krabi-krabong part 1: the knife

[Troll Virus]

Great read.
Thanks for sharing

[chalambok]

Sitsiam Muay Thai Camp

Demonstrations in Manchester, England for 5 May anniversary of birth of PaKroo Samai Masamarn. Part 1

[chalambok]

Sitsiam Muay Thai Camp

Part 2
Every year Ajarn Tony Moore and his people give demonstrations of Thai National Martial Arts on PaKroo's birthday. And again, in August, he devotes the whole month to shows and seminars around the UK and Europe, exposing thousands. He always brings in instructors from Thailand; sometimes champion boxers from Lumpini and Ratchdamnern, sometimes senior instructors from the Buddhai Sawan. These last two pictures are of his students, taken at his school in Manchester.

[chalambok]

Warming Up

Rey Guinn & Bruce Raymer warming up before we did a demonstration for 20th Century Fox at the Portland premier of Anna & The King. They gave us sweatshirts (pink...uhg!!) and some great tea in small round tins. During the spear versus double sword show, the tip of my spear broke off and flew out into the crowd. They were awake after that.

[chalambok]

Practicing

for a demonstration for the Queen in Narathiwat. This was on the beach in front of the palace one morning, waiting for the stage to dry after it had rained all night and the roof had leaked. We were staying a short ways out of town at a Marine base. They shut the showers down at 10 PM and we were doing without because we were basically rehearsing from 4 in the morning until after midnight until the day of the show. On the bus rides back and forth we were shot at several times by Muslim insurgents, Narathiwat being one of the 5 southern provinces seeking independence. Since 2002 there have been about 3000 people killed in this revolt.

[chalambok]

Attn: Dog Brothers Fans

Here is a picture of Arlan Sanford working out in his backyard in 1995. He was the first person to ever bring me in for a seminar, and is an honorable representative of the Buddhai Swan alumnus.

[chalambok]

International Muay Thai World

In the fall of 1995 I was asked by Mr Tong Trithara to provide the cover story for the New Year's issue of International Muay Thai World magazine. This is a weekly magazine, widely available in Asia, and sold in 29 countries at that time. It is concerned with the fights at Lumpini, Omnoy, Ratchdamnern and other Thai stadiums as well as anything of interest around the world of muay Thai. And, krabi-krabong being, as it were, the history of muay Thai, it was a great honor and opportunity for me to expose the world to my art. So I wrote an article about throwing the knife, of course. You see, we have a different philosophy of knife fighting than any other art. Our thoughts are that if you actually have the time and distance to display your own knife, you have the time and distance to throw it all the way through your opponent's chest. Yes, we throw it that hard. And while I can throw as I was taught at the Buddhai Sawan, from a wide-legged, static position, I throw much better in the older, more traditional way that was shown me by Master Chai. It was taught to him, as I have related in an earlier story, by a Russian circus performer when he was a child. Basically it is throwing the knife exactly as Randy Johnson or Roger Clemens might throw a fastball, all leg thrust and upper body rotation. We honestly are trying to put it through our foe's chest and out his back; and if the distance somehow changes and we hit him with the hilt rather than the blade we are hoping to knock him down. This is older and more traditional because it is how a child who knows nothing will try to throw, with all his might. This is one of the cover photos, if you look closely you can see the knife vertical in the air between me and the target. Bruce Raymer and I are in our TBA jackets because we met halfway between Boise, Idaho and Salem, Oregon over Christmas vacation for the shoot, and it was damned cold... As far as I know, this is the first time any krabi-krabong knife work was shown to the world at large. My teachers loved it.

[Khun Kao]

I remember the MuayThai World magazine! I was featured in an article back in 1994 after I won a huge match in upstate NY over one of Master Sucharts fighters....

Anyone still in touch with Master Tong? I haven't touched base with him in many years....

[chalambok]

The last time I spoke with him he was still living in Springfield, Missouri. It has been several years though.

[delbert]

I agree on the soundoff. There a lot of superior martial artists out there who do not toot there horn so hence are ignored most of the time in their repsective arts. As we grow older we realize that power is truly knowledge and the foundation that each of us uses to obtain it. The training that Master Chalambok can provide is not easily obtainable in the United States. My teaching for the day,"Absorb what is within your grasp for if you do not, it will forever be unobtainable from the one true source that you desired initially". There I'm a prophet

[chalambok]

This is a picture of the classroom wall at the Bangkok (Nongkam Area) Buddhai Sawan. One morning we were sitting in class and a snake fell out of the ceiling. All the students rushed over to look at it (it took a minute or so for it to squeeze its way between the roofing, long enough for me to get my camera). PaKroo (Ajarn Samai) came rushing over, screamed something in Thai that ended in an easily-understandable 'cobra', and we all leaped back. We then ushered it politely into the bushes, and took an early lunch. By the way, what looks to be a green, three-cornered pillow is actually an ancient low-foul protector, before the age of cast iron cups and stomach pads. Also you will notice an ancient shrine, the Buddhai Sawan had approximately 27, to which an arriving alumni or a departing student would give incense and prayer. A funny story about water buffalo: Once Master Chai, Guro Dan Inosanto and I were jogging in Changwattana, along a very narrow road. Truck drivers would regularly swerve over and force us to jump into the ditch. At the same time there was a large herd of free-range water buffalo eyeing us. They took an obvious dislike to Ajarn Dan because he was wearing red; so in true Thai boxing fashion, we picked up the pace...lol Those buffalo followed us for about half a mile.

