Does Muay Thai include boxing?

Yes. The punches you throw in Muay Thai are the same as boxing punches: jab, cross, hook, and uppercut. The footwork foundations are the same, and head movement, distance management, reading your opponent, and setting up combinations all carry over directly. When you train Muay Thai you are training boxing, and then you keep going into kicks, knees, elbows, and clinch work.

What is the difference between boxing and Muay Thai?

Boxing is a hands-only sport by design, and that constraint is what makes it so technically deep. Muay Thai is built around eight points of contact instead of two: hands, kicks, knees, elbows, and clinch work. Boxing gives you extraordinary depth in two weapons. Muay Thai gives you proficiency across eight.

Are there boxing classes in Bastrop, TX?

10th Planet Airlock in Bastrop, TX teaches Muay Thai rather than dedicated boxing. Muay Thai includes every hand technique boxing teaches plus kicks, knees, elbows, and clinch work. Classes run Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 7:00pm at 303 Martin Luther King Dr inside Bastrop Fitness Project. If your specific goal is to compete in amateur or professional boxing, a dedicated boxing gym is the better fit.

What do I need for my first Muay Thai class?

Just athletic clothes. 10th Planet Airlock has loaner gear available so you can try Muay Thai without buying anything. Once you train regularly you will want your own gloves, shin guards, and a mouth guard. The first class is free and no experience is needed.

What are the eight limbs of Muay Thai?

Muay Thai is known as the art of eight limbs because it uses two fists, two elbows, two knees, and two shins as striking weapons. That is eight points of contact compared to boxing's two, and it is why Muay Thai also includes teeps for distance control and clinch fighting at close range.

Boxing Classes in Bastrop | Muay Thai Striking

If you’re searching for boxing classes in Bastrop, TX, here’s what you need to know: 10th Planet Airlock teaches Muay Thai, which includes every hand technique boxing teaches plus kicks, knees, elbows, and clinch work. For most people who want to learn how to strike, it’s a broader sport with more to learn.

Here’s the full explanation. And if you’d rather just come hit some pads and see for yourself, book a free class.

The Hands in Muay Thai Are Boxing

The punches you throw in Muay Thai are the same as boxing punches. Jab, cross, hook, uppercut. The footwork foundations are the same. Head movement, distance management, reading your opponent, setting up combinations, all of it carries over directly. When you train Muay Thai, you are training boxing, and then you keep going.

Great Muay Thai fighters have sharp hands. It’s a requirement of the sport. So if your goal is to learn how to punch properly, you’ll learn that here.

What Muay Thai Adds

Boxing is a hands-only sport by design, and that constraint is what makes it so technically deep. Muay Thai is built around eight points of contact instead of two.

Kicks. Roundhouse kicks to the leg, body, and head. Teeps to control distance. Your legs are longer and stronger than your arms, which makes them your most powerful weapons.

Knees. Devastating at close range, and the primary weapon inside the clinch.

Elbows. Short-range strikes that generate power in tight spaces where a punch has no room.

Clinch work. Controlling your opponent’s head, posture, and balance at close range. Clinch fighting is its own skill set, and it’s the piece that transfers most directly into grappling.

Boxing gives you extraordinary depth in two weapons. Muay Thai gives you proficiency across eight.

Why Muay Thai Is the More Complete Striking Art

For self-defense. A real altercation doesn’t have rules limiting you to punches. Knowing how to check a kick, throw a knee from the clinch, or create distance with a teep covers situations that pure hand striking doesn’t cover.

For fitness. Muay Thai uses your entire body. Legs, hips, core, shoulders. An hour of pad work and drilling is a full-body workout.

For crossover into other martial arts. Muay Thai is the striking base for nearly every MMA fighter in the world. The clinch work in particular builds directly toward grappling, which can make the difference if you ever want to add no-gi jiu jitsu in Bastrop to your training.

If You Want Pure Competitive Boxing

We’ll be straight with you. If your goal is to compete in amateur or professional boxing, you want a dedicated boxing gym with boxing coaches and boxing sparring. That’s a specialized path, and it deserves a specialist. Boxing is a beautiful sport with a century of tradition behind it, and the people who dedicate themselves to it earn every bit of respect they get.

For everyone else, which is most people walking through the door wanting to learn how to strike, Muay Thai gives you a more complete skill set.

What Our Striking Classes Are Like

Muay Thai classes at 10th Planet Airlock run Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 7:00pm. One hour each.

Every class follows the same shape. A few rounds of shadow boxing or jumping rope to warm up. Then technique instruction and drilling with a partner, which is the bulk of the hour. Class finishes with tech sparring, meaning light controlled sparring focused on developing technique, and power drills on the pads.

Our focus is the mechanics of a real Muay Thai, kickboxing, or MMA fight. Technique first. You’ll get a serious workout out of it, and the conditioning comes as a byproduct of learning to strike properly. Tech sparring is something members work up to, so if you’re brand new you’ll spend your first weeks on pads and partner drills.

We wrote a full breakdown of our Muay Thai program if you want more detail on how we train.

Who’s Teaching

Our striking program is led by Coach Mark Geiger. Mark has more than 15 years of training and competing behind him, and he has coached professional fighters, including athletes competing in the UFC. He’s also a 10th Planet Tucson brown belt, which means he understands striking the way it has to work when grappling is part of the equation.

That combination is rare. Plenty of striking coaches can teach you to punch. Fewer can teach you to strike in a way that holds up when someone closes the distance and tries to take you down.

Our head instructor Rei Villa also coaches striking. Rei spent 20 years in the U.S. Army Infantry, served as a Tactical Combatives Instructor at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, and is a certified Sheepdog Response instructor. His career was built on understanding what works when strikes and grappling collide.

10th Planet Airlock was voted the #1 Best Martial Arts Gym in Bastrop County in 2025.

What You Need to Start

For your first class, show up in athletic clothes. We have loaner gear available so you can try Muay Thai without buying anything.

Once you’re training regularly, you’ll want your own gloves, shin guards, and a mouth guard. Your coaches will point you toward good options at every price point.