The rope
คาดเชือก
Hand-wrapping in hemp rope or raw cotton thread, used instead of gloves until the late 1920s. *Khat chueak* is literally to gird with rope.
Kit
Rope, gloves, shorts, anklets, oil. What each is, what it costs, and what it does to a fight.
1780s–1929 — bare fists and hemp rope
1921–1945 — the ring, the rounds, the gloves
Gloves
นวม
Padded gloves, plus a hard groin cup, adopted in the late 1920s. Modern fights use 8oz or 10oz depending on weight; a gym will hand a beginner 14oz…
Everything else
The cup
กระจับ
A hard steel groin guard, worn under the shorts and tied with a cord.
The oil
น้ำมันมวย
The camphor and menthol liniment rubbed into a fighter's legs before a fight, and sold in every pharmacy in Thailand in a small yellow bottle.
The shorts
กางเกงมวย
Short, wide-legged satin shorts with a broad elastic waistband, carrying the gym's name in Thai across the front.
Takrut
ตะกรุด
A sheet of metal — often copper, sometimes lead, silver or gold — inscribed with a yantra and rolled into a tube, then bound with cord and worn on…