Plague of Strength

This article began as an attempt to sum up training techniques for kickboxing and boxing, to be followed by an article about karate and tae kwon do. Simple, right? Me being me, however, those two articles turned into at least five over the course of the last couple of days (and the start of yet another goddamned book project), so the numbering is about to get weird as I try to cut down 5000 word articles and a shitload of random esoteric research into more manageable amounts. If you don’t fight and don’t care about fight training, treat it like trivia, or just read it because I am the single most entertaining motherfucker to ever put pen to paper about strength sports.

Part One: Pehlwani and Pankratists (which has been heavily edited and reformated, in case you want more to read)

Part Two: Catch Wrestling

Humans have been devising new ways to hurt each other since before the dawn of human speech. Like the other great apes, visiting great bodily injury and disfigurement upon the beings around us is hardwired into our murderous DNA. In past installments, I detailed some of the training methods of the bone-snapping, eye-gouging, no-holds-barred (and some holds barred) wrestlers of yore and the pankratists and pehlwani of the past. Here the focus shifts to those fighters who prefer striking to grappling, ranging from boxing to kickboxing to shit of which you’ve likely never heard.

Interestingly, historians have traced a lot of the harder martial arts to India, and believe now that those styles were actually the product of the Greek conquest of India. There, the locals combined their indigenous styles with pankration (no-holds barred fighting) and pygmachia (ancient Greek boxing). The style that resulted was spread to Southeast Asia via monks, creating the basis for all of the Asian kickboxing styles, and to China, where it became the basis for kung fu. Buddhist monks then took the fighting art to Okinawa and Korea to form the basis of of karate and gwanbeop (which fractured in the various Korean kickboxing styles), respectively.

Two of the resultant styles are little known martial arts that are harder than your dick on Viagra and methyltest- India’s musti-yudda and Burma’s lethwei. Both styles will remind you of thai boxing in large part, only far, far more brutal. Whether these styles are direct descendants of pankration or a Southeast Asian style that then fractured and rebounded back to India is immaterial- no matter this general style of fighting developed, it is perhaps the most brutally effective family of fighting styles there are.

Musti-Yuddha

As I mentioned, it’s now the opinion of most martial arts scholars that at least part of the origin of Eastern martial arts lies in ancient Greece.  That’s not some weird white power bullshit- it actually makes a great deal of sense.  Though the Indian martial prowess was renown in the ancient world, they got stomped harder than a Japanese Wanderlei Silva opponent in Pride FC by the Greeks.  Alexander rolled in with a cadre of Macedonian battle tanks and hatefucked the Indians like they were Bonnie Rotten.  The Indians just had nothing in their arsenal to deal with the sheer weight of arms and armor the Greeks brought, and beyond that, they lacked a martial art hard enough to beat pankration in unarmed combat.  As such, the Indians appear to have adopted the ol’ “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” mentality and picked up hardstyle martial arts with a vengeance.  

This is where musti-yuddha finds its roots.  Legend has it that in the 5th or 6th century BC, pankration and Indian wrestling had joined forces to create styles like musti-yuddha and the ultra-ridiculous, monkey-fighting, capoiera-adjacent kalaripayattu (though some contend this style predated Greek influence). The term literally translates to “fist combat,” and is the only surviving Indian unarmed style of style of combat outside of adi thada (the unarmed portion of kalaripayattu) and the related Tamil style kuttuverisai (the unarmed portion of silambam).

This style is extremely obscure worldwide, but you’d recognize it as virtually identical to Thailand’s muay thai, the related Laotian style muay lao, Pradal Serey in Cambodia, Filipino yaw-yan and Myanmar’s lethwei. In musti-yuddha you can target any part of the body but the junk, and they focus heavily on striking the head and chest. Until 1960, fighters brawled barefisted and without pads beyond a cup, but the sport was banned due to frequent dustups in the stands between different fighters’ supporters. In its revival, it is being fought with light mma-style gloves and headgear, but the remainder of the rules were the same- the matches are either one-on-one or a group fight like those insane Polish mma matches. Winners are determined by knockout, ringout, or submission- there are no points awarded in these fights to determine a decision.

Traditionally, these fights were to the death, and the Indian holy book/historical tome Mahabharata describes fights that involve hardcore kickboxing that included both finger strikes and headbutts, much as the Greek pankration did. The ancient Indians’ warrior class were similar in many ways to the Japanese samurai, treating the mastery of this martial art with the same reverence they did the arts and the art of war.

