Namkabuan Rachapreukkafe (Hapalang) - Femeu Fluidity (55 min) (Patreon)

It was fortuitous to get Kru Ham in the Library. Thailand is really like this, there are legends and fighters of great accomplishment everywhere, and a huge part of the Library is trying to archive and preserve as much of this as possible. Sometimes sessions just happen. I was waiting outside of a local stadium in Pattaya, swarms of audience members creating a kind of human current at a short distance from where I was sitting, when I spotted one of the referees from the ring skirting around the outside of the flow of people. I smiled at him and waied in recognition. He came over and chatted with me for a little bit - I was watching Muay Thai on my phone and showed him what I was looking at. We got to talking about fighters and he revealed that he was once a Rajadamnern Champion himself. Then he pulled out his phone and showed me some photos of himself,  a Junior Flyweight Rajadamnern Champion in the early 90s, with 5 belt defenses, and a friend of Dieselnoi. We knew tons of the same people, basically the "who's who" of Golden Age Muay Thai. It felt like this is just the kind of person who should be in the Library.

Kru Ham is from Buriram (Isaan). He fought under the name Namkabuan and originates from the same gym as Coban (American nakmuay will know him, for sure) and ultimately ended up training out of the Hapalang Gym, where Legends Dieselnoi, Chamuakpet and Panomtuanlek trained as well. He has a gym up in Buriram now, but referees in Pattaya and so we were able to have this session at my home gym, Petchrungruang. Our session kind of developed over the hour, starting with a bit of a warmup and foundational movements, and then became more playful and expressive as it went on. His fighting style really starts to come out later on in the session. He talked about beating Silapathai, who was incredibly difficult to beat. It's a great session capturing all kinds of tricks and nuances of a champion fighter from the Golden Age, with lots of ideas on elements you can add to your own style, and preserving his own fingerprint of fighting.

Some things to look out for: 

1) 3D Footwork: this might seem overly basic, but just being able to move in every direction, smoothly and without stutters and pauses, means a lot for the footwork and flow of a fighter. Kids in Thailand will spend weeks, if not months, learning how to march forward, backward, side to side, and cutting angles  before they ever get to throw strikes. People who claim Muay Thai has no footwork are only talking about themselves. 

2) Targeting for Jab vs. Cross: this was interesting. Kru Ham designated different targets for your jab versus your cross. A jab is to close your opponent's eyes and get them to cover up, so you target the eyes with your jab. A cross is to hurt them or knock them out, so you target the jaw with your cross.

3) Targeting for Hooks: a hook is like a fish-hook, it should have a bit of a barb on it. When you hook around someone's guard, you target their ear or a kind of crescent moon shape of their temple and jaw. Man... if you've been hit here, you know.

4) Sprinter Hands for Elbows: Kru Ham made a point about having an open hand, shaped like a blade the way sprinters have them, while throwing elbows. If you make a fist, it misdirects your power. The open hand, more or less relaxed but still shaped into a blade so there's a little tension in it, allows the elbows to have the power and focus that makes them cutting and precise.

5) The Invisible Limbs: I've seen this with a few other fighters, the greatest example for me being Chamuakpet Hapalang (same gym as Kru Ham, so this makes some sense). Basically, the torso stays so still that you really can't see anything that's coming at you. Picture an octopus with flailing limbs that can hit you from all angles and directions, but all you can see is this unmoving head. That's what this feels like. Kru Ham's torso stays totally central for balance, power, and hiding his intentions. But the strikes come from all around, seemingly without any kind of "tell" for what they will be.

6) Fluidity and Ambidexterity: Kru Ham is in the opposite school of thought from, for example, Kru Ali, in that you can walk into your opposite stance and walk back with fluidity. So you just walk forward into your opposite stance, throw your shot, then walk back.

7) Illusionist Hands: Kru Ham is really good at distracting with his hands and then actually annoying you with contact down below. Another example of someone great at this is Namsaknoi - go watch his sessions. But this whole concept of distraction, getting your opponent's mind on one thing and then physically going after the opposite side or down low when you've distracted up high, it makes your opponent very disoriented and unable to find their rhythm or strategy.

8) Moving the Teep Offline: the moment you catch a teep, pull or push it to one side of your body. I've learned this before (again, Namsaknoi does this really well), but I only realized with Kru Ham that the purpose of this is to make it so that the opponent doesn't really have an immediate solve to you having caught it. They can't re-teep you, they can't snatch it back as easily, etc.

9) "Dynamics" in Power: in music there's something called "dynamics," which means how loud or soft, fast or slow, crescendo or decrescendo you play something. It's music. That's what Kru Ham is doing with power, all the time. He has all these little annoying taps and stings that keep your mind chasing after what he's doing, and they're just to make you not believe your rhythms or strikes, or even to convince you that his aren't so bad. Then there's the power shot, the stronger strike, the KO move. It's not all power, all the time; and it's not all taps, all the time. It's music.

Some Stills from the Session

If you like the femeu style of fighting there are lots of femeu sessions in the Library. Some you might really enjoy below:

#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.

#40  Gen Hongthonglek - Muay Femeu Tactics & Mindset (70 min) watch it here 

The Muay Femeu (artful fighting) style is more than just a set of techniques, it's also a mindset and strategy of how to score, and how to score big. The warfare is not just in terms of damage, but of psychology, displaying dominance through skill and timing. Gen in this hour outlines how he likes to fight, and how he pulls off the biggest scores at the right time.

#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.  

#19 Attachai Fairtex - Timing and IQ (72 min) watch it here 

2x Lumpinee Champion Attachai Fairtex is one of the great femeu fighters of Thailand. Namsaknoi, himself an elite femeu fighter of legendary status called him his most difficult fight as he just was too hard to read. This is a window into that quality, and how to build it.

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

In this session one of the greatest fighters who ever lived really digs into what must lie beneath techniques, a general state of relaxation and rhythm, the thing that made him one of the most dynamic fighters Lumpinee has ever seen.

#72  Tak Cho. Nateetong - Art of Femeu Interruptions and Balance (73 min) watch it here 

One of the most difficult things is to teach Muay Femeu timing and distance control, but Kru Tak is one of the great femeu instructors in Thailand. In this beautiful session he opens up his technique of tricks, feints and shifting deceptions, even in the clinch. 

Browse the entire contents of the Muay Thai Library here.