IGX

This is a curious little book. The reviews are mixed but I think it's valuable since to me,.. the empty hand Thai arts are among the most lethal things you can learn. Just a shade off of Silat... basically stripped to what is good for movies, what is good for fighting and what is good for nothing.

The book is filled with illustrations of various traditional empty hand Muay techniques. The setups are absent. It's like Gene LeBell's "Finishing Holds",.. you need to have a grasp of the big picture or this book is worthless.

Be that as it may... I like it. It shows the broad base of techniques and concepts with the Thai/Burmese arts. This is the stuff you see Tony Jaa do,.. or Rodney King simplify.

On that note I messaged Rodney who said that Apidej [the Muhammad Ali of Thai Boxing], understood Old Thai, but adapted it to the ring by saying, "..when referee is not looking,. you do this... then this,... then this". Rodney's instructor in Phuket taught him the street/self preservation material. I mentioned the standing locks and his reply was, "... I saw this at Bhuddai Swan Temple as being taught to military bodyguards".

So there is nothing revolutionary here.. just some traditional Thai in the empty hand, Lerd Rit mode. Much of it looks like material Chai Sirisute taught us for many hours one evening after drinking too much beer with Tim Tackett, Larry Hartsell and Cliff Stewart at Smokey Mountain Camp in 1987. Stuff that won't fail under pressure. Kind of the mode of Tak Kubota saying, "..real kill, karate". Yeah... this stuff works.

Here is the link.....

Record number of name drops in one review post?

I try to make it a community effort.
Tom Furman N=1,.. anecdote... at least some Appeal to Authority as a version of Logical Fallacy.

The best stuff I have seen is General Amnat Pooksrisuk's material.

Fat Cat wrote:The best stuff I have seen is General Amnat Pooksrisuk's material.

There is a photo of him training Tony Jaa online. Very small world.