Customer Reviews

Mastering Muay Thai Kick-Boxing: MMA-Proven Techniques

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is awesome. Absolutely great pictures. What's better than that? Getting it for a lot less than in the big book stores. The book was in great condition and I received it very quickly in the mail.

While not a student of MMA, but an avid follower, I've recognized these techniques as used by such greats as Anderson Silva and others. I've been a student of muay thai for over a year, and I feel this is one of the very best on the market that adheres to strict muay thai technique. One of the few I've read that doesn't bastardize or compromise the explicit technique involved in the tradition of true muay thai. All Photos are explicit, large, and in color, well demonstrated, and the format is excellent.

Although I purchased this book in Books-a-Million, I wish I had bought it from here as I would have saved $12-13. When I looked at it in the store, I ignored the foolish title (muay thai and kick-boxing are two completely different sports) and merely gave it a quick overview instead of sitting down and actually reading parts of it. Upon futher inspection of the book, I immediately knew it was a mistake when reading the "About The Author" page in the back. Exactly how does one hold a black belt in a combat sport?

As I flipped through the pages, I noticed that the step-by-step instructions were ALMOST perfectly written out, but severely lacking in the photo aspect of the book. All I saw were pictures of the result, be it on an opponent or just in the air. Overall this book was really not worth it's money, and I HIGHLY recommend "Muay Thai Unleashed" and "Muay Thai: The Most Distinguished Art of Fighting" for anyone serious about learning/training/competing

After reading this book I was really torn on how I was going to rate it. I seriously considered giving it a 3 star rating, but then again I didn't want my rating to seem overly harsh since this book isn't really bad, just incomplete. Therefore, I decided to go with a 3 star rating and a 4 star rating with an explanation on both. First, the 4 star rating...

This book shows pretty much the entire arsenal of offensive and defensive techniques in Muay Thai in very clear full color photographs.

The layout is easy to follow and didn't present any problems for me as I was reading this book.

If you, as the reader, look at this book as a basic reference manual for the beginning student, then it really has served its purpose and lived up to its name.

And now the 3 star rating...

However, if you are buying this book with the intent to learn all the ins-and-outs of a particular technique, then you are going to be very disappointed. On almost all of the techniques shown, the only photograph you see is one showing you the end result of that particular technique. For example; when the author shows you a left roundhouse kick and a right roundhouse kick, the only photographs you have are one for each technique where the individual modeling the technique is standing there with their leg fully extended. This type of photographic layout is predominantly throughout the entire book.

The amount of text describing each technique is minimal and is really detrimental to anyone trying to learn how to correctly execute a particular technique. There seemed to be plenty of space available and had the author/publisher used the space available more wisely and perhaps used smaller photographs and a few more pages, might have really made one heck of a good book. Sadly, this is not the case.

Not that this is a horrible book by any means, it simply fell short in several areas when it came to providing a detailed description of the techniques being shown.

If you are looking for a basic reference book to show you the various techniques and a brief description of each, then this is definitely the book for you. However, if you are looking for a book to teach you in great detail the correct way to execute a particular technique, then you need to look elsewhere.

Here are a couple of books that are worth taking a look at.

Muay Thai: The Most Distinguished Art of Fighting (9th Re-Print, Revised Edition)

Muay Thai Unleashed: Learn Technique and Strategy from Thailands Warrior Elite

Shawn Kovacich
Creator of numerous books and DVD's.