Kru Manop Manop Gym - The Beauty of the Teep (90 min) (Patreon)

Kru Manop (I refer to him as Arjan - professor - in the video, he calls himself "kru") is probably best recognized as Saenchai’s padman. He worked together with Saenchai in Bangkok for years and has just opened his own gym in Chiang Mai. The space is beautiful and already set up to accommodate serious fighters (long-term) and Muay Thai hobbyists as well. And Kru Manop’s teaching style is actually very good for both, whether you just love Muay Thai or are already an experienced fighter, his patience and attention to detail are incredible. He’s a resource for technique you could probably never fully exhaust. He’s also good friends with Arjan Burklerk. Their styles are not similar, but their kind of “ethic” as teachers is. That’s a very good thing.

When I arrived for this session, Manop immediately talked to me about my fight the night before. He’d watched it on a live stream and offered some things he noted without coming of at all like he was criticizing. It almost wasn’t even advice, either. Just greater vision than what one can see for themselves. This is also a piece of his style as a teacher. He can stay with you on a singular technique for a very long time without ever making you feel like you’re failing – just micro-fine-tuning and always making slight adjustments toward improvement. He’s incredibly patient. This is a really precious quality in a teacher. I do suspect he made this session much more bao bao (gentle, light) because I’d just fought. That’s fine with me, even when I have no sore spots at all, as this kind of “no equipment necessary” instruction often offers the most profound realizations. My favorite, for example, was his clarification on the order in which you bring your heels down to the floor after a kick. This one correction has altered my balance – which in turn increases my desire and ability to kick – almost immeasurably. And immediately, to boot.

What to look for:

1. Dem Tao, or “full foot” Teeps: Manop prefers for the foot of the standing leg to be completely in contact with the canvas on a teep. He does not come up on his toes, not even a little bit. Some folks, it looks like they’re flat-footed but you could slide a card under their heel; and some folks get up on the toe in a way you can see from afar. But Manop corrects me back to a fully planted foot for the straight-forward teep. This is so that you never get launched backwards yourself (which happens to me, as the smaller body in almost all my exchanges). But the flat foot doesn’t do this alone, balance is a huge key to why the flat foot works this way.
    
2. Extension on the Teep: as I was trying to get Manop’s teep, I was missing a component in its speed, which is that it’s not actually two separate parts. Some teeps you yoke, or lift the knee, first and then extend out with your hip driving the power. That’s a strong teep and you can do it short-range. But Manop’s version comes up and out all as one piece and visually all as one movement. It’s so long! And he drives his hip forward to make it even longer, hits with the ball of his foot (that hurts the opponent, I can attest), and straightens his leg into almost a locked position at the point of impact for even greater power. He holds my heel in his hand and pushes my knee down to show how locked out it is at the final position. Teeps like this are powerful, it’s not a little flick, but the thing that makes them so effective is not the power but rather the timing.  
    
3. “Pointe” on Kicks: I’m borrowing from Ballet with that name, which maybe isn’t accurate to what you’re actually doing because you aren’t going to the very point of the toe, but you lift up on the ball of your foot in a directly upward lift – that pin-point accuracy of balance makes me think of Ballet, which allows the dancer to have a solid point of balance as weight redistributes for turns and such… so here we are. Manop adjusts my kick so that I’m never trying to have power, but rather the speed and technique generate the power by the lift onto the toe and driving with the hip. It is fast. You can step toward or to the outside of your opponent’s foot, depending on what they’re doing, but you can also just do this from a dead stand-still.
    
4. The Order of Return: this is my favorite technique that he showed me, and the one that has already made a huge difference in my balance. When coming off of a kick, the heel of the standing foot should return to the canvas before the back foot does. If you land and the front foot is still pointed on the ball, you can’t block or fire again. It’s not “wrong,” it’s just potentially off balance and slow.
    
