In the old days, Muay Thai was a very dangerous sport, with no safety gear of any kind for the fighters and only lengths of cords to wrap around their fists in place of gloves.  The 1930′s saw the most radical change in the sport. It was then that it was codified and today’s rules and regulations were introduced. Rope bindings of the arms and hands were abandoned and gloves took their place. This innovation was also in response to the growing success of Thai Boxers in international boxing. Along with the introduction of gloves, came weight classes based on the international boxing divisions. These and other innovations – such as the introduction of five rounds – substantially altered the fighting techniques that the boxers used causing some of them to disappear.

The matches then were not fought in a ring as we know it today – for Muay Thai that is a recent innovation. Any available space of the right size was used, a courtyard, a village clearing. It wasn’t till the reign of King Rama VI that the standard ring surrounded by ropes came into use, as did time keeping by the clock. Before this period, time keeping was done by floating a pierced coconut shell on a boat of water. When the coconut piece sank, a drum signaled the end of the round.

Muay Thai has changed across the years. It has evolved from a battlefield close quarters killing technique based on a fighting tradition passed on from generation to generation up to the present time. Despite the changes of history, Muay Thai has lost none of its exotic appeal and even mystique.