The Seminar

The seminar definitely delivered. Karuhat had a lot he wanted to teach us so we moved quickly. A lot of the things he taught were quite simple and straight forward, but with subtle details that makes it work and makes it great. Timing and setup is paramount to how to get the techniques working. He makes a point to note that if your opponent isn’t reacting the way you want them to react to setup your trap, try something else.

A lot of the seminar consist of Muay Femur tactics (since Karuhat is a Muay Femur fighter), mainly anti-clinch, fake setups to draw out the check, and teep defense/counters.

Trips and dumps were a lot of the techniques that Karuhat uses and he makes them effortless.

Technique

Karuhat mentioned during the warm up about Muay Femur shadowboxing was to land the foot forward after kicking so you can continuously kick. As with all the drills when attempting to fake and your opponent doesn’t do what you want them to do, try something else.

I’ll mention the techniques went over below by “flavors/themes” rather than order so it’s easier to follow.

Teep Defense

Standard Return Fire

Step back to head kick

• Eat a few teeps to give opponent a sense of false security
• Step back to opposite stance and fire a head kick with the rear foot

Step back to drag across for rear shots

• Eat a few teeps to give opponent a sense of false security
• Step back to opposite stance and with the lead hand (from new position) grab the heel a little bit and drag it forward to make your opponent do the splits
  • Note: You don’t want to hold it too long or else your opponent’s foot is in the way
• You now have multiple options for many rear shots (from other stance) as you’re probably standing southpaw and they’re standing orthodox while trying to not do the splits

Tripping

Foot sweep on teep retraction

• Eat a few teeps to give opponent a sense of false security
• Slide lead foot back and with the rear foot catch their ankle as they are about to put their lead foot back down and you get to trip them
  • Note: I found this technique to work on lead foot teeps, NOT rear since the rear is going to retract far back whereas the lead will be planted right in front of you to trip
  • In open stance, I don’t need to slide back as both our lead legs are in front of each other so I’ll just trip with the lead foot rather than slide back to use the rear

Dumping (Fancy)

• Eat a few teeps to give opponent a sense of false security
• Use the standard teep parry (where you swap the foot by turning your arm down that most places teach since Day 1)
• Use your lead leg as a shelf as their teeping leg gets parried and your knee should make a shelf for their hamstring
• Torque your torso across like if you’re throwing a hook and this just dump them on the ground
  • Note: In open stance, I found this counter effective on rear leg teep whereas closed stance I found it effective on lead leg teep

Anti-Clinch/Anti-Knees/Anti-Muay Khao

Anti Clinch (Supergirl style long knees)

Remember Supergirl’s long knees?

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• You’ll be in the full plum, overhook their biceps so you have a steering wheel
• When your opponent long knees make contact, raise your own knee and bump it out the way
  • Impale your own knee cap into the side of their thigh on contact and at the same time, turn the wheel with your arms on the opposite side to dump them or off balance them

Denying the Clinch Entry #1

• When opponent try to fish the crown of your head, shrug your shoulder up high and use that as a blocker/shield between their arm so they can’t fully lock
• Use your hand and control their bicep with the space you made
• With your free hand, control their other bicep
• You now have double bicep control
  • If they decide to try and swim their hand under, you can elbow them as you will have the hand position on top

Denying the Clinch Entry #2

• When opponent try to fish the crown of your head, swim your arm underhook and try and control their shoulder (like around the labrum area)
• You’ll try and get a 90 degree angle on them while probably kind of hyperextending their arm making it uncomfortable
• You should have options to attack on the open side
  • Note: Their other hand is free and so is my hand. I prefer kneeing here because I can use my free hand to break down their head position so it deny their free hand and I get a knee in there

Fakes

Drawing out the front check

Shove away with rear hand fake

• Throw the rear kick and they check it
• Fake the rear kick and use your rear hand, shove their check out of the way
• Follow up with something

Step forward push and kick

• Throw the rear kick and they check it
• Throw the rear kick but cancel it and step forward and get a good base
  • With your knee lead arm in opposite stance, shove your opponent
    • Make sure you shove them just enough for them to stumble backwards a bit since if they fall down you won’t get the follow up shot and being just slightly off balance takes more work to regain balance while they get hit with a secondary shot
• Throw your new rear kick from opposite stance as they try and regain balance

Step forward and back elbow through the guard

• Throw the rear kick and they check it
• Throw the rear kick but cancel it and step forward and back elbow through their guard

Drawing out the cross check

Long Knee to Sweep

If you are in closed stance, use a switch knee (or switch kick). If you are in open stance, use a rear knee (or rear kick).

• Fire your knee, your opponent will cross check
• Now when they cross check again, you step pass their raised leg and frame your arm to their chest and scissor
  • Arm push forward, leg goes back, like a scissor motion and they should fall to the floor

Long Knee to Football Tackle

• Fire your knee, your opponent will cross check
• Fake your knee again, control their arms (or bicep) to avoid being elbow, wrap around the waist or double bicep control, and take them down

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Long Knee to Hand Control Elbow

• Fire your knee, your opponent will cross check
• Fake your knee again, get your hand position on top of their hand position and elbow over the top

Level changing

Cross to rear head kick

This is best done in open stance since easier to line up the head kick

• Throw a few body cross
• When they hunch down to brace for body shot, spring your legs up like a springy and launch the rear head kick

Conclusion

After my latest obsession of studying some Muay Khao tactics, I definitely enjoyed going through some Muay Femur tactics and anti Muay Khao abilities in case they try to engage the clinch and how to get out in case I run into a superior clincher. The Muay Femur style is something I definitely resonate with me as someone who likes to use my brain and figure out the more efficient tactic to solve the problem. After 190 fights without a cut on his face, Karuhat’s defense speaks for itself.

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.

I came across Sylvie’s 1000 knees 1000 teeps challenge article and video dedicated to Langsuan. I’ve been keeping up with my fitness throughout November and December. My weight do juggle around between the holidays, but nothing too excessive as I like to stay in shape rather than get back into shape.

I did want to keep my cardio up in tip top shape and want to test where I’m at. I’ve done quite a bit of S&C during November. I did a 8 KM jog in the morning on December 3 around the lake before I had to run some desk job errand from noon to evening. I don’t like being too sedentary so I decided why not off balance this day by starting off on the 1000 kicks 1000 knees challenge. I mess my count up but I think I did a bit over 500 and 500 on each side and it took about half an hour.

On December 4, I jog around to buy a few things (new lock for my locker as I have to have the other one cut open because I lock the key in by accident) and decided to try 1000 knees and 1000 teeps right off the bat. I did it and got 1000 (next time I’m putting vaseline on my knee since it gets cut from the abrasion slipping over time). That probably took an hour for me. I did some lock lifts in the evening.

