The two best martial arts without any martial art grading system are Muay Thai and Wrestling. These styles are battle-tested and renowned for creating world-class athletes.
Effective Martial Arts Without Martial Arts Grading System | Muay Thai vs Wrestling
At the present time, the majority of traditional martial arts use the Martial Arts grading system. As a result, it creates class among the practitioners of the style. Though there is some benefit to it, it has some disadvantages and does not go with someone our modern lifestyle. In effect, It creates a fake glorified image. Henceforth, we see some unfit martial art gurus running dojos and teaching students. It provides them less benefit, and more problem. This forged promotions system causes delusional self-worth. This has become a money-making scheme. Given these points, we will discuss two traditional styles which do not have any martial art grading system but still dominates in competitive combat sports rings.
A short history:
Muay Thai:
Muay Thai is the competitive sports version of martial art derived from Muay Boran. Muay Boran is the name of style. The elite force of the kingdom of Thailand practiced the Muay Thai style. The gained notorious popularity due to its effectiveness on the battlefield.
The battle-tested attribute of this is still present. This is a simple yet brutal and very effective style. The aggressiveness of the style is what makes it prominent among all martial arts.
In 1765, the Burmese and Thailand war is the earliest known application of Muay Boran. The story suggests the Great warrior Nai Kanomtom who was captured by the Burmese King. He was given a chance to free himself if he can defeat nine elite warriors of the King. He defeated every one of them and returned to his homeland on February 6th. As a result, Thai’s celebrate Sixth February as Muay Thai day.
The Key difference between Muay Thai and Muay Boran is one is meant to kill the opponent on the battlefield and one is for competitive sports. Therefore, some of the techniques of Muay Boran are illegal in Muay Thai. Muay Thai is heavily influenced by the western boxing style. It took some basic competitive rules, ring manners of the western boxing style and emerged as its own style of competitive sports.
Similar Styles as Muay Thai:
There are some other styles that have lots of similarities and some difference, that is very interesting. Except for Dutch-style kickboxing which is also heavily influenced by Muay Thai. All of them are striking styles. Let me introduce you to the styles:
Muay Chaiya:
Muay Chaiya style also has a long history and originated around 200 years ago. This Chaiya came from a place named Chaiya. The key difference of this style is this is mostly counter-strike pre-dominant. This style focuses on illusion and countering your opponent. The main focus of the style is to win over bigger and stronger opponents with counter strikes.
Lethwei:
Lethwei is also similar style but considered a more brutal version due to its use of headbutt. Lethwei is a Burmese Martial Art style. It claims to be older than Muay Thai. This is also used by the Burmese military in the past. Competitive sports Letwei is illegal in most of the country due to the headbutt, use of bear knuckle. Also, in this style, you can not win through point. The only way to win is to secure a knockout.
Muay Khao:
Muay Khao is a subdivision of Muay Boran. Khao simply translates to the knee. The boxer who loves to clinch and knee uses this style most. To adopt this style, the practitioner requires heavy conditioning. Fighters of these styles are very feared due to the damage they cause to their opponents.
Kun Khmer/Pradal Serey:
Kun Khmer or Pradal Serey is the style that originated in Cambodia. This is very similar to Muay Thai. The key difference is the practitioner of this style focuses more on elbow and boxing. On the other hand, Muay Thai practitioners mostly use kicks.
Dutch Style Kickboxing:
The competition of dominance between Dutch Style Kickboxing and Muay Thai is not new. Despite the similarity of the style, there is some key difference in terms of rules. Dutch Style boxers are known to be better boxers. As Muay Thai fighters only use basic boxing combinations, Dutch-style tends to follow the more advanced level competition. Kyokushin Karate is the traditional style that gave birth to Dutch-style kickboxing. Later influenced by Muay Thai as the competition grew between them. The time of clinching and elbow is what differs modern dutch kickboxing from Muay Thai. Dutch Style faces criticism to limit Muay Thai fighters’ ability by imposing these rules. A Muay Thai Fighter has an excellent grip on clinching and elbows techniques. If they can not use these two very effective techniques from their arsenal, their ability to show their full potential becomes limited. (Note: though some organizations are allowing elbows now.)
Wrestling:
Wrestling is one of the oldest forms of martial arts that exist in the world. The history of wrestling traces back to the pre-historic era before any civilization. From the images drawn by cave-dwellers, we can see it existed back at that time. This is so popular almost all the nation around the world has their own wrestling style.
Types of famous Wrestling that avoid Martial Arts Grading system:
Freestyle Wrestling:
The most famous and oldest style of wrestling is freestyle wrestling or Olympic wrestling. The first introduction of wrestling as competitive sports is in 700 BC. The style was first added in the Olympic games in 1904. Since that time, it grew in extensive popularity and known to be one of the most popular sports in the Olympics.
Greco Roman:
The introduction of Greco Roman to the Olympics was long before freestyle wrestling. The practitioner of this style of wrestler holds immense power in the upper body due to the fact the style only allows the wrestler to use their upper body to trip and throw down the wrestler. The wrestlers are not allowed to use leg trips or takedowns, unlike freestyle wrestlers.
Wresting Styles with Martial Arts Grading System:
If you want to learn about wrestling you have to know some of the dominant wrestling styles that use a grading system. Among them are:
Judo:
Judo originated from the province of Kodokan, Japan by a Japanese Ju-jitsu practitioner
Jigoro Shihan is a form of submission grappling. The practitioner of this style has an understanding of the very complex weight distribution technique that is used to trip by making the opponent losing their balance. This is
Sambo:
Sambo is another wrestling style that originated in Russia and influenced by Judo. The style is far more aggressive than any other wrestling style due to the fact this was remodeled for Redarmy and Spetznaz training.
