What’s a Muay Thai Smoker?

Last night I was looking at my blog stats, and one of search queries that was driving traffic was “what is a Muay Thai smoker?” I forget sometimes that a lot of people looking at this blog might be new to Muay Thai and Muay Thai Culture. So this is for the new folks.

What is a smoker?

A Smoker is an amateur fighting competition between different schools and gyms. In the early days of boxing these events would be held in men’s social clubs or basements… you get the idea.

Today smokers are a good way for fighters to get some ring time, before going amateur. My Gym Fight and Fitness had our last Smoker of the year a few weeks back. I think there were a total of 35 fights? with fighters from about 10 different schools.

If your looking for smokers, there is a good resource called Smoker Fights. You can post info on your smoker or find one.

Why do a Smoker?

Why the hell not? As you begin training you’re focused on the basics, punching, kicking, kneeing, defense and movement. At my gym sparring is in the evening, typically it’s for students who have at least 6 months of training. No one makes you fight, in fact most students at our gym don’t. I’m not a particularly violent person nor do I like fighting, I view sparring as sort of a progress report. You’ll train and train and eventually you’ll watch some of your classmates mixing it up in the ring. You think to yourself, doesn’t look that bad. You end up getting in the ring and getting your ass handed to you. You get back into the ring a few days later and you find that your able to think instead of panicking, and you do a little bit better. The next time in you start wondering if you could’ve gotten your kicks off a little faster? and so it begins…. Sparring will improve your timing and ultimately your overall technique. You get to take the skill you learn and (try) to put them into action.

Sparring should be conducted under very controlled conditions. If both you and your partner have considerable ring experience they’ll give you some latitude, let you throw and kick harder. If you’re a newbie they’ll watch and monitor things in the ring pretty closely. They never let things get out of hand. If this isn’t the case at your gym. I have to say your probably in a shit program. In the early stages of sparring the instructors should constantly be stopping the action to point out errors and to make corrections. As you get better the “gene pool” begins to shrink as you’re constantly fighting the same people. Time for your first “smoker”.

So the concept of a Smoker is you invite other gyms to your school so fighters can test themselves. The atmosphere is friendly; bouts are exhibitions so there are no winners or losers. That being said most of the fighters I’ve seen at smokers are fighting like there is belt up for grabs.

I think there are several types of fights. The first is the controlled fight; both are really keen to keep the fighting “graceful”. I know it sounds like a strange word to describe a fight but when both fighters are controlled and have good technique it can look synchronized like a dance. There is the “I’m way to out of shape for this and I’m just going to hang on you” fight. Then there is the flailing tough man brawl. Most of the bouts will look like the latter.

All Star Ref: Ra Karma Young

The fight

So what happens? When you’re sparring you’re with your classmates and it’s no big deal. At the smoker there are a 100+ people who came to see a fight. That alone will get your heart rate up. What most people don’t realize is that the sparring that they’ve done has been controlled on two levels. First, your classmate isn’t going to try to hurt you, (unless your train with dicks). The second is that mentally you know that you’re boy isn’t going to go hard on you. All of that gets tossed out the window as soon as the bell rings. Ding! The human fight or flight reflex really is an amazing thing. To do well in a smoker you have to successfully suppress or control that response that rush’s over your body.

Packed House

The moment you get a hard punch to the face all hell breaks loose. For those of you who have never been punched or kicked in the face the only way I can describe it is that you are completely and utterly offended. “Did you just punch me in my face?” All you really want to do at that point is to repay them. This is the “brawl” type fight I had mentioned earlier. It takes so much control to suppress the desire to start swinging and to remain calm. Just stay calm, breath. Control yourself, pace yourself, be patient. Everyone is yelling at you, you’ve got this punk ass in front of you who is swinging like a wild man. Do you follow, do you start swinging? Or do you wait? Do you swing for his head? Do you kick at his head? knock that bitch out? No, you won’t connect, wait be patient…

Kurt Osiander of Ralph Gracie holding down the ring

If you’re lucky you get someone who wants to work on his/her Muay Thai Skills, if you’re unlucky you get the fighter whose only technique is to charge in and swing wildly. It’s tough setting stuff up when the guy is constantly hanging around your neck. It makes for a really frustrating fight.

Depending on the smoker you do three 2 min rounds which doesn’t sound like a long time, but most of the time it feels like 30 min. Your arms burn, your lungs burn, and you can feel the acidity from the vomit working its way up your esophagus.

Practice

Just like everything else, the more smokers you do the more comfortable you are in the ring. Those who do dozens of Smokers eventually go on to fight amateur. In the amateur circuit you no longer wear head gear or shin pads. Those who do well in the amateur circuit can go professional. That’s it… simple eh? Anyway I’ll leave you with a quote from a friend of mine James Cook.

“Muay Thai is just a sport. We train like boxers… We wake up early in the morning and run, We have to pay attention to what we eat and we train for nearly 6 hours a day, There is no magic or mystique. The harder you train…the harder you can fight.”

Many Thanks to blackwidow for the use of her pictures.