One of the most common phrases you hear repeated by trainers in Thailand when you are sparring is “Chai Samong (ใช้สมอง)! They usually scream this out as you are being pummelled by some foreigner who is not holding back their punches.
Chai Samong (ใช้สมอง) essentially means USE YOUR HEAD in Thai.
Most people don’t realize that Muay Thai is a thinking sport. The violent nature of Muay Thai can often mask the subtle nuanced skills that fighters possess that separate the good from the average.
The process of learning Muay Thai is similar to becoming a writer. Before you start writing, you first need to learn your basic ABCs of the alphabet (Fundamentals). Once you learn the alphabet, you then start combining those letters into words (Striking), combine words into sentences (Sparring), and combine sentences into paragraphs that bring a story to life (Fighting). The end result is the sum of all the different moving parts.
As a beginner, your only focus should be on executing techniques correctly. Learning how to throw strikes with good technique consistently will create a good foundation for your entire Muay Thai game. After you have developed good fundamentals, you can then start developing timing by sparring, which will teach you when and where to throw strikes.
Learning to Think in Muay Thai
At the lower levels of Muay Thai, there isn’t much strategy that takes place. Fighters throw punches and kicks without much thought. Given the inherent risks involved in sparring, it is nerve-racking when you have someone throwing punches at you. As a beginner, it is hard to think about anything other than the immediate danger in front of you.
When someone is trying to hurt you, it takes a concentrated effort to think beyond the immediate danger that is right in front of you. Therefore, in order to THINK in Muay Thai, you need to make an effort in sparring.
Reading Your Opponent
If you want to learn how to read your opponent, you need to practice doing it in sparring. When I say read your opponent, I am talking about looking for specific cues to help you identify the strengths and weaknesses of your opponent.
Without concentrating on your opponent, you might not notice that your sparring partner is standing with his or her opposite leg forward (a Southpaw). If you don’t recognize there is a Southpaw standing in front of you, you won’t adjust your game to counter the tactics that southpaws typically use.
Southpaw fighters need to be dealt with differently than Orthodox fighters. Similarly, if you are facing a much taller fighter, you are going to approach them differently than a short fighter. And if you face a Kickboxer, they have a different fighting style than a traditional Muay Thai fighter.
Reading your opponent is the first step in learning how to think in terms of strategy and figure out how to counter your opponent.
Understanding Your Strengths
Another important aspect of Chai Samong is to know your own strengths and weaknesses. How can you take advantage of your opponent’s weaknesses if you don’t even know your own game?
As a beginner, you might not have any strengths or advantages against anyone. This is why learning how to think comes with experience. If you are just starting off, your main focus should be on improving your basics and getting as much sparring experience as possible.
As you improve and develop your sparring skills, you will start to notice specific areas in sparring that you prefer and techniques that can land more often than not.
If you can’t identify any strengths or weaknesses in your game, it simply means you need to develop everything. Get more experience and spar with more people to start building up tools that you can use to beat your opponents.
Countering Your Opponent
Once you can identify the strengths and weaknesses of your own game and your opponents, you can then use this information to your advantage.
If you know that someone is more technical than you, then countering might mean rushing forward and trying to turn the fight into a scrap. A lot of technical fighters, don’t like being pressured with heavy punches. Pressure can often cause skilled fighters to back up in fear, which can turn the tides of a fight.
Learning how to counter an opponent comes from experience in sparring and the ring. You need to go against lots of different fighters, so you can have experience facing different fighting styles, and understand the rhythm and pace of each style.
Unfortunately, knowledge alone is not enough to learn how to counter an opponent. You need to develop the requisite skill and technique to be able to execute those counters.
How to Develop Your Fight IQ
Now that you understand the importance of developing a good fight IQ, it is now important that you focus on developing your IQ in training.
To develop your fight IQ, you need to practice THINKING while you are sparring. I know this sounds easy, and it is easy when you are working basic drills with a partner, however, the moment you turn up the power and speed, using your brain is much harder than you think.
