Bando is one of those martial arts that a lot of people have heard of, but don't really know what it's all about. In this feature, we'll discuss bando's origins, major precepts, and combat effectiveness.
Burma, now known as Myanmar, borders India, China, and Thailand, and as a result possesses a rich martial arts heritage. As with the fabled Shaolin Temple of China, Buddhist monks from India introduced the martial arts into the country a thousand years ago. Later, Chinese styles filtered their way south, merging with earlier influences to form the martial body of knowledge collectively known as thaing. Thaing includes both unarmed arts, of which bando is the most widely known, as well as arts of the sword, staff, and spear. Other unarmed arts include naban, or wrestling, and lethwei, or Burmese boxing. Naban, derived from the strong heritage of Indian wrestling, and Burmese boxing, considered more powerful than Thai boxing, were both powerful arts. So why is bando more widely known today?
Bando can be thought of as a unified martial art that includes hand strikes, kicks, and grappling moves. This places bando in a select group of unified arts, but what truly sets bando apart is its modelling of some quite unique animal forms. The following table describes the animal forms of bando and each form's characteristics.
Universal to these animal forms are basic precepts of combat, including an emphasis on footwork to maneuver outside the opponent's arms, much like Enshin karate's moving to the opponent's blind side before striking. As a unified art, bando transitions quickly to grappling after the initial strike--the ability to seize and grapple is retained even when wielding a weapon. For this reason, bando has a reputation for being very effective--it's one of the base styles of the Dog Brothers' Stickgrappling style, for example.
Knowledge of bando is even more limited because of the current political state of affairs in Burma, now known as Myanmar. Because the free exchange of information is not permitted by the Myanmar government, knowledge of arts like bando will still remain secluded to that region.
Nevertheless, bando remains a highly effective martial art, one that serves its practitioners well in terms of breadth of techniques and adaptability to different fighting situations. As we explore more "secret" martial arts of the world, we'll post our findings here at About Martial Arts.
Lethwei or Lethawae (Read as "Let-whae", but quickly) ; also known as Burmese Boxing and Myanmar Traditional Boxing, is a form of kickboxing which originated in Myanmar (Burma). Lethwei is in many ways similar to its siblings from neighboring South-East Asian countries such as Muay Thai from Thailand.
Muay Thai is referred to as the science of 8 limbs, so Lethwei can be called the science of 9 limbs, due to the allowance of head butts. In comparison, Lethwei can be interpreted as being bolder and more extreme. The techniques are a bit slower and stronger than in the other Southeast Asian kickboxing forms, possibly because it has more Indian influence than the other styles.
There are records recording Lethwei style matches dating back to the Pyu empire in Burma. Ancient Myanmar armies successfully used Lethwei, Bando and its armed sibling Banshay in winning many wars against neighboring countries.
Participants fight without gloves or protection, wrapping only their hands in hemp or gauze cloth. Rules are similar to Muay Thai but allow and encourage all manner of take downs along with head butts.
In fact until the mid 1930s when Muay Thai was "modernized" (the introduction of timed rounds, western style boxing gloves, and elimination of headbutts), both Lethwei and Muay Thai fought under the same rules.
Fights are traditionally held outdoors in sandpits instead of rings, but in modern times they are now held in rings. Popular techniques in Lethwei include leg kicks, knees, elbows, head butts, raking knuckle strikes, and take downs. In the past, sometimes biting and gouging were also permitted in the matches.
Matches traditionally and ultimately would go until a fighter could no longer continue. In earlier times, there no draws, only a win or loss by knockout. No point system existed. Extreme bloodshed was very common and death in the ring was no surprise. Nowadays in the match, if a knockout occurs, the boxer is revived and has the option of continuing; as a result, defense, conditioning, and learning to absorb punishment are very important. Burmese boxers spend a great deal of time preparing the body to absorb impact and conditioning their weapons to dish it out.
Matches today are carried out in both the traditional manner and a more modern offshoot started in 1996, the Myanma Traditional boxing. The modern style has changed to make the contests more of an organized sport under the government's organization. The goal seems to be to make it a more marketable sport similar to Muay Thai. Some Lethwei boxers tried to participate in kickboxing and Muay Thai matches outside Myanmar but their extreme style and techniques were banned in worldwide kickboxing and Muay Thai matches thus making them unadaptable to professional sport fighting contests, and consequently unable to win any major titles. There are a number of Lethwei boxers who do compete in Thailand professionally with varying degrees of success.
It should be noted that the modern style of Myanma Traditional Boxing greatly resembles Muay Thai in its sporting outlook, and not quite the more rough and tumble fighting of its rural roots.
In many traditional and rural fights, members from the audience are welcomed onto the ring to fight with the professional boxers. Sometimes, fighters among the audience successfully knock out the boxers in the ring.
Many of the ethnic groups within Burma have their own variant of the indigenous martial arts giving them sometimes distinctly different styles of Lethwei that make for exciting action packed matches.
The Kachin variant of Lethwei is referred to as soft (relaxed). There is very little wasted motion or effort. Lethwei matches usually start in long range with kicks to the legs and raking punches to the face in an effort to draw blood. As the match continues, the fighters often end up in a clinch and the primary techniques used are standing grappling coupled with various takedowns and sweeps. The preferred finishing techniques are head-butts, elbows, and knees. The Kachin Practitioner generally prefers to fight from the clinch and tends not to fall after missing with a long distance strike, opting instead to follow low line kicks and raking punches into close range.
If the sport is viewed in the context of preparing one for individual combat you can see that it not only teaches timing, distance, and movement but also the ability to absorb and deliver punishment, thereby winning a war of attrition. The goal is not so much the winning and losing but fighting hard and learning lessons about survival.
Naban is a term for the various grappling martial arts of Myanmar. Techniques include joint locks, strikes to pressure points, and choke holds. Any part of the opponent's body is a legal target.
Naban is a Burmese unarmed grappling/wrestling/ground fighting art and is derived from Indian wrestling. It looks at the ground as a place the fight could go because of gravity, so be prepared, and not as a place to take the fight. It is all about control, enough control to stay out of harms way. They use submissions, biting, gouging, strikes, or whatever is handy.
Naban is a cousin of similar wrestling arts found in places like Cambodia and Tibet. It was originally based on old Indian styles of wrestling like Malla-yuddha. It became popular in rural areas where it was often performed at festivals alongside Lethwei (Burmese boxing). Today, Naban's practice is kept up mostly by the tribes of Myanmar. The Chin, Kachin and Karen have a reputation for their skilled wrestlers.
They will usually use the striking or fouling tactics to start and either finish them this way or use it to set your opponent set up for a submission. One of the main aspects they teach is the neutralization of bad positions.
They teach the ability to stop a person from finishing you when they are in the dominant position. They believe if you can stop the other guy from hurting you, you won't lose. Each dominant position will have a correlating neutralization and you learn to escape. Palm strikes and kicks with the sole of the foot are allowed in Naban competitions.
Sebenarnya saya baru saja bertemu dengan pengamal Bando, dan saya juga berinteraksi dengan beliau bila masa lapang. Beliau dapat melihat latar belakang beladiri saya, cumalah tak tahu apa aliran saya. Aduh, beliau juga tahu teknik Sankajo Ni Waza/Sankyo Ura Waza!
Mungkin saya akan beli sesuatu alat latihan yang jimat modal dan ruang tempat lepas raya, tapi beli pun praktis striking juga. Sebab grappling itu bahaya, dan buat ukemi juga berisiko tinggi tanpa tatami.
Post time 15-1-2009 11:52 AM
变色卡
Author
