Fancy Trapping

[terry]

Mike,

Your perspective is a informed and constructive one that I'll take under advisement. Thanks.

Originally posted by sikal
I consider trapping to be invaluable for me personally. If you honestly believe that it has absolutely no place,

Um, no, didn't say that and don't think I would go that far. I would say that I've kind of evolved a core standup game around which several other ancillary tools revolve.

Then either research it deeper to see if you can find a place, or discard it (or, at least, discard the training methods you find useless - by my definition, you'll still be teaching trapping, but your training methods might teach the trapping principles from the MT clinch instead of Chi Sao).

Yep, I need to explore that.

Terry

[Ray White]

Terry,

I always enjoy hearing your input on Muay Thai! I am am still relatively new to Muay Thai's more intricate methods.

Does MT have movements similar to the Jut sau, sut sau and Jau Sau (sp?) for gaining a line to the neck so you can sink the plum {sp?} for kneeing. And if so, or not, wouldn't those movements be useful to getting through the guard for Kneeing and elbowing? Although I suppose some movements are harder with 16 oz. gloves on!

I don't play in plum as much, or to the degree a ring fighter does, but it does seem to help my drilling to be able to move through a guard, or around it, to get ahold of the neck when I spar.


Ray

[Ray White]

Oh, I just remembered...

Francis Fong is an excellent trapper with a very well rounded Muay Thai and BJJ backround. He is one of the few people I have seen show very specific ways to use your trapping game for specific goals like MT or Grappling.

I saw him the first time last year and it was amazing. He may possess attributes, or have practiced in a manor that allows him a greater proficiency than most. But it was inspiring to see him work trapping in a realistic way! Unfortunately he doesn't have any tapes, so you need to train with him live to see it and believe it. He is out of Atlanta GA, but he does travel around for seminars...

Ray

[terry]

Ray,

Thanks for the kind words. To answer your question: MT does have quite a bit of stuff in the plumb (standing grappling) range. There isn't much emphasis on throwing because the referee generally breaks a MT contest when people go to the ground. You might want to check with chalambook as to whether there is a lot of throwing in KK--I suspect there might be on the battlefield if you were fortunate enough to survive for long without your sword. Anyway, in MT they also don't want to throw their opponent away if they've got a good line in the plumb. Rather, what they want to do is hold them up and knee them--occasionally to death. That is why the referee has to look down at the ankles to see if they turn--that's sometimes the only way to tell if a guy in the plumb has lost consciousness.

As far as teaching progressions, I haven't seen the kind of structured MT flow drills that are taught by Inosanto--except from Inosanto. I've seen him put together some Muay Thai body position drills that are cool. And Guro Inosanto is versatile that he can combine a lot of disparite things. I stayed over at his house once asked him to use a filipino training method starting from a Muay Thai lockup reference to get into a damaging silat-type of throw and he got a grin and not only did it but showed me more material than I could grasp. Kinda like drinking from a firehose--you'll definitely get something to drink.

My experience of Ajarn Chai's teaching in the plumb range differs in the speed at which new material is introduced. He will take an entry and work into plumb and spend a lot of time on it so you get just one or two routes--not 10 or 15--but those one or two work well. He does some way cool throws out of the plumb, but the objective is more to set them up for a hit than specifically put them on the ground. I guess the preference is to knock them down or out rather than throw them down.

A lot of the other trainers have no set structure they teach from. Perhaps not unlike Cacoy Canete's sparring approach where you pick up the hits off your body, many Thai trainers just do it out of flow and occasionally stop to show you one piece of business or another. But it is not so organized.

I've learned maybe 100 throws of which I only use 3--but I work them all out of plumb. In fact, you can work a lot of stuff out of plumb. You can throw, you can sink in the hooks and go to guard, and you can trap but that's mostly during the transitions and not too much when it's locked up tight. If you do for about 45 minutes it's also a great way to loose weight.

One word of caution, just as a good MT knee cuts quite a bit into the hand trapping game, a good BJJ game will cut quite a bit into the plumb. A good BJJ guy will just take a knee and grab it on the way out and take you down. Yes, I know there are counters, but a good BJJ guy can get his hooks in or go for a single leg if he wants. Still, I think plumb is good. You should try it.

Terry

P.S.: Sifu Francis is a great guy aint he?

[Ray White]

Getting a little off the subject, but is there any tapes by anybody in the TBA on the Plumb? ( Does Chai or G. Nelson have any?)

Ray

[terry]

Sure, try this link:

http://www.trainingblades.com/edgesvideo/pages/nelson/gnclinch.htm

Terry