[chalambok]

Chiang Mai

We travelled by air to Chiang Mai to participate in a festival for the Queen of Thailand. It was a huge affair, with demonstrations by the Army, Navy, students and of course, the Buddhai Sawan. There were simulations of famous naval battles, complete with sailors rowing boats about the stage. There were replications of famous fights with the Burmese. I was part of a 98-person battle, doing my part with a spear. When we were running off the stage during the performance another student got a sword stuck through his arm, also one person stepped on the head of a nail that was sticking up out of the stage and tore a hole in his foot. Rehearsals had been held almost continuously from 6 in the morning until 2 or 3 the next morning for about 4 days but no one had been hurt. But going from the bright lights of the stage to the darkness backstage was strange, some people missing the stairs completely and just running off into thin air. The climax of the show was fought from the back of an elephant, a la the 'Legend of Suryothai' You may have seen this show floating about on the Internet. A copy of my part of it was given to me a few months ago in Vancouver, Canada. I know I am in it but cannot find myself, the action is so fast and furious. After the show I took this photo of the 'elephant' being taken back to its cage. While taking a break backstage between shows I happened to be eating with The Musketeers (personal bodyguards for the Queen). One of the young Lieutenants at the table was talking into his cellphone, then, smiling, held it up for me. I put it to my ear and could hear the recognizable sound of an M60 machine gun running in the background. What is this, I asked. He informed me that his team at that moment was involved in a firefight with opium growers along the Burmese border. He gave me a photograph later of himself and his 5-man scout patrol in the middle of a 150-acre opium poppy farm. Because they were so outgunned at the time, they just located it, took pictures, then left on the run back across the border. Over the past 50 years, the Thai Army has tried to rotate every unit through a course in Krabi-Krabong at the Buddhai Sawan. At any time there is a senior instructor from the school teaching rifle & bayonet tactics somewhere in Thailand to a special forces unit. Shortly after I left in March of 1995 a friend of mine was shot in the stomach and subsequently died during fighting along the Burmese border regions West of Chiang Rai. Sadly, he was not the last. There has been continuous warfare in the SouthEast Asia region since the late 1930s, with lots of extra arms left behind by the Japanese, the British, the Dutch, the French, the Chinese, the Soviets as well as the Americans. It is speculated that in Cambodia alone there are enough land mines in place to kill or maim over a hundred million people. Periodically there is a tourist at Angkor Wat or Angkor Tom who wanders off the marked paths and gets blown up. The United Nations has a permanent mine-reduction effort there.

[chalambok]

Krabi-Krabong Group in Vancouver BC

This is part of a series sent me recently by Loki Jorgenson in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. I have known Loki for years, and from his experiences as a Dog Brother he became inquisitive about Krabi-Krabong. So, he brought me up a couple of times for seminars, workshops, and even for a speech at a local college, on the history of Thailand as Krabi-Krabong has influenced it. To make a long story short, he and his group seem to have a love affair going with the mai sok, and are vigorously exploring its use. You can find out more if you wish at maelstromCore.com

[chalambok]

Travelling

The benefits of travelling with a living legend are paramount, and sometimes totally unexpected. Here we are in Narathiwat, meeting the Prime Minister of Thailand, Mr Prem.

[chalambok]

It is so close to camp time that

I thought I would continue with the 'Living Legend' series...lol Everyone should know by now that I am a short, overweight, bespectacled, bald-headed older white man. Yet my teachers saw something, and encouraged me. Thousands of times I heard "I can do it, you can do it." More than ten or twenty whilst I was violently throwing up in a corner or outside somewhere. Anyone who considers themself to be my student has heard the same thing, as well as "Out of confusion comes knowledge. Dan Inosanto, 1984." These are now my mantras, because they worked for me. And they can work for you. Not all dreams come true. Not all dreams remain the same over a lifetime. And not all dreams come first to the one who lives it later. If you go outside tonight and look up you will see more stars than there are grains of sand on Earth. We are so small and so insignificant, so why not go for it? Months before your birth there was one sperm out of millions who swam its hardest and came through for you (pun intended). So what if you fail? Snoop Dog once said "Why put limits on your life? Dream big, you may never wake up."