The schools

Heavy fists Korat, clever Lopburi, good form Chaiya, faster than Thasao — and where that rhyme came from.

Krabi Krabong Thai Sword fighting, Buddhai Swan, Thailand.

Four regional schools, each with its own reputation, fixed in a four-part saying that Thai sources still quote first and explain second.

หมัดหนักโคราช ฉลาดลพบุรี ท่าดีไชยา ไวกว่าท่าเสา — heavy fists from Korat, cleverness from Lopburi, good form from Chaiya, faster than Thasao. Eleven syllables that do the work of a curriculum.

The lines were not tidy regional traditions that someone later noticed. They were named at a funeral. In 1910 Rama V called fighters in from the provinces to fight at the cremation of his son Prince Urubongse, and granted the rank of muen to the three best — from Lopburi, Khorat and Chaiya. The English article says it plainly: those three "would later become codified as regional styles of Muay Boran".

So the four schools are a prize list before they are a taxonomy, and the adjectives in the rhyme are what three individual men did on one afternoon in Bangkok.

Thai Wikipedia now counts seven lines rather than four: the four, plus Muay Phra Nakhon of Ayutthaya, plus the Department of Physical Education's syllabus, plus the army's Muay Thai Loet Rit. Two of the seven are government programmes, which is a fair picture of where the transmission actually sits.

Full record — The four lines, and the rhyme that ranks them

Muay boran

The old name is younger than the new one

*Muay boran* was coined to describe what came before, after *muay thai* had been introduced to distinguish the Siamese art from international boxing.

Arjarn Sira · CC BY-SA 4.0

The schools

Chaiya, Korat, Lopburi, Thasao — four regions, four answers, one rhyme that ranks them.

เขตร ศรียาภัย (หนังสือตีพิมพ์เป็น เขตร์ ศรียาภัย) ภาพถ่ายบุคคลที่ตีพิมพ์ใน อนุสรณ์งานสมโภชรับขวัญ เจษฎาจารย์ ฟ.ฮีแลร์ 14 มีนาคม 1959

Muay Chaiya

มวยไชยา

The southern line, from Chaiya district in what is now Surat Thani. Known for defence: elbows in, shoulders up, and a triangle of footwork underneath.

beginner