I agree to an extent meaning the way it is practiced now is like its balls have been cut off. Its a simple dynamic way to fight but now its like no fighting just doing sets of forms,the old guys fought and knew how to fight. The new guys teaching dont fight and only do forms, if you link it to burmese bare knuckle its all about fighting an active part of the style, an ingrediant. so if you take thai style and move it forward link it to muay thai then you got something going on. Competition does exist on the borders, in burma and I know some guys who go over to fight. Vincent is heavily involved in training people to compete in places like burma where the rules remain pretty much close to the old bare knuckle.
I wouldnt say vincent is a muay boran guy, he does specific systems like muay chaiya, muay korat, he doesnt like the phys ed stuff that governs krabi krabong or muay today. He also has a sturdy backround in bjj, western boxing, muay thai(which he trained exclusively in thailand for over 17 years), kali, etc so he is coming at from a functional thing(his speciality is combatics and real world application) and re linking it back to put it at a place where it can work today. He veers toward that in krabi krabong as well using the systems that work in that way. He knows everything about the principles, theories and strategies but he works to make them alive for today and the history and drills the direct link to the past. Just my opinon on this. I trained a bit of muay boran in thailand and i could see the difference between the older teachers who taught fighting and those who taught what i would call dancing. Which of course is my opinion based upon what i saw.
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