The Most Watched Krus in the Library (Patreon)

Above is the breakdown of the role each ex-fighter, legend or kru has played in the Muay Thai Library, so far. My husband Kevin is way into graphics, so he's who made this estimate of the minutes watched by session, but functionally what's cool to me about the graphic is that it's an immediate visual cue to people who are first coming to the library for what they don't want to miss. That's those big color blocks; but what's also cool about it is that it lets me see what people might be missing, because some really amazing sessions can get kind of lost in the ever-expanding content of the library archives. So if you're not new to the library, maybe this can be a guide deeper into the stacks. The Library is an intense collection of training documentary footage, and with 2 sessions added every month it is likely that some things move down the stream before everyone has a chance to get into it, and the content might miss someone who could unlock an important key to your own Muay Thai journey. Below we'll link some of the special sessions found in the Library, and we'd love to have your own thoughts on sessions you feel other patrons just should not miss, especially those that are not of the bigger names in the sport. In the archive we are trying to record all of the refined and glorious techniques of Thailand, which come from different schools of thought and styles. We are already at the 50 hour mark, pressing forward to 100 hours at least, a Library that hopefully will influence generations of Muay Thai fighters and students, long after these men stop teaching. In the history of fighting arts there has never been an archive created like this, and thanks you to as patrons, it's just starting to grow. I don't see why we won't be able to expand our efforts and record even 200 or 300 hours in the lifetime of the project, and include countless versions of the art that might otherwise be lost or become diluted. 

If you would like to browse, you can see hours of video clips from most of the sessions here: The Single Greatest Resource - and here is a ranked and rated list of sessions by fellow patrons: The Best Sessions in the Library 

The most popular krus in terms of minutes watched are Karuhat and Sagat, which are incredible men and awesome lessons. To see what everyone has been studying, check out these sessions below:

Karuhat Sor. Supawan, Chatchai Sasakul, Samart and Sagat make up about one third of the interest views of the Library. If you haven't seen their sessions below are links to them:

Karuhat: Super slick Golden Age Legend with an inscrutable style

#7 Karuhat Sor. Supawan - Be Like Sand (62 min) watch it here  

#11 Karuhat Sor. Supawan Session 2 - Float and Shock (82 min) watch it here 

#20 Karuhat Sor Supawan - Switching To Southpaw (144 min) watch it here  

#27 Karuhat Sor. Supawan - Tension & Kicking Dynamics (104 min) watch it here  

Bonus Session 1:  Karuhat Sor. Supawan | Advanced Switching Footwork | 60 min  - watch it here   

Bonus Session 7: Karuhat Sor. Supawan - Forward Check | 39 min - watch it here   

Chatchai: former WBC World Boxing Champion and Thailand Coach of the Year

 #14 Chatchai Sasakul - Perfecting Hands (106 min) watch it here  

 Bonus Session 5: Chatchai Sasakul Southpaw Hands | 52 min - watch it here  

Smart: The Prince of all Muay Thai

 #34 Samart Payakaroon - Balance, Balance, Balance! (81 min) watch it here  

Sagat: The master of destruction, the inspiration for the Street Fighter character

 #26 Sagat Petchyindee - Explosive Power (57 min) watch it here  

 #38 Sagat Petchyindee (part 2) - Maximum Damage (61 min) watch it here  

In the sessions with fewer views, there are some truly awesome things to discover, make sure you don't let them become lost in the sheer volume of the Muay Thai Library archive.

 #17 Burklerk PInsinchai – Dynamic Symmetry (82 min) watch it here

Burklerk Pinsinchai: Burklerk is much younger than his Old School, traditional style would have you think. He's all about preserving heritage, including the practices around teaching and learning Muay Thai - actually having a formal acceptance ceremony with him when you ask to be a student; bold and beautiful aesthetics in every single move that call back to Boran styles but are absolutely practical and efficient in the ring. If you're interested in Muay Thai pedagogy and tradition, Burklerk is the "teacher of teachers" in Thailand's government-sponsored Kru and Arjan certification programs. What I love about his style and these sessions with him is how punctuated his movements are - you can see them from the back row. This is very Thai-style. His kick out of the standing leg as a counter to an opponent's mid-kick is classic. I also love his answers to snuffing punches and elbows at close range. He's a close-range fighter with long-range aesthetic.