On December 5, I just shadowboxed 500 knees and 500 teeps as I’m quite sore. To give my knee a break on Friday, I did 500 kicks and 500 teeps instead in accumulation while I was working my hands on the body snatcher bag at the gym.

I ended the challenge at Day 4 on Friday as I decided to try and check my benchmarks and other metrics after I got an Oura ring. I ended up deciding to use it to test whatever I throw at it and see what benchmarks it comes up for me as well as catch on a few administrative work that I’ve been leaving off for a while.

Takeaway

1000 knees 1000 teeps is very doable. I was glad I started the challenge even though I failed in a few days juggling with many items. It gave me a little test to get my feet wet and see where I’m at even if I fail, I can pick this back up at a later time once my mind and scheduling is ready to come back for it.

At some point, the challenge feels more like a rhythm/relaxation thing since you’re basically learning to relax in the work in automation in order to hit those high numbers. Thinking 1000 is a lot. Breaking it down to 100/100 a leg for 5 rounds sounds more manageable (especially if you’ve done 100/100 kicks before). I generally do 50/50 at the start and end of a session comfortably. It makes it more comforting.

What I like about being able to throw teeps whenever I can is that I know I won’t fear fatigue when I need to make distance with my teep and be able to throw it whenever I can. Same goes for knees if you want to be a Muay Khao fighter. Teeps in general are more of my bread and butter.

Mentality wise despite liking analyzing the Muay Khao who will outwork all the other styles of Muay Thai, I find myself more on the spectrum of wanting to out think my opponent. If I don’t have my knees, I have my kicks. If I don’t have my kicks I still have my hands and clinch. I have my angles. I have my teeps. I have all the tools available to me, but mainly I have my brain. With that kind of mentality, I think the Muay Femui style is what suits me best. Maybe if I was still an angry teenager that rely on relentless pursuit of effort no matter the cost, it’d probably suit me, but I like to find the best optimal solution. Especially in my later life where I like to try and think like an engineer and all of the variables and all of the positions.

Despite that, I still think it’s a nice tool to include when the time is right and fine tune because it is better to have something in your arsenal and not need it than to need something and not have it. I do believe we mustn’t forget the wisdom and fine tune details that the golden era provide to us, but shouldn’t forget about modern tools and science that today have brought to us as well because there are some very useful knowledge and insights that become lost that were very useful if we don’t preserve them.

New tasks

On the day I choose to end the 1000 knees/1000 teeps challenge, I enrolled in a breathing study and got an Oura ring to monitor many fitness metrics. I had a Whoop 4 before (it got in the way of my training so I stopped using it as it keeps telling me to rest). I feel like Oura didn’t do that so I quite enjoy my Oura. Of course with both, I felt like my sleep needs a bit of work now that I got insights on them. I like the accuracy of the Oura ring sensors and how it doesn’t fly off my wrist or fail to measure my metrics when hitting things (I am concern about long term with punching mitts with a ring under my handwrap but I shall see).

For now I’m going to throw various varieties of activities throughout December and see how Oura handles processing them and see what my baseline is. Another unfortunate thing about the 1000 knees/1000 teeps challenge were there were times I have to choose between spending an hour throwing volumes after volumes of strikes on the bag OR do some portfolio building and other errands. It became something that could interfere some current chores and responsibilities I needed to do at the time.

I do not fear fatigue, but I need to do something that will get me somewhere (although doing 1000 knees/1000 teeps can set me up pretty well for future endeavors).

Future Goals

• Optimize my and find my benchmark on my sleep schedule so I don’t under-recover (I don’t exactly believe in the hard rest do nothing because you’re overtrained approach)
• Try to continue on my portfolio building so I can fund myself for my next trips
• Do my breathing study clinical trial and learn a bit more about my body
• Always stay in shape and stay ready so I don’t have to get ready

I remember chatting with my friend I trained with yesterday about cutting weight in combat sports and how he’d use to put on some plastic, eat some carbs, run, and try to sweat it off. There is nothing scientific about that approach and odds are, this method doesn’t work. You’re just going to be in a constant state of dehydration and end up yo-yoing your weight back. Back in high school wrestling, I heard this was how they did it. Lack of nutrition science and knowledge amongst coaches I found detrimental to teenagers or anyone growing up. That’ll cause a lot of body image issues, eating disorders, hormone problems, etc. Plus eating carbs and trying to sweat is counter intuitive as you’re retaining water weight from refilling your glycogen but trying to sweat yourself out.

Other stories I remember I heard about was an old classmate I knew who use to wrestle in high school who would eat his lunch and then go to the bathroom and just throw it up to try and make weight. It doesn’t work like that. All you’re doing at this point is just damaging your gut and organs. Coaches are mentor figures and a lot of athletes will look to them for advice and if the message they’re sending is to “be tough”, that’s the wrong way to go about with it. It’s a lot tougher to admit you don’t know everything and that there are people out there who knows more than you and go seek out that knowledge. At the end of the day, we’re competing in the sport, not trying to win a starvation experiment.

Eat Good Make Weight

I like food and I like having a healthy relationship with food. I came across Pete Miller “Condition Nutrition” and Jordan Sullivan work on fighters with weight cuts. Looking at what some of Pete Miller’s clients eat during fight week, the food looks good, they make weight, and they don’t feel like crap. I also heard that learning/knowing how to cook is quite an underrated skill in sports as well since it helps you be able to prepare your own food and count your own macros. I do like cooking my own food and experimenting when traveling. If I can eat well, train and feel great, compete and feel great, I’m in.

I’m curious with gathering whatever notes I can find on strength and conditioning, nutrition, or recovery (I like learning, researching, and gathering resources as being a lifetime student of many endeavors that may overlap each other is my life’s goal) so I hopped on Jordan’s free weight cut webinar since I’m curious how that process works. I also purchased Pete Miller’s fight week recipe book and fight camp guide (not on the site anymore as of today for purchase).

Weight Cut Experiment

Throughout my trip in the UK from May to July, my weight been around 61-62 KG max as I was training every day. I can lose about July 20 was my birthday and people kept feeding me food and some cake so I ended up ballooning up to 64 KG. Overall, the food was pretty lean, but I was also stressed out after my birthday (lost my job a few days before and I received news that my mom fell off a ladder). I was told that stress does raise cortisol level which does temporarily increase weight a bit.

Monday on the 22 I dropped down to 62.5 KG. On Tuesday I was probably around 61.9 KG. I went to 61.3 KG on Wednesday. On Thursday and Friday I was around 60.5 KG. I felt pretty light on Saturday and I was looking to try and get mainly around 61.2 KG anyways since that’s the weight I was around regularly so I decided to eat the leftover slice of cake from my birthday.

