#33 Kru San Sitmonchai - Control of Pace & Distance when Advancing (56 min)

I could never say enough about how much I loved training with Kru San. I wasn’t very familiar with him prior to this lesson, even though I’d met him at Sitmonchai before and probably seen him at a few fights. He has a larger-than-life kind of presence, not only because he’s actually so physically imposing but because his enormous smile and energy is just radiant. He tells me a few times throughout the lesson that he’s seen me fight lots of times and will point out something he doesn’t like about my style - or lack of technique or conscious decision within my style - and that’s really meaningful to me because it means he looks at a fighter and thinks, “you can fix that,” rather than that it’s just some flaw in the basic structure of a person. That sounds easy enough, but you’d be surprised. What Kru San ultimately illuminated for me in this lesson, which is very valuable to me, is this program of his that’s just steady, balanced, and persistent. In the voiceover I refer to it as “pace,” and that’s a good word for it. You just find your pace, your rhythm and start coming forward. Kru San doesn’t break pace; he does what he wants to do and is responding to and forcing positions and movement out of his opponent, but he does it all at this completely steady, unbroken pace. I love it.

He only breaks down a few technical elements, even though he’s instructing the whole time with how he holds pads. His non-verbal instruction is a goldmine and if you ever go train at Sitmonchai, do yourself a favor and try to get Kru San as your padman. He creates this pace I’m talking about with his padholding, but he also moves himself at the end of your strikes so that you can learn to feel and understand the gradual closing of distance from your farthest reach to very close strikes. It’s seamless and he doesn’t break it down for you, you just kind of create it together with the pads. But one of the few things he does actually break down is this point about getting your head offline when coming in with a straight cross to the body. He steps out wide, outside my stance, and it’s so beautiful and smooth. Maybe slightly due to our size disparity I have a harder time getting that same angle, but I think I just didn’t know where my foot was landing. So, watch him for the getting off-line instruction and then watch his feet to cement it. Because I don’t do it quite right. But coming back to center off of that step with the hook is this total powerhouse strike and his technique on that is stunning.

Some things to look out for:

1. Popping your front leg up on every step as you cut off the ring. Kru San emphasized the importance of bringing that knee up on every single step, not just the ones where you’re kinda pretending to maybe throw a teep or something. You can use the block or not but by popping the leg on every single step you can hide your actual teeps and strikes coming out of it. Teep your opponent to get them to the rope, then fake the teep and throw a close weapon when they’re actually on the ropes.
2. Stepping outside the opponent’s stance to get off-line on body punches. Standard enough, but Kru San connects it to a hook that brings you back to center and it’s a beautiful combination to keep as your bread and butter.
3. Keeping your arm out straight on kicks. Kru San tells me not to let my arm go down in a swing on kicks, which is something Arjan Surat also insists on. Kru San connects it to Kard Chuek, because there’s so much punching, but it doesn’t matter what style you’re fighting. Keeping your hand in someone’s face on your kick is protection for you as well, so it’s a solid technique regardless. 
4. Using an upward elbow at the end of combinations. Kru San likes to fake a cross to get an opponent to flash into their guard, then you can just tuck in and hit the body instead. But since you’re in so close at that point, he finishes with a nice, tight upward elbow into their guard. Right up the center. It’s beautiful.
5. The arm hook in the clinch. Kru San emphasizes the importance of pulling that arm down as you hook around it, to kind of arm-sling your opponent in the clinch. Then you can pull back on the hooked arm to straighten them out and throw an elbow into a very open jaw.
6. The arm control and backward elbow in the clinch. He says when the opponent is very tired you can control their arms in the clinch. Throw a few knees with your arms controlling the inside of their arms, then fake a knee to step across them and throw the spinning elbow into their face. Best if done when they’re in the ropes.
7. “Check check check,” is what Kru San says when he means looking at a person’s body position all the time. He walks me through cutting off someone’s escape plans when they’re on the ropes, kicking left or right to corral them. He says just one step to follow them and keeping your legs staggered for balance and power is important. But if you get them in the corner don’t just wail with your hands, watch their body and go high and low to just destroy them.
8. The low kick as a punctuation mark. Kru San says it’s important to take a small step back to absorb your opponent’s forward movement, rather than trying to guard up and stand your ground while they’re advancing. He shows me why in the video, it’s pretty clear. But after that one step back you can throw a counter. He likes a straight cross to kind of stun them, then the low kick on top of that once they’ve been stunned by the cross. It’s a double whammy.
9. Catching the kick and kneeing the hamstring. This is a Dieselnoi favorite, Kru San stresses the importance of leaning back when you’ve caught the leg, to protect you from punches. After you’ve nailed the hamstring, throw the leg and give it another heavy kick as your opponent is trying to catch themselves. Nasty.