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Learning from Namkabuan (public) - Explosive Off-Beat Rhythms (70 min)

Added 2021-04-11 02:33:00 +0000 UTC

This video (above) was the very first time I met Namkabuan, or Pi Piaow (his playname means "pure," so another nickname for him as a fighter was "the pure warrior") way back in late 2016. This was before we'd even started the Muay Thai Library or Preserve the Legacy Project, but it is a nascent version of it. Videos like this gave birth to the Muay Thai Library. A seed that didn't know it would become a enormous tree. In the video I'm quite shy, I was very new to doing this, and Namkabuan wasn't a "kru" at the time. He had been running the Namkabuan restaurant in Khorat for decades and just agreed to come train me at this small gym that was within a resort; like, "we can use this space," kind of thing. Even though he didn't have experience teaching and was feeling his way forward remembering his style, he's a wonderful, patient, enthusiastic and engaged teacher. He explains things to me many times and tries to make me understand both strategy and technique. My Thai also at the time was much less developed so I didn't always get what he was showing, me, but it's all there. I voiced this video last night, trying to clear up what is happening.

If you are new to my Patreon as the Library, this session, and the sessions like it prior to the Preserve the Legacy Project, gave rise to the Muay Thai Library. It's not just collecting techniques or demos to "have the set," or whatever, it's learning how techniques express the fighter, how their techniques are a vocabulary, a flow, a rhythm and fluency that is unique not in its exclusivity, but in its selectivity. And by letting the camera roll, rather than making highlights or cuts or "breakdowns," you really see these men for who they are. You are really truly meeting Namkabuan here. He's charming - charming is a significant key, as the charm of a fighter is one of the things Golden Age legends say that is lost in today's Muay Thai, all superstars back in the day had tremendous สเน่ห์ "sanae" an aura - he's cheeky and funny in humor, he's athletic and explosive. That's him. I hope a lot of that comes through in the video. I think much of what we're learning here is selected by Namkabuan running through his own fights in his head and picking moves and strategies he feels are his "best of." He was incredibly versatile, but his constant no matter what was this forward, fearless, powerful masculinity.

What to Look Out For:

1) Faking is Rhythm: Namkabuan has fakes between fakes. His rhythm, overall, is faking which allows him to get his opponent into very few possible positions, whoch makes his power strikes very likely to land and hurt.
2) Long Right, Power Left: he first teaches me how to fake and set up for a long straight cross, but that's a set up for a powerful left sode attack to the opponent's open side (if they're Orthodox)
3) Nongkhi Bounce: his general bouncing footwork hides everything.
4) Mong Dtaa: he wanta you to stare the opponent down. It's too hard for me at that point in my development, but in his style he's reading his impact on the opponent. It's key. He even did it from the corner.
5) Slide Knee: this one is difficult to feel but once you get it, it locks. Long right, cover distance to land the left.
6) Muay Khao isn't Just Knees: he makes this point a lot, you have to set everything up to get to knees. Close your opponent up with punches, get them on one leg from blocking, let them kick and then time your shove, etc.
7) The Rope Crack: this is like a seagull dropping a clam to open it for dinner. You shove the opponent back into the ropes, popping open their guard, then elbow as they bounce back.
8) Timing is EVERYTHING: this is only a small part in demonstration but it's half of what he's trying to teach me all the time. Even on his plow, if your arm hits when the opponent is stable, they'll parry you.

Pieces of this session has been available to my patrons for a few years, in the Library. However, Namkabuan very sadly just passed away from Stage 4 Lung Cancer. He was diagnosed in January and fought every second until 10:30 PM on April 7th, 2021. He was only 48. In honor of him, of who he was, I have voiced the original documentary session to make it into a proper Muay Thai Library session and we are releasing it publicly, for everyone. This is what the Muay Thai Library Preserve The Legacy Project is about. It's about preserving these men and their muay for future generations.

Thank you to my patrons who make this kind of documentation possible, and for supporting me which in turn supports the Kru Fund and all the Legends and Krus in the Muay Thai Library. Below you can see more of our documentary work with Namkabuan, recent interviews and his commentary on his fight with Ramon Dekkers. We have more Namkabuan material in his remembrance coming.