Style like Karate and Kung Fu were created based on treoria without any real practice.
This is why it is full of Kata and mysticism.
Lol. You want mysticism?
This is from a European martial arts book ("Die zwölf Schlüssel des Basilius Valentius"/"The twelve keys of Basilius Valentius; shown is the "zweite Schlüssel" / "second key"). Books wrote about "manyfold secret arts hidden in the art of fencing" and of "hidden strokes", as well as "the five master strokes".
It's super-mysterious, even if you speak the language and share the culture (kinda). Much more than any Kung Fu or Karate , but it obviously did work very well, as we can see from European military achievements. In fact, the lowest level is similar to an in-depth esoteric understanding of Taoist martial styles, only the Europeans used 4 elements, not 5 like the Chinese. But it doesn't stop here.
As you can see, astrology also played a big part in those "secret techniques". By medieval standards, the solar system had 7 planets, which corresponded to 7 (Liechtenauer counts 5, even though it's 7) "words", describin combat principles: Before, after, during, strength, weakness, soft and hard.
Sounds pretty mystical, right? But there's still more like star signs, combination of planets, planets and signs and even planets and apostles (of Jesus, not of the manga Berserk). So don't go thinking a style is bullshit just because it hides its principles. And don't go thinking a style is effective because it doesn'.t
Muay Thai has evolved from real fights for this and its efficiency and greater
Modern Muay Thai is, in fact, based on French Savate. The ancient Muay Thai didn't really look like anything effective, but the modern MT looks pretty much like old Savate (except you don't wear shoes, so the kicks are a bit modified).
You can read up some old books about Siam (old name for Thailand) and if (kick-)boxing is mentioned at all (it's very rarely mentioned, so it wasn' t big at the time), the Brits make fun of it for being bullshit.