I was 58.5 KG on the Sunday of the interclub. Yes, I ate a slice of cake the morning when I woke up. It puts me in a good mood and I hadn’t had much carbs or sugar. If Leon Edwards can have some ice cream, I can have a small slice of cake (generally I’m not much of a cake person anyways unless its xu xa which is a Vietnamese seaweed jello). After weighin in, I ate a bunch of rice crackers and some jelly beans since they’re simple carbs that’s easy to digest without causing me GI issues. I felt really good and ready to go afterwards.

Although it is not recommended to cut out that much carbs from same day weigh-in process, I decided to give it a try to see how my body react to it. The only thing I didn’t do is a water cut (your classic sauna suit and dehydrate it off). Below I’ll share what I ate on the days and what my training was like. Do note I’m doing this on a budget and as economical as I can with my Too Good To Go bags I picked up so whatever expires first got to go.

What I Ate

For the most part. I made omelettes. I like my eggs and they’re cheaper for a budget meal. I did had some other yummier things earlier in the months, but I’ll keep it simple. Next time I’ll have some yummier things. Otherwise for dinner I had Greek yogurt with some peanut butter and I snack on monkey nuts for some fat and protein. I actually like monkey nuts. I did mix some fruits in my Greek yogurt (hello blackberry season) until the last 3 days when I cut out the fiber. I usually have a protein shake for breakfast. Below are usually what I have for my after training lunch that I cook. Do note that the stuff I listed for each day isn’t the only thing I ate, but they’re my main meals.

Monday, July 22

I had a lot of vegetables in the fridge. I honestly was going to make this earlier to free up space in the fridge, but I was fed a lot on my birthday and had a bunch of meat anyways so time to clear up some space. I do like soup and it fills me up pretty good without being too heavy. I think I put some prawns in there, but I don’t remember at this point.

Tuesday, July 23

I think I got the chicken while going about on my daily walk and browsing through the aisles in Aldi or Morrisons. I don’t remember at this point, but I’ll keep my lean protein intake high and I still got a lot of vegetables to use up. No rice, couscous, noodles, or bread this week.

Wednesday, July 24

Just a simple 3 egg omelette as I didn’t find any bargains at the store lately and eggs are the cheapest.

Thursday, July 25

Minced chicken is always cheap and flexible. I’ll use some lettuce as a wrap kind of like how I eat bánh xèo (Vietnamese fried pancake usually with prawns, chicken, or pork that you wrap it with lettuce and dip in fish sauce). I’m lowering on the fiber at this point, but I still love vegetables so I stick to lettuce or cucumbers as cabbage and other vegetables would be high in the fiber content. Lettuce is basically my replacement for rice or couscous at this point to wrap my meat with kind of like how people would wrap their tacos in a tortilla instead, but I’m using lettuce.

Friday, July 26

Canned sardines are always cheap, full of protein and healthy cholesterol. The hot sauce version I like to mix into the omelette for extra flavor so I just put the sardine in the middle and make an omelette out of that and use lettuce as my “wrapping paper”.

Saturday, July 27

I wanted to go a bit more special today and had some frozen salmon in the freezer to use that up so it’s salmon and cucumbers today for me and the leftover minced chicken will go in my omelette sprinkled with some green onions for flavoring. I took Saturday as a rest day besides walking around the park and plucking blackberries. I’ll eat it after the cut experiment to keep fiber low to see how this goes.

I baked some salmons, threw some tomatos on top to have it melt over, and when the heat is off I toss some green onions over it (so it doesn’t vaporize but cook it a bit enough to make it fresh up). I have some cucumbers to absorb up the rest of the salmon juices.

Sunday, July 28

I saw Leon Edwards ate ice cream and still made weight. I slept very well last night. I read that you dehydrate as you sleep so that’s probably another few pounds I lost waking up. I figure why not, I have a small slice left I’ll have this for breakfast. I will say, it feels really good having a slice of cake in my mouth after not having much sugar all week. I weigh 58.5 KG that day. To be honest, I was just shooting for 61.2 KG but this was pretty effective and I feel pretty good. Probably if I do a real weight cut or something some day, it’d be nicer if I had a scale and a proper dietian (I’ll need to replenish my funds), but overall, this experiment was a success.

My refill was a bunch of rice crackers (simple carbs doesn’t upset the GI) and some jelly beans.

Overall, I don’t really care that much for cakes and I don’t even eat jelly beans on a regular, but it’s simple carbs for the week without it being heavy on fiber to upset the GI.

After my interclub, I was quite hungry and craving loads of protein so I stopped by Aldi, found some chicken, got home and cooked that, got some steamed veggies, and made some couscous. Simple whole food meal. I was craving fruits and had some waiting for me as I went blackberry plucking and I still have some leftover raspberries so for another snack later I went with some berries and cashews.

I’m not going to dirty bulk load my diet as I like how I look and felt throughout the whole experiment and I like eating whole foods. Plus to continue my little post experiment and play around more with cooking as I got plenty of time to experiment with food and I do like cooking, I figure I’ll go all the way (no all you can eat or big macs for me please. Most over processed buffets will send me to the toilet puking so I rather not). I don’t want to yo-yo diet either by going down in weight very fast just to balloon right back up. That wouldn’t be healthy.

Retrospect

I wish I had a scale at where I stayed to accurately measure next time since the only time I get a scale is when I’m in the gym. It’d allow me to measure more accurately.

I’m pretty sure I can make 56.7 KG (125 lbs) with a water cut, but it’d need to be very methodical after the other processes. 58-59 KG safer for me to leverage as the amount I eat while I’m in the UK isn’t as much as in the US. I’m generally heavier in the US and during the winter walking around more closer to 63-65 KG.

I actually enjoyed eating during a fight week period moreso than my regular day to day. I upped my portion of protein and eat more of that compared to regular as my intake of carbs were lower so in a way I got to eat more of the food I liked.

Overall, I liked how this experiment went out. I can make and eat good food, focused on what I learned and was taught by my teammates, and be in a good mood. Oh yeah, and finally get some abs. I can never get them when I’m above 62 KG.

Last Notes

If I’m running long distance for an extended period of time, I am adequately fueling my body with a lot of carbs though. Adequate fueling prevents fatigues and injuries so I’m definitely trying to pay attention to my nutrition more especially as I get older so I’d like to keep healthy habits of fueling right for the right tasks. Luckily I already grew up eating whole foods and a large variety of food so shifting things is easy for me.

ALSO I recommend getting a proper nutritionist rather than going off this blog post as a source of truth. Every BODY is different. I simply just want to document my experience self testing. I just wanted to share that you DON’T have to throw up your meal to be a certain weight. You DON’T have to go on a starvation diet to meet a certain weight. You DON’T have to just eat plain chicken breast no sauce and rice all day (at least use hot sauce. Low calories and taste good).

