CategoryWhat I’m Working On

3 years ago

A Round of Bare-Fisted Bagwork – What I’m Working On Lately

Many of my mornings at Petchrungruang are like this, with me the only person around. The Thai kids all run and do some light training at 5 am before school, and then the gym is open for a session at around 9 or so. Not many westerners come at this time, leaving the gym more or less empty. Because Pi Nu will only hold pads once a day, I try to have my padwork done in the morning, often with just him and me there. An empty gym is also a really nice place to focus on bagwork, this was 

3 years ago

Some of My Padwork Lately – No Right Hand | Pi Nu Petchrungruang

(above) video of padwork round 2 of 4 Round 3 of 4 (above) Round 4 of 4 (above) I like to put up my padwork every so often because I want to show and keep track of where I’m at and what I’m working on. Nothing special, just plain, regular old padwork. This morning Kevin came with me and started filming from the 2nd round. I also like putting padwork up because one day it will be great to look at it again and have the experiences all come back to life. Of course, I see a lot of mistakes 

3 years ago

Things I’m Working On To Be a Better Fighter

A fighter’s progress is continual. One of the best things about fighting frequently is that every time I get in the ring it’s a real-time feedback on where I am between the last step and the next one. I can jump right back into training and address limitations I’ve encountered. Of course, progress isn’t always liner; often it’s lateral and on a long enough timeline it’s circular, like Dorothy on the Yellow Brick Road, spiraling out. But that’s a good thing, as coming back to revisit and rework the same weaknesses or difficulties makes you able to sink deeper into 

4 years ago

Slowing Down Bagwork & Shadow – No More Small Steps – Petchrungruang

The above video is the last round of my first attempt at slowing down my bagwork to focus on footwork and cutting out excessive steps – tiny foot shuffles I use for adjustment and filler.  The idea is to make all the steps bigger and more deliberate, focusing on balance and purpose. Two days ago I began experimenting with my footwork and rhythm in bagwork.  I spend a great deal of time doing bagwork and shadowboxing, so these places are the perfect platform upon which to build a technique or retrain bad habits, which can then be brought to sparring 

5 years ago

Adding an Elbow – A Psychology of Muay Thai Elbows

Kevin came up with the idea of adding an elbow that might make a nasty counter to Lommanee’s left side, front elbow if I should ever fight her again. The idea is that a rematch, if it happens at all, would be a long time from now, but we could use the focus of a particular attack to hone a particular counter, which is as good as any a way to work on elbows for me. I have had a difficulty with elbows that I haven’t talked that much about.  I love elbows and they’re the “signature” of Master K.  

5 years ago

Elastic Band Training to Help Tighting Form – Muay Thai Techniques

How the Elastic Band Helps Me I started using the elastic band in training with frequency maybe a month ago, when I came back from Pattaya, mostly because I wanted to train my punches to come back straight and stay tight. I had used it periodically before (enough that I thought to bring it all the way from the US, although I don’t remember ever using it there) but this was the first time of systematic use. When I use it for my punches on the bag I noticed that it had an amazing effect on my kicks, keeping my 

5 years ago

100 Muay Thai Fights in Thailand – Focusing My Goal | Fight Frequency

My Goals Goals are important things. They give us context and room for what we want to achieve, they make us believe in ourselves in a focused way. My initial goal when I first moved to Thailand was to achieve 50 fights, which was seemed near impossible when I first pictured it back in 2010, on my first trip to Thailand. I had only ever conceived of it and knew it was possible because Sylvie Charbonneau, a Canadian woman at my same weight who spent five years at the same gym I’m at now in Thailand – Lanna Muay Thai 

5 years ago

15 New Techniques That Will Improve Your Muay Thai – From My Training in Pattaya

I learned a ton training with Sakmongkol in Pattaya for 7 weeks, as well in my time at Petchrungruang Gym. You can see my daily blog posts of my time with Sakmongkol here if you want to dig into the evolution of my lessons, the posts are pretty detailed with lots of video. Below are the lessons I learned, in particular the lessons or techniques I’m going to consciously work into my training at Lanna, now that I’m back in Chiang Mai. I’ll try to tell you why they were important for me and maybe they could help you, too. 

NO MORE POSTS