I'd put one circle completely within the other.  I can make an argument for Muay Thai to be a specific form of kickboxing -- or kickboxing a limited form of Muay Thai.

Just for fun -- there's also lethwei, the Burmese equivalent to Muay Thai...  and a long history of tough fights between Thai fighters and Burmese fighters.


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## fordtuff (Mar 2, 2012)

Oh cool, I had never even heard ot lethwei before

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