Muay Thai Stuff’s Blog

By Kru Brooks Miller

It’s very difficult for promoters to offer “authentic” Muay Thai outside of Thailand, particularly in the United States. Most jurisdictions heavily regulate their combat sports, and there is a constant uphill battle with the local boxing and athletic commissions when it comes to the use of knees and elbows in the ring.

The state of Virginia, for example, has taken a rather progressive approach, in not only allowing full-rule Muay Thai matches to occur, but actually embracing the rules. They have set up training workshops with a leading local sanctioning organization for training on how to properly officiate these fights and keep them safe for the participants.

In order to ensure the states continued support, promoters and sanctioning bodies have found the need to adopt a few practices that aren’t quite “full Thai rules”. Notably, amateurs wearing safety gear in the ring. Headgear, shinguards, and elbow pads are the norm. Some targets which are considered “fair game” in authentic Muay Thai are not permitted, such as the spine and back of the head. Also, rules regarding holding and hitting tend to be modified as well.

During many fights, when there are 10 seconds left in a round, the timekeeper signals by knocking the hammer on the table so that everyone is aware that the bell is about to ring. Depending on the fighter, there are a variety of actions that one may take….

Some fighters like to “turn it on”, and finish the round very strongly to make an impression on the judges, either to “seal” the round, or to “steal” it. When they are trying to “seal” the round, they are often already in the lead and merely want to finish the round with an exclamation point, so as to leave no doubt. If they are trying to “steal” it, its because the round is close or they are behind, and hope that this final flurry of activity will sway the judges because the officials often place more importance on what they witnessed in the closing minute of the round.

However, some fighters are content to just finish the round. Sometimes the fighter is comfortable with where they perceive they stand on the scorecards. Sometimes a fighter is winded or hurt and merely wants to survive until the bell. Whatever the case, one should never relax their guard until the bell has rung and the referee has waved both fighters to their respective corners.

In this particular instance, when that 10-second warning sounded, and if the one of the fighters is relaxed, assuming they could just hold on until the bell. This was a critical mistake as his opponent exploded, they may get attacked and never saw coming for a knockout with 1 second left in the round.

Picture of Master K

Story told by Kru Brooks Miller

What brought this to mind is from my longtime Muay Thai coach, Por.Kru Kumron Vaitayanon (a.k.a. “Master K”) teamed up with Kaensak Sor.Pleonchit for a day-long seminar in Sewell, NJ. Kaensak Sor.Pleonchit was one of Thailand’s best. He fought at a time where the MuayThai in Thailand was unsurpassed, where the fighters were unquestionably the best. The 1990’s will likely be remembered as one of Thailand’s “Golden Era’s” of Sport MuayThai, and Kaensak was on top! Amongst his many titles, honors, and accolades, Kaensak was a 2 time Lumpinee Stadium Champion, and was named “Fighter of the Year” in Thailand for 2 years in a row!

Kaensak was born in 1971, about a year and a half after myself. He is in AMAZING shape! You would never know that he is almost 40 years old. His movement is still fast and fluid.

Then there is Master K. Master K will be turning 70 years old later this year. Master K is a living testament to the benefits of Muay Thai training! We often hear of the dangers of Muay Thai, of the adverse effects on ones health. MuayThai is a very difficult sport, yet here is Master K running literal circles around fighters and students who aren’t even half his age! Master K even got in the ring and mixed it up a bit with Kaensak. It was amazing to see a 70 year old man mix it up with a fighter who is half his age and hold his own.

Master K retired from the MuayThai ring before Kaensak was even born, but commented how at 70 years old, he was learning new things from Kaensak. You could also see how much respect Kaensak had for Master K. Both men are prime examples of how dedicating oneself to training and learning helps maintain your quality of life.

by Kru Brooks Miller

More and more, striking martial arts styles are merely becoming a series of supplementary techniques to complement a submission grappling game. In the world of MMA, having a good ground game is critical to one’s success. It is very rare that a fighter is able to dominate as a striker, because in most cases, a determined grappler will eventually get hold of a striker and get them to the ground.

There are some notable exceptions, however. In the world of the UFC, Anderson Silva, who does happen to hold a black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, is also a former Muay Thai champion, and has dominated many fights with his striking skills alone.

