First, let me give you a kind advise; the new book of Master Marco is a flawless guide for every student who wants to get deeper inside the very heart of IMBA’s way of understanding the fighting as a philosophy or as a system to protect your life. If you have the chance to read it, soon you see the book by itself is not a 100% guide for the autodidact, but is a very important tool to understand better your everyday lessons at the Kai Muay. If you don’t have an IMBA teacher near you or you are looking forward to learn Muay Boran Style. You should start by taking a peek at IMBA’s branches all around the world so you can apply the content of this book really close to its intention, by training with a qualified instructor.
The book is divided in 4 pillars, fundamentals for the best development of the Nak Su (Thai name for Professional of War) Physical Conditioning, Impact Training, Sparring and Combat Forms. Each chapter will give you the reason why every IMBA Kai Muay in the world has its training forms.
The Physical Training is very important to keep aligned the body as a perfect mechanism. If you are not ready to react within the first second during any “risk” situation you are not ready for the real life fighting. Remember in real life, you don´t have the time to put hand wraps, mouth guard or even warming up; you have to be fast, effective and resilient.
Impact Training will give you the Strength in you muscle and bone structures. Remember you have to be flexible, strong, but most of all you have to endure a possible longtime battle, or one in which you are in serious disadvantage.
Sparring is a very important element in our system; most of the Muay Boran Schools focus the training on the technical aspects but they don’t cover the sparring, being pre-arranged, free, or assisted. If you don’t interact with a partner who helps you how to develop your reflexes you are not going to understand the differences in everyone’s timing. You have to spar with different partners at least once a week to understand the fighting better.
The Combat Forms are the worst understood item in every Traditional Martial Art; you could think the traditional forms are stuff from the past and don’t have any relevance on modern fighting systems, but nothing is more distant from the truth. The traditional forms give you the muscle memory to understand a given movement and to develop the accuracy of a surgeon if you have to use this movement without notice; plus, it will give you the fluidity you need to make the movement powerful and natural. But you have to know this before you start training Combat forms; knowing the form is not enough, if you don’t have an experienced teacher who explain you the code encrypted inside the form, you are not going to be able to understand the clever design of it.
This book has the structure every student passionate for the traditional styles need, but with the taste that only modern fighting systems can give to this great recipe that is IMBA Combat Muay Boran.