#42 Boraphet Pinsinchai 2 - Muay Khao Fighting Techniques (50 min) (Patreon)

Kru Ten is one of my favorite sessions, both times I’ve gone to see him - watch our first session together #23 here. There’s something about his disposition that really suits me: a man of few words, almost indistinguishable approval or disapproval by the minute change in tone in his grunts, and just an endless well of Muay Khao technique. He’s brilliant at breaking things into pieces to understand them, then immediately putting them into practice. His style is simple in the way that Einstein said the definition of Genius is “taking the complex and making it simple.” Kru Ten really does have a wide variety of techniques at his disposal at any given moment, and he teaches quite a lot of them, but they always fit together beautifully and seamlessly. Of course, I may be especially keen on his style because I’m a knee fighter, but the pace and force of his style just feels good. Pace is a very important, hidden aspect of the Muay Khao style. Honestly, I think he’s the best knee private session in all of Thailand. And that’s why I was excited to visit him a second time; and that’s why I’ll be excited to visit him every time.This time around I trained with him Southpaw, which wasn’t the case the first time. His methodology changed only slightly to accommodate this, so he pieced things together to be landing my left knee (the power knee) to the open side while stepping in. Brilliant. The only change required, really. He starts me out with marching knees, adding jabs and elbows so that I can strike as I close distance, then we move into the ring and work out how to dismantle someone who wants to clinch and someone who doesn’t want to clinch, equally.What to look out for:

1. Don’t twist your standing foot on marching, long knees. This is obvious for Intermediate+ students, but when you change the length, lean, or guard on your knee, you’re going to be off balance for a while before you get comfortable. One twists that standing foot to balance, but it makes it so you can only throw one at a time, which is not good at all for a knee specialist. I was twisting my foot because I’m unaccustomed to the lean for a “submarine,” long knee. Take that twist out and your balance will right itself somewhere else (generally your guard) and BOOM, power in the knee and you can throw a few in a row.
2. The Oragami Knee: Kru Ten has me do this ambidextrously, because really it only matters which side is grabbing the neck, not which stance you favor. Basically, the front knee comes up in a half-knee so that the shin is a bar across the midsection of your opponent. You dig that into their belly while pulling down on the neck and keeping control of the arm (with your other arm), effectively “folding” your opponent over your knee. Hence, “oragami knee.” I did this wrong almost the whole time because I kept floating my chin, but the impact of keeping your chin tucked on how hard you can fold your opponent is significant. You’ll feel the difference and in watching us, you’ll see the difference. Gradually he adds in a siap spear knee before alternating with the Oragami Knee, which looks fantastic. You get your high point with the siap knee, take your opponent’s breath, and then have this dynamic folding for the judges to oooh and aaaaaah at while your opponent’s head is pulled down as well. That’s one for the gamblers who are standing on ladders all the way in the back!
3. Defeating the Wall of China: we move to the ring because the ropes are important for these moves. First, Kru Ten shows me how to fold someone over your knee (with the knee in the gut), but then he switches roles by having the opponent against the ropes with the knee barring your thighs, what I call the “Wall of China.” He pushes his hip into the foot-side of the knee bar of the opponent, stepping toward their standing foot to crush their leg into their hip, then pivots on his foot that just landed next to the opponent’s standing foot and simultaneously pushes their knee (toward their foot) and their back at the base of the neck in a kind of opposite, scissoring motion. This, combined with the pivot, creates a wonderful low-energy force that not only throws your opponent off the ropes but they dive forward and you can knee them or elbow them while they’re bent over. Even if you can’t get them whipped onto the floor, just the off-balancing and attack of knee or elbow is fantastic.
4. The Can Opener: when your opponent grabs your waist in a lock, you have to create space for yourself. One way to do this is to wedge one shin up on the same side leg of your opponent and then hollow out your torso, pushing with both the knee and your shoulders. This creates an opening for you to slip one arm down to an underhook, then “thread the needle” by stepping through on that same side so your arm comes around to their shoulder and you can pivot to the side of them and land a shit ton of knees.
5. The Nut Cracker: alternately, if your opponent has your waist locked from a double-inside position, you again need to create space to break their arm lock. Since your arms are on the outside, you can get them on your opponent’s hips and push them back, creating space and leverage on the arms. If your elbows are behind your opponent’s elbows, a quick and firm pinch (like chicken wings flapping) will break their lock and you can knee, twist, throw, whatever. It’s important to create space from the hips first to get leverage on the arms, and it’s important to “crack” behind your opponent’s elbows. Once their ass is back and their arms no longer locked, you can grab the neck and body and do a nice turn or throw.
6. Timing. This is subtle because usually “timing” is something that’s emphasized by really evasive fighters. Kru Ten isn’t that, at all. But there’s importance in timing on all his movements, when to be plodding forward and when to explode. When to make your break for the turn, when to get kinda still before exploding into a pivot. He doesn’t explain any of this but you can catch him teaching it, through practical trial and error (and some grunts), when he grabs me over and over around the waist and makes me figure out which “Can Opener” or “Nut Cracker” or “Oragami Knee” or whatever else to use… and more importantly, when to use it. You can wait too long and miss your chance or you can scramble and lose your power. It’s subtle and you have to feel it out, but it makes a huge difference, which is not subtle at all.

If you are interested in the Muay Khao (knee fighting) style, here are all the Muay Khao oriented sessions in the Library.