5. Sifting: I call this “sifting” because, while not directly a technique, something that Manop kept reiterating to me is a really important tool for learning from incredibly knowledgeable teachers. What you’re already doing might not be “wrong” in the least. When a trainer makes an adjustment, it’s context-based and is an improvement toward something foundational. For example, this point about the order in which my heels return to the floor is about improving speed and balance. Who cares about the kick, the kick is fine – it’s how you return to equilibrium. At one point I asked Kru Manop whether my foot should be straight forward or slightly out, like at 45 degrees, and he just laughed and said whichever one makes me on balance. He went on, “some people do it like this because that’s what gives them balance, some people do it like that because that’s how they balance.” Take the information your teacher is offering and then find your balance in it. If your knee has to do x while someone else’s is doing y, that’s fine. Sift and the impurities will work themselves out.
    
6. The Slide Teep: on this version, you turn your body sideways and hit with your foot horizontal across your opponent’s torso. It’s more powerful than the straight teep, but also doesn’t require a lot of trying to be powerful. I struggled with this, but used the kind of ffffftt sound you should hear by your foot sliding along the canvas as my compass for whether I was “warmer or colder” in finding the technique. Generating the ability to slide without moving my feet first was a serious challenge and Kevin offered a great note that it was because my head was forward. I was moving my back foot to bring it in line with my head, which was forward, but if I just stood up so that my head was over my back foot anyway, then I could go without moving my feet first. Balance.
    
7. Trips off of Caught Kicks: these are pretty simple. If you catch across your body, you pull the leg across your own hips and that puts you “behind” your opponent, where you can then kick out their leg with absolutely no way they can counter you. If you catch on the front side, your power side is already set up on their open side and you can just slam someone there, then knock them over. There is about 7 minutes of slow-motion of Manop working with me on a very slick, very economical catch-and-kick-out of the standing leg. I struggle lots, because we’re mixed stance and my brain was having a hard time, but also because I don’t step close enough and this move is all about proximity and timing. But the slow-motion really aids in showing how the mechanics work together, breaking down the distances and angles, and then the way you become proficient is just by getting the timing down. When the film goes back to regular speed and we move into the ring, you can see how to practice this. You have to do it lots before you have the timing down and the use of the ropes in the ring is a great resource for being able to get someone to let you drill this with them enough to actually get good at it.
   
8. NOTE: If you are moved to send support a thank you to Kru Manop, having learned from this session, you can send it to the PayPal address sylvie@8limbs.us - just be sure to include the note "for Kru Manop" and I'll be sure to send it to him, and cover the transaction cost myself

If you enjoyed this session you might also like these Muay Thai Library sessions:

#53 Kem Kem Muaythai Gym - Mastering Everything In Between (80 min) watch it here 

With one of the great technique krus of Thailand, Kem Kem Muaythai Gym, in his gym in the mountains just below Khorat. A special session that details how to work on all the things in-between strikes. So much to learn in this 80 minutes. He's a special teacher.

#22 Singdam Kiatmoo9 - Making the Basics Beautiful (71 min) watch it here 

Singdam provides perhaps the best progression through the basics I've yet filmed, the blueprint of his beautiful, effective style. This instruction is bottomless. Even after 5 years in Thailand there is a ton for me in this very close examination of powerful technique essentials. 

#47 Silapathai Jockygym - Master of Teep Distance (64 min) watch it here

One of the great femeu fighters of the Golden Age unlocks the secret of his teep oriented dominance which made him one of the most difficult fighters to face in his day. The lessons here are precious as he unfolds the details of how to use the teep and tempo to always put the fight where you want it.

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

Atop the tower of Muay Thai legends probably stands Samart. 3x Fighter of the Year, 4x Lumpinee Champion and WBC World Boxing Champion, no fighter more brilliantly showed what femeu fighting could do. In this session he shows the foundations of how to build true balance, the ultimate key to his fighting style.  

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

Arjan Burklerk is a unique master of Muay Thai from the Golden Age, boasting one the highest win percentages in Thai history, and possessing a beautiful craft that harkens back to older styles of fighting with powerful, dynamic symmetry and control of space. 

click here to see the full contents of the Muay Thai Library