Jaroenthong Kiatbanchong - Femeu Muay Thai Hands | 50 min (Patreon)

Jaroenthong is often pictured as a trinity with Samart Payakaroon and Somrak Sor. Khamsing, the three of them as distinguished Yodmuay (Top Fighters) of the Golden Age of Muay Thai: absolutely skilled and confident, finessed fighters but also the playboy handsome boys of Muay Thai. Before going to train with Jaroenthong, I hadn’t seen many of his fights. But he has a lightness in his movement that’s beautiful. He’s a natural Southpaw but switches stance seamlessly. I asked him at one point in the lesson how he decided when and why to switch and he showed me that you just kick your opponent on both sides and then see which side they don’t block as well; then use the stance that has power against that side. Good idea.

He’s incredibly soft-spoken and calm. When he slips into his technique and fluid fighter energy it’s got a solidity to it, almost like he’s snapped into focus and then when he stops he relaxes into a soft blur. But his style lacks the kind of violence that I feel off of other legends, like Yodkhunpon or Dieselnoi, Namkabuan, Sagat or Hippy. But that’s not a lacking in itself, it’s just not his style. It’s like there’s forcefulness that is the power itself; watching a horse in full stride, the power is unmistakeable and majestic. But it’s not violent. That’s Jaroenthong’s femeu energy.

After watching me shadow around for a while he stepped in and started showing me how to dodge leg kicks, as well as how to fire them off to interrupt the opponent. From here he moved into some clinch knee techniques and then how to counter them. He often showed the offense and defense to a technique back-to-back, teaching them in pairs. Giving the riddle and the solution so you could understand it as a whole. I liked the way he kind of freestyled the techniques that he showed me, ultimately deciding to focus for a good portion on the importance of footwork and movement. This is crazy hard to teach and you just have to do it for endless hours to really develop it, so the lesson here is in watching him move. You can see him take just the space he needs, slow down and pause at moments to bait a strike or post to throw his own, then cut an angle and out he goes again. It’s beautiful. 

I draw out in the commentary the way he’s teaching me something or the context he’s putting each technique in verbally. You can’t hear him in the video due to music playing and how quietly he speaks, so my voiceover tries to cover some of that discussion. Again, the way he instructs is just this freestyle method and watching him is the key to seeing the movements, and the context he puts it in is verbal. “I cut Dekker like this,” or “when the person throws a cross their jab always drops so you headkick that side…” badass stuff. Just a quick list of some of the techniques to look out for:

1. Leg interruption and dodging. This is a pretty common technique and it has very minute variations between the different practitioners, but what’s interesting about it to me is how it’s used by each fighter. Ultimately the idea is to stay in. You can only tag someone’s leg and interrupt them if you’re close, so generally it’s used as a timing mechanism (Sagat) or to punish an opponent who is closing in on you, so if you’re getting hit on the leg and don’t want to lose the ground you’ve taken up, the way you dodge says a lot about your style. Karuhat pulls his leg back and then uses the switch to fire a kick. Jaroenthong’s version, just straightening the leg enough to barely clear the kick, is a boxer’s version and allows you to fire punches off of the dodge.
2. Clinch knee turns. These are cool little twists and turns to get out of the way of knees in the clinch. Jaroenthong said he never lost to a knee fighter, and likely that’s partly to do with being able to take the impact out of knees at close range which is how we (knee fighters) like to drain the gas tank of our opponents. He twists his hips so the knees lose their impact, like rolling with the punches. He also has an incredible “pop off” of a clinch grip around his neck, something that you can see him do to maximum effect against Nampol Nongkheepahayut.
3. Counters to knee fighters against the ropes. A lot of Femeu fighters are super comfortable with their backs against the ropes, just snuffing an advancing fighter. Jaroenthong uses the bend of the ropes to gain a few inches here and there in his evasion, which is pretty common, but he blocks with his legs and counters with his knees in a complete system of defense and offense. He likes being close.
4. Uppercuts. One of my favorite things he showed me, which I never got the hang of, is his uppercuts. He has two: one short and one long. He even does a kind of “bolo” wind up on one, which I look ridiculous doing but he looks awesome. If you go and watch his fights on Youtube you’ll see this uppercut used in combination with hooks and jabs in a beautiful and effective 3 strike set, over and over again. Uppercuts are a brilliant strike for Muay Thai, as a lot of fighters are open up the middle, so to see a fighter who uses them so comfortably as part of his style and system is really exciting to me. And Jaroenthong’s are just so controlled and strong.\
5. And his lightness. That doesn’t sound like a technique but it is at the very least a skill. Just watching him move around, showing me how he wants me to shadow around the ring, is massively instructive. His timing and power are tucked inside that movement, hidden in the angles he cuts, the distance he maintains. He tries to show me how the strikes come out of the movement, rather than thinking what you want to throw and trying to find your way to the right position, it’s more that the strike comes out of the position your body has danced itself into already. It’s a different current than the one I’m trying to paddle against with my inexperienced version. Watching how his strikes just flow out of the position he lands in over and over again looks like magic. So the way you work that out is the same as how you learn magic tricks: slow repetition and feeling it out until the “tells” get smoothed out. Then the playing card seems to have appeared out of nowhere, just like Jaroenthong’s strikes seem to come out of thin air. 

Here's a beautiful short video of him and another legend, Ole, sparring together when young fighters. Worth enjoying. 

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