Yes, its just more confusion laid on by the muay chaiya instructor trying assert he has knowledge of all things. The topic of grappling really bothers me because he has been telling lies about this very topic for some time. He states he taught grappling or ground portion of fighting since the early 90s which is a complete and utter lie. When I was in thailand living and training full time, I taught grappling classes for a small group on the weekends at national stadium. We taped several layers of cardboard to the ground so we could work. He said he was teaching grappling way back then but he couldnt and he didnt because several of the guys training with him came and stated he did not because they really wanted to learn to work on the ground and they joined the group. In the class, they did know nothing about the ground because it was evident. When the first vale tudo came and the call went out to ALL chaiya people and other thai martial arts, they refused to enter and some of the actual guys sat in the audience saying they didnt have any grappling level so they couldnt enter. So you can go ahead and call me a liar but there is proof not only in videotapes time/dated stamped of all of this and also a log of progression. In recent years, they came back around trying to demonstrate their grappling but it was rudimentary and had many holes in the game and well below basic blue belt level.
The second most important thing is that this instructor knows nothing about the history of grappling especially in se asia. He uses texts he gets from books and translates them then desperately tries to reconstruct from a limited knowledge base of thai martial arts and even more of old style grappling that once existed in the region. He cobbled together a grappling program from his students training with others, videotapes and his own limited knowledge. Nothing wrong with this but his understanding of history is bad and often skewered. I often question now the validity of anything he says since its mostly self serving and nothing to move ahead any type of research or understanding of ancient thai martial arts. What he is teaching and talking about is a re-imagining or a reconstruction just based on books and no actual training in the subject which is fine long as you say so. To mislead people and to distort history is plain wrong.
To understand what once existed as he says he does and is bringing back, you would have to a rudimentary knowledge of grappling or old wrestling like that of india, mongolia, etc. You would i hope have trained in burma, cambodia, vietnam and neighboring countries to see how these systems evolved, what they are and how they play because you can see similarities and you can see roots and links to india, mongolia, etc. Wrestling still lives on in cambodia, burma and other regions.
The texts he uses are easier to decipher and realize what was there when you have a root understanding from practice and training not just from books and in light of what still exists and is practiced in neighboring regions.
I mean I applaud him for moving forward and trying to be more progressive with his understanding but he is not expert on the subject by any means nor should he be looked to as an expert on the topic. Since for those who give him the benefit of the doubt, his claims of teaching grappling since the 90s, still hasn't produced any champions or high caliber grapplers or fighters so I assume his method is just so superior that it doesnt need to be tested or proven or its just cobbled together confused low level bjj/sambo that lives and breathes in low level comps.
Lastly, there was a lot of debate about wrestling actually existing in Thailand. It did exist as it did in cambodia, laos, burma, vietnam, phillipines, etc. But there was a lack of interest so it slowly died out and some moves incorporated into the bare knuckle in the forms of throws, trips and falling spikes. There are references to people seeing wrestling happening but again all we have are these few first hand reports, ancient texts of techniques and references from different teachers at different points.
If you understand old world wrestling like the previous earlier wrestling in india, fish hooking, hair pulling, skin pinching were allowed and interesting in some texts in thailand, you see reference to those tactics.
Bare knuckle fighting was an open ended affair with no rules in the original incarnation, so you could go to the ground but often like we discussed in the lethwae thread, the ground was used for impact as a sort of third wall. To wear an opponent down by constant slamming or tripping, to land on an opponent to stop or knock the wind out of them, to land on them then spike them with an elbow or punch or scrape, causing bleeding or cuts, to land them on their belly and drive their face into the dirt or sand, etc. Practical use of old world wrestling tactics.
So you can see how one teacher who says he is a "master" and "expert" can distort history, understanding technique and execution and create utter chaos. Again as I stated many times, certain thai people especially martial artists like to write history in reverse meaning taking things that happened in the past and either inject themselves or their system or styles in there to make themselves more important or relevant.
I have trained extensively and recorded the old grappling methods in se asia and india, mongolia and other countries. I normally just dismiss the rubbish from certain peoples mouth but this situation and what he is talking about is nonsense and one shouldn't get tangled in his lies and his foolish writing.
The issue of studying what did exist in thailand is an important one and the research is still on going. So I hope his insistence on trying to comment on history doesn't derail it in anyway. I hope people just take his speeches as conjecture and move on.
I created the physical body 1 and physical body 2 dvds on indian wrestling to create a base understanding to work from. For those who have seen the dvds, I tried to reference in a bit of burmese lethwae, massage techniques, and even trying to show a similarity in the spartan type of lifestyles wrestlers lead much like thai boxers living in a kai muay. Later, I hope to go into the older indian wrestling methods and show very rare texts and photos of the actual fish hooks and old illegal techniques that were once legal in wrestling.
Sorry for the rant and digression but I know this issue has been lingering on many boards and a lot of people ask about the old wrestling methods. They often cite this "master" talking about it and it has been rather nauseating to listen to. I hope this at least clears up the issues a bit.