“During the Western Kshatrapas dynasty, the Saka ruler Rudradaman – in addition to being an excellent horseman, charioteer and elephant rider – was said to be well-versed in ‘the great sciences’ which included boxing, Indian classical music, Sanskrit grammar and swordsmanship. The Gurbilas Shemi, an 18th-century Sikh text, gives numerous references to musti-yuddha.

The French General Allard commented on the boxing practiced by the early 19th-century Lahore army that ‘Duelling is not known in the army of Ranjit Singh. The soldiers settle their disputes with their fists; a brutal, and equally un-Christian, method of adjusting differences.’ The particular form of boxing he referred to was loh-musti, practiced primarily in the northwest” (Wiki).

Like other traditional hardstyle aspirants, fighters spend years toughening their fists by punching stone and wood until they can smash coconuts and rocks with their bare hands. This is necessary because it is far easier to break one’s hand with only a light gauze and tape wrap on their hands, so the bones are strengthened (according to Wolff’s law) by subjecting them to repeated stress. Over time, fighters punch progressively harder surfaces until their bones are so dense that fractures are unlikely when striking with a properly formed fist.

Traditional fight training methods for all pre-modern Indian wrestlers and fighters were codified in the ancient Mallapurana text. The version we have dates to the 1700s, though evidence suggests that the original text is centuries older. Early fighting arts like wrestling, malla-yuddha and the bonkers mma-with-brass-knuckles vajramushti all utilized the methods outlined in this book, and given the respect for tradition the Indians have, still use. Until prospect fighters were of age (10-12 years), they’d focus strictly on bodyweight exercises- specifically dands and baithaks. Once they were strong enough, they would start utilizing the wrestler’s pole to develop even sicker body control and strength. Thereafter, they would add in weight training to build up the kinds of physiques that made old-school Indian fighters so legendarily terrifying (and click the two foregoing links for more in-depth explanations of the following exercises).

Once they were old enough, however, they’d use the exercises outlined in the Mallapurana.

“The Mallapurana describes the various types of exercises the wrestlers would undertake to condition themselves for the fight. Among these are:

The Rangasrama – refers to the actual wrestling and wrestling techniques. These include all manner of grappling techniques, such as takedowns, fighting from the bottom, fighting from the top, and striking techniques.

The Sthambhasrama – the set of exercises performed on a standing upright pole called a Sthamba. There are many kinds of Sthamba, although the most common is an upright pole, some eight to ten inches in diameter, planted into the ground. The wrestler performs various complex calisthenics on it to develop arm, leg and upper-body strength and stamina.

The Gonitaka – this refers to the training done with a large stone ring. This weight is lifted and swung in various ways, even worn around the neck to develop neck, back and leg strength.

The Pramada – is the set of exercises performed with the use of the Indian clubs – the Gada. These tools are still used by many Indian wrestling Akhada (wrestling schools) today.

The Kundakavartana – refers to the callisthenics performed without the use of equipment; tumbling, various styles of push-ups, squats, etc that are used to develop overall strength and stamina.

The Uhapohasrama – refers to the discussion of tactics and strategies and is considered an important part of the fighters training regime (Kesting).

Lethwei

Lethwei, also known as Burmese bareknuckle boxing, is a gnarly full-contact combat sport from Myanmar dating back at least a thousand years (making it older than Thai boxing, and given the fact it’s between Thailand and India makes logical sense) that uses stand-up striking along with various clinching techniques.  Like malla-yuddha, this hardstyle martial art allows everything but groin strikes, and because of the use of headbutts it is known as the Art of Nine Limbs (head, fists, elbows, knees, and feet).

Again similar to the aforementioned Indian style, lethwei has no point system and is a a draw unless one of the fighters quits or is knocked out by the end of the fifth three minute round. The fighters do hand conditioning in the same way as the Indians, and also employ a great deal of calisthenics and road work, again aping the Indians’ methods.

Lone Chaw, who is Myanmar’s lethwei answer to Michael Jordan, is a tiny guy who doesn’t seem to lift as a part of his training- he just sticks to roadwork. While this makes no sense, given he was a 62kg fighter who became the open-weight champion (you’d expect him to bulk the fuck up for open-weight fighting), it’s how the Burmese apparently have trained forever.

