Truce?

[CHOKE UK]

Full circle, when you were in thailand,
did the fighters use their elbows much during fights and did any result in k.o.'s?

[Tom Yum]

I'd like to visit Lanna, but my concern is the $$$, insurance needs (lol) but other than that I think I would really enjoy authentic Thai training.

Did you visit Beijing - Solutions??? The famous bar off of jianguomenwai?

[fullcircle]

I don't recall seeing a whole lot of elbows. Granted, this was in 1989, I was all of 19 years old. This was also my first exposure to MT and I don't know if the fighters were even considered good, or if it was a "smoker" type event or not. I was impressed by it. If I had known then what I know now, I definitely would have gotten alot more out of it.

[CHOKE UK]

Full circle, did you find that the fighte were different than say a normal kickboxing match.
I find that there are condiderable differences,
from the classical to the full contact.

[CHOKE UK]

As weird as it sounds,
a fighter can be good at one style but not good at the other.

I have tried both and I prefer the full contact,
the classical is very effective,
but to the untrained eye, looks really messy !

[fullcircle]

absolutely! That was the part of it that amazed me. I was into kickboxing at the time, I don't know if you remember the 80's and PKA, (don't know how old you are) but you didn't see knees and elbows, I don't even think there were sweeps in PKA. The overall brutality of the fighting shocked me at the time also. I was a lowly TDK blackbelt who was used to point sparring and the limited kickboxing I had started studying at the time, MT shocked the hell out of me.

[CHOKE UK]

Yeah we all think we can block roundhouses with our shuns,
but doing it against a classical thai boxer is another story.

The first time I did it i heard a terrible cracking sound,
that sounded like it came from behind my knee.
Everybody heard it, thank god no permanent damage !
They kick like a wild mule with bionic legs !

[fullcircle]

No shit. I sparred a MT guy last weekend, I'm still counting the bruises (and limping slightly). He put quite a few people out that day. It started with about 12 of us, by the end he had about 5 of them hanging up the pads and hobbling out of the dojo. Luckily I have tree trunks for legs.

[CHOKE UK]

The funny thing is that they are really quiet , humble and nice guys. But in the ring turn into the tasmanian devil !

[fullcircle]

This guy is too! The most "spidery" guy I think I've ever sparred in my life. Very impressive, it was a blast, learned a lot and ate some humble pie to boot! Dude could take it to the mat too. I found out afterward while talking to him that he is a professional fighter, and that's how he pays the bills! (info I could have used BEFORE sparring . I look forward to getting my revenge this weekend, or getting pounded. Good times either way!!!

[Tom Yum]

That's true. You wouldn't expect it from the nice guys. Funny how one awesome pro fighter can fight 5 or 6 of us, get nailed as hard as he nails us and still stand at the nights end. There are some amazing fighters out there and ironically they are level headed.

[fullcircle]

yup, he's a cool dude, and willing to teach and help in training, I'll be taking advantage of that for sure.

[Tom Yum]

Yves Edwards (from UFC) trains here in Houston, but his gym is a 30 min + drive from downtown so its a time consuming trip. But worth it.

Mike Altman (Pro-San Shou) has a gym here as well. I've sparred with one of his fighters and survived the stand up game..lol, until I got slammed in the mat 3x.

You get used to boxing or muay thai and then have to re adjust for takedowns.

[fullcircle]

There's a school here in Denver that, from what I've been told, alot of UFC and NHB guys train at. It's called Grappler's Edge. Ever heard of it? I also found a MT/BJJ school here that I'm going to go check out. I found a Sambo school that seems intriguing, don't much about Sambo tho.

[Tom Yum]

Sambo is like wrestling with a lot of leg-based submissions, right? If you find out it would be nice to hear about.