Muay Thai is a competitive sport that encompasses knowing the body to the fullest extent of its abilities. In Muay Thai, individuals perform martial-art kick boxing techniques that were formulated in Thailand. People that get into Muay Thai may be searching for an inner peace to happiness and meaning to life while participating in the sport. To be a part of this sport, one must use his own body to potentially inflict harm upon an opponent’s body. This is an art that takes countless hours of practice. For starters, practicing a simple leg kick can take months to get right. The idea of training the body to be at 100% capacity to fend off a professional and skilled fighter is as much mental as it is physical.

The physical side of Muay Thai is rather daunting and requires hours of commitment to master. There’s one simple kick that Muay Thai is known for: A Muay Thai Diagonal kick. This requires not only just kicking an opponent in the leg, but requires technique that must be correct to deliver the full force of the kick. To perform this, the kick must be done with one’s whole body thrown into the equation, making the force of the hit more penetrating. This requires poses that yoga could help out with, such as the “Downward Dog” or “Cobra pose”, which require a great deal of mental and physical strength to hold. By practicing the poses, the Muay Thai kick will be thrown with more accuracy and more body strength, and in turn give the kicker a higher advantage of damage.

With any yoga practice there is the asanas, which is the performance positions for yoga, which give users mental, as well as strength and physical, benefits. To perform the more advanced yoga poses, people will need to get a grip on their unrealized potential to twist, turn, balance, and backbend in order to be efficient in martial arts. For one, Muay Thai can benefit from poses like the bridge, where a person lays on their shoulders then lefts their whole back off the ground with their legs. This could easily help out knee strengthening, a vital part of the Muay Thai plum, where opponents grasp the head of an individual and deliver damaging knees. Lifting the hips into the air in this pose will help to formulate the diagonal kick which is all about rotating the hips.

Having the mental aspect of going through hours of balance will keep the Muay Thai user stabilized in kicking, from Crescent pose, where users balance on one leg such as Muay Thai kick would be delivered. Just by having the mental strength to get through the strict yoga classes will be prepare a person’s mind and body for the gruelling but rewarding workouts of Muay Thai.