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)
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
Boxing is fantastic training, so addictive. You can tweak it as you wish. Lots of variety and massive motivation. It’s the real deal.
“My prediction? Pain.”
If as an intelligent person you worry about having your brain liquidised, you don’t have to fight full on in the ring to get the results of the training. As a youth I avoided boxing for that reason and did karate. I got some head punches but not many. However I first went to a boxing gym I my early forties and still go to one once a week for the variety, the motivation, the buzz. I wont do heavy sparring any more, just body sparring, but the training is great.
Anyone can incorporate at least some of the elements of boxing at home. Jump rope is great. Punch bag. Shadow boxing. Plenty of youtube videos to help you do the basics.
Hey Steve
Yeah, man. Kyokushin is great for that as well, if you can find a school. That was sort of the point with those terrible fucking books back in the day, but they spent way too much time teaching you terrible moves rather than how to train.
Great article as usual, Jamie! Outside of Ross Enemait’s stuff most of the shit you’ll find online about S&C for fighting sucks ass.
I boxed for years and always kept lifting while doing so, but there’s some strange stigma against lifting in the boxing world that I never quite understood surrounding how slows you down.
It’s even weirder considering plenty of boxers have actually lifted in some form or another. There’s pictures of Archie Moore (who had gigantic fucking shoulders even when he was fighting Ali at the age of 50 or whatever the fuck he was) incline benching, every London Prize Ring rules boxer did lifting of some sort, Jack Dempsey did wood chopping and rock lifting, and never mind the fact that calisthenics is lifting as well.
Speaking of Lethwei training, check out this video (one of the guys is even doing curls for the girls, blasphemy!):
https://invidio.us/watch?v=4EAvmsDhYZY
Jamie knocks it out of the park yet again with the latest entry. I finished this article well informed, highly entertained, and uncomfortably aroused. Still crossing my fingers that you will make that post about the Calcio Storico someday.
Hahaha. Thanks man. The next installment is even better, I think. Jerome LeBanner makes anything and everything better. I never found enough information to write anything useful. I’ll put it back on the list and see if I can do anything. I really think at this point it’s just mma fighters who get together to play once a year, you know?
Lone Chaw might be small, but he still seems to be a lot taller than most of his opponents. I get the impression that some kind of governing bodies chose him to be their star as much as he rose to the top himself.
I think the height thing is just a result of Burma’s shitty recent history. There was a lot of famine, and caloric intake during your formative years seems to play the biggest role in determining height (beyond genetics, but frankly food might overcome genetics in some cases). I can’t say I know all that much beyond what I put in the article, but given the fact that Leduc took the title away from the Burmese, I can’t put too much stock in the grooming argument- it might grow market share, but having a white guy as the champ of a Burmese sport looks bad for Myanmar. I despise that word, for some reason- likely because it’s the stupid result of a coup.
I used to follow the sport sort of closely but not for a few years now, one thing you didn’t mention was that each side can call one timeout per match, so effectively the loser has to be knocked out twice.
Here’s an excerpt on traditional training from Zoran Rebac’s book although it doesn’t add much:
https://i.postimg.cc/rwt4NhPB/traditional-burmese-boxing.png
Oh interesting- I didn’t know that was how it worked, actually. That’s kind of ridiculous, and kind of awesome, haha.
“Bodyweight Dips – Barry McGuigan’s Favorite Exercise
Barry McGuigan is still one of the best boxers to have come out of Ireland. His professional career started in 1981, and in 1982 he won 8 fights, 7 of which were by knockout. In 1985 he finally won the WBA title in the featherweight division. His total fight record was 32 wins and 3 losses, with 26 wins by knockout. In January 2005, McGuigan was elected into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
Recently he was asked what his favorite exercise was, and he revealed that bodyweight dips were his preferred exercise.
Dips are one of the best bodyweight compound exercises. They work the chest (major pectorals), front delts (anterior deltoid) and triceps. These muscles are essential for boxers and as dips is a pushing exercise the correct muscles are being strengthened. Curls and rows are less important for boxers.
Barry McGuigan is now 50 years old but still performs dips. Being of a smaller frame is a great help though, as your muscles do not need to lift such a large mass, but really anyone should be able to perform dips throughout their lives if they stay in shape.
