Karuhat's Flower - The Essence of Muay Thai in Pruning Back, Restraint

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

above, the cut back stem of our Adenium obesum "Desert Rose" and the bloom that came from the cutting, photo taken this morning

 

Karuhat's Flower

September 24th, 2024 - In the development of skills in Muay Thai everyone is trying to "add" things. New techniques, new training, new moves, new tricks. This is a desert Rose we bought when traveling with Karuhat in Isaan. We saw the unusual plant at a rest stop, it reminded me of the bulbous, massive trees in The Little Prince, so we bought one. He told us that in Thai it's called "The Show Stopper", or some rough equivalent to that, because its flowers were so stunning people walking by just have to stop and look. If you know Karuhat's Muay Thai, perhaps the most beautiful that's ever been, it seemed very fitting that we bought this plant with him.

We're not gardeners, we keep a yard somewhat inexpertly. And we read up on the plant, how it has growing seasons, its general needs. But no matter what it did the flowers wouldn't come. Little proto-buds would show, and then die and drop off, even when the branches were verdant. He knows how to care for them, and would visit us and help steer us the right way. Here is an early visit when the plant was quite bare.

 

It wouldn't flower for a year. He visited again and told us "You have to cut it back", and then told us about something you paint onto the cutting end to seal it, to force the lift energies into a bloom. Before Sylvie left to travel a week ago she cut it back here. A week later this bloom at photo top. This is the thing about Thailand's Muay Thai. It seems like when you come here its just this incredibly verdant fight culture. There are techniques and beautiful fighters, and gyms and krus everywhere. It feels like all this is quite natural, like it just spontaneously grew here, and as a fighter a lot of the times it feels like you are just walking around and picking wonderful fruits that you put in your fighter basket. You want this elbow here, and this guard over here. And this "combo" (there really aren't combos in Thailand's Muay Thai, but we turn it into combos so they can be exported). And, if you are Instagram and watching demos, you are collecting these techniques, some of them quite far removed from their source.

The Secret of Restraint, of Cutting Away

This is the secret about Thailand's Muay Thai. Once you have the plant well soiled, watered and fertilized, all those "flowers" that are loved come from pruning, from "cutting back". You cut back on the branch to produce the bloom. It's not an additive process. And this is the part of the art that simply isn't known much at all throughout the rest of the world...how to garden the muay of a fighter. Everyone is copying flowers, picking them off branches, mixing them with aggression, trying to change the rules of the sport to force more and more flowers (knockouts, etc)...but the actual gardening of the art is dying.

Which branches need to be cut back and when? This is one of the concerns with the new commercialized much more aggressive versions of Entertainment Muay Thai. Some of most important cutting backs and prunings of Muay Thai occur at the emotional level, almost a spiritual level. It grows at the root of many of our impulses toward violence. Feelings of anger, even rage, are intentionally prune back. They are not the emotions of action (like they are often in the West). The pruning back of these feelings and their display is one of the most important aspects of Thailand's Muay Thai, and is probably quite close to the reason why it produces such beautiful blooms, blooms that are the envy of the world. It's because, even though being one of the most violent combat sports (at times), it is traditionally powerfully cut back at the emotional level.

The Technical and Psychological

An example of the unpruned emotion can be seen in Namkabuan's fights vs Matee. There is this highlight below where he somewhat spectacularly falls out of the ring and just jumps back in attacking, not even waiting for the ref to reset the fight. There is another when he unleashes wild elbows that make highlight reels, falling off balance but it all feeling like an onslaught. As mentioned below, for Namkabuan the whole thing felt very unpruned and wasn't something to be praised for. These are events that in Entertainment versions would be cheered on by shouting announcers and bounced all over IG streams...these moments of loss of control are almost the purpose of the new versions of Muay Thai, quietly undermining the life force art that gives Muay Thai its technical brilliance and even more so the sublime fights of the past. Namkabuan is now past, Rest in Power glorious legend.

 

It is the control, but even more so, the pruning back of the plant that is the soul, if you want the bloom. When I see foreign fighters, who clearly train very, very hard in their techniques, unleashing high volume strikes, one after the other after the other after the other, often in memorized combinations they've learned on the pads and on the bag, their is a very real sense that this is a plant that is incredibly overgrown. There are leaves and leaves, but no blooms. They were like our plant, before Karuhat told us that it needs to be cut back.

Unfortunately though, this is an art, and an aesthetic that isn't easily passed onto others, especially to non-Thais. That's because it comes from the Form of Life that is Thailand's Muay Thai, grown in its small kaimuay across the whole country, in its festivals and local stadia. In its urban gyms, its traditional stadia, within the gambers and their aesthetics. It's a cultural expression, but it is founded upon a sense of pruning back. Of gardening.

When I saw this flower today I took a picture of it and sent it to Sylvie who as I mentioned is in Italy. I was just astounded at how fast and strong the bloom had come after we had been waiting for it for a year or more, simply by cutting it back (and knowing to paint the cutting over with a special mixture). The parallels to Muay Thai seemed so plentiful, for fighters very often try to develop certain techniques or qualities, often for years, but that "bloom" never comes, or only comes palely. I wanted to know how she saw process of pruning in Muay Thai, as she is a fighter who has engaged in the sport in Thailand like no other, just massive amounts of fights, the most prolific Western Muay Thai fighter in history, an unparalleled study with legends, and endless hours in the training ring. Here is he secret for blooms that are slow to come. Prune back.

This is some of our conversation:

vocabulary: Jangwah (จังหวะ) = rhythm, timing, Tammachat (ธรรมชาติ) = natural, indicated by being smooth & at ease, Ning (นิ่ง) = being at ease & unaffected, Mua (มัว) = obscure, clouded, confused

Perspectives on Growth and Pruning

There at least two very distinct but related levels to thinking about this. As a fighter, struggling to improve in the art, best is not to think primarily of additive processes. The pruning back of oneself, both at the level of techniques, tactics and strategy, but also at the emotional level very well may be the path to much strained for growth. To cut back isn't to "do less", its actually cutting off a living branch, sealing it off, so that its vital force will force itself out into bloom, further down, closer to the main stem. Technically, the main stems are the foundational principles and movements of the sport...which is why some of the most spectacular Muay Thai fighters of Thailand actually are fighting from place of basics. The second level of thinking about this is about the sport itself. We are told "Muay Thai has to grow!" or, "It's great that the sport is growing!" in its various new hybrid incarnations, many of them adopting Western or Internalized emotional pictures of fighting. Additive growth does not necessarily produce the flowers. And the tourism of Muay Thai is founded on the fact that it produces so many show stopping blooms, unparalleled skills and a form of fighting that exists nowhere else in the world. 

Right now, in this generation, we still have men who know how to prune in the art. They were raised in the kaimuay of traditional Muay Thai, they fought in its rings, and they understand the process of cutting back, the aesthetics of control. But this generation of knowledge is vulnerable. They are at an age already when maybe 10 more years and they'll no longer be shaping fighters. The processes of Muay Thai's creation lies withing their knowledge of its creation. It isn't in the "techniques". It isn't bio-mechanical. It's a spirit of understanding the flower of violence, and what it means for the human being...distilled into a craft, a craft of pruned-back fighting.

btw, as a note, this is Arjan Surat who we mention in our texts. He is perhaps among the oldest of this last gen, holding pads every day in his 70s.