Sirop de genou

Other reasons: 1. Thais are small people, Thailand being a developping country and all. It is difficult for small people to knock out their opponents with punches, especially if you don't benefit from a huge english boxing influence to develop proper punching mechanics (Europe). So you spam kicks. 2. If you want to spam a kick, that's the best kick to spam. High is too tiring, low is too easily defended. That's one of the reasons Dutch kickboxing looks way different thant Muay Thai. Look up Siam Boxing sparring videos and you'll see two different worlds in MT sparring / KB sparring

I would say the number 1 factor contributing to the chicken wing epidemic is people being taught that you have to twist your fist at the end of the punch, to add more power or whatever, even tough it makes no sense from a biomecanical perspective. Turning the fist does two things: 1. It makes it way easier to flare the elbow. 2. It forces you to bring the shoulder to your jaw, wich is a good thing. However, you can have a vertical fist / 40° fist and still raise the shoulder... Btw, in old school bareknuckle boxing people used the vertical fist because it's safer. When gloves where introduced, they couldn't open wounds around the eyes of their opponents anymore, and figured out that if they twisted the punch during the impact they could tear off skin and have the same effect. So they started twisting their punches. However nowadays gloves aren't as rough and it's way more difficult to do the same.

In regard to throwing straight knees / elbows in sparring: 1. How much do knee pads protect your partner? Is the difference between padded / naked knee the same with padded / naked shin? Or should I still try to slow the knee as much as I can 2. I really like elbows, however as an European amateur I won't be able to throw them naked. Do you think padded elbows retain enough of their effectiveness for me to base my clinch style on it? Thanks in advance