Original Why
So I wrote a blog about how I started the 1000 knees 1000 teep challenge but stopped after 4 days and a few days ago I came across a post by Coach Barry Robinson that was resonating.
This also makes me wonder and think back about my 1000 knees and 1000 teeps, my strength and conditioning, metric tracking with the Oura ring (well I’m doing this as part of a study so I’ll leave those metrics for researchers), and why I swap over from Chase Tag to Muay Thai. To me, what are the important things? What are the important measurements? At the end of the day, correlation is not causation. Not all metrics are important to measure, just the metrics that correlates to the task that you are trying to accomplish. This also include the things that are measure within my desk job career.
My Why
From Parkour to Muay Thai
One of the original sport I use to do for the longest time was parkour. I later transitioned to World Chase Tag for a bit, but grew dissatisfied on the way it was going, organized, and lack of development. I guess recently, among some teams there’s been a bit more development process in the strategizing aspect. I still critique the way parkour is taught to people as a lot of the people there who do teach are just like “do it like how I do it” failing to recognize differing body types and key positions.
One of my passions are film breakdown and tactical analysis. Here are some of my film studies back in 2023 for chase tag days on positional managements:
I have a few more of those videos.
I also done scouting report analysis. Orlando Devaux was recently evaded by Roland (as I noted on how he gets sent in my scouting report and it finally happened).
There’s a similar timing on Michael Sliger as well, but we shall see if someone wants to pick up on this or if he retires before then:
It’s a lot of time commitment and investment to do film studies and at some point of being involve it was falling into deaf ears so I lost my place in the scene. People were more obsess with sensationalize media. “Just send it!” and “risk it for the fans” and falling into the audience cheer and fanfares become more of the norm rather than thinking strategically about how to position yourself and win the game. Everyone wants to feel the part rather than have critical thinking and many people I found in parkour were not very receptive to feedback on how to get better and win the positions.
I’ve seen some coaching modalities where it emphasize “you’re short, so you shouldn’t take top position or top control”. I’ve heard the same in combat sports where someone say “you’re short so you shouldn’t use long guard”. It’s better to have something and not need it than to need it and not have it. Not knowing how to top control or corner control in chase tag no matter the size is giving up your ability to see, trap, and think. It’s as absurd as telling me to not have eyes because I’m nearsighted. I can still see, even if it’s blurrier that’s information for me to process and make a decision. I’ve also seen an overemphasize on strength and conditioning (same thing that Coach Barry Robinson had been calling out in combat sports). The reason why teams are losing was not a lack of strength and conditioning. It’s a lack of understanding how to get into position and executing them.
I will say, it’s NOT cool to tear an arm socket off and I had my labrum torn during the process in training. Many egos were involved so there wasn’t enough development and so I left. There’s still a few people out there I’ve seen putting in good work and I salute you all and keep doing what you’re doing to advance the sport. I would like to see it develop into something more.
Combat Sports and the Just Bleed Mentality
I know that there’s a big issue that Coach Barry Robinson called out in combat sports and striking and bad linguistic. For example, it’s considered “cowardly” to not disengage the 50/50 and people rather just stand in the 50/50 and “just trade”. If you’re a tactician, you’d commence a tactical withdrawal to reset the position and find a more advantageous position to engage from. Any developed sport would emphasize such.
At the very least, I found common ground with people who feel the same even if it’s just a small circle for myself to teach, learn, and develop from at a small scale so there are at least people out there doing good work.
At some point I tried my hand at film studies in combat sports for concept I like too.
Golden Era vs Modern Day
I came across a video interview from Sylvie by Karuhat which resonates with myself about Golden Era way of training vs training today. Especially the parts about “beautiful technique” and how today’s Kru don’t teach and correct:
This focus on “before, everything was about becoming clean in the ring. Now you can kick however you want. Nobody corrects. Trainers will see, but won’t correct.”
For me this is sad to see and this emphasize on refinement is one of the biggest thing I want to see preserved and never lost. It’s like getting a dull sword and smashing it on something, it will break. It’s like passing someone a rifle without proper maintenance and training to fire it. People need to know the when, the how, and the why, otherwise they’ll just hurt themselves.
When choosing a gym I like to stick around with for myself as well, it’s the gym that teach and hold a lot of passion for the arts that they’ve know and love that I like to stick around with and pass on the message. It saddens me if I were at a gym, I watch beginners throw incorrect technique and it becomes this bad habit you can time everytime. There won’t be anything for me to learn and grow from them either unless they correct it and it’s sad to watch them be unsuccessful in their spars or competition (whether full contact or semi contact) if they choose to compete. I like to see people reach their best.
