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Very, very interesting! I find myself reminded of learning Kali from a lot of your descriptions, especially when it comes to movements coming from the hip or core of the body. And interestingly enough Kali (at least the style I practiced) also prides itself to be not a sport martial art but a practical system for real live application (the Filipinos actually train their marines in this style). The part about flow and natural movement, recovering from failed moves and just flowing to the next thing VERY much reminded me of how it felt to practice this art! Actually when someone asked my trainer about something they were "doing wrong" he'd often be like: "Did it work anyways? Then it wasn't 'wrong'! Maybe it's not what we're trying to practice right now or there is a better way of doing it but it's not 'wrong' per se." Kali has a different style of teaching this stuff though. We used to train stuff in "drills" a whole lot. A drill in Kali is a sequence of moves you practice with a partner where the whole sequence ends in the same position you started in so you can just continue on. It's kind of like a continuous flow or dance with your partner and lets you get a lot of repetitions in short time while constantly calibrating because you have to adjust for your partner all the time. As you advance more you learn how different drills flow into each other seamlessly until it gets more and more freestyle and you just flow because you learned how to feel how you can continue out of pretty much any position you find yourself in, all based in the same basics. At least thats a short, rough description of the process and of course not the whole of how training looks. Also as Kali is a weapons-based art (the drill-approach works for all the different weapon types including empty hands), weapons, especially the stick, are used as a tool to help develop body-mechanics and teach you how to use your body to generate speed, power and flow, especially how to use your hips or core as the part that drives all of this. We would actually sometimes swing a baseball-bat instead of a stick because the much heavier weapon FORCES you to use your body in an efficient way in order to be able to swing it. It MAKES you feel how it works. That feeling can then be carried over into using sticks again and by extension all other kinds of weapons including empty hands/elbows/knees/kicks/whatever. The word for working with 2 sticks (or swords or actually any kind of 2 weapons, mostly referring to sticks though) is "Sinawali" which actually means "to weave" like in weaving a basket. It's used to develop ambidexterity and again, flow. Its something that can be very beautiful to watch from someone who is good with it and it's also seen as a form of expression of the individual fighter. And that's in a style that is very practical in nature and not at all about fancy moves or high body-flexibility. EDIT: here is a nice video that explains and shows Sinawali very well. Its old and some of the editing is a bit weird but I think it shows very well how this relates to continuous flow and empty hands application. Not to hijack anything here but with all of what you guys wrote about Lertrit I think it might be relevant in a way or at least interesting to see in this context.

The General say Muay Thai is very, very difficult; unless you know and understand the basics. I love when the General talks about basics. This is because it’s how I was raised in Kung Fu. My San Soo instructor is often criticized for his emphasis on basics. Such criticisms often come in the form of, “His Kung Fu is great, but he only shows the basics”. Sad for these individuals though, because their schools and/ or their students are rarely as successful and well trained as those who are focusing on the basics. For the General, basics come down to what we have already talked about in earlier post: Breathing; Waist; and Weight transfer. But also three more considerations he emphasized in tonight training: Precision; Speed; Power. Precision - The General discusses this in a matter of how you strike finishes. Go straight to the target, he says. No past, or through, go straight to it. This is by no means a new idea to me. I very much pride myself on being able to throw a strike exactly where I want to and have it land exactly how hard I want it to. Where the General often corrects me, is in my tendency to recoil from the strike. I will throw my punch as hard as I can, but to avoid hitting my partner with a full blow, I stop and pull my strike back just as hard and fast as I threw it. Rather, the General has us go straight to the target and not recoil. Practices hitting exactly where your target is, the General says. Speed - The idea is of speed is only difficult as I learn. I am a very, VERY slow learner. And I’d rather go very, very slow in throwing my strikes, as to make sure I am addressing every nuance from the Generals instruction I can. I want to turn my waist, transfer my weight, and be sure I am breathing as he has instructed. However, the General can only tolerate it this pace for one or two reps. Then he will tell me faster, or to GO. While he is very forgiving of me only having been under his instruction for less than two weeks, he explains that if I am turning my waist correctly and transferring my weight, the speed will take care of itself. Power - Power is the most difficult, because power comes from technique. This is a point I stress to my class and students very frequently: to not try and throw hard, but to let the technique do the work, and power will follow. However, here in Thailand, with the General, I am practicing a very different technique than I am used to, and because I have not begun to perfect the General’s way, I have very little power. Much like speed, power is the product of flawless technique. With the waist turn for example, if I do not turn my waist properly, I end up punching with me arm and not my body - no power, the General says. But if my waist turn, like a rubber band stretched to tension, my arm whips out for my body, and BOOM, power. You can see all of the these basics come together in the Buffalo killing strike. There is a more proper name for this strike (I’m sure Kevin and/ or Sylvie will help me here), but it is a strike that moves somewhere between a hook and a swing punch. But instead of making contact with the knuckles, the General emphasis making impact with the back of the hand. The knuckles, and consequently the hand, are very fragile. Breaking ones hand is often the result of poor punching technique, or someones face being much too strong. In order to avoid breaking the hand, the General (we too in San Soo) will instead hit with more more resilient parts of the hand and/ or body. Kevin has documented this punch before, and when the footage goes live, you’ll be able to see it. But the Buffalo killer is a prime example of the basics of Muay Lertrit coming together.