On the local scene, I’ve begun to see a few strikers dominate their opponents using pure Muay Thai skills. Case in point was an MMA event I was officiating on March 15th. Two fights stood out on this card, where Muay Thai was the name of the game….

In the first match, a tall, lanky Muay Thai stylist used his reach and footwork to “peck” at his opponent, keeping him off balance and unable to close the gap. While he was a tentative fighter, he still was able to keep his opponent at bay with quick jabs, push kicks, and round kicks. When the fight finally went to the ground, his opponent was so out of his original game plan that he found himself submitted with an armbar by a Muay Thai fighter.

The beauty of MMA is that it is constantly evolving. Currently, the name of the game is to have a good ground game while learning a few striking techniques to round things out. But as more and more fighters with solid Muay Thai backgrounds enter the MMA ring, the shift will continue towards more of a balance between grappling and striking.

Article by Kru Brooks Miller

When a coach approaches you about competing, it’s important to realize that the coach is seeing that you possess the actual skills to get in the ring. In all likelihood, he also sees a drive, determination that will lead to success in the ring.

Often, rookie fighters have doubts. They have trouble believing they actually possess these skills, or that they’re “ready” for the ring. They feel the need to focus on their technique, wanting to get each move perfect. This can be a very serious mistake on their part.

As stated, if you have been approached by your coach to step into the ring, its because you have demonstrated you already possess the necessary skills. The likelihood of you improving upon these skills prior to the fight isn’t so great. Most likely, any improvement will be minor and not have a great deal of impact during the match itself.

Instead, what will make a difference is ones level of conditioning. This is the one facet of development where a fighter has TOTAL CONTROL. Once the decision has been made to take a match, the time in the gym will focus on sparring, to improve on one’s strategy and timing. Apart from that, a fighter should completely dedicate himself to being stronger and faster than his opponent.

Saenchai Sor Kingstar, The great fighter from Sarakham VS Rachid Belani
This time, it is obvious that Sanchai is smaller than Rachid, but when they both were on the fight the situation became Saenchai was the person who gain advantage over Rachid. As he was too slow to attack as well as ineffective in defense and let Saenchai attacked him by using many types of Muay Thai weapons, which bring Saenchai win the fight and make Thai team led to 3-0 points.

Malaipetch won but courious.
Malaipetch who supposed to fight with Marco Pique but Marco did not make the fight so his replacement was Dennis Sedmiller. This fight was very interesting when Malaipetch seemed losing advantage losing advantage through the fight. Dennis was very good fighter and perform very well attacks and made Malaipetch losing control many times. But when the result was Malaipetch was the winner, there are a lot of criticisms about this by the Dutch fans.

Anuwat Kaewsamrit VS Hassan ait Bassoun
The result if this match is draw but Anuwat should deserve to be the winner when he could take his opponent down for counting. This may be due to Hassan was very well during round 4 when he gave flying knee kicks to make Anuwat bleeding until the doctor would want to stop the fight but Anuwat could survive until the end of the match with a draw.

Yodsaenklai lost!!
Yodseanklai Fairtex vs Andy Souwer. They fought by using K-1 rules and only 3 rounds. Both of fighters has very equal skills until got the draw result at the end of the third round and they had to make extended time until Yodsaenklai lost to Souwer.

Translation report from Muay Siam Magazine

Great Muay Thai fighters perform very well in Netherlands in SLAMM tournament, March 2008.

Tops Muay Thai fighter team, again received 4 wins, 1 draw and 1 lost to the fighters from Netherlands. The event was held on Super Sport Almear, Netherlands. The great “Saenchai Sor Kingstar” one who is known as “unbeatable” perform excellent fight, meanwhile “Yodsaenklai Fairtex” lost to the opponent with courious, as same as Anuwat Kaewsamrit who took the opponent down for counting but got draw for the result. There were about 5,000 audience for this event which organised by SLAMM Event Production. There were six fights for the tournament when five matches used full Muay Thai rules except the fight of Yodsaenklai which only had 3 round and elbow was not allowed, and these are the fight results.

Narupol, teach the art of knee kick to opponent.
Thai hero from the Contender Asia, used his powerful kicks to make his opponent, Fandi Mersa, nearly fall down during the third round but Fandi could survive through the end of the third round. But at the beginning of round 4 Fandi refused to continue the fight then Naruepol won by KO and made Thai led at 1-0 point.