I fulfilled the rest of my UK Muay Thai trip part 2 in 2024. You can say it all started with part 1 in 2023 as I’ve mentioned in my 2024 updates. Back in 2023, I started journaling my progress in Muay Thai for the first time. I was training it on and off for some time back when I was practicing parkour (originally started with a bit of MMA but went more strictly Muay Thai some time during COVID lockdowns).

My friends and close training partners that I train with are mostly affiliated with Boxing Works and invited me to fundraising seminar for Team USA by Janet and Jackie on April 22, 2023. I also attended another seminar by Jackie on May 5, 2023 at Garden Grove Muay Thai. I like the positions, angles, and simplicity of the meta used by Bryan Popejoy and his fighters as “boring basics” win fights and are fundamentally important for beginners and advanced practitioners. Barry Robinson got a lot of the same principles explained on Dynamic Striking. I learned a lot in those seminar with those redirection drills, feints, and catch and shoot drills. Catch and shoot drills to this day are my bread and butter things to fall back on to drill to dominate the 50/50 as it’s very useful to always have an answer and be able to respond to be defensively responsible. This helps prevent an opponent from trying to walk you down with reckless abandonment.

I usually always plan to London UK for a month to 3 each year to see my old friends. Before that, I went to the WTBA Oregon Camp in August as I heard this might be the last one that year and my friend I usually train with is doing his instructor test there. Unfortunately, I don’t have any notes from there in this one as I busy training from morning to night for a few days; waking up in the morning to have some coffee and breakfast then going for a morning jog, to shadowboxing and some drills. For the rest of the day it’d be stations of bag works, pad works, Thai sparring, clinching, and shadowboxing until lunch and dinner. This was about the point of no return for Muay Thai for me and it was a great experience from the full training experience and food.

I also started playing around with going southpaw a bit more since I hurt my right side a bit and it felt a bit natural for me.

Once I got back home, I got a week left to pack and fly out to London. Since I’m not doing parkour much anymore, my friends are closer around West London so that’s bus 32 down to Kilburn from Burnt Oak, I figure I’d fancy coming through the Knowlesy Academy. I remember seeing some videos from a YouTube channel interviewing Shanelle Dyer who had a lot of highlight reel KOs (she’s in PFL doing MMA now) and some sparring videos over on Siam Boxing of Lyndon Knowles, Jonathan Haggerty, Liam Nolans, etc.

There were a couple of seminars there I caught with Damien Alamos and 1 with Liam Harrison over at Carlson Gracie where my friend trains at. Some good detailed simple drills that can be utilized effectively by Liam Harrison with the low kick setup, hook, and sweeps. Alamos was more tricky Muay Femur style. Nevertheless, I learned a lot during my time at the Knowlesy Academy. I promise I’ll be back 2024 for longer than a month. I felt like my teeps got a lot better since leaving the Knowlesy Academy and my kicks as well. If I were to check off the whole UK trip bucketlist of UK legends big 3 I need to pick their brains, so far I got Christian Knowles (I did 1 PT before I flew home) and Liam Harrison (during his seminar). I’d definitely like to pick Damien Trainor’s brain on my next visit and several of my friends are a big fan of Damien Trainor’s work.

Before UK Muay Thai Adventures part 2

I was back to training with my friends and training partners when I got back home. Start of 2024 was weird on a personal issue wise (some mistaken identity situation). I started training at Lineage Muay Thai and attended a seminar by Lerdsila on March 19, 2024. Lerdsila also got a tricky Muay Femur style and his stance looks more seminar to Taekwondo fighters with the long base rather than tall upright walk you down style that you see in most stereotypical Muay Thai fighters. Like Damien Alamos, Lerdsila also got a lot of tricks in the bag to show and he loves what he does.

I also fully swapped to southpaw since during my spars I tend to switch a lot, had better success in southpaw, and felt more comfortable there. This makes me wonder if I was supposed to be left handed growing up, but was always forced to use my right hand and never realizing it as my handwriting is the same in both my left and right hand. My grandpa is actually left handed, but back in the days you’re considered cursed if you’re left handed so you would get whipped until you use your right hand. Anyways, I didn’t grow up in Vietnam during the early mid 1900s so I wouldn’t know. My left side always been more accurate than my right side anyways.

2024 UK Muay Thai Adventures part 2

After some difficulties from the start of 2024, I headed back to London at the end of April. There were a lot of things to deal with but heading back to the UK and back to The Knowlesy Academy was non-negotiable for me. I could say it’s like my second home at this point and disconnecting from some of the troubles and distractions back home was super necessary for me. It was a good timing as the first of the Amazing Muay Thai festival by WBC was happening in Reading, UK so I invited my friend Omar to join in. We got pictures and workshops from Superbon, Nong-O, and Phetjeeja. There were merch and a lot of Thai food and it was a great experience.

I decided to try my first Interclub while I was there on May 26. Back in the US, I wanted to give the Point Muay Thai sparring circuit a go, but I was told I needed more time. The timelines doesn’t match up since at that point, I already have plans to head to the UK to see my friends and go back to the Knowlesy Academy as I told myself I would. I dropped Christian a message asking about how the Knowlesy Interclubs were so I went there and gave it a go. It was a nice experience and very controlled as I was told. I was happy I got to give it a go and try my hand to see where I was at. I needed a lot of work as my knees weren’t on point and I didn’t have much of a clinch game. My right hand defense and right teep defense needed work as I always get teeped my the right teep everytime I go in and eat a right cross. I need to get the elbows in a bit tighter to parry those. Other than that it was a great learning experience. In the gym, I try to make a point to work on clinch as much as I could and to get my knee timing and position correct. Vish helped me a lot there after classes and all the coaches gave me so much to improve on.

I wanted to check out the gym in Borehamwood (Knowlesy Academy new location where most of the strength and conditioning classes occur) on foot and want to see how it’d be jogging there. At first I took the bus since it’s my first time around there, but looking at the map, it’s only about 4 miles (7.2 km) jog to get there if I cut down Edgware Road and make my way through Elstree. In any case, it’s quite a scenic view cutting through the little path to see the horses, pluck a few blackberries, and a nice relaxing outdoor air in the trees. If anything, I enjoy the countryside vibe jogging out the outskirts of London than being in the middle of the city while seeing nice scenaries and horses. Plus it’d save me a few pounds which I can spend on some protein shake or a croissant at the local Aldi or Lidl as a post workout so I get myself a nice treat while improving my aerobic capacity. It cost me the same amount buying a protein shake compare to taking the bus from Borehamwood to Edgware. If I feel it, I’ll jog back (and eat a lot as that’s a lot of mileages in the bag). If not, I’ll take the bus back. Overall, jogging to Borehamwood was a nice relaxing activity for me. As long as I cut through Elstree it’s nice and scenic. If I run through Mill Hills from Burnt Oak on the other hand, that’s a hectic non-stop uphill (it’s not that steep, but it’s still a long way) run while playing frogger to dodge some cars. I don’t need to do in Elstree. I can just enjoy the horsies and I’m going to do some S&C right after anyways.

