Gym glossary

Thai trainers coach in a compact vocabulary that crosses every language barrier by week's end. Learn these and pad rounds start making sense immediately.

People and ritual

• Nak muay — a Muay Thai practitioner/fighter (foreign students: nak muay farang).
• Kru / Ajarn — teacher / master teacher.
• Wai — the palms-together greeting of respect.
• Wai kru ram muay — the pre-fight ritual dance honouring one's teachers.
• Mongkhon / pra jiad — the ceremonial headband / armbands of a fighter's camp.
• Sabai sabai — “easy, relaxed” — what your kru says when you're muscling everything.

Weapons

• Mat — punch  ·  Sok — elbow  ·  Khao — knee
• Tae — kick (the roundhouse family)  ·  Teep — the push kick, Muay Thai's jab of the legs
• Chap ko — the clinch; where Thai fights are often decided

Commands you'll hear on the pads

• Neung, song, sam, see, ha — one to five (counting strikes);
• Ao! — “go / take it”  ·  Dee! — “good!”  ·  Mai dee — “not good” (said kindly, repeatedly);
• Kuen! — often used for “up/again” on knees and kicks in many camps' pad patter;
• And the universal command: the pad slap that means “same again, harder”.

Regional accents and camp habits vary the patter — half the fun is learning your gym's dialect.