Performing dips is also a great way to help tone he upper body and to help with weight loss. The delts and chest are large groups of muscles, do if you combine dips with squats, you will start working the whole body and burn a lot of fat, as well as build solid, functional muscle tissue.” Nice and specific.
Ah cool- thanks man. Boxers are in the offing after kickboxing concludes, from James Figg up to the present.
“The heavy bag is perhaps the ultimate conditioning tool for all athletes. whether you are training for a combat sport is irrelevant. you will not find many conditioning tools that offer the intensity and effectiveness of an old fashioned heavy bag” Ross Enamait.
If you can get a 100lb plus bag, but if you cannot, a decent freestanding bag is great. Personally I have one outside in all weathers, been there three years, no problem. Dead cheap to pick up second hand, ebay etc.
I particularly enjoy Tabata protocol on the bag. But 20 rounds of 1 minute, or uo to ten minutes of continuous pummelling are other favourites. Of course you can try 12 rounds of 3 mins, the pro duration. I have trained it twice a week, 6 times a week, all to good effect.
You can combine it with other stuff, eg
Tabata bag 8 rounds of 20/10seconds
Tabata bodyweight squat
Tabata bag
Tabata push ups
is no joke.
Jamie kickboxing and Muay Thai are entirely differnt. Kickboxings literally Karate+Muay Thai+Boxing+Taekwondo. Muay Thai or Muay Boran;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muay_boran
before a ring was added and gloves were slapped on it, was endemic to and was created and proliferated by Thai martial artists and warriors. The “interconnectodness” theories about martial arts being form Greece or India and especially, being taken bu monks / becoming arts like Kung Fu or Karate is also pseudohistorical bunk and misinformation spread by people that don’t know what they’e talking about; often just filling in the blanks with made up explanations,. Kung Fu was long in China before Buddhism came as was Taekyon Subak in Korea and Te in Okinawa; created and maintained by each countries endemic martial artists and warriors as well. Such as the Hwarang’ Korean warriors and Okinawan Pechin or Yukatchu
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwarang
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukatchu
The main “monk” influence on Karate was also from Northern Shaolin Kung Fu, which can be read about in a lot of detail from what is Karates most important book
https://www.amazon.com/Bubishi-Classic-Manual-Patrick-McCarthy/dp/4805313846
Moreover the common misinformation that the Indian/Buddhist monk Bodhidarma brought Kung Fu to China, of created Shaolin Kung Fu is also pseudohistorical. Many scholars, both ancient and modern agree, and it’s evidenced that: he neither came to China or even existed. His transmission of Chan Buddhism as well as the dates of his arrival are also out of synch as Kung fu, the Shaolin Temple and Buddhism’s existence in China not only predate him but were there, firmly established and in practice before he came.
What you’re describing are two entirely different groups of martial arts in my mind. There was what appears to be a Asian family of martial arts that consisting of more fluid, animal-based styles like kalaripayattu, the animal styles of kung fu, and silat, among other styles, then the harder Indian-influenced kickboxing style that everyone thinks of as MT. I mentioned that modern kickboxing is derived from MT-karate full contact matches, but karate is a relatively new martial art that seems to be connected with the aforementioned hard styles rather than the more fluid and more ancient ones. And that doesn’t even get into all of the different indigenous wrestling styles. I think the confusion lays in the fact I called the pankration-influenced styles kickboxing (i.e. MT) but I was referring to the family as opposed to the modern shit. The history of martial arts is tangled as hell and fascinating.
The semi-mythical stories about Bodhidharma and the like are likely more allegories than they are factual events, but the roots of both martial arts families seem to flow through India. That said, I’m not claiming to be the world’s foremost authority on martial arts, haha- I just like writing about them.
I appreciate your input, by the way- this shit is super fun to discuss. There are installments about Japanese and Korean MA on the way, and I am doing an interview with Judd Reid, a kyokushin fighter who is one of five guys to complete a 100-man kumite, next week.
Np. And as a Karateka myself that’s trained in two Karate styles. I’ll look forward to that one
Oh dope. I think you’ll like the article I am about to drop as a sidebar to this series, about all of the sick martial artists who get no love in terms of their skill as legit fighters. I’m finishing it up now, but as a tease it’s got guys like Gary Daniels, Chuck Norris, and Olivier Gruner, and Don The Dragon Wilson in it.