Tum tap chap hak

Halfway between Mai Rook and Mai Rab there is a branch of techniques which train a Nak Muay to fight at short distances, not only using percussion blows with the various natural weapons, but also by grasping grappling the opponent to then violently throw him them on the floor or twist his their joints to cause dislocations or fractures.

This section of Muay Boran fighting is called Muay Pram and it is founded on traditional techniques, which when put together are called Tum Tap Chap Hak. This type of technique has gradually been abandoned due to prohibitions being imposed during sporting events. The obvious danger of actions of this type, which were not easy to perform on an expert adversary also did not augur well for the mass development and international exportation of Thai Boxing. As a consequence, trainers and boxers, finding no interest in carrying out these actions during training, progressively abandoned them and they have slowly been forgotten. Tum Tap (throwing and pressing to the ground) is a fighting strategy aimed at a quick win, above all in fights to the death of a military kind.

Throwing the enemy to the ground with the intention of causing serious damage even from the act of throwing (causing him to fall and land badly), which even if does not provoke serious immediate damage still places the adversary at a remarkable disadvantage ready to be finished by an edged weapon (white weapon/) (sword, spear axe) or with a heel, knee or elbow strike aimed to a vital point.The Chap Hak strategy (grab and break) could also represent the final solution to finish an enemy, by breaking his elbow, shoulder, knee, ankle, or, at worst, the vertebrae (usually cervical through a violent upwards twist of the chin).

These techniques have been the basis for teaching soldiers to disarm the enemy and, when the enemy is disarmed they were taught to instruct the Nak Muay to perform “the swan with the broken wing”, that is to deprive the opponent of any chance to show his own abilities, thereby annihilating his fighting capacity.