Samranchai 96 Peenang VS Menno Dijkstra
The second match between Samranchai 96 Peenang and Menno Dijkstra. This was another fight that Thai fighter performed very well, even though Menno tried his best to fight among his fans cheer him up but Samranchai was too good. But Menno however, still was able to stand until at the end of fifth round and lose point to Samranchai.

As we all know that there are plenty of advanced Muay Thai techniques called Mae Mai and Luk Mai Muay Thai and if you are wondering what is actually the purpose of use of these complicated technique and in which occasion that could apply to sue them. I would say that even in Thailand, there still be the rare case. We have to accept that the art of Muay Thai is beauty and unique at the same time and there are also many of DVDs promoting those advanced techniques but in the real practice, even in the professional competition, no one use it!!

If you are fighter, you will be the person who know better than me. In my perspective, it is almost unnecessary to overcome the opponent by using those technique in the ring. But the most important thing that fighters have to use is the power and the effective application of basic techniques! Kicks, elbows, fists, knee kicks are very common format of attacks that fighters use these days. The fact is that you will have to be trained by the experienced “Kru” about how to apply and increase the power of your attacks as well as the defensive techniques and that’s all you need for the fight, even in professional fights. There are also very rare Muay Thai gym that usually focus on using Mae Mai Muay Thai in the real practice, but come of them may include these techniques in the class demonstration.

However, it doesn’t mean that these techniques will disappear as no one use it, they are still godd to learn and practice if you want to, but in order to do that, you will have to find the trainer who is a real professional and be able to guide you to the very correct approaches.

Translation from : Muay Siam Daily Magazine

Diesel Lek is the fighter who almost lost the opportunity to be a professional fighter due to he is a big guy, who difficult to find the fighters who are in the same weight division. But he still had a best luck when an ex-famous fighter, saw his potential and finally brought him to his gym and trained for professional fighter.

“I was about 14-15 years old when my coach brought me to the camp to receive comprehensive training. He also gave me the strong hope that if I am really focus and concentrate on the training, I will definitely have a chance to come and fight in Bangkok. But unfortunately, due to the large weigh division I am, I eventually have no one to fight with and my coach then mentioned that I may have to lose some weight to get the chance to fight, otherwise, I will have to fight with the big guy who are in the same division and the grater chance of lose. So I, at that time, was encourage only to fight in my local region not yet go to Bangkok for professional tournament.

However, Diesel Lek has gained very success and reputation in upcountry until he finally had a chance to come to Bangkok because one of the promoter had organised the tournament only for fighters who are in bigger weight division until Diesel Lek finally gain the champion title of Welter weight.

“The fight was really was difficult to me. I thought that I was really perfect at that time and ready to beat any one, but in fact, I wasn’t”

Even though he seemed to lose advantage during the fight, but he finally won and gained the title.

“When I started practice Muay Thai, I had no support from any one, they always said that there are no big fighters success in Thailand. Now I am really proud that I could win both the fighter and people’s insult.

As mentioned earlier that I had a chance to talk with my teacher who was carrying professional Muay Thai competition. He mentioned that the skill of first aid and ability to over see the fight. He said this is much more important than knowing the rules of Muay Thai perfectly, which you can learn anywhere in referee schools. But the ability to see the fight and judge whether one of fighter could continue the fight will only come from experience. He told me that ha had several times that he let the couple fight until one of them get serious injuries and the fighter had to quit his Muay Thai career. My teacher, at that time, was a referee on the stage and could see that one of the boxer were hit too many times at the head, but at that time, the fighter who was attacked seemed so fine and no sign of severe injury, so he let the fight finish and he found later that the fighter was attacked so hardly.

He told me that this is very important thing that all of the Muay Thai referees have to learn. It feels so bad when think about the fighter who had to quit the job due to the lack of knowledge to oversee the fight. He also mentioned that sometimes we have to be very much rely on the doctor who stand by at the ring side even though the fighter seems so fine to continue the fight. “We never know how damage inside of the body, it’s unlike external wound injuries such as bleeding wounds which are quite obvious and we can stop the fight immediately, but internal damage we could not see” he said. So this could be understandable that the life of referee is never easy, especially for Muay Thai referee who can judge the boxer to live or die.