Muay Thai is to boxing what aerial skiing is to cross-country: It's wilder.
The ancient practice, which originated in Thailand and is still the nation's favorite sport, includes a kick that some say is the most powerful of any martial arts. Julie Adams, a local Muay Thai teacher, explains that kick: "You use your leg like a ball bat."
Of course the kick is just part of it, as you can see if you spend a few hours at Salt Lake's Muay Thai Institute of Kunponli. In Muay Thai you use your shin like a bat to smash your opponent's. Certainly. But you also smash their faces with your fists. And there's the knee to the stomach. And the knee to the ribs. There's grappling, too.
And sometimes the airborne moves, those Bruce-Lee things where one boxer kicks another in the neck, while the guy who's getting kicked tries to grab his opponent's flying leg. There's also the coup de grace, the knock-out move: An elbow, hard and fast, to the side of the head.
Under the official International Muay Thai rules, elbows are legal. You'll see fighters getting whapped with elbows in Thailand and Japan and Germany and South America. However, elbows are forbidden in some U.S. matches. Still, with or without the elbows, this ancient form of fighting is increasingly popular in this country. Muay Thai is on ESPN.
Craig Lamanna says he was first attracted to the sport as a teen in New York, after he'd already learned several martial arts, including kung fu. He was drawn to Muay Thai because it is "fierce," he says, and because of the "devastation" the boxers can inflict and endure.
Lamanna eventually trained in Thailand and fought professionally. He and retired businessman John Bristol opened the Muay Thai Institute in 1998, in order to train people and promote the style of boxing.
Then there's Adams, who formerly fought on the tae kwon do circuit. She says she likes Muay Thai because the boxing style is easily transferrable to street fighting. In other words, it's good for self-defense.
If you visit the Muay Thai Institute, just off of 700 East, in Sugar House, you will see the variety of people attracted to this art. On a weekday, in the late afternoon, Adams puts a first-time student through a workout. The student jumps rope, shadow boxes, then dons gloves and hits the bags, and finally enters the ring to punch and kick while Adams holds up pads.
Meanwhile, a group of children start their warm-ups. It is good to begin Muay Thai when you are 5, advises Myko Romero, 8. He says his 4-year-old sister is still a little young. "She gets tired sometimes."
In the early evening, Sakesem Kanthawong teaches the basics to about 25 adults. The class is full of people who are serious about fitness. You can meet a policeman who wants to enter a "tough cop" competition. He'll tell you the jump ropes and punching bags have him in the best shape of his life. A young woman named Elisabeth Green says Muay Thai is as good for the soul as for the body. It taught her to cope with anger in a productive and uplifting way, she says.
Monte Quillin, who used to be a Navy Seal and is now a paramedic/firefighter, got hooked on Muay Thai the first time he tried it. He's been working out four times a week for two years. During the first year, he concentrated solely on punches and kicks, he says. "Elbows and knees are more complicated."
As for Cristina Collins, she came to Muay Thai from ballet. She'd been to lots of exercise classes but never found a teacher who was "aggressive" with her, the way her ballet teachers were. Collins says Muay Thai trainers "don't lay off just because you are an adult." As a result, she says, she now feels kind of tough.
Watching the students warm up and spar, Kanthawong offers advice. Lamanna also walks around the class. "Keep that left hand up, bro," he says. "You are gonna break your toes, baby. Block, block."
Later in the evening, Kanthawong holds a fight class. Here he works with men and women who are serious about competitive boxing.
Kanthawong fought professionally in Thailand and had his own studios in several U.S. cities before Lamanna lured him here. Lamanna calls Kanthawong the Muhammad Ali of Thai boxing. Only better than Ali because he can also teach. Notes Lamanna, "Very few fighters are good instructors."
To illustrate that Kanthawong is not only a famous boxer but a famous teacher, Lamanna pulls out a recent issue of a sports magazine. It includes of profile of a former wrestler named Alex Stiebling, a young man who just won an international competition in vale tudo, which is a no-holds-barred type of fighting. As he prepared for the event, Stiebling knew he'd need more than wrestling alone. He'd had some Muay Thai training, but Stiebling credits Kanthawong with getting him ready for the fight in a matter of days.
Recently Stiebling followed Kanthawong to Utah for more training. Other professional fighters also have followed Kanthawong.
That's why, when he added on to the gym, Lamanna built bedrooms for the visiting fighters. Kwame Stephens, who had been fighting out of Chicago, is one who now calls the Muay Thai Institute his home.
Stephens has an international rating and fights in eight professional bouts each year. Since coming to Utah, he's been helping to arrange fights for local Muay Thai fighters. Last month the Muay Thai Institute sent two men and two women to their first fights, in Wyoming. All four came back winners.
But as important as the win, to Lamanna, was the fact that the fighters were trained by a master. This is an art that hasn't changed in centuries, says Lamanna. "We are very serious about promoting the true art of Muay Thai."
E-MAIL: susan@desnews.com