Category: Muay Thai

What is Pradal Serey?

12/2/2014

With the rise in popularity of combat sports there's been an increased in many nation’s combat styles, and the art of Cambodia’s Khmer people, Pradal Serey, is no exception. The original name for Cambodia’s national art is is Kbach Kun Pradal Serey. "Kbach" translates to art, with "Kun" meaning martial or combat. "Pra" has a wide meaning but mainly refers to structure or form, and "dal" is striking or fighting. Finally "Serey" is translated as freedom. Translated whole it means, freedom (free) fighting martial arts. Other names for the art include Kun Khmer and Muay Khmer have been used.

The word Serey has may have origins in the word Srey, which meant female in ancient Khmer Cambodia. This reflects the Khmer Empire’s view that women and men were equals, as seen from a Khmer sayings "A kingdom cannot grow without women" and “Every great warrior was breast fed”. The Khmer Kingdom was said to have founded and built in the 1st century of Nokor Funan period by Queen Lieou Ye, a beginning for the nation’s acceptance of women as equals.

The art consist of strikes, clinch, throws and wrestling/grappling. As such many Pradal Serey fighters are able to transition to MMA successfully. The art form was meant to be quick and efficient so women warriors could easily dispatch enemies quickly, using efficient strikes, namely elbows and knees.

Side by side men and women fought together, often lovers defending each other in the battle field. The original form was meant for battlefield combat and is still used in the armed forces.

The Mon-Khmer dominated South East Asia with culture and language, there are 168 languages in South East Asia, 147 of them are Mon Khmer (seen in orange on map) in origin. With language there is culture which includes the martial arts. In Thailand there is Muay Thai, Laos has Muay Lao Boxing, Myanmar has Lethwei and Malaysia has Tomoi just to name a few.

These arts all have the same core style and martial arts concepts at their heat, but in Cambodia the Khmer art kept much of the wrestling and clinch work. Like all information that gets passed along and taught, some things are forgotten. Muay Thai is known for their Horse stance style of fighting which was taught within the edges of the Khmer Empire. The styles found more central within the Khmer Empire retained wrestling, throws and clinch. These fighting styles can be found in Battabong and surround provinces such as Neak Pradal Serey and Bokator.

French colonization (1850s – 1950s) of Indochina introduced western boxing, and with it brought the gloves, referees, rings, and others modernizations for sporting. Soon after other countries created and developed in the Indochina Peninsula and made their own version kickboxing sport. Muay Thai took the lead in international awareness and became the most well-known, and figurehead of the South-East Asian arts. Many other the South-East Asian nation’s arts are only now being discovered in the West as the 20th century saw many wars and despotic regimes that either prevented the promotion of the sport, or outright banned the teaching of martial arts, as was the case during the genocidal reign of the Khmer Rouge.

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