The very first time I definitely didn't even notice. It was a small one up in my hairline that got, like, two stitches after the fight. I was bothered that they cut my hair. But it didn't run into my eyes or anything. I do recall it felt like hot water on my brow. But the first significant cuts, those are somewhat well-known in that I got 28 stitches and they were pretty nasty on my forehead. I knew straight away on each of them that they were cuts, even though I'd not really experienced that before. There were droplets of blood all over the canvass, on my opponent, on my arms, on the gloves, etc. I don't remember being freaked out by it, I had a kind of uncanny "I know what that is," and I think it's similar to how shin clashes don't hurt during fights. The adrenaline is just soaring, which takes care of a lot. There's less stress in training, just because it's more familiar, so the adrenaline rarely gets to what it will be in a fight. So being freaked out in training doesn't necessarily mean you'd be freaked out in a fight, where shit just doesn't seem to matter (to me). That said, I know a very experienced fighter (Thai) who nearly fainted at the sight of her own blood on her glove in a fight the first time she was cut (near the end of her career, so deep into her experience) and she kind of freaked out about it for a full week afterward. People just have different reactions. My brother wanted to be a doctor until he discovered he can't handle the sight of blood. Nothing wrong with him in any way, he just handles it very differently than I do. I faint at the sight of clowns, so, you know... who knows? I suspect you'd handle it fine in a fight. I've rarely ever seen someone be very bothered by their own cuts in a fight.

He showed me this the first weekend I went up there and I only today felt like I was kind of getting it. I'm still a little bit uncertain if there should be a bit of a whip motion/feeling to it or not. While I was playing around on the bag I was really trying to focus on the tension in my shoulder (he has mentioned a few times that it is easy to hurt your shoulder doing that punch). I seemed to get the most power and least amount of tension when the punch was a little whippy, but I'm just not sure if that's what he wants from it or not. I still feel strange in general about striking with the back of my hand instead of my knuckles. It might be necessary though to maintain speed/power if you aren't shifting weight the way we would traditionally with Western boxing or Muay Thai. I dunno, it's just a weird one to me lol. That other downward strike had me totally lost. Not only have I never done anything like that before, but it also feels very against my natural style. I'm curious if as he shows more there will be a bit of lightbulb that goes off similar to when we were confused about the heel kick today.

Thank you. I haven't done much research. I think a reset of my circadian rhythms would help. Years of night shift really threw my sleep out of wack. Chronic back pain etc doesn't help. Through into the mix interstate truck driving and you've got a recipe for bad sleep. I truly don't believe there's much that could be done to improve my sleep unless the aches and pains lessen.

