San Shou, The Muay Thai Killer?

Question

Though I'm sure that many Thai fighters have thrown a beating on San shou ighters as well I was wondering what is it that gives them the edge against the thai fighters. Is it a tecnique or multitude of them or a difference in training that has made them the "better fighters"

Answer 1

San Shou (from what I understand) trains in stand-up grappling and sweeps (but not groundfighting).  Muay Thai, as a sport, has the standup grappling (aka the clinch) but doesn't have a defense against sweeps.  There may be an older form of Muay Thai that deals with sweeps but isn't being taught, I don't know enough.

And George St.Pierre has a stand-up background in Kyokushin karate, not TKD.

Answer 2

Mostly the throws.  San Shou doesn't do a lot of ground fighting but it does do throws like in Judo.  So in addition to puches, kicks, knees and elbows, San Shou competition includes throws.  Generally the person thrown gets up right away rather than there be a fight on the ground.

Answer 3

That's a great question and I'm glad you asked it because I was wondering that myself.  I'm assuming it just has more elements of traditional Asian martial arts.  I know for one they block differently and tend to throw a greater variety of kicks, whereas 90% of the kicks you see in a Muay Thai fight are roundhouses.

I don't know if it will be the Muay Thai killer but I have a feeling we'll be seeing a lot more of it as well as other TMA's being the basis for striking in mixed martial arts competition.  It's already highly useful for self-defense as far as I've heard.

I'm a BJJ blue belt and I'm planning on training a striking art in the near future, probably after I get my purple, San Shou is one of my main choices if I can find a good school.

With how well GSP has done lately (I think he has a TKD background) and more recently Lyoto Machida, I wouldn't be surprised if we see a lot more Sanda, San Shou, TKD, etc. based strikers.  Time will tell.