I do acknowledge strength and conditioning in modern day and it helped me a lot in injury treatment, prevention, and imbalances. Usually those corrective supplemental (SUPPLEMENTAL) exercises aren’t taking up my entire day or metrics I completely go by (as long as it’s enough for me to execute the task I need to do within my sport). If I was going for PRs on my deadlifts or something because I’m in a deadlifting competition, then it becomes relevant, but how strong my landmines are, how much I can bench, etc, that isn’t winning the game. I also acknowledge Don Heatrick on when 2 skills are even, strength and conditioning can make the difference like having a skilled race car driver driving a beater car vs another skilled race car driver getting the top of the line model.
The way I can put it for modern day strength and conditioning, purchase the luxury vehicle if you can afford it, but if you did not invest on how to drive, you need to allocate your time and skill on how to learn to drive the car. You can spend a bit on maintenance to keep the engine running, but it’s not something to brag about.
That maintenance part is something I feel the Golden Era can learn to utilize better (also for health and longevity after the sport).
Back to Why I Stop On the 1000 Teeps / 1000 Knees
Well, for now. It’ll be part of my logistics/diagnostics/weapons check, however you want to call it once the time is right to check it.
I can see a time in the future once this will come in handy. I don’t want to make a mistake of identifying as “I am a Muay Khao knee fighter”, but I would definitely love to have that in my arsenal for when I need it. Let’s say if I were to know I can walk someone down and throw thousands of knees no problem and that was all I have, I will run into someone that can say “aha! I took away your knee, and now you have nothing!” I lost the war. When I was younger, I would just be hyperfixated on the fact that I can sprint very very fast. If I were to play a certain game, all someone needs to do is use my speed against me (with timing) OR take away my opportunities to use my speed.
Looking at past boxing matches, people talk about how Errol Spence was a marauder. He does rely on his jab to set everything up, so Terence Crawford said “I took his jab away” and he dictated the entire fight. He won the war of logistics.
When Sugar Ray Leonard danced around Roberto Duran and he said “No mas”. He dictated the range, frustrating Duran from the outside, and he made smart tactical decision on how to enter his clinch entry to reset the encounter to deny that dangerous midrange. This is smart and tactical.
I may come back to this challenge again in the future in any case, but if there’s something I’d say would be nice for 1000 challenge of, it’s 1000 reps of very boring basic positional drills because boring basics wins. It’s more of a mind numbing challenge, but knowing your end range and positioning is key to victory.
So What Am I Or Like To Be
Muay Femur. They’re the tactician. Muay Thai is the art of 8 limbs. If I don’t have my knees, I still have elbows, teeps, kicks, punches. If I don’t have my kicks, I can still punch and clinch. Ultimately, I have my brain. There was a quote from Burglar I like from Goblin Slayer anime: “What’s in my pocket?” (I heard it’s also a Lord of the Ring reference)
Essentially, all he had was his hand. Basically no matter how bad things get you just got to count on yourself. In those case for me it’s whatever I have at my disposal.
A Muay Femur fighter would need to know their end range, set up traps, and know how to take away the other opponent’s weapon logistics. Although I do like the clinch myself, I’ve seen more Femur fighters who hates it (since it’s tiring). I actually do enjoy it and I like to be comfortable in it as it gives me another weapon system to work with or know how to safely disengage or lock down if needed. There are certain positions in grappling exchanges that you can rest in if you find the spots to lock in and rest.
What About That Oura BreathStudy
I’ll continue that BreathStudy since I like helping out science when I can. The metrics I don’t need for myself I’ll let the researchers use it for their studies (whatever data they find important). For myself, I’ll probably mainly use Oura’s sleep metrics as I found that the most insightful and accurate for how much effort I can exert for myself.
I’ll focus on a more technical day on days I’m overexerted and I’ll push more on days I’m better recovered. The things I don’t need, I shouldn’t over obsess it since having a high VO2 max doesn’t automatically win strategic competitions.
Now What
I need to make my way to Thailand soon and come back to London to see my friends :) . It’d be a great experience and I’d like to see beautiful Muay Thai from the source in Thailand. Rough part about doing 1000 knees and 1000 teeps right now is I won’t be funding myself for my future trips right now and I need to focus more on that so from a logistical point of view, I am not advancing towards my goal with that at the moment.
I just got home and stopped by a gym to use the bag and decided to work on positional things (framing, circling and maintaining my base, the good old boring things, when to engage, when to disengage, clinch entries, timing). Younger me likes to go brute force. I don’t mind it here and there, but I like to keep my mind grounded so nothing beats a good timing technical work.
I still need to make more video analysis or do more film studies to satisfy that nerd inside me since that’s who I am at heart. Just a nerd with a whole lot of strength.
Ultimately, I want to learn beautiful Muay Thai and share it to my friends who are interested.