Muay Thai(IPA: [/muai32 tʰai32/]; Thai: มวยไทย) ("Thai Boxing") is the Thai name for a form of martial art practiced in several southeast Asian countries including Cambodia (where it is Pradal Serey), Myanmar, Vietnam (where it is known as Vo Tu Do), and Malaysia (where it is known as tomoi). The different types of fighting in mainland South East Asia is analogous to the different types of Kung Fu in China and Silat in the South East Asian islands or Malay World. Ram Muay before an amateur Muay Thai match Enlarge Ram Muay before an amateur Muay Thai match It is the national sport of Thailand, and is also known as Thai or Art of the Eight Limbs. Traditional Muay Thai has a long history in Thailand as a martial art used by the military. The military style of Muay Thai is called Lerdrit, while today's "Sport Muay Thai" slightly varies from the original art and uses kicks and punches in a ring and with gloves similar to those used in western boxing. Muay Thai is referred to as "The Science of Eight Limbs", as the hands, shins, elbows, and knees are all used extensively in this art. A master practitioner of Muay Thai thus has the ability to execute strikes using eight "points of contact," as opposed to "two points" (fists) in boxing and "four points" (fists, feet) used in the primarily sport-oriented forms of martial arts. Muay Thai is an especially versatile, brutal, straightforward martial art. Techniques The basic offensive techniques in Muay Thai use fists, elbows, shins, feet, and knees to strike the opponent. To bind the opponent for both offensive and defensive purposes, small amounts of stand-up grappling are used: the clinch. Muay Thai is often a fighting art of attrition, where opponents exchange blows with one another. This is certainly the case with traditional stylists in Thailand, but is a less popular form of fighting in the contemporary world fighting circuit. With the success of Muay Thai in mixed martial arts fighting, it has become the de facto martial art of choice for competitive stand-up fighters. As a result, it has evolved in order and incorporated much more powerful hand striking techniques used in westen style boxing, and the Thai style of exchanging blow for blow is no longer favorable. Note: when Muay Thai fighters compete against fighters of other styles (and if the rules permit it), they almost invariably emphasize elbow (sok) and knee (kao) techniques to gain a distinct advantage in fighting. Almost all techniques in Muay Thai use the entire body movement, rotating the hip with each kick, punch, and block. The rotation of the hips in Muay Thai techniques, and intensive focus on "core muscles" (such as abdominal muscles and surrounding muscles) is very distinctive and is what sets Muay Thai apart from other styles of martial arts. For a small state, Maryland possesses a great variety of topography; hence its other nickname, "America in Miniature." It ranges from sandy dunes dotted with seagrass in the east, to low marshlands teeming with water snakes and large bald cypress near the bay, to gently rolling hills of oak forest in the piedmont region, and mountain pine groves in the west. Maryland is bounded on the north by Pennsylvania; on the west by West Virginia; on the north and east by Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean; and on the south, across the Potomac River, by Virginia. The mid-portion of this border is interrupted on the Maryland side by Washington, DC, which sits on land originally part of Maryland. The Chesapeake Bay nearly bisects the state, and the counties east of the bay are known collectively as the Eastern Shore. A portion of extreme western Maryland in Garrett County is drained by the Youghiogheny River, as part of the watershed of the Mississippi River, while the remainder of the state drains, via the Bay, into the Atlantic Ocean. So prominent is the Chesapeake in Maryland's geography and economic life that there has been periodic agitation to change the state's official nickname to "Bay State", a name currently used by Massachusetts. The highest point in Maryland is Backbone Mountain, which is the southwest corner of Garrett County, near the border with West Virginia and near the headwaters of the North Branch of the Potomac. In western Maryland, about two-thirds of the way across the state, is a point at which the state is only two miles (3 km) wide. This geographical curiosity, which makes Maryland the narrowest state, is located near the small town of Hancock, and results from Maryland's northern and southern boundaries being marked by the Mason-Dixon Line and the north-arching Potomac River, respectively. The Delmarva Peninsula comprises the Eastern Shore counties of Maryland, the entire state of Delaware, and two counties of Virginia, which together form a long extension down the Atlantic seaboard. One of the most noted features of Delmarva is Maryland's Assateague Island, on the Atlantic, with its herd of wild ponies accustomed to the seashore. Climate For a state as small as Maryland is, it has a remarkably varied climate. It depends on various factors like elevation, rainfall, and proximity to a body of water (most significantly, the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean). The Eastern Shore region and part of the Western Shore are part of the Atlantic Coastal Plain. This region gets hot, humid summers and cool to chilly winters, with a cool subtropical climate. This region includes the cities of Salisbury, Annapolis, Ocean City, and the southeastern half of Baltimore [1]. Beyond this region lies the Piedmont which has a warm continental