Muay thai is a self defense technique. You dont need a particular skillset to defend yourself. Sometimes running away can be the best form of self defense. Be versatile, use your most formidable weapon that is your brain for self defense.
If you're refering to Steven Segal akido type techniques, you'd be better off playing rugby and learn how to be aggressive.

Hi burningman, thanks for the reply. So can I say that after learning for Muay Thai for quite some time, the self-defense instinct will naturally come to me should I really need to use it in a self-defense situation ?

Thanks !

for self defense, try krav maga??

Or kick your opponent in the head. it's a very good self defense technique

Do check out http://www.muaysanghasg.blogspot.com/
From self defense to realistic fights, muay thai, muay chaiya, ground fighting and more.

Thanks so much, Obiashek !!! That was exactly what I was looking for:)

If you want real hand-to-hand self-defence, try an MMA gym. Any kind of martial art that professes to teach "self-defence" without the opportunity to engage in regular, realistic and hard sparring where there is a chance for you to get hit and get hurt (to a certain degree) by a fully resisting opponent who's trying to hurt you back, isn't going to work. You must be conditioned to take pain, and keep going, so the amount of punishment you can take in regular sparring has to be of a realistic level.

To be able to be effective in a physical confrontation, you need three things. The ability to inflict damage on your opponent (i.e. the power and accuracy of your strikes, and the ability to land those strikes), the ability to take damage and keep going (this is where a lot of martial arts are lacking), and the ability to keep going (stamina, physical conditioning).

We get sucked into the whole "deadly strikes, one punch one kill, secret art handed down from secret ancestors" kind of mindset, but without full resistance sparring and training, these things rarely work in real life. It's the simple stuff that works. For me, the ability to be able to take a lot of punishment and keep going is essential, and you don't get that in most kinds of martial arts where people are basically only practicing pre-arranged drills, where one party attacks and really looks badass in a demonstration, but the opponent is basically behaving like a dummy and going along and not resisting. Problem is no one does that in real life.

Sports like boxing (getting used to being punched hard in the face and body and keep going), Muay Thai or Sanda or full contact kickboxing (getting kicked, kneed, punched, elbowed), Judo (getting slammed repeatedly), BJJ (full resistance training), certain flavours of full-contact karate and MMA allow you to train up these kinds of conditioning needed for a fight. Certain schools of Krav Maga also train with full resistance without a ridiculous amount of padding where you feel no pain, and those will also be effective for a real fight, as will any kind of martial art system that trains this way.

The same principles apply for weapons training. If you understand these principles, then you can very easily tell very quickly what is bullcrap and won't work, and what will be effective in the real world.

Hope this helps.

from my view

in any martial art is good to have some sparring in it
is good to start with light 1.
when sparring is someting u put into it of what u learnt
no point only doing those practicing pre-arranged drills
but the basic have to be there
when come to sparring u cant take punch or dont know what to do from opponent.
n alway learnt from mistake n do better in next sparring

do one hard low kick.. make sure it connects.. and then... RUNNNNNNNNNNNN

I will back Roy up in this one.

In my opinion, the sparring during muay thai training itself actually improves your reaction and alertness to incoming strikes. No use learning pre-arranged strikes and how to block it, because if someone attacks you outside you wouldn’t be prepared if it comes in some weird directions.

Just throw one good low kick (assuming if he doesn’t blocks it and even if he blocks it he should be suffering pain) you can make a run after that.
No point fighting in Singapore as you will get in trouble. Recently there was news about some guy who punched a man who punched his son and got a 1000bucks fine. ( I mean, why can’t the man defend his son ?)

Like bruce lee said “ he do not fear the man who practiced 10000 kicks, but he fear the man who practiced the same kick 10000 times “.
One good low kick and you should be able to bring a normal person down.

In my opinion, self defense shd be art to diffuse an attack and control yr opponent, but not to fight back to inflict more injuries. With martial art background, if you counter attack yr attacker n inflict serious injuries which uncall for, u will get yrself at wrong of the law. Law doesn't favour martial artist as they r deem as walking weapon.

So for self defense, u need to prep yrself what u shd do in diff scenario.
Say 1 attacker without weapon:
You can go for takedown, and controlling him from top using locks etc. If he try to fight back, u can always lock harder on the joints (arm bar, ankle lock, kimura etc).
At standing position, you can always control yr opponent with rear naked choke or guillutine choke.

But if your opponent has weapon, of cos running is the best option. But if can't run away, then u shd pratice yr twist lock to diffuse the weapon, and proceed to control him. Given that he has weapon, law will favour u n u can proceed to whack the shit out of him. Try not to use knuckle, use elbow or knee instead.

If for multi opponents, apply krav maga style. Run, n let yr attackers chase after u. When chase in group, likelihood attackers will spread apart (diff speed). You can always turnaround n surprise attack the 1st attacker. Use him as shield to get close to subsequent attacker.

The important pt is always prep yrself for diff scenario so u wont be lost when it really happen.

Aim the groin...its easy self defense...

If you do that it will be your last aim. You can get killed for that. Don't ever do that, listen to your seniors who posted up some good valuable info up the page...

Alright...ill keep that in mind.