Shortly after I went back to one of my friend’s area in Clapham to get to Jonathan Haggerty’s seminar at BAMA. It was a nice seminar with a lot of emphasize on lead leg setup with aggressive teep and switch kicks. A lot of the combos are based on closed stance though. Unfortunately I was with someone who was orthodox stance and I’m a southpaw so there’s a lot of things that needed to be tweaked to make it work. If my friend didn’t have exams, I could’ve invite him to join since he’s another southpaw. Either way it was a nice day and I stopped by some street food to have a try of some vegan Ethiopian samosas and couscous to enjoy the day. I definitely wanted to catch Jonathan Haggerty seminar this year for one of the TKA stars.

While jogging to Borehamwood from Edgware to attend one of the S&C class, I saw Luke Bar and Toby Weapon came through into the gym. I was wondering who they were at first being a fan of Lawrence Kenshin’s striking breakdowns on some highlights of their fights in Thailand. I was quite mesmerized watching them work on the pads. I was also mesmerized watching Christian Knowles and Lyndon Knowles pad work preparing for Lyndon’s title defense as well. There’s a lot of little details and gems watching and learning. I was a bit shy about getting a picture at first, but Christian nudge me on. It’s quite surreal being surrounded by a culture of excellency and being there in the flesh.

The week before visiting 8 Limbs Birmingham for Damien Trainor’s seminar, I stopped by at London Fight Factory since Jompop Kiatphontip was in town from Leeds. I hadn’t followed too much of Jompop’s work yet, but later looked up some more things and stopped by and he learned he trained up some very elite fighters up in Leeds. His seminar was great with a lot of basic things and very excellent details on how to make them work as well as some advanced counters. Jompop is a very interactive teacher as well and I really enjoyed the extra details in working in my long guard. I was a bit late since I ran to the tube right after sparring at Knowlesy Academy and spontaneously decided to drop by for this seminar and I was glad I caught it.

On Monday right after, I book a PT with Luke Bar. I trained in the morning first then had a protein shake while I waited for Luke. Reading through my notes today from what I took since June 24, I hope the next time I have my PT I made these adjustments now. I need to try and keep my weight 50/50 at all time, relax more. I think I’m doing these things now looking at my later notes since then, but of course higher level opponents are much different. I’d love to have another PT with Luke the next time I come back around London (if he’s not in Thailand by then). There’s a lot of details on setting up the clinch knees on the angle turn that I remembered when Luke was taking over for Lyndon’s class one day. I need to keep my head straight to look at Luke as well last time I was elbowing. Instead of pivot and rear kick, Luke showed me I can pivot and teep too in case they get that rear block in time, the teep will off balance them. There was a full plum lock Luke showed me as a shorter person where I gable in a T shape and try and press my head into a person’s chin. That’s the money one for me since I’m shorter and it’s something I’d need to fish up more if I get the chance. A lot of nice details. I wished my notes that time was a bit more detailed, but I got the jist of it as work has been busy around the same time as well. I definitely want to catch another PT with Luke once I’m around!

The day before going to Birmingham, I took a walk to Harrow to watch Roar FC and Lyndon Knowles defend his Heavyweight title. It was a nice day and the park by the rec center that Roar was taking on was really nice. I had some nice Sri Lanken food at the shop near by from Too Good to Go and it was nice catching up and watching some of my teammates fight. It was a great event. I definitely want to watch some more fights live. The next one I’ll go to would be OneFC in Denver. I did planned to before it sold out on the first USA event as my friends went there to fight Jackie Buntan fight. This time I’ll definitely go to One and watch Jonathan Haggerty’s fight.

The next day, I stopped by Finchley Road to catch the Flixbus to Birmingham as I wanted to catch a seminar with Damien Trainor. He doesn’t come out too often to have seminars so every now and then there’d be an opportunity. It was quite nostalgic going through Finchley Road again as I’ve stayed around there in the past for 4 months. I was a bit bummed out the Japanese shop wasn’t open yet when I went to grab the bus as some onigiris would’ve been nice travel food. I made my way to 8 Limbs Academy on time and got to explore a little bit of Birmingham (my first time there). I’m on a time constraint as I’d need to not be late for the seminar and catch the bus on time to get back to London to get to practice tomorrow at 6 AM. The seminar was great. A lot of hands combo and fast combos. It’d definitely be nice for my friends who like the Muay Mat style although Damien is a great technician with his hands as well. I got a picture and an autograph, but unfortunately I didn’t have too much time for chatters.

I spent the rest of the day exploring Birmingham after I filled out my notes for the day. Since there’s some free museums, I figure I’d explore some or some random parks around (there were a few places I didn’t get to as I’m on a time constraint as much as I’d like to trust my legs to run to a spot and run back to the bus station, I’d cut this short on getting back to London to sleep and get ready for 6 AM). There was an Indian restaurant my friend recommended me check out that wasn’t too pricy at Birmingham but unfortunately, it opens in the evening and my bus would leave by then so I ended up wandering through Chinatown and bought some Bun Bo Hue at a Vietnamese restaurant as I hadn’t had some Vietnamese food in ages. The Chinatown in Birmingham I thought was quite sizeable. I spent the rest of the day wandering through museums, libraries, and a few gardens until it was time to hop back on the bus.

At this point I finished what I’ve set out to do in London. I have a month left on my trip and since I’ve been training the whole time on end, it’s time to get ready for my second interclub. I’m surrounded by many great people who worked with me and helped me improve so much so fast.

July of 2024 I mainly focused on my second interclub as I have to fly back home to California around August. Mid July a few days before my birthday, I lost my job (like many other people in the tech recession). I guess the one part that stung was a “Happy Birthday, you’re terminated”. That part sucks more when I got back home as my teammates had been very supportive of me. I consider the gym like my second home looking at it and I must return (I’ll need to replenish my funds). Although I was jobless on my birth week, I got to enjoy my birthday with the people I care about and the people that care for me so it took that weight off. I’m not focusing on that right now. There’s nothing else to focus but all the work and effort I’ve put in to my training and the work that people invested in me as they got me to where I am. It takes a village after all.

