The Wai Kru, the Ritual Before a Muay Thai Fight

The wai kru is the ritual a Muay Thai fighter performs in the ring before a bout. It is usually paired with the ram muay, a slow dance that follows it, and together they can last several minutes. Nothing is scored. No one is hit. It is the part of the fight that belongs to the teacher.

What the words mean

A wai is the Thai gesture of respect: palms pressed together, raised towards the face, a small bow of the head. Kru means teacher. Wai kru, then, is a gesture of respect to the teacher. Ram means dance, and muay means boxing. The ram muay is the boxing dance.

The respect is not only for one coach. It is offered to the fighter's camp, to the teachers before that teacher, to parents, and, depending on the fighter, to the Buddha and to the place itself.

How it is performed

The fighter enters the ring over the top rope rather than through the ropes. On the head sits the mongkol, a stiff headband blessed and placed there by the trainer. On the arm there may be prajied, cords given by the camp or by family.

The fighter walks the inside of the ropes, touching the top rope with a gloved hand along the way, often stopping at each corner. Many describe this as sealing the ring. Then the fighter kneels in the corner, faces in a chosen direction, commonly towards a birthplace or camp, and bows three times.

The ram muay follows. The fighter rises slowly and moves through a sequence of postures: some drawn from Thai classical dance, some from animals, some from scenes of hunters and warriors. Each camp keeps its own version. A trained eye can often tell where a fighter comes from by watching it.

Throughout, a small band plays sarama music. A Javanese oboe, two drums and a pair of small cymbals. The music starts slow and quickens once the fight begins.

When the ritual is finished, the fighter returns to the corner. The trainer removes the mongkol, says a few words, and steps out. Only then does the fight start.

Why fighters still do it

Some reasons are spiritual. The ritual asks for protection and offers thanks for what has been taught. For many Thai fighters this is sincere and not ceremonial.

Some reasons are practical. Several minutes of slow, deliberate movement warm the body and settle the breathing. The fighter feels the canvas, the ropes, the lights. There is also a long look at the opponent across the ring, and is looked at in return.

And some reasons are simply about order. Before anything violent happens, there is a moment in which everyone present is reminded that the fighter did not arrive alone. Someone taught them. The fighter says so in public, before anything else.

An old story

The best known account is that of Nai Khanom Tom, a Siamese prisoner of war in Burma in the eighteenth century. According to the story, he performed the wai kru before fighting a series of Burmese opponents and defeated them one after another, so earning his freedom. The account comes from chronicles and has grown in the telling. Even so, it is remembered every year in Thailand on 17 March, celebrated as National Muay Thai Day.

Muay boran and the modern ring

The wai kru predates the modern sport. In muay boran, the older forms of Thai fighting practised before rings, gloves and timed rounds, a ritual of respect was already part of the contest. When Muay Thai moved into stadiums in the twentieth century, much changed: rules, weight classes, judges. The wai kru stayed.

Today it is performed at Rajadamnern and Lumpinee, at small temple fairs in the provinces, and in gyms in Amsterdam, London and Los Angeles. Outside Thailand, it is sometimes shortened or left out at events with tight schedules. In many camps it is still taught to every fighter before their first bout, whatever their nationality.

The same gesture, elsewhere

Most martial arts have a version of this moment. The bow onto the judo mat. The touch of gloves in boxing. The handshake before a wrestling match. We wrote about several of them in The Bushido Code, and the Other Codes of the Martial Arts.

The forms differ. The meaning does not change much. Before the contest, the fighter acknowledges the people who made it possible to take part in it. Then the fight begins.

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