That would be interesting! If they do use drills I'd like to see what they are and how they compare to what we did in Kali! On the second part: I would not really say that I've studied Muay Thai. I'm just a beginner actually who hasn't been training consistently and probably will never take it further than the sparring ring. I'm just the kind of guy who likes to obsess about his hobbies I used to practice Kali for some 8 years or so but that's also like 6 years or so ago so not everything is fresh to say the least. I would have gone back to kali when I wanted to do martial arts again but somehow I just felt like going more into the sports direction this time and thats where muay thai came in. When I saw Sylvie's session with the general it made me happy because I saw so many things and concepts that seemed familiar from Kali. I do think the non-weapon portions of Kali are practical (even though they are fundamentally connected to the weapon portions). Also you have to take into account that Kali/Escrima/Arnis describe a general art that's split into hundreds of different systems (styles if you will) that have different focuses. Some are more geared towards actual combat or self defence while others are more sportified if you know what I mean. Practical in a ring setting.... I'd probably say to a degree. What parts you could use of course would depend a lot on the rules but its definitely not meant as an art for sport competition (at least the style I practiced). We did full contact stick sparring (with protective gear) and that works fine, also a bit of knives sparing, rolling on the ground trying to submit each other (a jiu jitsu practitioner would of course be more expert in this aspect) and other empty hand practice in varying degrees of freedom and contact. How does it translate to a ring setting? Well it's kind of difficult to translate. We did a lot of open hand slaps for example which dont really work well when gloves are used. A lot of the stuff is also geared towards specifically attacking joints and other vulnerable parts like you wouldn't do in a ring setting. Ring martial arts usually seem more based on... an exchange of being hit (of course avoiding as much damage as possible), finding holes in your opponents game and hitting them back. In Kali you typically dont want that. You mostly want to end things quickly and dont give your opponent any chance if possible. IF you even have to be there in the first place. You dont want to get hit AT ALL really, which gets priority over landing shots yourself because you're taught that an opponent could always carry/use a weapon even if you dont see it (there is this saying that "knives are meant to be felt, not seen") and every hit could be dangerous. That being said though, we did practice stuff like lowkicks, elbows, knees, also some punches (though that's the part I'm lacking in the most when it comes to Muay Thai I think). As far as I know my Kali trainer actually has Muay Thai experience of his own from before his Kali days so that might be another factor in finding parallels.

I have the feeling we'll get to drills at some point. It kind of seems like they are still trying to figure out how to teach this on an individual level as well as being under a bit of a time crunch to show Tim as much as possible before he leaves. I'm curious, as someone who has studied both Kali and Muay Thai, do you feel that the non-weapon portions of Kali are indeed practical? Also would you consider it be practical in a ring setting?

Littewada would be really cool

My ear blew up into a big bubble either from clinching with gloves on or from getting hit from sparring (could be a combination of the two). I've been training for a while and this is the first time it happened lol. It actually started off as a small bubble and just kept getting bigger. I didn't get it drained right away so it became bulbous. Anyway I had to go to the ENT 6 times to get it drained completely.... First couple times they gave me a nurse to see and it would just keep refilling. They finally switched me to a doctor. Numbed it, got couple small incisions, and sutured it with gauze, so it would finally drain. Yeah I know.... sounds like a horror story Its been a week since taking the gauze off and making sure there is no more remaining fluid in the ear to drain, Being a dumb ass I went back to sparring and the ear filled up into a big bubble. Frustrating. Has anyone deal with cauliflower ear? If so, how did you get it treated and let it heal (length of process)? Would I be stuck wearing a ear guard forever?

Ever considered the chili pad? A mattress thing you can use to either cool bed down or make it warmer. Obviously expensive but might be worth the investment. Available on Amazon. I've been lucky to have worked with some great European sleep scientists and you might be familiar already, but only things that are scientifically proven (or where's there supporting evidence) to work longterm is either sleep reduction therapy (ideally combined with group CBT) and/or SSRIs. You need a proper health insurance for this though. And of course, best case scenario: sleep lab first to rule out any physical reasons for bad sleep like sleep apnea, restless legs syndrome etc. But sleep reduction therapy can be done alone without doc. It's about correcting circadian rhythms and increase sleep pressure and make sure time spent in bed is spent sleeping. Nothing needed but pen and paper and a lot of discipline. Hoping I'm not telling you things you already know now. Happy to provide links if needed.

