Quote:
Originally Posted by earthman32
I read that it has more to do with the influence of thai boxing from Holland's colonial days. They picked it up, brought it back to Europe where they had superior athletes to the Thai (like guys that are actually bigger than 160 lbs) and just ran with it. Now it is more practiced as a national sport than here in America (where the emphasis is more on Boxing and Wrestling).
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umm i dont get it, so being bigger makes you a superior athlete in muay thai?
also to clarify, the dutch learned kickboxing from the japanese. The japanese were getting pwned royally by the thais, so they decided that if they couldn't beat them they would join them essentially. They used Muay Thai and modified some of the moves to make it more "japanese" with the purpose of trying to beat the thais at their own game. Then dutch guys like Jan plas and Johan vos picked it up from the japanese. This is why alot of gyms in holland do alot of bowing and counting in japanese.
It seems every time an art gets taught to another country (providing the country is left to their own devices after a while) it gets modified in some way to reflect the country, almost making it a whole new style. Such is the story of brazilian jiu jitsu and dutch/japanese kickboxing.