General Tunwakom - Lertrit Military Muay (46 min)

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This is a very special session capturing a branch of Muay Thai whose existence may be threatened. All of the work of the Muay Thai Library is focused on preserving not only the high level techniques of Thailand, but also the men who embody them, and nowhere is this more emphasized than in the work with General Tunwakom who's teaching may not have been documented before, at least in a form way like this. The General offers his instruction at the Thailand Cultural Center in Bangkok, which is also the home of the World Muaythai Alliance. The WMA seeks to preserve the heritage of Muay Thai and is a project largely headed by General Tunwakom himself. He focuses on a style of Muay Thai that is a mix of Muay Khorat – one of the four distinct Muay Boran (ancient) styles – and Lertrit, a style developed by a naval officer more than 50 years ago. Because the Lertrit style was developed in part on a naval ship, it may have international influences and aspects of the style and principles that look familiar to other Asian martial arts. 

 Ajarn Wisit Lertrit, above

The officer who developed this style, Ajarn Wisit Lertrit, only taught it directly to officers, and those officers would then instruct their inferiors. However, as I understand it General Tunwakom stands as the only living person, as an officer, to have received this instruction directly from the grandmaster and to be teaching it now, so his line of this Lertrit style is very special and as I said, to my knowledge, has never been documented like this before. Because General Arjan Tunwakom is 72 years old now, without dedicated students to carry on this direct lineage, this style is at risk of disappearing. Recording its techniques, as well as the General himself, is incredibly important and exactly what the Muay Thai Library seeks to preserve through the documentary project.

What is really interesting to me is that one of the primary elements of Muay Thai that first romanced me was the ways in which it is not at its heart a “sporting art,” but truly carries ethics of its origins as a battlefield martial art within it. That is, more or less every move is designed to end an exchange as quickly as possible. A lot of that is not immediately evident in modern ring Muay Thai, as it has had to adjust in order to become a sport form, but you can still see some of those original movements within some styles, or some fighters. This Lertrit style demonstrates that “end it quickly” ethic in all its ways – it is intended for soldiers and its students and teachers over the last 50+ years have been military. You can also feel it in the techniques that the General chooses to teach me in this first lesson. His blocks and the way moves flow into one another is not meant to be fancy; it’s not “point scoring,” but straight forward damage to either get your opponent to abandon a strike or simply finish him off.

You’ll see another man in this video, who assists the General in teaching this art at the WMA and also acts as a partner for both me and the General during the video. This man is Sirimongkol Luksiripat, a legend of ring Muay Thai from the prior years to the Golden Age. He was awarded Fighter of the Year by HM the King in 1973, a great honor, and for a short time was nicknamed “the Executioner” after he KO’d an opponent, who then subsequently died. Sirimonkol obviously regretted this outcome and offered financial support to the deceased opponent’s young son, up until he finished secondary school. This earned him the next nickname of the “Pius Boxer.” I’m hoping to go back and film with him, to document his style for the Muay Thai Library. I also will go film with the General again, hopefully several times, to get more of his legacy on film. I also shot an hour-long interview with the General, which needs to be translated from Thai, something that will take both time and money, but a dimension of the Library I'm looking to more in. Sirimongkol is in part of that interview, but I’d also like to go get an interview with him about his own story. It was wonderful to capture on film, and witness for myself in person, the relationship/friendship between these two mean as well. You can watch Sirimongkol in this fight with another all time legend and WBC world boxing champion Saensak here.

This isn’t a common entry in the Muay Thai Library – it’s very special, and thank you to everyone who pledges to make historic work like this possible. 

If there is anyone out there who would like to become a serious student of the General in Bangkok, he is open to teaching westerners. Apprenticeships are described here. People are needed to pass his knowledge down. You can also contact the WMA about this through their Facebook Page.

As a ring fighter I believe that there is a wealth of knowledge in this style, much of it directly applicable to sport fighting. If we leave aside his emphasis on breath and even the waist twist - two huge contributions to powerful, balanced attack and defense that should improve any style - the techniques themselves could easily spawn creative moments that can not only win rounds, but end fights. I'm not sure that one would fight sport Muay entirely within this style, perhaps, but using these techniques at appropriately timed moments could be very difficult to deal with. 

What to look out for in the session:

1) Two legs are better than one – the General points out that blocking a kick puts you at the same disadvantage that your opponent puts himself at when he kicks; that is, being on one leg. So, instead of checking a kick or catching it (which can cause cumulative damage even if you step over to reduce some of the impact from the kick), he teaches a way to interrupt a kicker. In training you use the heel of your palm, but in a fight you can use your elbow to increase damage to your opponent, but it’s the same trajectory. You interrupt the kick just above the knee, on the thigh, and you end up dissipating the power of the kick before it even reaches you. And, the experience from the kicker is that they don’t so much want to keep kicking. It’s important to generate the power of this block through the twist of your waist, not using your arm or hand alone – you could break a wrist that way. The twisting of the waist is everything.

2) Just watch how he twists his torso, in every move. I thought it looked like a golf swing, the way his knees and hips moved to twist his torso and upper body. But what stood out to me was how everything would be coming straight to the side or straight in front of him if he didn’t twist at all, but because of the twisting of the waist the trajectory comes to the side.

3) This is a very “grounded” style. You don’t come up on your toes or drive your chest up as you might see in other styles. But it’s not stiff or “hard,” it’s actually quite soft in many movements. Like the “soft hands” of Kung Fu or Tai Chi, but with a thrust at the end with the breath in order to generate a strike.

4) Breath is primary – the General says you must breathe in and out through your nose. Fish breathe through their mouths and “you are not a fish,” he says. This is for relaxation and explosiveness, but just watch him breathe on everything and how I don’t breathe on anything. It makes a difference.

5) The snapping kick. I never got this in the time I worked with the General, but I’ve messed with it since and it’s pretty awesome. I failed to get the rotation of the waist and the snap of the kick. It generates from the same waist twisting and he brings his feet together first, just like Samart’s teep. But this is another way to interrupt a kicker without being on one leg for very long yourself. The General also has incredible snap and power on that kick. It’s not a “tap” as I’ve seen some teeps to the thigh, which are effective in off-balancing or just interrupting a kicking opponent. But these are powerful and fast, like a horse kick or something.

6) Mat Waen Kwai – or punching around the buffalo. This is kind of a backfist mixed with an overhand, but it comes around like a backhand swing in Tennis, says the General. You hit with the top of your fist and the first two knuckles, but the arm has to be straight and again it all comes from the turn of the waist. I never got this one and kept bending my arm, so watch carefully how the General is doing it. If you landed this near an opponent’s ear, they’d be done.

7) Elbowing the body. I can’t believe more people don’t do this. An elbow to the body takes someone’s breath away really fast and you can hurt someone, plus it looks awesome. My first teacher, Master K, had me elbowing BOB’s rubber body so this felt very natural – or at least that an elbow to the body ought to be natural, even if my execution wasn’t right – and I think it’s awesome. The “chicken wing” trajectory the General taught was new to me, I’d never seen that before, but he always explains why that works. That’s another element of true martial arts that I admire. An immediate practicality.

More on the General and Muay Lertrit

[Update] If you are interested in General Tunwakom and his Muay Lertrit style you may find this thread interesting. Through patron support we helped send an American Kung Fu practitioner to train with General Tunwakom, and to film and vlog his experiences. The thread of that is found here (part of additional documentary projects we've been able to create with the support of patrons): https://8limbsus.com/muay-thai-forum/topic/1122-muay-lertrit-diaries-coming-to-thailand-to-train-in-traditional-military-muay-thai/