Fight Breakdown: Accurate Teeps (Round 2)

DING, DING! ROUND 2 ANALYSIS- BEGIN!

By Evan Lee

Last week, we talked about Round 1 of Sean's fight - now we're moving to Round 2. 

Today, we’re going to focus on key techniques. Specifically, we’re talking about the teep, aka. the push kick.

This breakdown will focus on the teep because it was a technique that defined the course of fight. It's also one of the most important techniques in Muay Thai in general.

Watch as Sean gets self-critical and breaks down round 2 of this excellent Muay Thai fight:

Fight Breakdown: Shovel Uppercut & Accurate Teeps (Round 2)

The Versatility Of The Muay Thai Teep

The teep is to Muay Thai what the jab is to boxing. It is, along with the jab, the most important technique of your Muay Thai arsenal. 

To take in a masterclass on combining the two, I highly recommend watching Buakaw’s two fights with Nieky Holzken.

To sum it up for you, Buakaw was able to shut Nieky’s combination punching down completely just with his jab and teep. That just goes to show how powerful those two techniques are, that even an elite fighter like Nieky can be shut down with them. 

What makes those techniques so effective is that they are low-commitment strikes. They are effective techniques yet incredibly safe. They're quick, you can throw them directly from your stance with no clear tells, and your balance and movement are maintained.

This means that if your opponent wants to counter back, you can immediately transition back to defense, whereas if you were throwing a roundhouse kick and you missed you would have to bring your leg back, get back into stance, and then defend. 

The teep is also a phenomenal tool for sapping your opponent’s endurance. Even fighters with legendary, triathlete endurance like Nick Diaz have found themselves winded at the end of a fight because their opponent had kept digging shots into their bodies. 

But there’s even more to the versatile teep. Yes, as good as you think the teep is, it is actually better.

The teep is the ultimate nullifier. Ever play a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors (or Paper, Scissor, Stone if you’re weird) as a kid and have someone pretend they had a gun instead - and that it just beat everything? (editor's note: THAT'S NOT HOW THE GAME IS PLAYED, JAMIE NELSON FROM FOURTH GRADE!)

The teep is that gun. That’s because the teep makes room for the true ultimate nullifier: distance. Every single weapon your opponent uses can be rendered useless by creating distance. And the teep is the easiest and safest way to create distance.

Even more than that, it also completely disrupts balance - another ultimate nullifier. If you don’t even have the balance to stand, you will not be able to strike back at all, much less generate power. You can see how the teep becomes an incredibly powerful tool in your arsenal and the most important weapon in all of Muay Thai. 

It’s easy to understand why many Muay Thai gyms like to drill the teep literally hundreds of times a day. In short, the teep is a "god weapon." You want to learn it, master it, and kick ass with it. 

Muay Thai Counters: Hook, Teep and Switch Kick