Namkabuan

[Ian]

Lots to learn here, no matter what style you practice

[dspyrido]

Love the intensity.

[Bhassler]

Lots to learn here, no matter what style you practice

Like what? Don't get in fights with people who have trained their whole lives in a competitive environment to beat other people up? It helps to be faster, stronger, and better balanced than everyone else?

I believe that both those are true, but not necessarily all that useful as far as observations. What did you think was educational about the video?

[Ian]

Do you just see a guy who has "trained his whole life to beat people up" and is winning simply because he's "faster, stronger, and better balanced"?

Namkabuan wasn't just an athletic brawler, he was an extremely technical nak muay. That's why any serious practitioner of striking styles can learn something from watching his fights.

Look at his efficiency and coordination, sense of distance and time, excellent whole-body movement, and superior hand fighting which allowed him to check, avoid, and exploit a lot of his opponents' actions.

[mrtoes]

I watched it all the way through - I'm sure he kicks a lot of ass but it's hard to really get much from such short snippets of isolated exchanges to be honest (a common issue with highlight clips I find). Any good fights of his you can link us to and save me the trouble of sifting through Youtube?

Matthew

[dspyrido]

How about asking - how would I handle these attacks? Then ask someone to throw the attack at the best possible pace (which would be far less than what is in the video) to test the defence.

The hypothetical and experimental analysis is bound to help.

[Bhassler]

Look at his efficiency and coordination, sense of distance and time, excellent whole-body movement, and superior hand fighting which allowed him to check, avoid, and exploit a lot of his opponents' actions.

This is a less tongue-in-cheek way of saying that he's better, but doesn't provide any insight into what makes him efficient or coordinated, or demonstrate how he manages distance to create his opportunities, or anything else. If I think that doing a tai chee dance in the forest is the best way to gain efficiency, coordination, and whole body movement, there's nothing in that description that confirms, denies, or influences my thinking in any way, as it's just a statement of outcome and not technical detail or process.

So, specifically, is there something I could learn from that video that I could work with in my next class, given that I don't do Muay Thai?

[Bhassler]

FYI, this is the kind of thing I'm talking about, I'm not saying that just to be a dick.

https://www.facebook.com/WimDemeerePage/posts/942694569115615

Don't get me wrong, I'm still a dick, but I'm not *just* a dick...

[Ian]

I don't relate to your way of thinking, because if I were to make a list of all the things I've identified to work on from watching Namkabuan's highlight clip and fights, that list would have at least 100 items on it.

Your signature quotes Feldenkrais talking about 'flexible brains'. You've also said on more than one occasion that the Feldenkrais method is about 'learning how to learn'. Well once you've identified the components that you want to or need to train, you then go about learning them, just as you'd approach learning any other skill.

Maybe because you're watching the highlight clip as entertainment, rather than education? I'm honestly not trying to be condescending, I'm just having a hard time imagining how you think.

[Ian]

I watched it all the way through - I'm sure he kicks a lot of ass but it's hard to really get much from such short snippets of isolated exchanges to be honest (a common issue with highlight clips I find). Any good fights of his you can link us to and save me the trouble of sifting through Youtube?

Matthew

Hey mate,

I'm kind of reluctant to recommend you focus on any one clip, because what you need to / want to work on and what I need to / want to work on will be quite different.

You can watch the highlight clip at 1/4 speed, or learn to 'see fast things slowly'

Once you've identified a technique or concept or principle that you want to incorporate into your game, then it becomes easy to learn. The learning process is the same for anything.

[Bhassler]

I don't relate to your way of thinking, because if I were to make a list of all the things I've identified to work on from watching Namkabuan's highlight clip and fights, that list would have at least 100 items on it.

Your signature quotes Feldenkrais talking about 'flexible brains'. You've also said on more than one occasion that the Feldenkrais method is about 'learning how to learn'. Well once you've identified the components that you want to or need to train, you then go about learning them, just as you'd approach learning any other skill.

Maybe because you're watching the highlight clip as entertainment, rather than education? I'm honestly not trying to be condescending, I'm just having a hard time imagining how you think.

Well, presumably this is a discussion forum, so if a person posts a video it would be because there's something they want to discuss. I'm interested in your opinion, but don't have a technical foundation in sport fighting. Do you train for self-defense? Bouncer work? Knife fighting? If so, what in this clip do you think generalizes from one domain to the other? What changes?

[Ian]

Well, presumably this is a discussion forum, so if a person posts a video it would be because there's something they want to discuss.

Not really. I'm a student, not a teacher, so I'm only posting TMA clips that I think will help others in their practices. I'm not recommending we discuss any one thing, as each person needs to decide for themselves what they're getting out of it, and what they need to work on.

What in this clip do you think generalizes from one domain to the other? What changes?

Well for a start, you and many others talk about mirror neurons, no? You can feel what it feels like to move like him, and the more you watch the clip with this awareness, the stronger the feeling becomes. You can slow the clip down to 1/4 speed and focus on the hand fighting, the multiplanar coordination (as opposed to "this is a horizontal movement, this is frontal movement"), the clever combination of controlling distance, evasive movement, checking which allows him to hit while not being hit...

I reiterate, whether or not and why this clip is useful is really up to each of us, individually.

[Bhassler]

Fair enough-- based on your comment about the clip having something for everyone I thought you had more of a specific thing in mind. Most MT clips don't do much for me, mirror neurons or otherwise. The Golovkin clips you showed get a lot more stuff firing, however. Courses for horses, and all that, I suppose...