Muay Chaiya History

Muay Chaiya, the priceless heritage of Thai martial arts.

            Muay Chaiya is one of Thai fighting styles that had helped in the defense of the kingdom for a long time. Muay Chaiya’s origin is in the southern province of Suratthani in the ancient city of Chaiya. Once upon a time, during the reigns of the first kings of the Maha Chakri dynasty, there lived a monk from Bangkok who travelled to Chaiya. The locals of Chaiya called him ‘He who arrived’, referring to the fact that this legendary figure had arrived to Chaiya from Bangkok. Before becoming a monk, he was a soldier but after he became tired his mundane and worldly possessions he became a monk and travelled to Suratthani. Once arrived in Chaiya, he began teaching the martial arts that he knew to the locals of the city as if they were his own children. One of the students whom he taught was Phraya Wacheesatyarak (Kham Sriyabhai), the governor of Chaiya at that time, and since then, the branch of Muay Thai taught by ‘the Monk’ came to be known as Muay Chaiya.  

          Phraya Wacheesatyarak then passed own this priceless style of martial arts down to his children one of which was master Khet Sriyabhai. After master Khet had studied Muay Chaiya from his father he then continued onward to study from 12 other masters and came to be renowned as ‘the Grand Master’. The original style of Muay Chaiya then became analyzed and improved to be more suitable for real life situations.

          Since its genesis, the first four fundamentals of Muay Chaiya taught to the apprentices have always been:

I)	Cover
II)	Sweep
III)	Close
IV)	Open

These four basic fundamentals will protect every part of the fighter’s  body from the toes to the hair. Once the apprentice has perfected the basic fundamentals he or she will be able to proceed onto the more advanced movements of Muay Chaiya easier. In conclusion, Muay Chaiya is a type of boxing that gives a lot of priority to self-defense and was selected to defend the kings in the past. Not only that, Muay Chaiya was greatly praised and liked by king Rama V when a boxer named Plong Chamnongthong defeated a boxer from Korat in a competition held by the palace