#39 Khorat Saknarin - Precise Tensions (97 min)

Kru Khorat’s out-of-the-way gym Suk Niwet Muay Thai (map link) is shaped like a shoebox and very small. There are yellow and black checkered mats on the ground, some mitts and pads hanging on the wall, and two free-standing bags. In the back is a single exercise bike, or eliptical machine. As far as minimalism goes, it’s high up there on the scale. My own trainer, Kru Nu, tells me stories of growing up in the gym as it was just becoming a gym. They didn’t have a ring or cement, so they trained on tarps laid out over the dirt of the family farm. He wasn’t a fighter yet for the first few years and the gym only owned one pair of pads, so he wasn’t allowed to kick them. These minimalist gyms are also high on the scale of “traditional” and I was excited to be filming here because the Muay Thai Library project is not just about capturing the muay of the most famous names of the past, but also the incredible knowledge of men just like him. A thank you to Tyler, a reader and supporter of mine, who alerted me to Kru Khorat, you can see him sitting on the ground in the background in this video.

Within a few minutes of actually starting to work with Kru Khorat, it became really evident that he doesn’t need much of that equipment at all. He moved through demonstrations of technique so quickly, I was a bit worried he’d run out at 40 minutes, but he kept the same pace and by the end I was convinced that his wealth of knowledge about Muay Thai techniques might never be exhausted. His style is slick and powerful and aggressive. He insisted that I look into his (and my opponents’) eyes as the focal point, from which you can, in fact, get a full sight picture. It is a particular kind of fighter who insists on looking his opponent in the eye and Kru Khorat exemplifies that kind of fighter in his style. He’s strategic and evasive, but aggressive and powerful as well. I could tell in working with him that it would be a nightmare to stand in front of him, but when he walked over to the bag two times to demonstrate a full power kick and some punches, I was damn sure that it would suck to be in the ring with him.

Khorat was never belt champion at the National Stadia in Bangkok (Lumpinee and Rajadamnern), but he faced many of the top names from the Golden Age of Muay Thai. Title belts aren’t the end-all-be-all of accomplishment – case in point: Somrak Sor. Khamsing who some consider one of the best ever never even got to fight for one. But the roster of top names that Khorat faced in the ring, in addition to just watching him blast through a million insanely beautiful techniques, speaks volumes about his wealth of knowledge and I’m very happy to have him in the Library, preserving his particular style and “never back down” fighter persona.

He offered so much technique, and a lot of variety, in this session so I can’t cover it all here, but some of my favorites are:

1. Using the palm of your hand to dissipate power on a caught kick. This is similar to what General Tunwakom teaches about interrupting the kick on impact, although the General likes to use his elbows to do this. There’s a kind of brutality to this meeting-on-impact way of catching kicks that I really like, and if you do it right it is both effective in dissipating power from the kick but it also gives  you a lot of control of that caught leg for your counters.
    
2. The parry, pause, then kick. This was a huge realization for me. It’s not a massive “Eureka!” moment for everyone, but I’ve been struggling with something that in Thai is called muay mua, which means your movements are kind of indistinct or muddled. Parrying an arm or punch, stepping over and kicking as your opponent is either stopped or “matadored” to the side is a pretty solid, widely applied technique. I always thought my kick was shit because of a technical issue with where my weight was on the step off. That’s true. But the fix is super easy in that Khorat pointed out you just take a split second to let the parry sink in before throwing the kick – so they’re individual, precise, distinct. You’re not stopping, you’re pausing for emphasis.
    
3. The arm hook on a parry is wicked. Khorat doesn’t just slap the guard down to go over it, he actually uses the palm of his hand or his wrist to hook the forearm and kind of Scorpion style, “Get over here!” to the opponent, yanking them into his elbow.  
    
4. The air-kick defense. This is another game-changer. When your kick is caught, not being spun as your opponent throws your leg is pretty hard to do. It also super sucks when the person you’re trying to spin won’t spin because they have control. So, better to be the guy who doesn’t spin than the guy who can’t spin him. Khorat has a “hack” for how to not spin. He does a secondary “air kick” as the leg is being thrown and it keeps you from moving, almost at all. My mind was blown. It doesn’t matter how hard our opponent spins you, if you air kick as they try, you stay put. It gives you total control of your own leg, without having to tense up or jump up or whatever else.
    
5. Khorat appears to have this insanely tense energy. He just cuts through everything. But he also has this looseness that’s kind of hidden in his darting, evasive maneuvers. He actually puts his face forward and stares into your eyes to get you to try to punch him, then darts out of the way and counters you really hard. He had me play that hand-slapping game to show me what he meant by getting out of the way and attacking, which you can’t actually be really tense to accomplish. Tense in the right places, but loose enough to move really fast.