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I'm sorry I didn't get to reply earlier I've been busy with school this week! But I'm very appreciative about your efforts to help me find and journey through the concept of southpaw fighting as a muay khao and the idea of the advantage of the ambidextrous ability! Last night I went to my class and was doing pad work and sparring in southpaw. It surprisingly for me was quite comfortable (besides throwing elbows). I REALLY noticed a sort of flow coming out of my pressure due to being able to go from southpaw to orthodox by following through with strikes and making that a step into the other stance felt incredibly fluid. I will definitely continue to do southpaw so I can play with what it can do. A problem I've been running into is learning how to close distance, part of it is cutting the habit of being on the "railroad tracks" as Sylvie likes to describe it and learning how to make angles and have good foot work for muay khao style, but I think that is something that will come to me overtime as i work on it. I forgot who, I think it was Yodkhunpon, that had this beautiful galloping foot work that I'd love to get used to. Just thought I'd give an update to how that journey is going! Again thank you for your help and abundant knowledge on the topic! Karuhat has such unique movement in how his fakes are part of his fluid head and body movement. it isn't a jerk of the body.

This is something I reflected on a lot the past two years when I moved to Myanmar. I'm left-handed but orthodox. In lethwei the fight style is different, you don't strike and move back to original position, rather you move forward and strike and strike again whike going from southpawto orthodoxand to southpaw again. For example you do a jab cross left knee/kick (as orthodox) while doing your cross punch you move forward end up in southpaw position and knee/kick from southpaw stance (rather than do a switch knee or switch kick). And in lethwei you often practise both stances while doing pads. It doesnt look very elegant. But. The benefit for me has been injury control. I have one bad knee and being able to switch stance better has easened the pressure on my bad knee, I use both sides of my body in a more balanced manner. However it messes up balance and you need to learn how to place your feet correctly. But as injury prevention it's gold when I feel my bad knee and want to protect it from knee teeps, I switch stance. Maybe from a muay thai scoring point of view it doesn't make sense but for me to manage injuries and keep both sides of my body strong it's been great. Also good for confidence to learn Im strong in both stances.

Wow, you've got a really nice game plan with tons of great reference to work from. Thanks for watching the content so closely! The thing about locks is that you want them to be resting positions, more or less. The frame is to control your opponent, to keep them from locking you, to move them and turn for a knee, but then you move into a lock position to kind of "slow down." Dieselnoi, when he has that horrible double lock and he's wrenching his opponent's heads around, he's resting. Slowing down a bit to catch his own breath while off-balancing his opponent and, through the discomfort and control, keep them from breathing. Yodkhunpon's hold, with the hand on the bicep, that's a waiting game. He's anticipating the knee so that he can elbow or turn. Also a kind of "slowed down" moment. So moving into locks, or between locks, you want to see them as like the stones in a river that you can hop onto for a moment to make a plan. You don't stay there. That's not your end game. It's transitional, although you don't have to move off your spot too fast. So, when you're working on those different locks, shoulders from Satanmuanglek and head from Tanadet's long clinch, work on them by getting into and out of them. Make it a "full range of motion" practice, instead of a drill. To feel the edges, how to move in and through them. I also advise you to take a look at Burklerk and Silapathai, who both love to snuff the clinch because they don't like to be in the clinch. If you're really into learning to clinch, learn how to get out of it, too. Because people will use those tricks against you, but it also allows you to move a lot more than if you only learn the dominant positions. In those two examples, Burklerk is showing how to stop someone from being able to grab you - nearly at all - with the way he locks out the shoulders; this also works great for killing punchers and elbows. And Silapathai's version is slithering out of the way with great turns - Karuhat does this, too - which allows you to change position quickly and get your own lock, if you're actually trying to clinch.