Bonus Session 2 - Sor. Kamsing Techniques | 37 min (Patreon)

The bonus material for the Muay Thai Library is made up of extra videos from krus and arjans that may not fit into the profile of the library itself, but still are worthy of study on their own. But it also will be made up of videos like this one, that may be too informal and improvised to sit in the library, but are still wonderful to watch. This one has a kind of behind the scenes quality as it’s a visit I took to Somrak’s gym in Bangkok, trying to find a way to shoot with Somrak. He doesn’t instruct students any longer, and I hear he kind of hangs out at the gym, so I made arrangements to train with Kru Oht just as a foot in the door, a young ex-fighter turned trainer from the gym. It may take me several more visits before I actually get to talk with Somrak face to face. I may have to just keep showing up, but this is the kind of work that my patrons make possible. It’s not uncommon that I may have to visit a smaller, off the beaten track gym a few times before I get a session worthy of the library.  

This session though is wonderful. It just so happens that Kru Doht, another ex-fighter at Kamsing was just hanging out at the chicken fights and noticed that he knew me from up in Chiang Mai. In fact, he’s been a ref for many, many of my fights in the North. He was super excited to see me, and he kept jumping in to help Kru Oht with things he felt would make my Muay Khao fighting style that much better, mostly trying to infuse it with some famed Kamsing style femeu attack.

So you get a lot of things in this session that you don’t always see on film. You get to glimpse the femeu techniques of Somrak’s gym, shown improvizationally by two of their ex-fighters. You get a kind of amalgam of Muay Khao and Muay Femeu thinking, as they both try to mix in the techniques and footwork that they really esteem. And you get just a wonderful gym feeling, what can happen on a quiet Sunday at a Bangkok gym. I hope you enjoy!  

For those that don’t know, Google about and you’ll find that Somrak (Somlak) Sor. Kamsing is one of the greatest fighters of the Golden Age generation, if not the greatest. He fought like nobody else, and brought home Olympic Gold in boxing for Thailand, but now is somewhat reclusive. I think he likes just hanging out at his gym with these guys. I hope to shoot with him for the library, but if not great moments like these happen too! There’s a lot of technique in here, lots of small wonderful things.