Wangchannoi Sor. Palangchai #2 - The Secret Powers of a Cool Heart (77 min) (Patreon)

We, and so many of you, loved 1st Wangchannoi's session (watch that one here) so much that we went back and got another one for the Muay Thai Library, one week later, to elaborate on what he was teaching in the first one.  We don't usually do this, filming and publishing sessions back to back, but he's such a legend and the 1st session was so long awaited, we just went for it.  

To me, Wangchannoi is like a fighting fish, or a Beta, as they were called where I grew up. He floats, suspended and calm, brilliantly beautiful tail dancing, and then there's an attack and violence before he goes back to floating again. And he's teaching that in everything he does in our sessions.

If you could distill Wangchannoi down to one, very insistent lesson it would be this: jai yen yen. It means have a cool heart, be calm and unaffected. Breathe. Pick your moment. He's a sniper, not a machine gun. If Karuhat's secret is creating tension in his opponent to make them more readable, Wangchannoi is the opposite, creating a false sense of security in his opponent so his attacks come when they're off-balance or unprepared.

What to Look For:

1) Avoid Power: don't use strength in clinch unless it's at a certain moment. Don't push or struggle or meaninglessly swim your arms for position. When you move, you move to score or throw or off-balance. Even if your opponent uses power, you don't - you don't get tired, but they can tire themselves out a lot. Side step, wide stance, like a dance.

2) Yaa Toy - Don't go Straight Back: this is pretty obvious in most scenarios of Muay Thai, as you just become an easy target. But some clinchers love yanking someone along with them as they go backwards but Wangchannoi says no. An opponent has full power if they're going forward, so don't give them that opportunity. Waltz. Side step. Perry. Pivot.

3) Head Down, Watch the Legs: in the clinch, even if you're working the arms, your head is tucked down to protect against elbows, pushed in to create another problem for your opponent, and watching the feet and legs.

4) Boxing vs Muay Thai: in boxing you can get all up in someone's face and have short punches. In Muay Thai we have elbows, so that's not the best position. So Wangchannoi explains why Muay Thai punches, like uppercuts and hooks, are from a different posture, more upright and a bit longer. Chest straight, chin tucked.

5) Look Lap - Give and Take: you step on every strike, forward or backward, but you have to be calm and have good eyes to be able to shut your opponent out and pick your shots. So in padwork and sparring, you practice both going forward and backward.

6) Kicking a Puncher, Punching a Kicker: Wangchannoi shows how a punch can beat a kick, as well as how a kick can beat a punch. He gives two techniques for leaving your shin on someone as a bar, both going forward to rack up the flare points in the final round when you're ahead, or going backwards to lock your opponent out when you're ahead.

7) Jumping Knee: Wangchannoi LOVES this move. He knocked Damian Trainor (TKO) out in Damian's first full-Muay Thai rules, professional fight. Give him major credit for fighting Wangchannoi at all, let alone his first full-rules fight. You can see it on Youtube, it's hard to see the knee, but it's very easy to see the technique in this session. My folly was trying to cover distance with it, but really you just go more or less straight up for the power.

8) Controlled Sparring: I work with Bammy in a sparring exercise that, quite honestly, I need very much for my own development. One person goes forward, one goes backwards. Then switch. Because of our experience difference (and Wangchannoi's style, as well as what he's teaching me), I was only defending whether going forward or backward. Main lesson, say it with me: jai yen yen.

9) The last bit is Wangchannoi showing me some conditioning to build up leg strength, jaw strength, and explosiveness. These are all things you can do at practically any gym and maybe even at home if you have some kind of weights. And they're also super typical, in theory, of Thai gyms that I've experienced, so nobody will look at you weird if you're doing it practically anywhere in Thailand.

Watch the first Wangchannoi session here, and get recommendations on other sessions you might like: 

Wangchannoi Sor Palangchai - Deadly Step Counter Fighting (72 min)