Dieselnoi Chor Thanasukarn - Muay Khao Craft | 42 min (Patreon)

Dieselnoi is like no other man, like no other fighter, and like no other teacher. His enthusiasm and “live wire” energy are impossible to match. I love the kinds of teachers who don’t even bother with pads, they just break down a movement and then riff on it for 5, 10, 15 minutes while you try to understand the intricacies and manage to cover the 30 ways it doesn’t look right as the trainer patiently keeps correcting you back to form. Dieselnoi is like this. His fighting style is actually really simple, which he iterates to me and demonstrates in this session a few times - but the energy. The way you impose yourself, or your will, on your opponent is everything. It’s what he’s trying to get across with techniques standing in as tools to express that energy - it’s like the techniques are the words, but the point is relaying a message. Don’t get lost in the words, but don’t think they’re insignificant, either. 

One of the most incredible videos of Dieselnoi that exists is of him just destroying his padholder. It’s a demonstration, like an “open workout” that they do prior to big western boxing fights, but it’s not choreographed or anything. You can imagine that Dieselnoi, when he turns on his relentless fight energy, could just chew through multiple pad holders in a single day. He’s unreal. What’s incredible is that he’s much older now, has a belly and after some serious heart issues and surgery his lips turn blue if he exerts himself for any longer than a couple minutes, but that energy from the video is still there. It’s still f***ing there! And that’s what he’s teaching; that’s why these sessions with him are so immensely valuable, so rare and precious.

The things to highlight from this video aren’t entirely techniques. Many of them are strategies, or an ethos for fighting. Look at his face when he gets into the rhythm of facing an opponent or moving someone around the ring. The way he squirms to imitate an opponent trying to escape him in the clinch. The smile he gets when talking about wearing someone down with knees. Those are important. Strategically, he reminds me to just impose yourself to move your opponent into the ropes. Don’t worry about striking in the middle of the ring, let your opponent look ineffective while you just block or counter until they’re trapped.

1. Feet wider and squared in clinch: I have a problem that is not unusual in any way - I’ve seen it among many fighters - which is overturning in the clinch. This is easily corrected by having a more squared stance, but Dieselnoi shows how to stand up tall and keep the stance wide for balance. If you overturn, you pull the overturned arm back and put that elbow on the shoulder (like the front of the shoulder) of the opponent.
2. The Zip Tie: there numerous reasons not to grab low on a body lock. One is because it looks bad for you, one is that it will be broken by the ref quickly, and one is because it can become a foul pretty easily. But no matter where you grab, you can “zip tie” your grip up the body to under the armpits. Dieselnoi explains that I, as a short fighter, should grab here when the taller opponent is going for my neck in the clinch. Just go under their efforts. The high grip takes away the power/strength of their arms, but watch Dieselnoi’s footwork for how to step back, to the sides, and kind of square dance your opponent any which way while landing knees.
3. Tight elbows: watch how often he tries to pinch my elbows together under his chin when I have a lock on him. That’s telling for how he feels the lock when he does it himself. He has crazy long forearms and is taller than everyone, so that pinch is a better angle for him than for us shorties (especially when trying to grip someone as much taller as he is to me), but the emphasis toward the pinch is important.
4. At the end he shows me how to come up on the ball of your standing foot on knees, like how you do on kicks. He shows it on the bag, but then references it back to the technique of kneeing your opponent’s leg as they kick. So it’s worth noting earlier here. It also helps knock your opponent backwards if you’re kneeing under their kick.
5. Strategy of just punishing your opponent’s attacks in the middle of the ring, not really bringing out your own (not “being first” as it were) and just always moving them into the ropes for the kill. Dieselnoi shows how to knee the kick (Goddamn, that hurts), as well as just using the energy of your intention to intimidate someone around as you cut off the ring.
6. Where to teep: when moving forward, teep low. For Dieselnoi, this means basically teeping the crotch or the tops of the legs around the crotch. When moving backwards, meaning your opponent is advancing, teep high. The reason for this is that someone moving on you can parry and interrupt your teeps, making you susceptible to the counters and off-balances that he submits his opponents to in the middle of the ring - he argues that it should be you, not them, who are interrupting; so when you are moving backwards and your opponent is advancing, you teep high because it’s much harder to parry or interrupt those teeps as your opponent is coming forward.

Note: Because the sound was so loud in the gym we had to really make a compromise between my commentary audio level and the ambient noise. I tried to keep the background sound up loud enough to give a feeling of being there, but not so much to be a distraction. This was the best balance we could achieve. If you'd like to watch the session with just natural sound and no commentary you can do so here.

Important:

Dieselnoi faced serious heart issues over the summer and we were able to raise a significant amount of money to donate to his health. You can see that GoFundMe here. Even though he has relatively recovered (a 2nd surgery has been put off), the fund is still open to donate to because it seems sure that there will be need in the future, and legends like Dieselnoi often live in some dependency on the generosity of the Muay Thai Community around them. Mostly this is older Golden Age fighters and men who watch out for each other, but this fund is a way for us as foreigners to also send our support. 

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