#2 Joe Hongthongnoi - Developing Muay Khao Style (87 min) (Patreon)

Joe and Gen are twin brothers and both were high-level fighters at the National Stadia of Bangkok. Their fight names were Hongthong Noi (Joe) and Hongthong Lek (Gen), and in 2013 the brothers opened their own gym in Chiang Mai and called it Hongthong Muay Thai.

Because my path in Thailand started in Chiang Mai, I’d seen Joe and Gen around at fights for years before finding myself training with Joe at their gym. Happily enough, Joe had spent years watching me fight as well and his experienced eye gave him an idea for what he wanted to work with me on when I arrived for our session. I can’t tell you what a privilege that is, not only that he has seen me before so he can cater the lesson to me, but that Joe is such an intelligent and keen teacher that he would think to himself, “what can I teach Sylvie?” I’m incredibly grateful for the experience of training with Joe because of his intelligence and generosity (and insight, my God) but I’m also incredibly please with the result of being able to share this session with my patrons. Firstly, this is the longest training video I’ve ever posted; ever, in the nearly 9 years I’ve been posting videos since Master K’s basement. This long-form training is unlike anything else on the internet (which shouldn’t be the case, but at least there’s this one!) in that you can see how a lesson develops along a particular style (Muay Khao) focused on that fighter. Joe is not only working with me based on what he’s seen from me over the years in my fights, but he’s seeing what I pick up and what I don’t as we go along in the lesson and he’s adapting to that, making adjustments and explaining the context of every single thing he shows me. Learning Muay Thai is not only about drilling the exact angle of the foot on a kick; it’s about theory and strategy, it’s about a fighter’s ethical identity.

Joe was a muay khao fighter, like I am. His twin brother is muay femur, the opposite of what we are. Joe could do both styles, but his nature compelled him toward the in-fighting of muay khao. The relentlessness of energy and pressure that is required of muay khao fighters is either in you or it isn’t - you can’t do it if you don’t love it. At the start of the video he says how being a knee fighter meant he got many cuts on his face, something his brother didn’t suffer, but he shrugs his shoulders, “it is special energy when you see blood.” That’s what I mean about the ethical identity of a fighter. You can learn a technique, you can imitate or develop a style, but the context of any and all of that is how it plays through you. You are the instrument on which any piece of music is played. What Joe is trying to teach me in this session - and I believe he succeeded - is how to embrace that identity and develop style out of who you are, not what the textbook says. He worked with me on achieving greater freedom in space and movement by honing the different ranges of each weapon. As a knee fighter, you are most free when you’re locked up; but to get to that place you have to use a variety of weapons to close off your opponent’s space. You can be a tiger just chomping at the air, but the art of a tiger’s hunting is the movements that lead up to the catch. That’s what Joe is teaching me.

Some key points to look for in the video:

• 5 elbows and a breakdown of when to use them, how to set them up
• The importance of style in the highest scoring rounds of the fight (3-5)
• How balance demonstrates dominance 
• Cutting off the ring with longer range weapons, attacking on the ropes
• Developing the story of a fight through the rounds by playing simple moves in the early rounds and having dramatic moves in the scoring rounds
• Using sparring as a tool to put any technique immediately into context; “try” as an answer to when to use a technique or how to execute a technique
• Using your shoulders to leverage in the clinch

I'll be posting an article to the public about the Hongthong Gym, and a segment of this longer video. You can find the Hongthong Gym on Facebook here .