Master Sken's Interview

Bob Sykes: How does your training schedule these days compare to that of twenty years ago?
Master Sken: Compared to the old days my training is far lighter. Nowadays I spend a lot more time teaching my students and I have a lot of instructors teaching for me so I spend a lot of my time both teaching and advising them. However, I always find time during my teaching to maintain my own training, conditioning and sparring ability. It keeps me sharp, keeps my mind alert and, as you know, Bob, there is no end to the learning. When I was much younger the training routine was very intense and included a lot more in the way of running. These days I like to do much more in the way of walking with my wife, Kay. In the morning we do between 45 minutes and one hour.

BS: Is this speed walking?
MS: No, just relaxing and talking, we do it everyday, 45 minutes to one hour in the morning then about the same at lunch and at night time about six o'clock, I walk for between 15 and 25 minutes. This is our hobby and it's helping me to keep myself fitat the same time. In the old days we'd do a lot of pad work, skipping rope, press ups, a thousand a time and very hard free sparring.

BS: How do you feel someone needs to train in order to become a professional Thai boxing competitor?
MS: They would need to do at least six days a week. In Thailand, for example, they spend between six and nine hours a day, six days a week. In Europe, because many people have full time jobs etc, one would need to do at least two or three hours, six days a week.

BS: How important a factor is physical conditioning for Thai boxing?
MS: It is very important, that's why Thai boxers do so well because they're mentally and physically conditioned into a thoroughtraining regime. When a conditioned Thai boxer steps into the ring they know that they may be attacked and probably hurt so they have to condition themselves physically and mentally to accept pain.

BS: Muay Thai boxing is renowned for being a complete system, however, does it, in your view, possess any weaknesses?
MS: If a Thai boxer concentrates on the clinch and the knee solely then the weakness will be a lack of boxing and if they concentrate on the boxing yet forget to train the clinch, the knee and elbow, then the weakness again is obvious. Muay Thai is complete as a system itself and I believe it has not many weaknesses.

BS: So the weakness is brought on more by the practitioner than the actual system?
MS: Yes, that's why I advocate that the teacher or master should teach the student or fighter the complete art of Muay Thai, which is called The Art and Science of eight limbs. Where you are taught fist, blow, knee and kicking - especially for clinchwork and grappling - the art of Muay Thai is second to none. Once you delve deep into the system it is excellent for groundwork or floor work which is very evident in the ancient art of Muay Boran. Muay Boran is the ancient Muay Thai, where the warrior used the art not for the ring but for the battlefield. Hence, when they used a skill or technique on their opponent and their opponent fell down, they'd follow through till that opponent was dead by dropping either on the knee, drop the elbow, pull an arm or twist the head.

BS: The Muay Boran that you demonstrated earlier reminded me a little of the many South East Asian systems that I've encountered over the years. Is there maybe a connection between Muay Thai and Filipino or the Indonesian arts?
MS: I can not say if there is an actual link, however, I always find that martial arts, no matter where they are from, are connected in some way, some how, to each other. I have seen Muay Thai masters demonstrate a technique where the stance was very, very low, similar to Pencak Silat. It's always refreshing when a Thai Boxing master demonstrates sometechnique that I have never seen or never trained, for me it is another part of learning.

BS: Do you teach the art of Muay Thai separate to the sport of Thai Boxing or do you manage to marry the two together?
MS: Between 1977 and 1991, when I concentrated my students/fighters solely for competition, I only had a small handful of well seasoned students. So from 1991 I did my best to steer the students more toward the complete art of Muay Thai i.e. the Muay Boran, the clinch, grappling and street self defence where it is so effective.BS: I'm sure that there's a lot of people out there who may not be drawn toward Thai boxing the sport, but would really prefer to learn Muay Thai/Muay Boran the art.

Thank you Master Sken for another inspiring interview.