#5 Hippy Singmanee – Developing Power (69 min) – watch it here 

 Bonus Session 4: Hippy Singmanee Ultra Violence | 30 min – watch it here 

Hippy Singmanee: I don't know how, but Hippy somehow fails to be recognized as widely as he should be for being quite possibly the best fighter ever. He was very small, so his speed and trickery is a notable part of his style but his whippy style is meant to hurt... and does. You might recognize some older aesthetics in Hippy's techniques, classic ways of generating power despite his small frame. And because he was small, he was the gate-keeper for tons of the Golden Age fighters as they rose up, so he cut up a young Namkabuan, psyched out Chatchai Sasakul as he was cutting his teeth at Lumpinee before going into boxing, and gave Karuhat some of the best "well, shit," facial expressions in the ring I've ever seen. Hippy is one of the sessions that demonstrates how awesome it is to see these men's personalities and energies in longer-form video. Hippy is just too cool, super energetic and confident and smooth, all of which comes through in his Muay Thai - both in how he fought and how he teaches. His elbows are not to be missed, and he has a "how to kick the bag" lesson that you can take with you anywhere. Legends teaching you how to train is one of my favorite things these sessions provide.

 #8 Sangtiennoi Sor Rungroj – Advanced Clinch (52 min) watch it here 

Sangtiennoi Sor Rungroj: this session sticks with me as being as much about Sangtiennoi's gym and lifestyle as it was about his beautiful technique. His gym is out behind a temple, surrounded by fields and heavily occupied by fighting cocks, chickens, little baby chicks that run around your feet while you're training, and an enormous - ENORMOUS - pig named Gigi. Sangtiennoi walks around with a stick in his hand, correcting where his student's legs land off of kicks, if they take too long to make a move, if they "toy" (back up)... the kind of thing that guys who dream of moving to Thailand and training in a real camp dream about. The task-master. But the corrections Sangtiennoi makes are in driving an ethic. The fighting cocks aren't decoration, they're part of the lifestyle of a Thai gym - interwoven. The way he showed me how to use longer-range weapons in order to close in for clinch and knees (he was a knee fighter) was taught in the context of an entire system. How you get your hand on the face and turn out to peel yourself out of a clinch lock. When you move, how little you stagnate, where to use power versus how much to use leverage. I loved this session and there's a lot in it to be studied both for those trying to get into the clinch and those trying to get out of it.

The Kru Fund

Coming upon the anniversary of our start of the Kru Fund we have begun the Kru Fund distribution. The Kru Fund is a collection of funds to go to all the krus, ex-fighters and legends that flows from the Muay Thai Library projects. It consists of 5% of all pledges, and all the net profits from the sale of Sylvie's 200 Fight Shorts, Sylvie Legend Shirt, and her Miss Gangster Knee shirt. After starting the project aimed at archiving the techniques of Thailand for a long time we just where not sure how, or even if it could be possible to meaningfully share money raised with so many different people. The Kru Fund was born, with the addition of sales from Sylvie merchandise to increase the sum to make sure the portion is meaningful to everyone. The Kru Fund in this installment ended up being about 1/3 shirt sales, 1/3 shorts sales and 1/3 patreon. The key to how we are distributing the fund is by the portion the kru plays in the Muay Thai Library itself. The longer you are in the Library, the more likely you are playing a bigger role. The longer viewers watch your videos, the bigger role you are playing. The more famous your name, that too likely increases your role - though we make singificant efforts to draw attention to the hidden gems of the Library, krus whose Muay might not ever get a chance to be preserved if not for these documentary efforts.  

You can browse the full table of contents of the Muay Thai Library here, and hop into any session: