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Muay Thai & Western Boxing: Studying The Style of Samarn Dilokvilas in 1936 (Patreon)
Content
We don't often do this, but occasionally we'll take up a theme found in the Muay Thai Library and draw sessions together as part of a larger discussion. These posts are free to the public so feel free to share them with anyone you think would find them interesting.
[Kevin writing] The video at top is a film study of the newly published footage of the fight for who was the best Muay Thai fighter in Thailand. Samarn Dilokvilas vs Somphong Vejasidh. See all the fight footage and read details about each fighter, and the nature of the footage in this forum post. This video focuses on Samarn who would win the fight, and the unofficial crown of Thailand's best. All the elements of his fighting as found in the film (which in an edit covers all 6 rounds - an extra round is fought because it was so close) are repeated at regular speed, and then once in slow motion. The aim is for you to see the patterns and rhythms of his style, and to note some of his techniques. On its own the edit has its own edification. You just might enjoy looking at the fighting style of the best Muay Thai fighter in 1936. But, what is also interesting is that besides these fighters being the top Muay Thai fighters of the day, they also were among the top Thai international boxers. So the fight footage also presents insight into the early modern relationship between Muay Thai and Western Boxing. Let us know in comments what you see in the footage!
You can just stop here on this post, and enjoy the insight video of Samarn's fighting style at the top fo the post, or you can dive down into a more in depth discussion.
watch Samarn's light bagwork which exhibits strong Western Boxing patterns.
For the full fight edit 1936 footage, a history on this fight, and footage of another fight included in the event archive which was very different:
The Deeper Dive:
What follows below is my view of history. It's not an expert view, but its a much read and researched view.
A History Muay Thai and Western Boxing
One of the great questions of the history of Thailand's Muay Thai has been, "What was the influence - the dialogue with - Western Boxing over the past 100 years?" When I first came to Thailand more than a decade ago I had a very different picture of Muay Thai in my mind. It was exotic. It's way of fighting seemed so unique it felt like it had developed somehow away from the Western world, along a privileged line of warfare knowledge stretching back hundreds of years. And it felt like there was ONE Muay Thai. A few years in we slowly discovered that there was incredible variety of techniques. Even in a single gym you might be taught two antithetical ways of doing something by two different trainers, on consecutive days. In our early mind this was quite surprising. In truth there were 100s of ways of throwing strikes, so much variation that as I was increasingly exposed to it it reminded me of life in an Amazon rainforest. A fight knowledge rain forest. So much complexity and variety. But again, the image was of something exotic. Something that had developed "far off", on its own island, a Galapagos of fighting. And then we discovered that there were fighting styles (Sylvie wrote one of the first examinations of choosing a fighting style in 2013, as she was developing herself as a fighter.) We then found Muay Khao, Muay Maat, Muay Femeu, etc, and the meanings behind these styles. These styles are commonplace ways of talking about Muay Thai now, but 10 years ago nobody really in English thought about Muay Thai in these terms. It was Sylvie's writing about and then documentation and study of these styles among legends in the Muay Thai Library project that significantly contributed to this framework in English. Now there are Muay Khao t-shirts (!); a decade ago, not.
It's enough to say that after 4 years or so though I had a picture of Thailand's Muay Thai that was not only (still) exotic, full of technical variation & complexity, and broken into styles, it still felt at very far remove from the West. This began to change as through the Muay Thai Library project we started filming with great Thai boxers. It started with Chatchai Sasakul. He was a WBC World Boxing Champion, and taught a very well-defined boxing weight shifting footwork, but he insisted that there isn't much of a difference between Muay Thai and Boxing. He'd not only fought maybe 70 fights in Thailand's Golden Age, facing legends, he also had coached former Muay Thai fighters to a World Championship boxing level. How could this be? The running internet wisdom about Muay Thai is that its footwork is so different than Western Boxing, they are almost incompatible. Then we filmed with legends like Samart, Samson, Sagat, Yodsanan, fighters that transitioned from Muay Thai to elite boxing quite easily. There was something about Muay Thai that must be actually very close to Western Boxing, something in its DNA, its patterns & rhythms, that maps onto Boxing quite well.
After a lot of study and conversation with legends of the sport we came to realize that Muay Thai in the Golden Age was very closely related to Boxing. Quite far from the ridiculous type claims that Ramon Dekkers had somehow "showed" or "taught" Thais Western boxing in the 1990s (yes, people actually believed that, despite Dekkers not even being a boxer - some today in corners of the Internet still say it), boxing had a very strong presence in Thailand in the Golden Age. Every Lumpinee and Rajadamnern card (9 cards a weeks) had at least one Western Boxing fight. That's probably close to 500 Western Boxing fights in the National Stadia a year during the Golden Age of Muay Thai. There were politically powerful amateur boxing teams (run by the military, the police & and others) that would commandeer top Thai fighters to fight for them. The King's Cup, an amateur boxing tournament, was one of the highest fighting honors in the land. Boxing and Golden Age Muay Thai went hand and hand. Boxers trained side by side Muay Thai fighters in top gyms like Thanikul gym or Muangsurin. They were in dialogue.
above, a rare photo of the Muay Thai legend Karuhat as part of a University team (he was not a student). He never fought professionally. Chanmat second from left, Khunpol a noted Muay Thai fighter third from left.
It was NOT the case that Thailand's Muay Thai had developed along an exotic, far away, Galapagos-like genealogy of fight knowledge. Probably in ten years it will be widely accepted how much dialogue there has been between Western Boxing and Muay Thai, but a few years ago when I started this discussion online, there was tremendous push back. People forcefully held the same opinion I had when I arrived and in my first few years in Thailand. Muay Thai was isolated. It developed in its own in a Thai way, a way that is antithetical to Western Boxing. It's just not so, and it hasn't been so since its beginning as a modern sport.
above, The Ring boxing magazine in 1956, the year that Lumpinee Stadium opened
above, Rocky Marciano reffing a profession boxing fight at Rajadamnern Stadium in 1969. Rajadamnern would have a boxing fight on every card for the next 40 years or so.
Western Boxing and Muay Thai's Early Modern Period (1910-1930s)
Sure, Western Boxing may have had an impact on the Golden Age of Muay Thai through widespread amateur boxing and a few famous pro champions in the 1980s and 90s, but this was new...right? The long time connection to Western Boxing came further to light as I studied the modernization period of Thailand's Muay Thai (1910-1930s), from a historical perspective. I'll be brief here, I discuss this more elsewhere, but the early modern period of Muay Thai, the decades during which it passed from Kard Chuek (rope bound striking inside a drawn circle on the ground) to gloved fighting in squared, raised padded rings, with weight classes, was basically in imitation of Western Boxing. I had learned this at some point a few years before, but it did not crystalize into greater understanding until I realized that British Boxing was exerting a "civilizing" pressure (in the colonialist sense) on Thailand's Muay Thai (Boran), part of a larger project toward societal modernization in Siam. This is to say, during this period not only did Thailand adopt the equipment of Western Boxing, but the two sports were being fought in the same rings (the first rings of Bangkok 1921, 1923), within a wide social prescription that Muay Thai should be like Western Boxing. The King of Siam, King Vajiravudh, who instituted many of these changes (as well as outlawing gambling, for a time) came of age during nearly a decade spent in British college military schools. The teaching of boxing, the founding of permanent rings, came through the British example. Western Boxing in the Siam fight world was in line with the much broader internationalizing, modernizing changes brought to Siam's burgeoning Nation State. Railroads, bureaucratic reforms, the organization of police forces and Western Boxing (to name a few) all came together in this Zeitgeist of the new modern of the 1910 and 20s. In a sense the early modern period of Muay Thai is woven into the very substance of Siam as a Nation.
above, a section of the Modernization of Muay Thai timeline, you can see it all here
It's important to make clear, when discussing the dialogue between Thailand's Muay Thai (and Boran) and Western Boxing that it was not that Muay Boran was somehow instructed by Western Boxing, or elevated by it in terms of an inferiority to a superiority. Police and civil servants were taught them both, side by side (1921), but they were likely seen as complimentary. But these are very different arts. What happened, and what happens when these two arts came together is that two fighting arts, each of very long heritage, each developed under quite different distances, and weapons, came together. There just are so many more "musical notes" (weapons) in Siam/Thailand's Muay Thai, an art that likely has derivations in centuries of bladed & shield warfare attacks, as well as an in-ring, gambling lineage that reaches back to the 1700s. Boxing, due to just the use of hands, was close range. In the 1910-1930s what occurred is that two beautiful streams of historical, ring-tested fighting came together in Siam. There was cross-pollination. It likely was not the first time Muay Boran had absorbed elements of a foreign fighting style, as for many 100s of years the Ayutthaya Kingdom was the cosmopolitan center of South East Asia, part of a maritime trading empire, populated with numerous trained mercenaries from across the SEA basin, and as far to the east as China & Japan, and from the West Persia, India and Portugal. In the 1700s the King of Ayutthaya had a personal guard of 200 Persians, for instance. The early modernization of Siam's Muay Thai in Bangkok in the 1910-20s, very broadly was repeating circumstances from the 1600-1700s. Siam/Thailand has always grown through trade & internationalism, but then also always made these results uniquely their own...in this case strongly, culturally Thai. Everything goes back into the rings throughout Thailand, through a century of 100,000s of fight rounds a year, throughout the countryside & in city centers, shaped by the aesthetics & values of Thai culture and sport.
What Did Early Modern Muay Thai Fighters Fight Like?
I go into this in much more depth in this post: What Was Early Modern Muay Thai Like? New Film Evidence (1936): Samarn Dilokvilas vs Somphong Vejasidh
A big question has been, how did Early Modern Muay Thai fight? How much were fighters boxing influence? This is where the amazing Samarn Dilokvilas vs Somphong Vejasidh footage give perhaps our very first substantive look, like a telescope back in time.
A Hypothesis on how Western Boxing mapped onto Muay Boran as an Influence
Today there are many, many styles of Muay Thai. I'm not just talking about descriptions like Muay Khao or Muay Maat, I'm speaking of refined ways of distributing weight, connecting strikes together, defending oneself, controlling the space. Regions have had styles, gyms have had styles, trainers have had styles, and as you study the Muay Thai Library you come to realize that each fighter has as style. There is incredible diversity. But, I suspect that one of the primary ways in which Western Boxing most easily mapped onto Muay Boran can be found in the fight style of Samarn Dilokvilas in the video above. This is the way in which boxing's slips and evasions, and its striking on pivots fit into some aspects of Muay Boran, especially those which favored stance switching, for instance like you see today in Muay Chaiya preservations. The natural walking, stance switching Boran base melded easily with some of the closer range arts of Western Boxing, I believe. It seems likely that at least in this early modern period, when top Muay Thai fighters would also go and fight boxing internationally, like Samarn and Somphong did, the alternating sways of Muay Boran and the clipped angles of boxing spoke to each other. I don't believe this was the primarily influence of Western Boxing in the 1980-1990s, in that time of dialogue, Muay Thai was far from its Boran roots, and Western Boxing had been fought in Thailand for half a century already, but I would prospectively offer that this was an entry point for their early synthesis.
If you enjoy my reads on Muay Thai and history, read this post series, which examines the cultural and historical reasons why Thailand's Muay Thai may have developed along defensive, counterfighting lines:
Study in the MTL
In the Muay Thai Library, we do have documentation of fighting styles that help flesh out this theory of the early mapping of Western Boxing and Muay Boran. I believe one can see this hands-friendly, hip rotation, swaying style in the Khorat Arjan Metprik Silachai, who not only was a Rajadamnern champion in the 1970s, he was the coach of the vastly underated FOTY Thongchai (who we have yet to film with as he teaches in China). If you study the Muay of Arjan Metprik Silachai and watch the fight footage of Samarn in 1936, you may see the connection. A study of Thongchai's fights also may be helpful. This is one of my favorite sessions.
#103 Metprik Silachai - Lost Techniques of Old School Muay Maat Lowkick Pressure (81 min) watch it here
"Wow what a session. Arjan Metprik was not only a great fighter of the Silver Age of Muay Thai, he created the relentless fighting style of 2001 Fighter of the Year Thongchai Tor. Silachai. It's just an amazing lowkick, knee and Muay Maat style full of pressure and toughness. See how he trains his fighters in this Old School Khorat gym."
You can see these same principles of fighting, I believe, in how Saeksan has adopted his Muay Thai style to the ONE fighting entertainment format.
Another Muay Thai Library session to watch is that of General Tunwakom, who teaches Muay Lertrit and Muay Khorat. From him you can see that symmetry fighting style of old school Boran, as it was melded with Asian fighting techniques & military applications. He really emphasizes the hip/torso rotation which can be found in older Boran styles
There are two General Tunwakom sessions. The first is all him. in the second he comes towards the end and teaches the Buffalo Punch, which Samarn also uses on the bag in the 1936 footage.