My second interclub went very well. I felt great. My clinch improved a lot and my knees improved. Of course I am my biggest critic and I’d like to guard myself a bit more on my left kick and adjust my grip a bit better on the clinch (as I know now) for whatever comes next. I heard the instructions Coach Anthony gave me and executed it. He helped me a lot with my technique with important details on positioning as when I first came back to the gym I would drift too much which sacrifice my position. Vish always had worked with me after class on my clinch, knees, emphasizing finishing on a shot to focus on my weak point. Jennifer helped me prepared on cutting off the ring, southpaw tactics, pressure testing me to help me get my defense and all right after her fight as well. Also shout out to everyone else in the Knowlesy Academy that I’ve sparred with, trained with, etc. Christian for the 6 AM sesh. Thanks for the banter with those leg teeps as well Tony. It gave me some ideas on stuffing some jabs at far range. Also thanks to the folks back home at Lineage as well for helping me figure out some of my games and that I was better off a southpaw. I have a lot to be thankful for during that week and honestly, I’d probably be a broken man without Muay Thai in that moment. Anyways, that was a lot to think about and I don’t want it to all end here… I guess my next fight is my financial future and finding my way back… home?

By August I was back home in California. The last few things in mind for the remaining of the year was to see OneFC live and watch Jonathan Haggerty defend his title against Superlek and attend the Amazing Muay Thai festival in Los Angeles. I had a great time during the Amazing Muay Thai festival in Reading, UK. Denver, Colorado was nice and I stayed around Hostel Fish. It’s a nice hip place. I went for a jog immediately to explore the town since that’s how I get around when I arrive somewhere. I mainly passed through Ball Arena and Coors Field as I checked out the Lake and stopped by some grocery stores to pick up some food to cook.

On the day of OneFC, I did a HIIT workout, got some taco, explore around some more, then jogged to the arena to see OneFC. Unfortunately the security guard turned me away since bags can only be a certain size but luckily it’s just a mile jog back to my hostel to put away from stuff. Now if I walked, I’d be late. I guess like every trip I have to run and work for it so I ran back to the hostel then back to the venue to get in on time for the event. It’s quite a surreal feeling seeing OneFC for the first time; Demetrious Johnson’s retirement speech, Liam Harrison going out on his shield, and Superlek’s brilliant timing with his elbow. It’s some of the highlights of my trips from UK back to America.

On September 28, I got the opportunity to go to the Amazing Muay Thai festival at UCLA with my friends I train with back home. It was amazing to meet Yodsanklai and get a lesson on his timing being a southpaw myself. Duangdawnoi have some good kick catch and teep setups. Saenchai always been a hero to me with his tricky southpaw style as well. That was the last of the trips I had planned for 2024 at the time before my budget start to become very tight.

Future Plans

I got one seminar with Karuhat over at Left Hand Muay Thai in Los Angeles since it’s a rare opportunity to have a golden era fighter come by so I couldn’t miss it. I saw the post from Sylvie’s Muay Thai library that he’ll be touring America so I don’t want to miss that. I’ll attend that. I’m tight on money in any case so I’m not currently at any monthly membership so I just stop by the budget gyms to work on some S&C, use the bag, or train with a few local friends.

I want to go to Thailand after Lunar New Years (probably Chiang Mai) so I’m going to need to save up and budget. I want to learn as much as I can, share what I know with my friends, and have this adventure continue and try to make my way back to London again in May. I definitely should pick Lyndon Knowles’s brain on his clinch entries too since he always manage to get his opponent’s back and then have a session with Christian Knowles again.

Hope you enjoy the long read. That’s what I’ve been up to lately on my Muay Thai adventures. I don’t want it to all end here since there’s so much more for me to learn and experience. I’m going to need to restock my travel funds before then but I feel like I’ve gone too far to go back and this feeds my soul with joy; that never ending learning progress and sharing.

I also no longer engage much in the parkour scene now in 2024. Somewhere between 2021 and 2022, I started to shift away. 2023 was also when my heart and mind went fully in on Muay Thai and 2024 I’ve done a lot and got a lot off my bucket list. I traveled quite a bit since then and now and I will say, a lot has happened. Things are slower now as I got bills to pay. I’m trying to start a new chapter in my life with gig works and am attempting to freelance in this current economy, and I am also trying to expand my network. I found networking to be the most useful. Build network of people wherever you meet in all your endeavors. They can be the ones to help you out and lift you up in times of need. It expands your pathways so you aren’t stuck.

To start things off, 2023 wasn’t the best year for me. The nice part was my torn shoulder was healed up after PT, but the downside was I lost my sense of belonging in parkour and chase tag which was a big sense of my identity. I started focusing more on Muay Thai at that time as well which I’ve been doing for some time on and off. I started keeping a journal for that since I’ve kept one during my parkour days, but more detailed for Muay Thai as I’m going to go to the WTBA camp that year. I disconnected myself from Chase Tag (as a player) for good. At the time I was playing one last scrimmage in Pennsylvania and my shoulder failed me once more, but I’ve met someone who helped me see the bigger picture of what I truly wanted to do during my trip so there was some nice moments. I still sometimes involve myself to help a friend who believes in me, but I do so from the analytic side. At that time, I fully committed to Muay Thai since the WTBA camp. I flew to London the week after, learned a lot at The Knowlesy Academy and promised myself to return. I met some UK legends and attended some great seminars and then I was back home. Things slowed down a lot and some things went a bit downhill around there (a few personal family troubles). I had one last seminar to attend when I was back which was nice.

2024 started off quite harshly as December 2023 was bad from some personal family issues and losing touch of someone who helped me realize what I wanted to do, but I later realized they were only in my life for that brief moment to push me to somewhere more. I also had to deal with a mistaken identity case so a lot of things piling up at once. Therapy helped a lot during the time. I have promises to fulfill and bucket lists to check off anyways so back to London I went at the end of April. I still get my job done in any case as I always deliver my deliverables work wise.

Muay Thai been my biggest focus as I landed. I was lucky enough to catch the first of the Amazing Muay Thai festivals in Reading, UK and got to meet Superbon, Nong-O, and Phetjeeja, enjoyed some seminars, got some merch, and enjoyed awesome Thai food. I was back to the Knowlesy Academy as I promised myself. I met some old faces in London and am back to the people I consider as my second family. I learned a lot, had my first Interclub fight, visited Damien Trainor seminar in Birmingham and Jonathan Haggerty’s seminar in Clapham to check off the big 3 of the UK scene for Muay Thai on my bucket list. I jogged around the city, saw some horses, cooked nice food, and still worked and got a lot of deliverables done. Right on my birth week, I lost my job, but I was surrounded by people that cared about me so I feel blessed. I had my second interclub, it was great. Then it was my last week at TKA. I promise I’ll be back again. I need to go to Thailand some day too since this feels like only the beginning for me.

