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By Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu · Posted
Time and the Philosophy of Pad Work The above is just an informal clip from Sylvie's 172nd Muay Thai Library session, #172 Takrowlek Dejrat 2 - Body-Breaking Timing and the Low Kick (1 hr, 30 min). Takrowlek had just been joking with me about how many pad holders work, in a way that it absolutely blind to timing other than just working very simple, highly repetitive, fatigue-inducing, technique-alternating beats. While filming the past hour long session I had been witnessing a kind of pad-oriented instruction I honestly had never really ever seen in Thailand, despite now having documented training with over 100 krus & ex-fighters. The only other who had really come close to this philosophy is perhaps Karuhat, who has developed a highly acute sensitivity to both timing and weigh transfer. I was pretty shocked by what I had seen, as kru Takrowlek isn't a big name in the sport, but Thailand is just like this. Men all over Thailand are filled with knowledge that the West seldom sees, and honestly doesn't make it into the gyms of adventure tourism, and those of devoted visiting fighters. What I had seen I simply had never seen before. And the video above just touches on it (you have to watch the full hour session to witness what I saw). I'm a philosophical mind, so this write up is bent towards philosophical concepts. They are my appeal. I've always seen Muay Thai - and broadly fighting itself - as a Time Battle. That is to say, each fighter is "armed" with the character of their own timing, their own internal sense of how their strikes and defenses unfold, and they are seeking to impose that tempo, that rhythm, upon the open. And when they can they are "breaking" the opponents Time, the structure of their duration, their capacity to act and think. It really is the femeu (the art) of Muay Thai, even among the most aggressive Muay Khao styles, to be doing a Time Battle. (An important aspect of this of course is Space, proximities have powerful effects on Time...but for the moment let's leave that aside.) What Takrowlek was teaching in this session, through his padwork, was how to destroy or at least seriously disrupt your opponent's Time, and in this case to do so with lowkicks. We hear it frequently how important "timing" is, but what does that mean? Having "timing" becomes this ephemeral quality a fighter has, which just seems to mean that their strikes come opportunistically. What Takrowlek was teaching though was very specific, and incredibly instructional, and was designed to build in students a very honed perception. He was teaching Sylvie how to see something. The core of what he was teaching was very simple. On ANY weight transfer the low kick is open...for both legs. It's a truism that you can low kick a leg that has the weight already on it...because it can't raise it to check, the truth is that at the exact moment of weight transfer to either foot, both legs are actually exposed. If the opponent rocks back, not only is that leg vulnerable, so is the lead leg. The "window" is actually the moment of transfer. All of that is fine and good, and I've seen some related timing instruction of the low kick in this way, telling students when to kick a vulnerable leg. I've not really seen it applied to both legs often, but what Takrowlek was teaching was something much more. Because his style is a crowding style designed to put you more or less permanently within low kick range, he is teaching a way to start to rob your opponent of their own Sense of Time. How so? This is something I noticed while filming Sylvie. As Takrowlek was demonstrating on Sylvie, showing her the kinds of timing he wanted, and as she concentrated on that timing, I saw that Takrowlek's low kicks were starting to erode Sylvie's own Sense of Time, her own internal clock. The reason for this is because we instinctively use our own weight transfer between feet to ostensibly FEEL time, to create our own beat, and from our own beat - however varied - to then measure the opponents rhythm, like using a ruler. By repeatedly "shocking" Sylvie just after she put her foot down, with either leg, he had begun Time Blinding her. Try as she might, she couldn't "see" his timing. She chalked this up to just trying something new, and trying to "see" an opponent in a new way (and that is true, because its about developing the capacity to read opponent weight transfers regularly), but it was more than that, because I watched it in real time degrade. She shocks were breaking Sylvie's own sense of Time, her own ruler. What is brilliant about this is that this kind of instruction was already embedded in Takrowlek's padwork. He regularly HOLDS on the step. Which means he is developing, subconsciously, this kind of perception. When the opponent transfers weight, forward or back, they are vulnerable. This works especially for low kicks because you are shocking the moment of felt time, the moment when the feet feel the ground in a "beat", and disrupting it, but it likely is body wide. You can strike any strike within this window and work against the opponent's temporal hold. And, the great pad man is teaching this timing, this perception. So much of trying to harvest Thailand's Muay Thai is all about mimicking its techniques, especially biomechanically, and then folding them into memorized "combos"...and then using these combos as a way of blitzing, or temporally imposing these clusters over an opponent. This is part of what Takrowlek is joking about in his video. These approaches to techniques have no real sense or perception of an opponent's inner clock, the way that opponents organize themselves, and experience themselves as whole. Takrowlek though is teaching that pad work instructs an actual perception, the ability to read weight transfer and punish it. It's a perception that is the under-writing of all those techniques that people are trying to copy and use. But, this requires pad men who have that perception already, those that already see and feel the importance of weight transfer and how it relates to vulnerability. As mentioned, we uncovered in our Intensive filmed with Karuhat years ago (its available now on YouTube in the membership area, 40+ hours will all be uploaded). Here is a clip from that concept of weight-transfer reading developed in that session (its moving from Vimeo to YouTube now, because Vimeo is shutting down): Karuhat's philosophy of weight transfer reading is more complex than Takrowlek's in the sense that he is reading your body like a "shape", like a letter of the alphabet, wherein he sees how limited you are based on your weight, and in those limitations how he can penetrate your intentions. Takrowlek is instead zapping or punishing weight transfer itself, and trying to breakdown your internal clock. Karuhat too can have that effect, because his strikes seem to anticipate even the speed of your thoughts, because he knows the strike or defense that will naturally follow from your body position, but it isn't as aggressive as what Takrowlek is teaching. It's happening at a higher level of vocabulary. But, both approaches require the development of a perception, the capacity to see as a matter of nature, the constant transfer of weight of an opponent, and to see these shifts as windows of vulnerability. -
By Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu · Posted
The Deep Black Photo Series so far. You can find high quality prints of these here, with 100% of the profits on sales going to the photo subjects themselves. -
By Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu · Posted
Saencherng Pinsinchai (Bangkok) The legend of Pinsinchai, was very happy to finally film and photograph with him. These portraits feel special.
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The Latest From Open Topics Forum
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Hi, Does anyone have good Muay Thai podcast recommendations? I’ve never been into podcasts but I listened to all the Muay Thai bones podcasts and really enjoyed them, but finished them all. Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated. thanks! -
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That sounds promising if you've already moved, how are things going for you now? -
By Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu · Posted
I'm sorry I don't really know. Sylvie is in touch with a collector and this person is where she buys hers, but there are not multiple copies available. Maybe someone else would know of a larger source. -
Where can I find some physical old Muay Thai magazines? I am located in Bangkok. Thanks
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