Hahaha. That is what I was thinking as well. If so, good luck!

My experience from another martial art where I was more advanced than I am in Muay Thai is that it can actually be quite useful to train with beginners because they sometimes give you problems that your more experienced partners just don't give you. Stuff like: Have you ever seen someone experienced throw this kind of attack from THIS weird angle?

Tim's Vlog #3 - July 7th, 2019 - on the community class

The General is a very busy man, with a lot on his plate. It’s quite impressive. Being said, we did not have him teaching us today. Rather, the assistants working with him at the WMA (World Muay Thai Alliance) told Tyler and I to practice with each other in a separate room from the community class. This gave Tyler and I time to compare notes and elaborate on our learning processes. What came out today while Tyler and I were comparing our notes, was how similar so many aspects of Lertrit feel to my style of Kung Fu (San Soo). This comes back to an earlier point I tried to make about things being similar, but different. A saying that has become popular between the General and I. In the past I’ve used language as an analogy for learning martial arts. In the early stages of learning an art, one learns the alphabet. Latter, they learn words. So enough how to put together sentences. And before long, conversation is possible. In some instances some martial arts are as different as Thai and English. Other times, martial art styles feel like the same language, but spoken in a different dialect. San Soo and Lertrit feel how I’ve heard others compare Portuguese and Spanish. Please keep in mind I speak neither of these language, only bad California English and am going of what I’ve heard from those who do speak these languages. Both San Soo and Lertrit are true martial styles. There is no sporting application to them. They are meant to incapacitate someone. Also, they flow from once strike to the next. Similar to dancing, once you know how each move can lead to another, there is no break between any two motions. You can simply move from one strike or manipulation to the next from any position you find yourself in. While there are time when my San Soo habits are not helpful in Lertrit, what is helpful is understanding how to flow. The General uses both the word flow and natural. The move should be natural, is what the General will say, it should flow. It's like learning to speak a fluently, rather than in a broken sentence structure. In San Soo and Jiujitsu we talk about flow. Flowing from one move to the next as seamlessly as possible. If you mess up, you just keep going, flow to the next thing you know. The General will talk about a missed punch flowing into an elbow. In jiujitsu, a failed arm lock can flow into a choke. Similar, but different.

