Luktum Sityodtong - Positioning and Trips | 62 min (Patreon)

Luktum is a former Sityodtong fighter and trainer, who recently opened his own gym behind the house he share with his wife and 3 children in Pattaya. Lots of westerners who have established relationships with Sityodtong, one of the most famous gyms in Thailand, followed him over to his own gym when he departed. What’s interesting about that is how young Tum still is, not even 30 yet, and is in fact still an active international fighter. His experience growing up with the legend of Khun Yodtong - who sadly passed away a few years ago - makes him one of the last generations to pass through the champion-maker’s hands as a trainer. But he also has lots of experience working with westerners, so his ability to break down technique verbally is quite handy. But he also has a very Thai style that is at once both close-range and by same token is evasive, frustrating and tricky. He snuffs his opponent’s strikes and has a whole arsenal of lower-body trips that punish virtually any advancing from an opponent. As a figure of speech that also happens to be literally true, he seems to not even break a sweat while delivering awesome technique and punishing counters.

One of my favorite things that I learned from Tum was a further explanation on something that Kaensak once told me. If you put Attachai and Kaensak on a spectrum of Muay Femeu fighters, with Attachai like the absolute trickster who throws you on the floor every two seconds, and Kaensak the stylist who comes forward but somehow redirects every strike thrown at him and is therefore not so much evasive as deflective, Tum is pretty comfortably in the middle of those two. Kaensak told me years ago, before I knew anything at all in the clinch, that you use power first and technique second. He said it really casually, as if I’d have any notion of what he meant. Tum said pretty much the same thing, but explained the tactical purpose behind the strategy: fighters tend to mirror each other, especially in a competitive “I can do it better,” manner. So, if you clinch strong, your opponent will think, “I’m strong, too.” and power up to match you. But if you start out with a tricky technique, it puts the seed in your opponent’s mind and they go, “ah, I can do that, too.” Then it becomes an arms race of trickery, which might be hard to win. But if you goad your opponent into the power game first, then switch over to technique while they’re still using strength, you can utilize their tension to execute dramatic off-balances and trips. If your opponent is also relaxed and being technical, those moves will be less dramatic. I’ve tried to use Karuhat’s techniques on him and he’s just so relaxed, they simply will not go. Power first, technique second.

This session is a bit different from my sessions with the Golden Age Legends, many of whom don’t train on a regular basis anymore, so their emphasis isn’t on the standard daily routines of padwork. Tum is still training folks all the time, so what he’s teaching me is actually hidden in the process of how he holds pads and what he’s asking for out of each round. Lots of trainers will pull you through a gradual progression of weapons, starting with elbows and punches, then knees and kicks, etc. Each round adds a weapon so you can start to feel how they all work together after focusing on each one. What I found so cool about Tum’s approach is that he - like my own trainer, Kru Nu - has a progression in each round as well, but it’s one of energy and intensity. It’s modeled after a real, 5 round fight. So you use all your weapons in each round, but he might pull simplicity and power out of you in early rounds, while working toward more strategic timing and emphatic points in the later rounds, when you’re exhausted. It’s brilliant because, over time, you learn these patterns in your body. Kru Nu basically installed a defensive teep in me over a year of trying to murder me in the last round of pads and only letting me teep. He never said a word to me about it, but all of a sudden I was an awesome teeper in my fights. Same with how Tum operates. You’re kind of learning through a subliminal process, so to get the most out of this session pay attention to him, and not me. Look for what he is trying to draw out from me in terms of space and timing. That said, he’s also great at explaining a technique, breaking it down, and telling you exactly the theory behind why it’s useful. So, when watching pick out the techniques and strategies out of a larger, moving picture, and listen to when he stops to demonstrate. I did my best to point those out in my voiceover, but here are some things to look out for:

1. Knee-turned-to-block, arm control and step down for a pinned-leg trip. Tum gave me a few tries to figure this one out before finally just breaking it down. There are quite a few elements, so watch when Tum breaks it down for me: knee, then turn that knee to block your opponent’s legs and move your arms to the inside of your opponent’s elbows for arm control, so they can’t grab your neck or punch. Then, as you step your blocking leg down to the outside and behind your opponent’s stance, pivot while pinning your other foot to your opponent’s shin and keep turning with your upper body, basically tripping your opponent over their own legs.
2. Teep, fake teep to knee or trip. You have to teep first so that a fake teep makes sense. Show your opponent what you’re imitating so they look out for it with the real teep. Then you raise your knee for the teep but don’t extend and instead step forward and either knee, or step to the side of your opponent and pin their shin for a trip. All Tum’s trips are that pinned shin (it’s soooo effective), except for the step-behind.
3. The step-behind is one you really need to look at while he’s doing it so you don’t accidentally foul. You can’t hook the leg of your opponent (no calf-to-calf) and you can’t have your knee way past their knee. But you can step juuust past their leg and then trip them over your own leg. Tum does this in a galloping forward move when I successfully get back outside of his tripping leg, basically not letting me escape.
4. He does show me how to put my hips back in order to keep evading that trip - if your hips are in you don’t have enough flex to get away from the trip. You have to get your hips back while evading, then use that to post and knee or turn. You can also lift the leg that your opponent is trying to trip you with and hop backwards on the other leg. Hop, hop, hop, then post and bring your raised leg behind you for a counter knee or your own trip.

And mostly just look at him moving when we spar. Even in padwork, the way he stands and moves incrementally is hammering in the spacing that’s best for my own strikes. So if I just stay at that range that he gave me in padwork, I’d be gold for sparring. But instead I just forget everything he non-verbally showed me in padwork and struggle with the distance in sparring because I didn’t connect the dots. But watching his movements in sparring, how he just takes these tiny steps back or to the side to control my movement; to goad me forward so that he can trip me, snuffing my strikes, waiting out my onslaughts and then tripping me once to annihilate any points I might have landed in my peppered attempts. This is brilliant Muay Thai. 

 If you enjoyed this type of instruction you will probably enjoy the Attachai Muay Thai Library session as well.

Importantly:

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

KRU FUND: additionally, 5% of all Patreon 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