Calling In Reinforcements

This past Friday I was in Bangkok training at Ingram Gym. Ingram is home to SagatPetch the current Lumpini Lightweight champion.
In addition to the lightweight belt, he is also the former Lumpini Super light weight champion, Rajadomnern and Mitsubishi tournament champion.
I’ve seen a decent amount of very good Muay Thai fighters train. I can say without hesitation, I have never seen anyone kick as hard as SagatPetch.
It’s incredibly distracting… there you are doing pad work next to the champ. As he begins to warm up with 20 kicks you can’t help feel like a dick.
You start thinking “Dang maybe I’m in the way of his workout ?”

I tried concentrating on my own workout, but its rare you get to see someone of his caliber train. He’s got a 8 man Muay Thai tournament coming up on the 17th. I would have thought they would have begun to taper his training but on this particular day he was busy with:

• Quick 50 min. run
• Straight into 4 rounds of sparring
• 12 rounds of Thai pads (4 min. rounds) for interval training he does 2 rounds at a time with a 1 min. break between rounds
• 2 rounds of focus mitts
• 30 min. of Neck Grappling
• 4 more rounds of focus mitts.

So you’ve done 2+ hours of hard training, clearly your prepared physically. What’s left to do? You call in the big guns. I was fortunate enough to catch Sagatpetch’s offering ritual. This is an age old ritual that has been done in some form or another as long as people have been fighting.

Thailand is 98% Buddhist, however the rituals that are practiced are wide and varied. In Thai society you’ll find that many of the spirit offerings borrow heavily from Brahman, Hindu, and Animist rituals. In this particular ceremony he’s offering a meal to the spirits that watch over and protect the fighters at the camp. He is calling on their strength and wisdom to guide him during “battle”.

This to me is what Muay Thai is about. Anyone can put on a pair Muay Thai shorts and learn how to throw elbows… it doesn’t make it Muay Thai. Muay Thai is so much more.
Muay Thai is the Wai,Wai Kru, the Kuhn Kru… etc. Muay Thai is about humility and respect. I hope all of you who train Muay Thai, realize it isn’t just about the clinch or knees.You’re apart of something rich in history and tradition. The techniques that you practice day in and day out… once kept warriors alive on the battlefield.
I hope you realize that when you train you honor that tradition, you are apart of it’s history.