#36 General Tunwakom 1 - Lertrit Military Muay (46 min) watch it here
General Tunwakom is the last living direct student of the grandmaster who developed this Lertrit/Muay Khorat military style of fighting, designed to end exchanges quickly. Much can be learned from the foundations of these techniques, and these are definitely techniques that could be effective in the ring with proper timing.
#54 The Late Sirimongkol and Lertrit Master General Tunwakom 2 (81 min) watch it here
This session is a big part of what the Muay Thai Library project is all about. It's likely the last substantive video of the 1972 Fighter of the Year Sirimonkol Looksiripat, including a lengthy interview telling of his remarkable career. He also goes through the basics of his southpaw fighting approach. As an added bonus, Muay Lertrit (military Muay Thai) master General Tunwakom jumps in and teaches the unique strikes of his art.
Also, the sessions with Samson Isaan, a legenday Muay Thai fighter with heavy hands who became a World Champion boxer is very good to study. He does not fight with stance switching symmetry (though he could fight in both stances), but you can see the kind of ambidextrous, fluid trasition to hands, fighting from a squared position, and how hands relate to clinch fighting. The sway is in his style as well.
There are several Samson sessions in the Library, but the first has the most direct expression of the connection between Western Boxing and Muay Thai, as expressed in his style. The distance is not so far from Samarn to Samson:
Samson (FOTY 1991): #41 Samson Isaan 1 - The Art of Dern Fighting (64 min) watch it here and Samson Isaan 2 - Muay Khao & Western Boxing Excellence (59 min) watch it here and #116 Samson Isaan 3 - Dern Pressure Fighting & Defense (44 min) watch it here #123 Samson Isaan 4 - Secrets Of His Pressure Fighting (122 min) watch it here
#41 Samson Isaan 1 - The Art of Dern Fighting (64 min) watch it here
To "dern" in Thai is to "walk", which means basically to just come forward no matter what, to create a relentlessness. Voted Fighter of the Year in 1991, Samson Isaan was one of the great Dern Fighters of the Golden Age, and in this session he shows his forward pulsing techniques which are meant to just overwhelm his opponent. Also a great session for pressure Southpaw fighters.
And lastly, Chatchai Sasakul is really good with this. His weight transfer dynamics, moving to the opposite foot (especially on the jab) is connected to this, I suspect, very old connection between Western Boxing and Muay Boran. It's an essential rocking, the sway.
There are several sessions with Chatchai, the best boxing coach in Thailand, former World Champion and Golden Age Muay Thai fighter.
#64 Chatchai Sasakul 2 - Elements of Boxing (72 min) watch it here
Chatchai is not only a former WBC world champion, he also is the recipient of Thailand's Coach of the Year. He is one of the great striking coaches in the world, and in this session he breaks down all the basics from the footwork on up. Nobody has a more beautiful and potent hands foundation. Watch and learn from a master.
#109 Chatchai Sasakul 3 - Developing Rhythm & Precision (1 hr, 46 min) watch it here
The best boxing coach in Thailand, former WBC World Champions Chatchai Sasakul, teaches the importance of rhythm and precision. Chatchai's instruction brings western boxing technique to Thailand's Muay Thai, as he was also a Golden Age stadium fighter.
#14 Chatchai Sasakul 1 - Perfecting Hands (106 min) watch it here
Former WBC world boxing champion at Flyweight, and winner of Best Coach of the Year in Thailand, Chatchai in this nearly 2 hours of video makes micro adjustment after micro adjustment, honing in pristine technique in the basic strikes of boxing, for use in Muay Thai. It's all about weight transfer.
Bonus Session 5: Chatchai Sasakul Southpaw Hands | 52 min - watch it here
Chatchai's stance and striking system is not only ideal for boxing - he was the WBC Flyweight World Champion in 1997 - it instills a basic weight transfer balance that can dramatically improve your Muay Thai. Watch it being installed on me for the first time from the Southpaw stance.
That is to say, this is just prospective lines drawn connecting the dots between Muay Thai Library sessions, the known events in history, and the newly found footage of Samarn and Somphong fighting in 1936. You watch the sessions in the Library and the footage and find your own connections, your own insights.
If you are new to the Muay Thai Library project, see its full Table of Contents here.
The 36 DONT miss sessions in the Library
The Library is huge so Kevin and I picked the 36 don't miss sessions, our favorites and just best overall:
