Matt Hostetler: Hi, my name is Matt Hostetler. I am the lead striking instructor at Capital Jiu-Jitsu. Today, we are going to talk about some basic Muay Thai techniques. With me today is Jeremy Lafreniere, the head instructor of Capital Jiu-Jitsu and Stuart Knox, his assistant instructor, striking instructor.

Before we get started, we are going to talk a little bit about equipment and safety. Anytime you are drilling and especially when you are spinning there are some equipment you need to be concerned with. The first and foremost is the head gear. Anytime you are spinning, definitely, you want to wear some head gear and a mouth piece with that. Chin guards, come in handy, especially with the lot of kicking in class, focus mitts, we are going to work with those today, thigh pads, we are going to work the thigh pads and finally the kick pads. All this stuff, we are going to demonstrate for you. For the hands, protecting the hands, Jeremy has on some wraps, thats very crucial to put on before you wear the gloves. It gives you the strength and the jelly you need in your wrist to keep your wrist and knuckles clean and finally, the gloves, a twelve ounce gloves they come in handy as well when you are drilling and spinning. Okay, first we are going to show, the basic stance, fighting stance. So, Stuart just get in a quick stance for me please. Now, I am going to talk a little bit about the important aspects of the proper fighting stance. Now, first we will start the feet and work our way up. You can see, that his lead foot is facing his opponent and his back foot is at a 45 degree angle to his front foot and he is just a touch more than shoulder width apart. The stance has a foundation for the entire fight game and working our way up, you will see that his elbows are straight, pointed down. He is not exposing his rib-cage or at least he is minimizing his exposure of his rib-cage. Thats extremely important. Elbows pointed straight down, leading up a little higher, his front hand is his lead hand is in front of his face a little bit below eye level, that way he is not blocking his own vision. He is protecting his head and his power hand, his rear hand is closer towards his cheek as you can see and that enables him to deliver strikes with a lot more power.

Lastly, his shoulders, you always want your shoulders to be very relaxed. You can not be tensed when you are fighting stand up. So, you are very relaxed, shoulders relaxed, chin down, thats another extremely important point to make, chin is always down other wise you open yourself up for a knock out. So, thats the basic fighting stance and we will move on from this foundation.