#40 Gen Hongthonglek - Muay Femeu Tactics & Mindset (70 min)

Gen and Joe are twin brothers, both fighters from just after the Golden Age. They grew up watching the Legends of the Golden Age, live on TV every weekend. Then, like so many of their generation they’d imitate and mimic those fighters in the ring with each other at their father’s gym, deep in Isaan, to learn and grow into those techniques. Imagine kids “being” Larry Byrd or Michael Jordan on the court, then becoming basketball stars as they grew up. That’s Gen and Joe. They were called Hongthonglek (Gen) and Hongthongnoi (Joe), which is basically two ways of saying “little golden swan.” Joe is in the library, giving beautiful lessons in the Muay Khao (knee fighting) approach. Gen is entirely the opposite, having found a love for the Muay Femeu style fighter. They’re both capable well-rounded fighter, but every fighter has a tendency and you can feel Gen’s Femeu style in his whole personality. This long form session allows that connection to unfold, as he talks about how he likes to fight throughout the demonstrations.

When I first stood in front of Gen, he wasn’t really sure what to teach me. He’s a personal trainer, has taught abroad, and he’s still an active fighter (although doesn’t fight frequently). But because he knows about me and that I fight a lot, he didn’t know where to start. Like, he felt he's not going to show me how to kick a pad. But what’s brilliant about his uncertainty is that, through the process of just sparring and moving around with me with me for more than an hour, he was able to uncover a lot of his techniques just naturally – stopping to explain something as it arose – but also he was teaching more about an ethic and mindset of Muay Femeu (artful fighting), rather than necessarily piecing together individual techniques, which stands in opposition to more forward, aggressive knee fighting or punching styles. For example, Gen likes to score by kicking, so everything he does is a setup to get his big, dramatic, high-scoring middle kick in. And those setups are gorgeous. Cat-like punches to the face to open up the opponent’s torso, a wide-stance bounce that makes any of his movements look the same and so you have very little idea what’s coming, or the way he attacks as his opponent is just barely off-balance from finishing their shot.  This is just a great session for the Library because it shows not only techniques, but also how the style and the fighter themselves come together to give techniques life and meaning. If you are a Muay Femeu fighter you'll get lots of ideas on how to set up and capitalize on scoring. And if you are not, you'll get insight into what a Thai Muay Femeu fighter wants, gaining understanding on how to counter that.

What to Look For:  

1. Watch Gen’s beautiful wide stance and how he keeps his weight forward for attacks even when he’s all sprawled out, keeping the spring in his legs all the time.
    
2. He keeps a kick on his opponent’s torso for a second or two as a built-in defense after the strike, so when his opponent tries to strike back he can push off at the same time. It also allows him to control timing and tempo, and to emphasize his score.
    
3. He distracts up top with light but very annoying punches to set up for kicks or walk-in knees.
    
4. Let your opponent strike first. This is not a favorite in the West, where we learn “be first!” but in Thailand and many traditional Martial Arts, it’s striking second but landing first that is emphasized.
    
5. Gen talks about the importance of Psychology in fighting. He wants his opponent to be confused, or to think that Gen is just so relaxed and not tired at all. So his kind of tricky moves, like jump kicks, Cartwheel Kicks, the Somrak side-step elbow – all of these demonstrate relaxation and ease. When he’s tired, he catches his breath by allowing his opponent to keep striking and he just minimizes the impact and uses timing to get a huge, dramatic move with a throw or big-scoring point.
    
6. He also talked about how he wants to score big. So he’s not a volume striker – he actually does a lot, but a lot of his little strikes don’t score and are only there to annoy and confuse the opponent so he can set up for a huge scoring kick. He says that it’s not enough to have just the judges see, who are right at the side of the ring, he wants everyone in the stadium, the back row, to see his point. This is a major strategy in all styles of Muay Thai, but it’s especially important for counter strikers, who often take something to give something better. You can totally feel this ethic in how Gen fights.
    
7. He shows me some nice clinch throws that aren’t complicated, but you have to have feeling for the timing. He breaks them down nicely, so I won’t go too much into it here, but the turns and trips can be used by those who like to clinch and those who are trying to get out of the clinch as well. Gen hates clinching, so he uses the trips as a way out. His shove off is also wonderful.
    
8. Another point about Psychology, mixed with good old physical strategy, is a leg kick-out on a caught kick that he breaks down. It’s a pretty standard catch and sweep, but Gen is teaching something about Psychology. He fought an opponent who was bigger and a good fighter, also a kicker, like Gen. So Gen spent the first round just catching this kick and sweeping the guy, effectively robbing him of his confidence in that kick. As a kicker, if you can’t kick, you basically lose your plan. Gen is very well-rounded, so he could do alright without a kick, he’d just be pissed about it. But he was able to dismantle this guy by making him mistrust his own best weapon, just by sweeping him a few times in the first round. You are fighting a puncher? Make him not want to punch. Facing a knee fighter? Make him stay too far away. Facing a kicker? Kill his kick.
    

You can follow Gen as a trainer on Facebook here. And train with him privately at his gym Hongthong Muay Thai in Chiang Mai.