Karuhat Sor. Supawan - Float and Shock (82 min) (Patreon)

This is my third session training with legendary Lumpinee fighter Karuhat Sor. Supawan. The first session can be found on Nak Muay Nation, for members there, and the next two are here on Patreon, for supporters of this documentary process. For those that don’t know of him - and there was a time I did not - Thais think of him with a kind of reverence. When he’s cornered at my fights television announcers point him out to the audience. His fight moniker, Yod Sihan (ยอดเซียน), means something like “Top Master”, but with the sense of a charmed gambler who always wins. If not for some infamy at the end of his career due to gambling issues, he may very well be at the rank of Samart, in the eyes of Thais, one of the greatest who’s ever fought. These are very rare sessions to have on film as Kurahat does not give privates often, and he does not work out of a gym.

 TIP BOX if you want to show your appreciation you can send gratuity directly to Kru Kruhat, $5 or more via PayPal to the address sylvie@8limbs.us, please in the "add a note" section specify "for Kru Kruhat".  I will transfer the funds.  Go to PayPal now.   

For me, personally, training with Karuhat is one of my favorite things in the world. I don’t know what it is, because I’ve trained under some very esteemed fighters and trainers, but something about his energy just hits the right note with me. It is inspiring.  I do tend to mirror my trainers and opponents, so maybe it’s just a reflection that works well for me, but it makes me want to fight like him, he embodies so much of what the peak of Muay Thai is. The effect though is that when I train with him I feel free and relaxed. As this is our third training session together it’s brilliant because Karuhat has cornered for me a few times now, so he’s begun working on things specifically for me, what he’s seen in my fights; it’s also hilarious to watch him make fun of me for 2 hours. I crack up watching it every time. Mostly his critique has to do with my tension, which is light years better than when I first came to Thailand for full-time training and fighting, but there’s still a long way to go. Karuhat exploited tension in his opponents - a tension he created with his style - so he must read it off of me in a very strong way, as he has a particular nose for it. This is not to say that my tension is not also very obvious, I’m just saying that his degree of fluidity and relaxation is so supreme that reaching for relaxation as a primary focus of training is a big deal. Every trainer I’ve ever had has at one point or another told me to relax, and if you train with a Thai trainer you’ll hear it as well - many times - but Karuhat’s focus on it is something else.

This isn’t a “let’s learn some combinations and techniques” video, which isn’t how most of my long-form training videos go anyway. But this one is particularly uneventful in the sense of a particular move you can pick up and imitate. However, it’s one of my favorite sessions because Karuhat is instructing me in how to train, which is an invaluable thing to offer someone. In this way it bears similarity to the session I had with Hippy, which can also been seen by patron members. Both these men are all about the ground up, the degree of tension or relaxation in the body. These are invaluable sessions. In the west we really like this new idea of “hacks,” which tend to be geared toward the ethic of how to get the most out of the least effort or the least time. In watching this session again on the video, what struck me is how the Thai “hack” for how to get the most out of the least is to spend more time on the fundamentals; just super repetitive to the point of exhaustion as a way to trigger real relaxation. If you do something for long enough, you will relax - out of boredom or fatigue - and that’s when the real value comes in. You know that whole “Karate Kid” training sequence of “wax on, wax off,” or in the newer version where the kid has to take off his coat, drop it on the ground, pick it up, put it on, take it off and hang it on the hook, then start all over again? It’s repetitive and seemingly meaningless until suddenly the exact same movements are applied in the context of blocking and bam the purpose of all that practice is revealed. That’s what Karuhat is pushing for with me, learning footwork and hiding strikes in relaxed, rocking and floating movements. You’re not reaching for the correct angle or foot position for a technique; you’re reaching for the correct state from which all movements and techniques stem.

There are, of course, elements to look out for that involve where the foot lands and how to place your arms. Those techniques are important, but they’re worthless unless they’re coming from a state of relaxation. So, follow the lesson of relaxation and flow first. Then, apply the specifics of the “moves.” 

Some specifics: On the turn in the clinch in this session, Karuhat wants me to step back with my left leg to make distance for the knee rather than keeping my hips in and trying to pull him around to the side. One takes a lot of energy and gets very little done (pulling around), the other is the exact opposite (stepping back). He makes fun of me for telegraphing my right kick too much and shows me how he wants it to flow out of a kind of floating step forward, where you bring your chest forward and leave the hip back until the final whip-around of the kick when the hip drives forward. And many times he chastises me for not following him for an attack after he slips out of my grip or whatever move I was attempting kind of fails in the way I intended it. I’m doing this terrible thing of “starting over” because my move wasn’t correct, but he’s trying to teach me the flow and energy of sticking to the attack even if it doesn’t go as planned. He spent a good part of one round teaching me how to teep my way into the clinch, as well as using a fake front teep as a hop-in for a grab against the ropes.

He spends a lot of time trying to get me to throw a relaxed right cross out of a floating/rocking step forward. I keep winding up the punch without realizing it and a few times it’s very subtle, just a small cocking of my shoulder. Karuhat laughs at me every time and imitates the tension, exaggerating the wind up. He wants the punch to come straight out of the ribs - it’s very similar to the cross Namkabuan taught me - and he has me work on just the footwork and that one punch over and over, using the “hack” of repetition and time until, at the end of the whole video, I’m getting some nice fluid and snap against the bag. The punch is nearly invisible to an opponent, I can see why he’s so keen on it, but damn is it hard to get that relaxation and speed!

 To read more about this session visit my public blog post which contains some GIFs and alternate description . 

This session was shot in a very high quality version of HD, 1080p50, so if you have the connection speed be sure to check the Gear Box on YouTube, and select the highest quality.

 TIP BOX if you want to show your appreciation you can send gratuity directly to Kru Kruhat, $5 or more via PayPal to the address sylvie@8limbs.us, please in the "add a note" section specific "for Kru Karuhat".  I will transfer the funds.  Go to PayPal now.   

Things you might want to read up on or watch:

Hippy Singmanee’s Patreon Session, about about power and relaxation  

A beautiful highlight edit of Karuhat by Muay Thai Scholar : 

My playlist of the fights of Karuhat  

My husband’s post: Precision: A Basic Motivation Mistake in some Western Training : 

My husband’s post on the Hack and the Slow Cook Method