Kaensak Sor. Ploenjit - Explosive Defense (55 min)

112 lb Lumpinee Champion, 122 lb Rajadamnern Champion - 2x Fighter of the Year

Kaensak is incredible. He’s been teaching out of the AMA Fight Club in New Jersey for many years and that’s where I first met him and had the opportunity to train with him for about a year before moving to Thailand. He was the first to ever emphasize and focus on the importance of relaxation in Muay Thai and would spar with me for 30 minutes or more, just telling me over and over to relax. I had very little sparring experience and he’s a legend, so this was basically him just gently applying pressure to me while I flailed around, trying to figure out what to do. But he was patient and persistent. I remember when he would show me something, a demonstration of what he wanted from me, he’d go into this posture and movement that just made my jaw drop. Just so beautiful and clean and explosive.

This session is after 5 years of living and fighting in Thailand, so my understanding of what Kaensak is showing me - even my understanding of relaxation itself, is just worlds apart. It allowed me to have much greater access to the depth of each technique he showed me, but you don’t have to be very experienced or super skilled to practice any of these techniques; the difference was understanding or appreciating the context. The strategy or how the aggressiveness of his defense is what made him so unstoppable. A lot of what these legends have worked with me on is timing, but Kaensak’s timing feels unique in that it’s not necessarily tit for tat countering. He does start out teaching me a timed kick that Karuhat also showed me, when your opponent’s weight shifts forward for a strike, you kick their opens side. But Kaensak’s timing is more like building up or momentum, because each strike has an anticipated answer, then an answer to that answer. Oftentimes I’m struck by how simple the style of these legendary fighters is, just a paired down system that works incredibly effectively and the rest is filled out with style. That’s a good thing. A profound thing. What’s amazing to me about Kaensak is that this style doesn’t seem simple at all. His technique vocabulary is extensive and he uses a broad diction of strikes - so to speak - but the system comes down to this: offensive defense and incredibly fast decision-making for each move. In this session, he’s teaching me how to train that decision-making into instinct. Before I even have the technique down he has me doing it under the kind of pressure and speed that forces me to just move without thinking. Move before you’re ready, then train it so much that you’re always ready with the next move.

In the west we are taught to fight forward. Aggression is emphasized and combinations are taught as a way to pattern out your forward movement. In Thailand, fighting backwards is highly respected. But what we think of as fighting backwards and what Kaensak and the highest-level fighters think of as fighting backwards aren’t the same. You never go back without the rubberband movement to snap you back forward; you don’t give ground so much as allow someone to step into your space and then boot them back out of it. The very first thing Kaensak works with me on is what he calls “safety,” and what he means is defense. He has me pivoting off to the side as he charges toward me, staying just out of the way of his body that I’m safe but not far enough away that I’m using distance as the protection. He immediately adds in a standing-your-ground option of kicking the open side as the opponent steps forward. So you can stop them on the spot with a strike, or you can get out of the way and let your opponent step into your spot. What was important to me, personally, about this is that Kaensak outright explained that you cannot only have offense, you cannot only have heart - in order to be a great fighter, a top stadium level fighter in Thailand, you have to have everything. The reason that’s profound for me is that he’s offering this accomplishment before it’s a possibility for me. As a woman, I can’t fight at the National Stadia of Thailand, but I can achieve that level nonetheless. It’s like, “you can’t be a monk, but you can achieve enlightenment.” The knowledge and striving is the point, not the permission. I find that incredibly, profoundly generous and accepting for Kaensak to see this possibility in me. In anyone.

This lesson progresses quite quickly, but each piece links to the next in a cohesive succession of techniques. Some points to look for:

1. When in defense, keep your weight on your back leg (mostly, not entirely) so that your front leg can bounce and be ready to quickly teep or kick as a defensive counter.
2. For maximum speed on a front-side kick, just tap the front leg back instead of a full switch-step. The important bit about kicking as your opponent shifts their weight forward is to hit their open side, so whether you fire your front leg or back leg is based on your opponent’s stance.
3. Swinging your arm on a kick generates power and torque, but if you’re facing a good puncher you want to keep your arm up as defense as you fire this kick as a counter to their charge.
4. If your kick is caught, hop to the opposite side of your kicking leg (toward your standing leg) and close to your opponent’s body. If their back arm comes forward to push you, parry that arm at the same time you hop over. This gets you to the side of your opponent so you can maintain balance and then grab their neck in a dominant position for a knee or counter strike.
5. On a caught kick or knee, throw a punch first, hit all the open options and then if they keep holding you progress to more options. Tucking your foot (on the leg that’s caught) to the inside of your opponent’s thigh gives you control and takes away their knees.
6. Using fakes to cover distance and land a kick or knee. Use a real teep, then a fake and hop on the standing leg for greatest distance covered. Watch Kaensak do this across the ring, it’s awesome. And when he fakes a teep or kick he slaps his knee on the faking side, which shows you how high up you’re supposed to bring that fake (think “high knees” drills for running).
7. He shows a few different escapes for a caught kick, turning the knee up to get your heel on the opponent’s hip and a solid shove off, or turning the knee level for a pull-in and grab, or turning it down to slip out.
8. In order to maintain a close distance while still being defensive, he uses three counters to a kick: block (and kick), catch and throw (and kick), or slip (and kick). Always kick back.
9. At the end he works with me on elbows in the clinch, showing me how to use timing on the “swim in” to land elbows, while always locking the inner-elbow of your opponent to control their ability to elbow you. 
10. And the last bit is the Armadillo Guard, which Kaensak reiterates is not ideal but can be used to weather a flurry of punches and then immediately counter at close range. Don’t stay in it, you just flash into it for defense and then attack, but Goddamn if it isn’t gorgeous when he’s doing it. 

TIP BOX: if you are inspired by what you see and want to show added appreciation you can send gratuity directly to Kaensak. Just message $5 or more via PayPal to the address sylvie@8limbs.us, please in the "add a note" section specify "for Kaensak". I will transfer the funds.

KRU FUND: additionally, 5% of all Patreon pledges go into my Kru Fund, and is directed back to the Krus and ex-fighters who have helped make this documentary Library possible: http://8limbs.us/muay-thai-thailand/starting-the-kru-fund