As Mike Tyson once said, “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” The moment you get hit hard, your thinking brain will want to turn off and switch to autopilot.
Give Yourself a Goal Before Sparring
One of the ways to start improving your skills in sparring is to give yourself a specific goal for each sparring session.
One session you might tell yourself that you are going to focus on landing your left jab as much as possible for an entire round. Having a game plan beforehand will force you to think about when you can land those techniques, and help you improve the timing of that technique.
Another advantage of creating training specific goals is that you can choose specific aspects of your game to work on. Instead of just trying to do everything at once, hone in on one technique at a time and spend rounds working on that technique.
The best way to learn how to think is with technical sparring with a controlled opponent. If you spar with a hard-hitting opponent, you won’t have time to think because you will be focused on surviving the sparring session.
Ask Questions About Your Opponent
The moment you see your sparring partner standing in front of you, ask yourself a series of questions that can reveal a lot of basic information about them.
- Are the Southpaw or Orthodox?
- Are they short or tall?
- Are the fast and quick or are they slow with more power?
- Is your opponent more or less experience than you?
- What is your opponent’s fighting style? Are they aggressive, passive or do they like to counter after your attack?
- Does your opponent have a Muay Thai, Kickboxer, or MMA background?
Asking the right questions can help you formulate a strategy to beat your opponent. Even if you don’t have the skillset to beat them right now, it is better to go into a sparring session with an idea of how you can counter your opponent, than have no plan at all.
Talk to Yourself During Sparring
Self-talk is very important when you are trying to develop your fight IQ. As you are in the process of sparring, try to focus on a few key areas that you want to work on.
If you notice your opponent has a good high kick, tell yourself to keep your hands up and be aware of that kick. If you see an opening every time your opponent rushes forward, let yourself know that you need to take advantage of that opening next time.
Self-talk is a great way to activate your brain while you are sparring and help you develop a habit of using your head. As you get better and better, you won’t have to think because you will do. However, in the beginning, talking to yourself is a great way to work on activating those muscles in your brain.
Doing Without Thinking
The end goal of all of this practice is to develop an automated system in your brain that processes information, without having to consciously think.
Think about the first time you learned how to drive a car. The first few times you drove the car it was probably very intimidating. You had to focus on so many different things at once, which made it difficult to think about anything besides the immediate road in front of you.
As you become more comfortable behind the wheel over time, you suddenly develop an ability to go into autopilot and drive without thinking. If a light turns red in front of you, you automatically apply the brakes and stop.
The same is true for Muay Thai IQ. The best fighters don’t have to think about anything they do in the ring, they just do. They have been trained so effectively throughout their years, that their brains automatically know exactly how to counter any style they face.
They have such a good feel for the ring, that they are able to focus purely on the present moment and let the autopilot take care of the rest. This ability to focus on the present, allows them to perform at the highest level.
As you develop more skills, your brain will start to incorporate your strategies and counters into your game without thinking. This is why you practice techniques over and over in training, so they become second nature. The same is true for developing your fight IQ.
If you ask some of the best Thai fighters in Thailand how they are able to counter certain fighters, they probably couldn’t tell you specifical details of what they do or why. They don’t think, they just do.
These Thai fighters have fought hundreds of opponents over the years with many different styles, so the naturally learn what works and what doesn’t work through trial and error.
Unfortunately, you don’t have the luxury of having hundreds of fights against the best fighters in the world, so you need to develop your fight IQ in sparring.
Final Thoughts
If you want to become a high-level fighter it is important that you learn to use your head (Chai Samong ใช้สมอง). This is an essential concept that always gets drilled home whenever you are sparring or clinching.
When you look at some of the greatest fighters of all time like Saenchai, Samart, and Somrak, they were all fighters who had very high fight IQ. None of these fighters had any physical advantages, but they all read to read and react to their opponents.
The difference between average and good fighters often comes down to their fight IQ. At the highest levels, all fighters have mastered the same techniques and hit hard. It is how a fighter uses those techniques that determine how well they do in a fight.
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