Halfway through 2024, I’m back home. That past 3 months felt like I’ve experienced a whole year as my sense of time was quite slow. I like living in that hyperbolic time chamber moment. I’ve been portfolio setting and getting through some TODO lists. I still had a few other items on my bucketlist I got around to. I got a digital marketing certification from the local community college from online classes now. I done a few side gigs. I had some ear issues to deal with which got resolved. I returned my old System76 and bought myself a used Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon to setup for development (I should do a compare and contrast blog later about what machine I like more). I saw OneFC live in Denver for the first time which got another item off my bucketlist. I won some merch too. I attended the Amazing Muay Thai Festival in Los Angeles. I tried some Classpass free trial to utilize some yoga studio to destress. I did some motion capture things. I helped out my mom with her physical therapy to rehab her knee (and I still am). I’m a bit sad I can’t afford my home Muay Thai gym right now as I have bills to pay and not much of an income so I drop in every now and then when I have a few spare cash from some gigs, but I do miss it. I’m still training with friends outside in the park. I try to focus on my strength and conditioning to maintain and am on the look out for any small business who might need a hand on some software development contracts.

In a way, I got more busy being out of a job than having a job and I felt like I’ve lived multiple timelines. I got new promises to fulfill and a future to work towards so I don’t think 2024 will end in a way as grim as 2023 as I’m aware of what I need to do and am working towards it. I’ve fulfilled the promises I promised myself to do and I set new ones. Life does get busy.

Well, that’s the end of this rambling. It’s a bit disorganized since I hadn’t write up something in a while. I’d like to keep up with a few more posts now that whatever I do now is flexible on my own time, although ironically, I found myself a bit more busy out of the market.

Originally I thought this was just a quick challenge to make a quick mission so I can get something out quick in half an hour “Burger King” style mission. Turns out the challenge was to make several missions so the guys brought up the idea of having multiple missions in a mission. Since Arma 3 got that “Export to SQF” button and I haven’t tried it yet, this seems like a nice opportunity to give that feature a spin. It’d be nice for dynamic missions.

The Start

I ended up having to make a mission in the middle of some road on the way to Rasman. I don’t get the airfield. I don’t get much of the town. All is just a lot of desert, some crossroad, and a lot of nothing. Well, it’s time to get creative. In those scenarios, most of the ideas I’d have in mind would revolve around an ambush. So I just made 1 mission where you play as a US convoy that got ambushed by terrorists. I wanted a high player count to cover for the coop nights at the time since we’ve been having around the 16-19 player range on Sundays lately and with that many people, I figured it’d be nice to have a joint ops and give players some APCs and tanks. I figured I’d have this mission as an experiment for my suicide gas tanker truck script as well so I slapped some units around the map, player ambushed by IED point, and time for when enemies will strike. All in all that didn’t take me too long. 🙂

The Actual Challenge

After releasing the first portion of my mission, I realize it was actually multiple missions in one. I heard about the “Export to SQF”. I figured I’d try and utilize the multiplayer parameters I’ve done for previous dynamic missions and have it randomized between missions if not selected. Since you can now export missions into separate sqf files and import them in as a composition later. This make making multiple missions in one easier so I decided I’ll have 5 missions on a square before calling it a day.

I basically made a few new checklist for each mission I make to add the new mission to my parameters.hpp and import it through my main.sqf function call. I fill in the new debriefing details in my debriefing.hpp file and then I create a new missionX.sqf and briefingX.sqf that’s imported through main if it was ever called.

...

selectedMission = "Missions" call BIS_fnc_getParamValue;
if (selectedMission == 0) then {
	selectedMission = selectRandom [1, 2, 3, 4, 5];
};
...

if (selectedMission == 1) then {
	call compile preProcessFileLineNumbers "scripts\mission1.sqf";
	call compile preProcessFileLineNumbers "scripts\briefing1.sqf";
	...
};
...

The way I approach creating a new missionX.sqf and briefingX.sqf is similar to how’d I make a mission and briefing for just about any other mission. I just have an init call main and randomly select which mission.sqf I want to call which will load that specify mission.

While I was working on the 3rd-5th mission, I realize I could create just a composition of spawns or enemies so I can load up the mission first, and then after another random method to pick a random composition to load the enemies. This not only make the main mission dynamic, but each individual mission more dynamic and replayable at the same time. I can’t load 2 mission.sqf at the same time in the main method, but within the mission itself, I could have some triggers that’ll load the enemy preset after the fact.

Individual Spawn vs Export to SQF Enemy Spawn

Another thing I found out is that I can use export to SQF for is to also make a wave of enemy, call call compile preProcessFileLineNumbers "scripts\spawn\enemy.sqf"; as many times as I want and the wave of enemies that I place along with their loadout and waypoint will head over and do what I need them to do.

There’s an advantage and disadvantage to the above method compare to creating just a regular spawn script with only the classnames of the needed units. The advantage of the above method to export the mission to SQF with just the units is that I can just slap some units down, set their loadouts, export the mission and call it a day. I know exactly what I place and where they’ll go.

The disadvantage is that it’ll take up more filesize since it’s like a copy of another mission.sqm; a full on mission rather than just the classnames, waypoints, and init loadout scripts. With a regular script, I can also have parameters so I can dynamically set the waypoints or any other settings on how I can call the script, recycle the units by deleting groups after all units are dead, and more flexibility with what I can choose to do. The filesize will be smaller as well and I can spawn the waypoint to a different area depending on where I need the units to go. With the export to sqf, the waypoints are in a fixed area so if I want the mission in another section of the map, I’m going to make another copy of the same script but pointing the waypoints in a different area.

All in all, if I’m just trying to slap something up fast and call it a day, the export to sqf method works really well. There’s less testing I have to do since I can just preview it in the mission editor before I export whereas writing the script from scratch I’d have to troubleshoot it more.

Future Endeavors

The export to sqf feature is such a nice feature. I’d probably use it A LOT more for future missions and increase the replayability of my future missions. It’s such a powerful feature for making Arma 3 missions and honestly, I don’t think exporting a handful of SQF would be too bad. Like there’s 2 MB missions for Arma 3 compare to a few kilobytes files back in the Operation Flashpoint days. If there’s 10 MB missions, I blame it on people adding large music files or HD images. A few scripts these days with large hard drive and internet speed is not that bad.

Conclusion

All in all, the challenge that was originally what I thought to be one quick bang of a mission turned out into a much bigger experiment that allows me to play around with some features that’d be good for future dynamic missions. The mission went from one defense mission to 5 different mission that’s randomized with each mission with random variables inside of it. I’d look forward to the next KM square challenge or use that “Export to SQF” feature to increase the replayability of some future missions! 🚀

This ended up taking me to January - February of 2021 to finish since I had to put it aside many times in order to handle some life and work situation during unstable time with COVID. I’m back on stable grounds in 2021, but I still got a giant TODO list of things I want to get done 🙂.

I might touch upon a reflection/look back at 2020 in a later post, but I was not in the best mental state then although I’ve met some good people in my life through some zoom training from mutual friends I’ve met before overseas from parkour trips. Things did turn around later towards the end of 2020 for my own life.

