Bonus Session 5: Chatchai Sasakul - Southpaw Basics (Hands) | 52 min (Patreon)

Chatchai Sasakul - WBC Flyweight Boxing World Champion (1997), Thailand Coach of the Year (2011)

This is the 2nd session with Chatchai in the archive, watch the 1st session here. 

When I finally felt in my body and understood conceptually what Chatchai was teaching me about balance and weight transfer with footwork, it changed everything. I’m not sure I’ve ever had a more profound shift in my Muay than what I learned from Chatchai’s balance and weight transfer. Part of the reason for that is that balance is everything in Muay Thai; it’s everything in boxing, it’s everything in any sport. And Chatchai’s balance is just unreal. Watching him move across the floor to show me in slow-motion and completely flawless mechanical execution what he’s asking me to do is just unbelievably beautiful. There’s this part in this video where he just takes his hands out of it all together, no punches, but moves his shoulders with his footwork patterns because the hands don’t matter but the shoulders do. It looks like he’s teaching me the footwork for a hip-hop dance routine or something, like those end scenes in a “Step Up” movie where they’re all doing this choreography in 2 inches of water so when you drag your foot across it creates this additional visual expression of your awesomeness. Except it’s boxing and Muay Thai, not literally dancing. But it’s the same.

A few months prior to this lesson with Chatchai, Karuhat had switched my guard. I’m naturally Orthodox (right handed), but Karuhat wanted my power side at the front and so he switched me. You can watch that full session and process here. Not like, “sometimes do this,” but actually switching me entirely and fully. You are now left-handed, kind of deal. So, because Chatchai had such a profound impact on my Muay from my natural guard, I wanted to go visit him for a diagnostic at the start of developing my Southpaw approach because the main difficulty in changing your guard is, for me, is balance. I’m not used to standing and moving that way, so it goes all wonky. Like trying to write with your opposite hand, your penmanship just goes to shit. Until you work on it a lot. Chatchai laughed at first when I told him why I wanted him to rework everything we’d already gone over but from a Southpaw stance. Honestly, his instruction is so good and his knowledge so deep, I’d take the same lesson from him even without switching guards many times over, just because those tiny adjustments never become obsolete. But, while he laughed at first, he totally got into it. By the end of the lesson he was rattling off names of insanely successful fighters who have switched to Southpaw from a naturally Orthodox guard. But more than anything the thing I wanted out of this lesson is exactly what I got, which is Chatchai’s keen eyes making these micro-adjustments to my frame and movements in order to align everything. You can have a super powerful gun or a super fast car, but neither will be either if it isn’t properly aligned. Millimeters make all the difference in machinery like that, and Chatchai is a mechanic. If he were a caricature he’d be wearing those jeweler’s lenses, seeing all the details that nobody else’s eyes can detect.

As always, watch Chatchai’s feet. The way he keeps his feet, knees, hips and shoulders in alignment is total balance. The way he taps his feet as he moves forward actually generates a lot of power. His shoulders drive all the accuracy and power of the punches. He never goes outside of his own frame, so he’s always completely in control, even if he’s being struck (there’s a part at the very end when he’s working with Tu - an American fighter in Thailand - and he shoves Tu’s shoulder while Tu is moving with really nice footwork. There’s a micro-difference between where Tu’s front shoulder is - where his weight is - and one allows that shove to disbalance him, the other he’s totally solid.). Chatchai’s weight transfer is a huge deal and the truth, purity and proof of it is that I can apply it to my wonky, non-dominant side and generate balance and power out of it within an hour. Because it’s like maths or science - they don’t care which hand you do the equations with, it just matters that you apply the steps.

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

This is the 2nd session with Chatchai in the archive, watch the 1st session here. 

 The Muay Thai Library is supported by all my patrons and sponsored by Boon and by SMAC gym in Victoria Australia.