A couple days ago I read news of once famous Muay Thai boxer. I don’t wanna put his name here, since it was no good news and he was such a great fighter. Anyway he was arrested for dealing drugs. That made me thinking. I want to know what all those many boxers do once they stop being in the rings.

The person I’m gonna talk about today also once a famous Muay Thai fighter. He was a WBA Flyweight Champion from Feb 13 1994 to Nov 24 1996. Only two years of glory and money. IMO, that’s quite a short time. After that his life got worse and never gets any better. His name is Saen Sor Ploenchit.

Saen Sor Ploenchit picture from Wikipedia

Unluckily he didn’t save much money for his future. After he lost his WBA Flyweight Champion, his career seemed to end. He didn’t get much chance to fight in big match anymore. Until one day he himself decided to end his boxing career.

Who knows that once being a great boxing champion, one day Saen Sor Ploenchit had to earn money by staring in some music videos? Today his life is getting better now I believe. Since an owner of Muay Thai gym heard about him and wanted to help by offering him a job as a trainer at his gym.

I know that many Thai boxing fighters don’t have good ending for their lives. At least Saen Sor Ploenchit didn’t end his life by throwing himself in jail like the one I read about in the news. One thing it was their fault that they didn’t plan to save money for the future but the other reason might be because Thai government doesn’t support professional Muay Thai boxer as a career. Once they stop fighting, there goes their money. I hope one day the government will take an eye on these great people that at least once bring honor to the country.

Great thing about YouTube is there are many kind of stuff you can find. Good, bad, serious, funny, nonsense… Today is well…some what in the middle…not too serious and not too amusing. But you know Muay Thai can never be funny. It’s a serious martial arts and sport. But whoever posted this clip can make Muay Thai sound less serious.

I don’t know why the namer of this clip calls it The Legend of Muay Thai. Anyway the clip I’m showing you today is full of awesome Muay Thai moves you might have already seen in other clips, those are the legend. But the reason I post this today is the song in the background. Thai Thai Thai Boxing, Thai Thai Thai boxing…haha so funny. It says something like…Thai Thai Thai boxing, we are the best, Thai boxing defeats Karate blah blah blah, the world know we are the top…. Cool song!

Those moves surely are beautiful, like Mon Yan Luk, or Pra Ram Deun Dong. And the song well, in the beginning you can hear Pi Java, Flute like instrument, the main instrument used to play during Muay Thai fights. The lyrics for me who know what it says are an amusement.

Take a look and listen of course!

The Legend of Muay Thai Clip from YouTube.com

It’s such a good combination. Funny song and great Muay Thai moves. Really entertaining, don’t cha think?

Next time I promise I’ll post something more sense haha. See you next time!

Every times we think of martial arts movies, we tend to think more about the actor of the movie. One Great and most well-known actor of these whole martial arts films is Bruce Lee. No need to tell who he was. Enter the Dragon was the most popular film Lee lastly and completely stared in before he died. Sad thing, he actually died only 6 days before the movie was released.

I know, it’s not a Muay Thai, but Kungfu film. But I chose to introduce you this film today because even though it’s produced in Hong Kong, it was the first kungfu film made by Hollywood making it as a leader of other later Kungfu films and just because I am a Bruce Lee fan, just like other millions of people. I’ve been watching his movies since I was very little like the famous, Fist of Fury and Way of the Dragon.

Synopsis:
Lee plays a Kungfu master wanted by an international intelligence organization to enter a martial arts tournament organized by Han who was once a Shaolin student just like him. Han chose immoral way for his life, becoming a drug dealer and owning a prostitution business. Lee also found out later on that Han’s right hand bodyguard killed Lee’s sister, even encouraging him to enter the fight.

The Hall of Mirrors run towards the end of the film is until now legendary, as are Lee’s extraordinarily athletic and martial arts abilities. More many decades this great film has remained an enjoyable, winning action movie.

Enter The Dragon Cover Picture from Wikipedia.com

Directed by Robert Clouse
Produced by Fred Weintraub and Paul Heller
Written by Michael Allin
Casts: Bruce Lee, John Saxon, Ahna Capri, Shih Kien…
Distributed by Warner Brothers

I really recommend you to see this film. I was such a huge success since it was first released. I believe until these days whoever sees this movie will still love it.

Muay Thai Por Pramuk Gym is a home of two world famous boxers, Buakaw, K-1 World MAX champion and Pornsawan P. Pramuk, Alias Ironman 2000.

At this site you can find info of its training courses, like training schedule and cost. The training is various depending of applicants’ knowledge and skills. Here their instructors will spend time with each student. IMO, that is a really good thing because they can correct each student the skill and techniques. The promise they give you here is you can be a real official boxer by taking course with them for a couple months.

The training here is not that different from other gyms. But it seems really tough. Start warming up at 5.30 in the morning and finishing up by drills at 7.30 pm. pretty tight for newbie. However they claim that training hard and always pushing its students are their tests to see if their students really are into Muay Thai and to see if they are ready for the ring. Not that easy and simple to train here! I believe they use this method for the great success of its students. Shouldn’t be that bad for those of you who like pushing yourself for something you want.

The only inconvenient here is the gym is not located in Bangkok. But if you don’t mind being in the city with all that good facilities, this gym should be another good choice for you because the cost is quite reasonable.

Not much info you can find in the site actually, but you can find contact info like numbers or email for more information. So if you’re interested, go take a look at its website at www.muaythaiporpramuk.com. Later, I’ll be back to give you more choices of gyms in Thailand. See you next week!

Welcome back to Speak of Thai! Hey did you forget everything from my past lessons? I hope not! Anyway I am so determined to teach you…not Muay Thai…but Thai. I’m not threatening you but knowing Thai is still crucial and handy once you get here you’ll know what I mean.

So today topic you will get to use for sure. Taxi is the easiest way to travel around in Bangkok. Lost count numbers of Taxi driving around everywhere here. Getting a taxi is easy but talking and telling the taxi driver where you want to go, that might not be as easy as you think. And here’s the fact, most taxi drivers here don’t speak English. They are trying I guess. But to make sure that if you want to ride a taxi here, you will get to your destination safely, you better memorize all these phrases I’m about to tell you.

First thing you want to tell the driver is where you want to go. The easiest way is by saying “Pai…(the place you want to go)…”, for example, “Pai-JJ-Market“. That means “I want to go to JJ Market”. Actually the word “Pai” means just “to go”. But to make it short, we only say “Pai” without using pronoun “I” or the verb “to want”.
You should learn how to pronounce to place’s name as correctly as you can in Thai. If not, most drivers can guess.

Then you look at the driver’s nod if he wants to go there. Taxi drivers here can choose whether he wants to go that way or not. If not, you got no choice, but getting another one.

Then after you get to the place you ask him how much. If you still remember from Buying a Hamburger, the previous article, we say “Thao Rai Krap” or “Thao Rai Ka“. I believe the driver sure know how to tell you the correct number, but don’t forget to glance to the meter to make sure again.

That’s it for today! Hope you find it quite useful like I do. Btw I don’t put Thai writing here anymore, since I think it might not be that essential for the basics.