Regardless, some of my TODO lists and things I’ve been busy trying to get through

Personal

• ✔️ Buy an air purifier to help with my breathing problems once the next bad wildfire comes along
• ✔️ Buy props to prop up my monitors for my new desk setup
• ✔️ Buy Brita filters for water
• ✔️ Reorganize my room
• ✔️ Get more exercise & proper sleep
• ✔️ Be more mentally healthy

Work

• ✔️ Fill out all my paperworks
• ✔️ Setup my desk and workstation
• ✔️ Setup the tools that I need to setup (that has been given to me at the moment)

Blog & Coding

• ❌ write about database optimization/indexing (need to get to this eventually)
• ❌ maybe write about open source projects?
• ❌ maybe write about RSpec for Ruby on Rails?
• ❌ learn React and document that progress (haven’t gotten to that yet 🙁)
• ✔️ write a new blog for 2021
• ✔️ get a new theme for my blog

Video Edits

• ✔️ video editing end of 2020 parkour video
• ❌ video editing remaining gameplay footages of Arma 3 for a 2020 montage before I clean out the hard drive (not done)

Game Edits

• ❌ finish up my Arma 3 1-KM challenge mission editing project

Parkour

• ❌ write a 500-800 words article for Once is Never parkour zine issue 7 (due Feb 25th so I barely heard about it, but work in progress)

Movies/Shows/Anime

• ✔️ Watch Cobra Kai Season 3
• ❌ Watch (a whole list of anime… some old, some new coming in 2021, RE:Zero S2 Part 2 on my immediate to watch list)

Gaming

• ❌ Finish Witcher 2 (not done… good luck)
• ❌ Play through Cyberpunk 2077 (my friends told me to wait until February)
• ✔️ Checkout Skylord Reborn (return of Battleforge from back in the days)

Looking through my TODO lists for the end of the year, I suppose I got through all of my work related and personal list and getting my health in a better state was a definite must do. I’m surprise I got through my movies/show/anime list, but I happened to just binge watch all of Cobra Kai in one go just because I was super tired from cycling and training on New Years and spent Saturday as a complete rest/leisure day. I did train a bit with a friend before that, but I surely took a lot of naps. My blog & coding section went on hold for a bit since I needed to prioritize my health first.

Next on my list would definitely be to finish up video editing so I can clear up some hard drive space and it does give a good look back on the year. Of course I definitely want to finish that Arma 3 1-KM mission challenge. Especially since we just had 17 players on the server today and what I was working on was a dynamic 19 players mission. That’d give more things to play with and there’s some new modules I used that I’d like to see in action 😏.

The coding and the parkour zine articles will come after that, but for sure the video edits and game edits next. Overall, I feel good about my TODO lists. It feels a bit clearer now that I have more of a clairvoyant view on things writing about it. Definitely feels good now that I’m in a better state of mind too. As for the gaming section… everytime I read finish a game part, I always tell myself good luck with that… I don’t finish singleplayer games as well as I do as when I was younger.

How do everyone else feels about their TODO lists. The things they got TODO and the things they’ve done? Maybe it’s nicer to have a birds eye view of things so things don’t feel so endless so you can actually say to yourself, “Oh, I actually have accomplished a lot”.

The big question will be, what if you need test something out like system and feature specs in Rails that uses Selenium. We’ll need access to Chrome in our environment to run those tests otherwise, they’d just fail in the terminal since WSL2 currently does not support GUI. Luckily, we can setup linux on windows with a desktop environment by using Window’s RDP.

Installation

Note: I’m going to assume that you already setup Ruby on Rails via rbenv or RVM.

You’re going to need to make sure you have ChromeDriver and Chrome installed on your WSL2 environment then Xfce4 and XRDP.

Installing Chrome

First install Google Chrome on WSL2

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y curl unzip xvfb libxi6 libgconf-2-4
wget https://dl.google.com/linux/direct/google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb
sudo apt install ./google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb

Make sure what version of Chrome you have

google-chrome --version

Install ChromeDriver

• make sure you replace 86.0.4240.22 with the version of Chromedriver that your google-chrome version is using
• you can check the Google Chrome version to Google Chromedriver to use via the current releases download section

wget https://chromedriver.storage.googleapis.com/86.0.4240.22/chromedriver_linux64.zip
unzip chromedriver_linux64.zip
sudo mv chromedriver /usr/bin/chromedriver
sudo chown root:root /usr/bin/chromedriver
sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/chromedriver

Check that chromedriver works and that you are using the right Chromedriver (/usr/bin/chromedriver)

chromedriver --version
which chromedriver

Setup WSL with Desktop via RDP

Install Xfce4, Xrdp, and set port to 3390 (3389 is generally already used by another process in WSL)

sudo apt update && sudo apt -y upgrade
sudo apt -y install xfce4
sudo apt-get install xrdp
sudo cp /etc/xrdp/xrdp.ini /etc/xrdp/xrdp.ini.bak
sudo sed -i 's/3389/3390/g' /etc/xrdp/xrdp.ini
sudo sed -i 's/max_bpp=32/#max_bpp=32\nmax_bpp=128/g' /etc/xrdp/xrdp.ini
sudo sed -i 's/xserverbpp=24/#xserverbpp=24\nxserverbpp=128/g' /etc/xrdp/xrdp.ini
sudo /etc/init.d/xrdp start

Connect to RDP on localhost:3390, login and you’re in!

Just make sure that sudo /etc/init.d/xrdp start is ran before you try to connect otherwise that service is down and you won’t be able to RDP into it!

You can now open up the terminal in the RDP, cd to your project folder, and then run rspec on your feature/system specs and they won’t fail with Chromium error this time!

Sources

Thanks to Greg Brisebois and Robin Kretzschmar on their posts on how to setup Chromedriver and RDP for WSL2.

• Chromedriver in WSL2 by Greg Brisebois
• Linux on Windows: WSL with Desktop Environment via RDP

Extra Notes

I’m using WSL2 running off of Ubuntu 18.04 in case anyone is curious on what environment I’m using for my linux instance that I set this up with.

Generally for everything else, I just use the Ubuntu terminal (or if you have Windows terminal for multiple tabs that’s even better!) to test everything else that can be done in the command line, but if I want to run all of my tests that requires selenium, I’ll just remote connect to my WSL environment, open up a new terminal, and run the tests there.

I didn’t want to go the whole Medium route or Wordpress since I wanted to own what I write myself.

Well, first thing I got to do off the list:

1. Make the site prettier
2. Gather up some old presentations and notes I had
3. Have more meaningful conversations, meet wholesome people, create meaningful connections, live interesting experiences
4. Blog more

Test slot for crawling with no follow: Example Link