Attachai Fairtex - Teaching Timing and IQ | 72 min (Patreon)

2x Lumpinee Champion Attachai Fairtex is one of the great femeu fighters of Thailand. Namsaknoi, himself an elite femeu fighter of legendary status called him his most difficult fight as he just was too hard to read. This is a window into that quality, and how to build it.

Attachai is all at once a typical, sweet and intensely skilled ex-fighter. There’s a kind of charming boyishness that catches the light in the faces and personalities of some Thai men and never fades. Attachai is like that. But he’s also unlike any other, his playfulness is patient and comes with a dimmer-switch of sorts that has incredible control over exactly how much pressure he will put on a student, based on their skills, physicality and mental ability to a) understand what he’s doing and b) cope with it. That fine-tuned manner about him is an incredible gift in a teacher and I reckon all his students are incredibly fortunate to train under that particular skill of his.

I wasn’t very familiar with him as a fighter before going to his gym for the first private, though I had heard his name. Kevin and I looked him up and he’s pretty incredible to watch. That boyishness is blanketed under a kind of relentless one-upping type of masculinity, something I see in Karuhat and like very much, and Attachai let it be known pretty quickly when I first met him that he knew I’d trained with Karuhat and he found that to be really awesome. He’s a fan of Karuhat, who is my idol. By watching Attachai’s fights on Youtube I could see how insanely skilled and quick he is, the absolute blueprint of a Muay Femeu, and truthfully I wasn’t sure how he was going to teach me this. Teaching Muay Khao is a lot of different knee techniques, some strategy and angles, and this endless “don’t back up” ethic. You push, push, push. You never stop. For a non-Muay Khao fighter, that can be difficult. Details can be completely lost or just uninteresting and what’s really being taught by the best is a knee-fighter’s heart. The ethic of Muay Khao fighting. Muay Femeu is also, largely, an ethic. It’s evasive and unpredictable. The notion of teaching that ethic is kind of like teaching someone how to be funny - you can learn some jokes, how to recite them, maybe a little humor theory, but in a lot of ways it feels like you’re either funny or you’re not. Just how was Attachai going to teach timing?

Attachai is called a “Muay Thai Genius” and while he’s not teaching genius - that’s a quality - he is absolutely deserving of the name as a teacher as well. He actually understands how to teach timing and faking. Some of the work was pretty standard: kicking the bag with a little emphasis on particular combinations (low kick, high kick) and his padwork is on its surface just difficult but not particularly complicated or unusual. Upon a second visit and then watching the video for voiceover, I became more aware of what he was actually working on and asking for. (It’s taken me years to understand what skilled padholders are truly asking for via their individual methods.) Attachai wants footwork and movement, placing yourself in the right distance for your own setups. But his padwork is only a small part of his system. His real genius, his real spark, is in these progressive rounds of playing. You’re constantly working on timing because the game is trying to land kicks against someone trying to avoid kicks - so, for instance, one person perfects blocking and going backwards and evading while the other hones their attacking and faking and coming forward, then you switch. He’ll remove strikes (hands, usually) and literally have you practice the 5th round of a settled fight: one person already in the lead and the other person chasing. You will learn how to reverse that round or how to defend your lead - then switch. I was a good 100+ fights in before I understood how to fight a 5th round. I lost a lot of fights by not understanding the nuances. This is really, really brilliant training and if you’re fighting in Thailand as a westerner not raised in this, it’s invaluable. He’s a genius.

More than any of the wonder of this skillset is how enjoyable it is. I was pretty tense and uncertain our first session - I’m very uncomfortable faking, even though when put to it I can surprise myself - but in our second session I was way more relaxed and I laughed and had so much fun. And believe it or not “fun” (or play) is really important in the training of Muay Thai in Thailand. It is essential to learning the fluidity and relaxation that makes the techniques really explode...and be hard to read. And Attachai is really fun to play with, he’s so funny and generous and will increase the pressure just enough to keep in challenging while still letting you see your improvements or tiny wins. I did a lot of work between these two sessions, in things that are complementary to Attachai’s ethic while not being directly taken from him. I had worked a lot with Karuhat, focusing on developing as Southpaw fighter and backing up purposefully with measured strides (sessions with Karuhat are found in the Muay Thai Library, or the bonus sessions) - those two things have made me more balanced and relaxed (as has Chatchai’s weight transfer, which is really what made my success with Karuhat’s left-handed change even possible); being able to move backwards well is what makes you move forward really well. So being able to stay in and counter immediately, move out of the way without losing ground… stuff like that is needed for Attachai’s Femeu style and drills. Not caring that you miss or that you get hit are huge in playing his games and my work with Karuhat has done a lot for me in that regard as well. The fact that my main trainer, Pi Nu, is so long and huge and generously relentless with me has made me more willing to counter after being hit as well. The point being, generous men and a hunger to work on all these things has made huge changes in me and all of those were exposed in the differences between these two sessions. And Attachai is an amazing instructor to get to admire them with, playing with toys that he showed me before but I didn’t know what to do with.

So this is the takeaway: You might really struggle under some of these sparring oriented drills, but that is only because you aren’t familiar with them, just as I wasn’t. But, if you work on your footwork they are designed to really increase your ring IQ. And these types of sparring games are things you can do with pretty much anyone. Just pick a friend and play in these limited ways. What’s great about these approaches that they expose holes of discomfort in your Muay Thai, things that you might be able to hide in basic padwork, or in full sparring or in fights. This is about becoming fluid in all directions and all contexts, so your real confidence grows.

 Remember, the video is filmed in 1080i 50p HD, so if you have  a fast connection be sure to set it viewing to highest quality. 

You can see the padwork from our second session with commentary here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=595iVp5Akwk . 

It’s a beautiful gym, you can read my review of it here:

http://8limbs.us/muay-thai-thailand/new-attachai-muay-thai-gym-fighting-genius-beautiful-surroundings

TIP BOX: if you are inspired by what you see and want to show added appreciation you can send gratuity directly to Kru Attachai. Just message $5 or more via PayPal to the address sylvie@8limbs.us, please in the "add a note" section specify "for Kru Attachai". I will transfer the funds.

KRU FUND: 5% of all pledges go into my Kru Fund, and is directed back to the Krus and ex-fighters who have helped make this documentary Library possible: http://8limbs.us/muay-thai-thailand/starting-the-kru-fund