Though the style focuses on wrestling, the competition also allows striking. The players use striking to create an opening for a takedown. Viktor Spiridonov and Vasili Oshchepkov are the two introducers, who took elements from Judo and transformed them into a deadly martial art.
Brazillian Ju-jitsu:
The fame of Brazillian Ju-jitsu came with Royce Gracie’s win in the first UFC tournament. People around the world became amazed how a skinny, not very scary-looking guy defeated world-known martial artists, who were stronger and carried way heavier weights than him. The style of the Gracie family took inspiration from Kodokan Judo and transformed it into a deadly submission-based technique. A very useful technique in the mixed martial art arena and considered one of the techniques that you must know to compete in the MMA ring.
Muay Thai and Wrestling gears and equipment:
Muay Thai Gears:
The traditional Muay Boran does not require many gears and they used rope to protect their hands. However, modern Muay Thai for professional competitive sports gear are; shorts, groin cup, boxing gloves, teeth guard, hand-wraps. For Amature level, sports and sparring there is some very important gear that is a must requirement for a practitioner. These are shin guards, and headgear or guard. Muay Thai shorts are very unique and hand-stitched Muay Thai shorts have some artistic values in them. They are amazing to look at and provides unique attributes to the fighter.
Wrestling Gears:
Wrestling Gears consists of Unitards, Head-ear Guard, Knee Guard, Groin Guard, Shoe, Teeth Guard. These are the basic elements of a wrestler. The unique wearable that wrestlers wear is known as Unitards. It is a swimming suit-like one-piece wearable made with very strong material. This helps to support wrestlers’ movement on the mat.
How effective is Muay Thai and Wrestling in terms of self-defense:
As mentioned before, Muay Thai and Wrestling both are two very old battle-tested martial art style that avoids any martial arts grading system. However, the use of them in a self-defense situation is completely different. If you want to judge their effectiveness; first you need to compare them in different scenarios. To analyze their effectiveness, we will judge both of the styles in different self-defense scenarios. For this, we will only focus on the basics of wrestling and Muay Thai’s approach.
Situational Analysis of Muay Thai and Wrestling:
First Scenario:
Guess, you are alone in a quiet parking lot alone and suddenly a single person came on to you. You are expecting violence from him and you feel the need to neutralize the person.
As a wrestler, you can take him down and easily neutralize him without causing too much harm and wait for the authority.
As a Muay Thai Practitioner, you can defeat him by striking any way you want. You can also clinch and take him down as we know Muay Thai pioneer acquires strong takedown and clinching techniques.
In this scenario, both get the same point.
Second Scenario:
Now, Add 2-3 people along with the first attacker from the first scenario. Now, you are facing multiple attackers in the place of one attacker.
As a wrestler, you can take one person at a time. When you focus and take one person, the others won’t be standing they will try to wrestle with you and obviously strike you. Without any prior striking experience, it will impossible for you to compete with multiple attackers only with wrestling skills.
As a Muay Thai Practitioner, you have vicious short-range and long-range striking techniques which can knock a man out in a second. With proper distance management and timing, it is possible to knock multiple attackers (without any martial arts background). You can issue the long-range attack kick and follow it up with boxing to knock out. Then use footwork to evade and attack multiple attackers. If someone comes too close where you can’t able to discharge any punch or kick, in such a situation, you can clinch and use elbow and knee. It is possible to defeat multiple attackers with Muay Thai.
In this scenario, Muay Thai wins.
Third Scenario:
This scenario has a single attacker in a very congested place such as a lift/stairs. As research suggests these are some of the likely places where you can get attacked.
As a wrestler, you won’t be able to do much in a lift and a staircase due to space limitations. Maybe you can clinch but there will still be a 50/50 chance for your attacker to cause you harm.
As a Muay Thai fighter, you can launch vicious elbow, knees from a congested place such as a lift and stairs. It is possible to cause significant harm to your attacker that can neutralize them with an elbow. In Muay Thai, the fighters consider elbows as knives and knees as hammers. With proper conditioning, a Muay Thai fighter can turn their elbows and knees into a knife and hammer.
Between the two styles is the most effective:
Muay Thai and Wrestling both have their own pros and cons. Different scenarios will provide you different results. You can not 100 surely say that this style is more effective than others. Because your environment and practice are closely related to the effectiveness of your style. However, as the scenario suggests Muay Thai scores more than wrestling in terms of street self-defense.
Summary:
Wrestling and Muay Thai both are very dominant martial arts and effective for self-defense. However, Muay Thai has more answers in terms of multiple attackers, which is the majority of the case. Yet, for single attackers wrestling carries is more effective due to the fact that a wrestler can use his wrestling against a boxer, Muay Thai fighter, and wrestler. Even if the opponent is highly skilled in other combat sports, they won’t have answers for that once taken down. But, indifferent street scenarios, Muay Thai has multiple techniques and element of surprise that is very essential to win any kind of fight. Also, you can learn Muay Thai in a very short amount of time if you are planning to use it only for self-defense. Whereas, wrestling needs years of training to become an expert. Therefore, I will put Muay Thai above wrestling as a martial art without martial art grading system that dominates street self-defense.
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