“Every Monday to Saturday in the early morning at 5:30 a.m., when it is still dark outside and the air is still a little fresh and humid from the preceding night time,   Lone Chaw gets ready for his morning run in a nearby municipal recreation area next to the Kaba Aye Pagoda and a Buddhist monastery.

After a jogging run of approximately 5km, he continues with some really tough exercise which consisted of about 5 rounds of 100m in duck-walk, followed by 5 rounds of maximum-speed 100m sprints.

After this stamina and springiness part of his morning exercise, he proceeds with a 10min stretching procedure before he starts his walk back home to continue training together with his coach Mr. Win Zin Oo, whose one-family house with garden is located directly next to the  apartment block Lone Chaw lives in.

‘It doesn’t need much equipment or space to keep the triple golden belt winner and three-times free-weight champion of Myanmar in a good shape,’ Mr. Win says as he leads André René to the small porch attached to the side of his house. It is March 2011. ‘This is the place were we do our training, one hour in the morning after his running exercises, and two hours in the late afternoon. Lone Chaw only needs to preserve his physical strength, his stamina and his technical skills, as they are in a perfect condition already. And although there are not that many boxing events scheduled over the year in Yangon and the nearby cities, he fortunately has the mental strength and discipline to keep his skills constantly on the highest level’” (René).

If you’ve been paying attention, there’s no consensus on the ideal fight training methodology, and shit’s about to get even more contentious in the next installments. And by contentious, I mean defies the claims of literally every armchair fighter on the planet, all of whom think lifting is fucking pointless for some dumbass reason. The next one is full of big, mean, brutal kickboxers who throw more weights around than you do, and you can jump to it here.

And as always, help a motherfucker out and hit up my Patreon if you feel like this shit is worth keeping porn-and-gore filled, rather than sanitized for advertising. If you already do, I really appreciate the support of strength sports counterculture- we’re the only motherfuckers keeping it alive at this point.

And if you’re curious about the extraneous citations, there will be the same block of cites for the next couple of articles, because they were all born of the same bed of research and I’ll be fucked if I want to sort them.

Sources:

Benjamin, Kathy.  Six surprising badass figures from the victorian era.  Cracked.  16 Oct 2015.  Web.  14 Oct 2017.  http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-surprising-badass-figures-from-victorian-era/

Carpinello, Dave.  Jerome Le Banner interview.  Mixfight.  18 Aug 2008.  Web.  12 Jan 2020.  http://www.mixfight.nl/forum/showthread.php?84581-jerome-le-banner-interview

Goyder, James.  Inside a Burmese lethwei gym.  Vice: Fightland.  22 Jul 2015.  Web.  9 Oct 2017.  http://fightland.vice.com/blog/inside-a-burmese-lethwei-gym

Hatfield, Frederick C.  How They Train: Conditioning methods of world champion boxer Evander Holyfield. Reprinted from Sportscience News, Sep-Oct 1997.  Sportsci.  Web.  16 Jan 2020.  https://www.sportsci.org/news/news9709/hatfield.html

Kesting, Stephen.  The Ancient Vale Tudo of India: Vajramushti.  The Grapple Arts.  13 Mar 20212.  Web.  16 Jan 2020.  https://www.grapplearts.com/the-ancient-vale-tudo-of-india-vajramushti/

Musti Yuddha.  Wikipedia.  Web.  9 Oct 2017.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musti-yuddha

Odebunmi, Ollie.  Evander Holyfield and weight training.  Livestrong.  Web.  12 Jan 2020.  https://www.livestrong.com/article/369069-evander-holyfield-and-weight-training/

Rao, Sumana.  Musti Yuddha: “Art of Eight Limbs”  W R India.  12 May 2017.  Web.  16 Jan 2020.  https://healthylife.werindia.com/your-road-to-healthy-life/musti-yuddha-art-eight-limbs

René, André.  Lethwei champion Lone Chaw.  Burmese Boxing.com.  Web.  9 Oct 2017.  http://www.burmese-boxing.com/Lethwei/Lone_Chaw.html

Tom Sayers.  International Boxing Hall of Fame.  Web.  14 Oct 2017.  http://www.ibhof.com/pages/about/inductees/pioneer/sayers.html

Wedlan, Candace A.  A knockout routine : George Foreman on the joys of skipping.  Los Angeles Times,  14 Nov 1995. Web.  11 Apr 2018.  http://articles.latimes.com/1995-11-14/news/ls-2947_1_george-foreman/2

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