Timothy's Vlog: Day 5

For me the difficult part of the straight punch is to not turning/corkscrewing my hand as I punch, not lifting my shoulders/chest, and also to not rotate my back foot when punching with the rear hand. Usually I would do about a 1/4 turn going from guard to full extension, but he wants us to have zero rotation on the hand/arm. None. And the fist needs to still end up in a traditional boxing position instead of what you would see in Karate or Taekwando with the thumb facing the ceiling. Everything comes from the hips so that there is literally a perfectly straight (and therefore efficient) movement. If done correctly the hips will move the fist into the correct position but also causes the elbow to flare a bit (remember it isn't stadium style so we aren't worried about losing on points due to being mid-kicked; he's also got some nasty counters for this that we just haven't got into yet). We're also stopping at the target (which from a scientific standpoint should cause a ripple effect as the energy disperses on the target and will cause a flash KO) and purposely not fully extending our arms to avoid potential arm locks. These small change ends up changing the angle of everything else and how weight transfers. On top of that, we've got to consider defensive positioning at the same time. It's MUCH harder than it sounds lol. I feel like I am reworking everything from day one like I've never thrown a punch before. And then also being asked to transition and do it from the opposite stance all in one streamlined movement. The amount of small details is seriously overwhelming but also really cool when you can see how effective it is. I spent a ton of time both in the gym and at home just looking at the movement of my fist while slowly trying to weight transfer and turn my waist. Overall I guess what I am trying to say is that what we are doing/showing in these videos isn't really "complete" yet as he doesn't really break things down into individual techniques as we would in Western boxing or Muay Thai (i.e. a jab, a hook, a teep, etc.) where you work off a specific technique or stance and then feel things out while trading attacks. It is more a complete system with a few fundamentals that flows one movement directly into another without a specific stance and must be perfected to maintain balance and power. With stadium Muay Thai you use strikes to pick apart your opponent, but typically you would throw at max 4-6 strikes in one combination. This style just keeps going. It is complete and utter domination of your opponent regardless of your current stance and situation. The first day he asked us "if you were fighting five opponents right now, who would you disable or kill first and who would you finish last?", and he was quite serious about that. He wanted us to walk him through the mental process of how that fight would play out and how we would survive that kind of encounter. The style is built around making sure you are never knocked to the ground and to injure your opponent with every movement whether defensive or offensive. 90% of it seems to be geared towards having a super strong defensive base to maintain balance as well as a clear sight picture of the fight, and then counterattacking whatever area is open (T-line of the face, sternum, groin, armpits, organs, joints, etc.). As a combat vet who has actually used hand to hand combat during hundreds of raids (I did over 600 raids my last deployment alone) I am actually really impressed with how well thought out the entire system is and how lethal its potential is. I'm really looking forward to perfecting the small stuff so it all feels smooth and can we worked into larger chains of attack. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast so much of this is reminiscent of learning to shoot from a supported base, then moving to individual 25m flat range, then to individual KD range, then to team movement drills, then to CQB/shoot houses, then to full scenarios with sim rounds, and eventually culminating in actual combat operations. Hahaha sorry that was a bit of a memory dump, I hope it makes sense. I did a bunch of mid-sentence editing so some of it may be incoherent. I enjoy this kind of discourse though, I wish we had time to do some commentary over the top of the video. It would be fun to explain what is going on mentally during some of this training so we can point out some of the small stuff we are working on or that he explains to us.

Kali (Pekiti Tirsia to be more specific) is the only other martial art I have practiced for a significant time (about 8 years or so). It's a Filipino art that is not very "sportified" and is based on the use of blades and impact weapons (empty hands training is done, too though but its based on the same patterns and concepts as the blades). I found it really interesting how similarities between different arts pop up, especially with the more traditional styles. There is so much that sounded very much familiar to me in the Muay Lertrit sessions. Things that are either very much the same as I learned in Kali or at least follow the same principle. There is this thing about "let them try to strike you but make them pay every time" that we also did a lot. Directly counterattacking instead of blocking is a central concept there. Stuff like parrying a punch with a move that, if done well, is supposed to strike the opponent in the same move as it parries their punch. Or making someone who uses a leg kick on you pay by not only blocking with your own shin but dropping your knee on their ankle while doing so, very similarly to what the general demonstrates in that one session. Also I've watched the session with Gen Hongthonglek a few times and only the last time it suddenly occurred to me that the way he uses fakes, delayed timing and counters is actually very similar to how I used to do sparring with the stick in Kali when I was more experienced. I'd typically move back to keep range (I'm a very tall guy with long arms) and would constantly weave my stick in front of me or throw my opponent off with some weird position kind of like Gen does with his feet before he lands his big kicks. This kinda stuff is really fascinating to me. Sure there are differences between arts but often there are also overlaps or concepts that can be applied to other arts as well. Did you have similar experiences? PS: Of course there are differences, too: For example Kali teaches you to give not getting hit (at all if possible) top priority because an opponent could always carry a weapon even if you don't see it right away so every hit might be very dangerous. Thats something I have to practice to overcome a bit in Muay Thai where the opponent is guaranteed to not have a weapon and getting hit is not actually a mistake in principle.

