A moment with Buakaw
On September 2nd, 2011 I had the privilege of working with Ajahn Suchart Yodkerepaupri and his top fighter Simon Marcus. This was a key moment as Simon started his championship journey at the first Muay Thai Premier League in Long Beach, California, where he fought Artem Vakhitov.
Simon had a dominant showing. If my memory serves me correct, he had come off a one year stint in Thailand fighting legends under the radar and was ready to breakout this year in front of the mainstream crowd, beginning with the MPL.
I believe he was just under the co main event, with Buakaw headlining the show. I knew the two of them were friends, I just didn’t really know to what extent until we were in the locker rooms and seeing them talk to each other…in Thai.
My eyes were wide. I might’ve fangirled a bit. Simon was super cool, noticing me geeking:
“Yo, lemme introduce you”
All I could muster was a Wai, and Buakaw responded with one as well.
Shortly after I worked up the courage to have Simon translate a question to Buakaw for me:
“What’s your approach in dealing with punch aggressive fighters?”
Simon happily obliged and pulled Buakaw aside and asked for me.
Buakaws eyes lit up, eager to share:
“TEEP!!!”
He went on a pseudo rant, speaking in Thai while demonstrating via shadow boxing his teep; low, mid, low and I nodded in obvious agreement while clearly struggling to get the core of his message. sensing this he says:
“Ok lets go outside and watch a fight” (fangirling begins again lol)
Since we were only halfway through the cards and he had time before his fight, he invited me to watch the fight in the stands with him so he could further explain. I was on cloud 9. To have a master share their knowledge with you happily is one of life’s greatest gifts and this was one of them.
I also knew that it would be a matter of seconds before we would get mobbed but whatever—sometimes the experience, not the information is the wisdom.
For a few minutes, Buakaw was commenting on the fight that was happening. I don’t know Thai, but I could understand from his accentuation that he was illustrating the timing of when a teep should happen by saying ‘TANG!’ —and allowed me to understand that they were missing the opportunity to throw a teep during hard punches.
“Sometimes, we struggle to accept simple answers to complex problems, expecting intricate solutions instead. Yet, the harder the problem, the simpler the solution often needs to be.”
Then the mob came as you can see from the picture above lol.
As we walked back in the tunnel, Buakaw looks at me and says, “You understand?”
I nodded my head yes gratuitously for him taking them and effort to share with me. But I could tell that he knew his point didn’t fully land. So he says:
“You watch my fight ok? Watch my fight, watch my fight ok? Watch my teep!”
So I watched his fight against Warren Stevelmans. I saw his teep. And as usual I saw Buakaw cruise to an easy victory despite how hard his opponent fought.
And as he came back to the locker room he shot a look at me: “You see!? Teep teep!!” I nodded of course and thought I understood.
Sometimes, we struggle to accept simple answers to complex problems, expecting intricate solutions instead. Yet, the harder the problem, the simpler the solution often needs to be.
Then Buakaws opponent walked in the locker room to congratulate him and get a picture. On crutches.
As they were taking pictures, I chatted with the coach of Buakaws opponent: “Hey what happened? Why the crutches?”
“We think he’s got a fractured femur. Took some hard teeps to the leg during our punch blitzes and we think thats what did it.”
And right at that moment Buakaw looks over mid picture smirking and mouthed silently at me:
“You see!?!? TEEP!!!”
Right then and there I understood exactly what he meant.
Yours in the Arts,
Kru Yai Nick Bautista
