easily communicate the more complex ideas of timing, breathing, or composure— and they might not anyway. They train together in the ring but watch each other across a cultural chasm. I thought Mark would probably understand this as well as anyone. He speaks fluent Thai and has spent a good portion of his adult life in Thailand.
Mark muses aloud. “It was hard for me, figuring out what makes them tick. I watch Kru Yotong raise everybody, and he’s watching to see who wants to be there. When two little kids argue, they get the gloves put on and go fight five rounds in the ring, with all the adults cheering like crazy. I realized what it’s all about—it’s ranking.” Mark’s face lights up with the remembered revelation.
“When the fighters eat, they eat in order—like a wolf pack. The alpha eats first, the omega eats last. The whole camp is like that. The champs go first, and the little kid who lost, he gets fed last and gets picked on for a few days. The fed stay fed. It’s survival. A lot of those little kids, their parents couldn’t afford them.”
Mark develops this theme, and he’s got a destination in sight. “Kru Yotong takes them in, they don’t have anything else to fall back on. When you have nothing, and then you have a father figure or mentor, and food and training, you become connected to that person. I do the same thing here. After training we hang out, we eat together, our families know each other, they’ve all been to my house and I’ve been to theirs. Camp means camp —food, shelter, and fire.”
Mark smiles when he says this, for he’s revealed the secret.
“That sense of pride that comes from camp, that is really important. There are other factors that are important, too, that are tied to that, like honoring your traditions. Then comes the modern world, which is the business aspect, making money. If my students don’t pay I can’t run this camp. And finally, of course, there’s the primal source in every fighter, gameness. Being cut out to do what you do. But the camp has room for everyone, guys who don’t fight hold pads or find another way to fit in.
“I keep everyone so close to me, that’s what makes me successful. They’re part of a family. A lot of my students here have grown with me. It becomes a passion and makes them stronger. At the end of a hard training session, I have them all walk around with their hand up, because they’re all winners and they’re all MY winners.”
He pauses, thinking long and hard.
“That’s most of it, for a trainer. It’s about building that trust. You don’t marry someone you just met, right? The guys who are around long enough, they trust me because they see what I’m about, for the top guys and the amateurs. A trainer you don’t respect and trust you can’t learn from, so I have to maintain my integrity, you know?”
I asked Mark to elaborate on his game plans, on all the success he was having in the UFC. How was he going about it?
“That trust is crucial if you’re going to have success with a game plan in a fight. Of course, the first thing you got to think about is, Can my fighter listen to a game plan? Can he execute? Or will he be too emotional? Emotional fighters are useless to give game plans to. So are amateurs, someone too inexperienced. They can’t hear you, anyway. So with a guy like that, you don’t even tell him what the game plan is. You just train him so that what he’s doing is the game plan and he doesn’t know it.”
I think it was Cus D’Amato, the legendary boxing trainer, who said, “I get them to where they can’t do it wrong even if they tried,” meaning he would train his fighters to do the right thing until it was instinctual.
“But if a fighter can listen and stay composed, the first step is understanding the opponent. I don’t watch tape over and over, I watch just enough to know what’s happening. You have to go with your gut reaction, the first time you see the fight. Because the
Mark muses aloud. “It was hard for me, figuring out what makes them tick. I watch Kru Yotong raise everybody, and he’s watching to see who wants to be there. When two little kids argue, they get the gloves put on and go fight five rounds in the ring, with all the adults cheering like crazy. I realized what it’s all about—it’s ranking.” Mark’s face lights up with the remembered revelation.
“When the fighters eat, they eat in order—like a wolf pack. The alpha eats first, the omega eats last. The whole camp is like that. The champs go first, and the little kid who lost, he gets fed last and gets picked on for a few days. The fed stay fed. It’s survival. A lot of those little kids, their parents couldn’t afford them.”
Mark develops this theme, and he’s got a destination in sight. “Kru Yotong takes them in, they don’t have anything else to fall back on. When you have nothing, and then you have a father figure or mentor, and food and training, you become connected to that person. I do the same thing here. After training we hang out, we eat together, our families know each other, they’ve all been to my house and I’ve been to theirs. Camp means camp —food, shelter, and fire.”
Mark smiles when he says this, for he’s revealed the secret.
“That sense of pride that comes from camp, that is really important. There are other factors that are important, too, that are tied to that, like honoring your traditions. Then comes the modern world, which is the business aspect, making money. If my students don’t pay I can’t run this camp. And finally, of course, there’s the primal source in every fighter, gameness. Being cut out to do what you do. But the camp has room for everyone, guys who don’t fight hold pads or find another way to fit in.
“I keep everyone so close to me, that’s what makes me successful. They’re part of a family. A lot of my students here have grown with me. It becomes a passion and makes them stronger. At the end of a hard training session, I have them all walk around with their hand up, because they’re all winners and they’re all MY winners.”
He pauses, thinking long and hard.
“That’s most of it, for a trainer. It’s about building that trust. You don’t marry someone you just met, right? The guys who are around long enough, they trust me because they see what I’m about, for the top guys and the amateurs. A trainer you don’t respect and trust you can’t learn from, so I have to maintain my integrity, you know?”
I asked Mark to elaborate on his game plans, on all the success he was having in the UFC. How was he going about it?
“That trust is crucial if you’re going to have success with a game plan in a fight. Of course, the first thing you got to think about is, Can my fighter listen to a game plan? Can he execute? Or will he be too emotional? Emotional fighters are useless to give game plans to. So are amateurs, someone too inexperienced. They can’t hear you, anyway. So with a guy like that, you don’t even tell him what the game plan is. You just train him so that what he’s doing is the game plan and he doesn’t know it.”
I think it was Cus D’Amato, the legendary boxing trainer, who said, “I get them to where they can’t do it wrong even if they tried,” meaning he would train his fighters to do the right thing until it was instinctual.
“But if a fighter can listen and stay composed, the first step is understanding the opponent. I don’t watch tape over and over, I watch just enough to know what’s happening. You have to go with your gut reaction, the first time you see the fight. Because the
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