Hi everyone, I recently read the blog from Emma Thomas that Sylvie had re-posted (I am posting the link to it below). https://8limbsus.com/female-fighters/by-emma-thomas-muay-thai It gave me the impulse to write the few words below and I wanted to share how Emma's post touched me to the core: If you would ask me what kind of individuals I look up to… I would answer that I admire people who have incredible personal qualities such as Courage, Kindness, Generosity, Determination, and Dedication… If you also have great wisdom, chances are you are a role model to me. Emma's post touched me in many ways and I’d like to express support to this incredible person. I am one that agrees that the best learning outcomes come from our failures. And more often than not, the harder you fail, the greater the lesson. This is where I stand anyways and I have yet to have managed to deal with successes better than with failures. I noticed in the article that the rationale for the person to tell Emma to quit was the amount of consecutive losses she had had. Not a valid argument in my opinion. You do something because you enjoy it, want to improve, are passionate about it, want to share the moment and practice with someone who shares the same passion as you, sense of accomplishment, to gain wisdom, know what you are made of and so on… The list of valid reasons for doing something can be endless. I really don’t think that the opinion of the judges sitting ring-side (no matter how qualified they may be) and the official outcome of a fight would be the main reason why fighters fight. It could be the main motivation for spectators but that also has to be proven (many spectators can actually appreciate a fight regardless of the official outcome, unless they bet money). Let’s not mention that stepping in the ring is, alone, a win each time. Let’s also not mention that Emma Thomas stepped in the ring right away at the most difficult place to do so: Thailand, the mother land of Muay Thai. How could anyone with a little bit of common sense tell her to quit after only 11 fights in Thailand. That just doesn’t make sense at all… I have had successes in life, although I do not recall any of those successes occurring before failing first. I have failed more times than I could ever count; from every failure, there was a learning outcome. At times it was a big lesson and sometimes a smaller, more subtle one. In many occurrences I repeatedly failed before any kind of incremental improvements. All the times I failed helped me become a better person. For each time I failed there was a lesson around the corner and incremental improvements arose. On another hand, the ego trip and euphoria provided by unexpected successes have blurred my thoughts and ultimately set me back. Things that worked out on the first try have had a tendency to make me stop pushing and searching for a better self. The kind of feeling that gives the illusion that you’ve got nothing else to learn after all. Retrospectively that feeling is infinitely detrimental to one’s mind and soul.

Lucy: so what if you're not good enough? You're not planning on fighting for a living, are you; the idea is to enjoy yourself! Your new trainer obviously thinks you ARE good enough, and they won't put you forward unless you're ready, and you'll be placed against someone who should be roughly your equal, so the two of you won't be hopelessly mismatched. As for injuries; well, injuries happen all the time, no matter what sport you do (or even if you don't do any sport). I understand your worries, but you have to just let them go. The referee and your trainer should make sure things don't get out of hand. I worry sometimes that by some freaky chance I get a good punch or kick through and hurt my trainer; but that's the job. Anyway, he's pretty damn tough! I think when I get back to training again I may worry about hurting myself, but quite honestly it's not any potential injury that bothers me (as realistically the chance of a serious injury is very remote, and anyway I ride motorbikes and horses, so I have a high-risk lifestyle), it's my work's reaction if I end up with another prolonged period of sick absence (I do a physical job and cannot do it with a limb in plaster!) But then again, we're a long time dead, so we might as well throw ourselves into Life while we can. If you want to do this, then you can. Believe it.

I know it’s so stupid, but apparently I wasn’t the first person he had done it to. I took about 9 months out as I was so upset and I couldn’t see the point in training, then I decided to go to a lesson ( miles away from home where no one knew me ) and thought I’d train just to lose a bit of weight. Fell back in love with Muay Thai within the first 10 minutes, and 3 weeks in Ive been asked to join the fight team!!! Everything I’ve ever wanted, except... I have those nagging doubts of what if I’m not good enough? What if I kick and hurt the other person? Or what if I get hurt / injured? Then suddenly I lose all confidence and my ex trainer has won, it’s a vicious circle, I just hope it gets better and I reach my full potential, even if that means being limited to interclub s and not actual fights