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Directed by Ajarn Surachai "Chai"
Sirisute, President of the Thai Boxing Association of the USA(1), the
camp was designed and executed as a professional fighter’s training camp
for instructors and senior students. This grueling training regimen was
attended by well-known martial artists such as the legendary Guro Dan
Inosanto from Los Angeles, Professor Leonard Trigg from Oregon, Greg Nelson
from Minnesota, Frank Cucci from Virginia and a host of other fighters
from the Muay Thai stables of Spain, Holland, New Zealand, Canada, Mexico,
Belgium and the Canary Islands.
Such hard-core personnel as CIA operatives,
FBI and Secret Service agents, US Navy SEALs, Gold Team members, SWAT,
DEA, cops and cadets filled the ranks as well as accountants and computer
programmers. All ranging in ages from 15 to 60.
When asked what the main goal of the camp,
Ajarn Chai crisply responded, "discipline".
And discipline it was. There was to be no
talking between rounds. No slacking in form or effort. 200 pushups if
you forgot to bow to your training partner. Up and stretched at 6:00 AM
followed by at least a three mile run every day—rain or shine. No walking
between training stations after the buzzer. You’ve got exactly 60 seconds
to change equipment between rounds. The entire week would have brought
a tear to the eye of any Marine Drill Sergeant.
"Discipline, however," continues
Ajarn Chai, "is not the only reason this amp was designed. It was
created to bring all instructors together from around the world, to help
each other grow and further develop his/her skills as a fighter and a
teacher."
Ajarn further explained how discipline and
quality was the central focus of such a gathering. Ninety-nine percent
of the time with instructors, (who are not professional fighters), it
is usually the case that the teacher does not work out as hard as his
student. Thus, there is a diminishing return of discipline and quality.
To remedy this domino effect, the annual training camp, (available only
to instructors or by invitation from Ajarn Chai), focuses primarily on
discipline and quality.
Ajarn Chai’s philosophy emphasizes that whatever
starts at the top ends up at the bottom. As an example, if a teacher is
soft and lacks good form, then this is transferred to his students. However,
should the instructor maintain a high degree of discipline and quality
of form, then the integrity of Muay Thai is maintained and is directly
transferred to the students.
Regarding the question of overall integrity
of the martial art of Muay Thai Boxing, Ajarn Chai responds, "The
student always does exactly what the instructor does. So discipline at
the top filters down to discipline in the ranks. I want quality. When
a students walks out of a Muay Thai Boxing school or when one of our fighters
walks into the ring—I want quality—nothing less."
Quality is the word that best describes this
year’s training camp.
Aside from the quality instruction from the
founder himself, there was the overall teamwork of numerous staff and
support personnel. Exquisite Thai food was prepared for both lunch and
dinner in heaping quantities by authentic Thai chefs flown in from Los
Angeles.
The logistical nightmare of sleeping, feeding
and organizing the quality training of eighty participants is a mark of
excellence in itself. Including twenty-seven staff members, there were
a total of 107 mouths to feed and bodies to shower. Operationally as well
as quality training, the camp was a noteworthy success.
On the first evening of the camp Ajarn Chai
divided the company of 80 into three smaller groups of approximately 27
each. These were affectionately named: Group A, Group B and Group C.
Ajarn further created a Muay-Thai-camper
species called the Fighting Group. Comprised of various members of each
of the three sub-groups, this group was designated to endure additional
hardships above and beyond the regularly scheduled training regiment (which
itself was no walk in the park). Throughout the week, these various hardships
(i.e., extra roadwork, additional sparring, etc.,) caused a diminishing
effect on the number of Fighting Group members.
A typical day consisted of 5:45 AM wakeup
call. Stretching at 6:00 AM followed by the morning run at 6:30. After
the run, shadow boxing and whatever drills demanded by Fight Group leaders
Greg Nelson, Frank Cucci, Jeff Jones, Doug Pandorf and Bob Carver were
executed.
Breakfast and then came the work stations.
There were three work areas: a shadow boxing station, focus pad/Muay Thai
pad work station, and the heavy bags station (a total of twenty seven
heavy punching bags thundered simultaneously in one room). There was one
group of 27 fighters training at each station simultaneously. It was almost
a mystical experience where you could actually feel the intensity of a
combined force of focused energy.
At the buzzer, 160 hands came together and
bowed to each other, plenty of heaving breathing, struggling to strap
gear on and within sixty seconds groups A, B and C had quickly rotated
to their next work station. With, of course, no talking.
On average, there was approximately 10 to
15 two or three-minute rounds, with 60 seconds break in between. This
is what Ajarn Chai referred to as our "warm-up".
Immediately following "warm-up",
all three groups were directed to an open, lumpy, moonscape field of dried
grass and dust at the bottom of a nearby hill. Where, in the very hot
late-morning sun, we began one-minute rounds of sparring in the dry, parched
meadow, which was appropriately nicknamed "the field of screams". |