climate of moderately hot summers and moderately cold winters where significant snowfall is an annual occurrence. This region includes Frederick, Hagerstown, and northern and western Baltimore. Extreme western Maryland, in Allegany County and Garrett County has a colder continental climate due to elevation (more typical of inland New England and the midwestern U.S.) with mild summers and cold, snowy winters. Precipitation in the state is very generous, as is most of the East Coast. Annual rainfall ranges from 40-45 inches in virtually every part of the state, falling very evenly. Nearly every part of Maryland receives 3.5-4.5 inches per month of liquid precip. Snowfall varies from 9 inches in the coastal areas to over 100 inches a winter in the western mountains of the state. Snowfall Map Boxing, also called pugilism, Western Boxing, prizefighting (when referring to professional boxing) or the sweet science (a common nickname among fans), is a sport in which two participants of similar weight fight each other with their fists in a series of one to three-minute intervals called "rounds". In both Olympic and professional divisions, the combatants (called boxers or fighters) avoid their opponent's punches while trying to land punches of their own. Points are awarded for clean, solid blows to the legal area on the front of the opponent's body above the waistline, with hits to the head and torso being especially valuable. The fighter with the most points after the scheduled number of rounds is declared the winner. Victory may also be achieved if the opponent is knocked down and unable to get up before the referee counts to ten (a Knockout, or KO) or if the opponent is deemed too injured to continue (a Technical Knockout, or TKO). For record-keeping purposes, a TKO is counted as a knockout. On boxers' records, only KO's are mentioned. Technical knockouts are usually only mentioned in contemporaneous news articles. Olympic (or Amateur) boxing is found at the Olympic Games and Commonwealth Games. Olympic boxing prizes point scoring rather than physical damage or knockouts. Bouts comprise four rounds of two minutes in Olympic and Commonwealth, and three rounds of two minutes in a national ABA (Amateur Boxing association) bout, each with a one-minute interval between rounds. Competitors wear protective headgear and gloves with a white strip across the knuckle. A punch is considered a scoring punch only when the boxers connect with the white portion of the gloves. Each punch that lands on the head or torso is awarded a point. A referee monitors the fight to ensure that competitors use only legal blows (a belt worn over the torso represents the lower limit of punches - any boxer repeatedly landing "low blows" is disqualified). Referees also ensure that the boxers don't use holding tactics to prevent the opponent from swinging (if this occurs, the referee separates the opponents and orders them to continue boxing. Repeated holding can result in a boxer being penalized, or ultimately, disqualified). Referees will stop the bout if a boxer is seriously injured, if one boxer is significantly dominating the other or if the score is severely imbalanced. [7] Olympic (amateur) boxing history The Queensberry Amateur Championships continued from 1867 to 1885, and so, unlike their professional counterparts, Olympic boxers did not deviate from using gloves once the Queensberry Rules had been published. In the United Kingdom, the Amateur Boxing Association (A.B.A.) was formed in 1880 when twelve clubs affiliated. It held its first championships the following year. Four weight classes were contested, Featherweight (9 stone), Lightweight (10 stone), Middleweight (11 stone, 4 pounds) and Heavyweight (no limit). (A stone is equal to 14 pounds.) By 1902, American boxers were contesting the titles in the A.B.A. Championships, which, therefore, took on an international complexion. By 1924, the A.B.A. had 105 clubs in affiliation. Boxing first appeared at the Olympic Games in 1904 and, apart from the Games of 1912, has always been part of them. From 1972 through 2004, Cuba and the United States have won the most Gold Medals, 29 for Cuba and 21 for the U.S. Internationally, Olympic boxing spread steadily throughout the first half of the 20th century, but when the first international body, the Federation Internationale de Boxe Olympic (International Olympic Boxing Federation) was formed in Paris in 1920, there were only five member nations. In 1946, however, when the International Amateur Boxing Association (A.I.B.A.) was formed in London, twenty-four nations from five continents were represented, and the A.I.B.A. has continued to be the official world federation of Olympic boxing ever since. The first World Amateur Boxing Championships were staged in 1974. [8]In the late 19th and early 20th century, Olympic boxing was encouraged in schools, universities and in the armed forces, but the champions usually came from among the urban poor. A new scoring system was invented for Olympic boxing: using a computer, judges must press a button every time they think a boxer landed a punch. When three or more of the five judges press the button within a second of each other, the punch counts as a "point" for the fighter that landed it. Punches to the head or face of an opponent usually score the most points for a competitor. At any point of the fight in which a fighter is leading by twenty points (or sometimes more), the referee is indicated and the fight is stopped, the leading fighter winning by "mercy", and credited with a knockout.Thai Boxing Maryland,Thai in Maryland