Throughout the month of February we’ll be seeing former Lumpinee Champion Damian Alamos at Diesel Gym. Ahead of his first lesson this month (February 10th) we’ll be giving a brief rundown on who he is, and why he’s such a good boxer.
Damien started off martial arts training at the age of 8, a similar age to when most Thai’s start. He began his training in Savate, the French kickboxing style (which itself played a large role in developing karate), while training Muay Thai, under the tutelage of his Uncle on the side. In France, Muay Thai competitions required a minimum age of 10 years, meaning Damien had to hold off competition for two years before finally having his first small bout.
At the age of 14, Damian had his first fight in Thailand, while training at Por Pramuk gym, which is most famous for developing kickboxing legend Buakaw. Going back and forth from Thailand, training the same way Thai fighters do – is what gave Alamos his distinct highly technical style. This style saw him not only win the Lumpinee Championship, but become the first Non-Thai to ever successfully defend the title.
Active lead leg
Alamos won the Lumpinee Title against Kongfah in 2012, and we can see his style on display. Damien Alamos fights a very long game in Muay Thai, keeping distance with a pawing jab and very long teeps. This distance allows for more visible feints, which make up a large part of Damien’s game.
Damien makes use of both traditional feints, but he combines them with double attacks and chambers, to keep his offence unpredictable. When we look at the fight, or even sparring footage, we can see Damien has a very active lead leg. Those who are fans of Jonathan Haggerty will know that the active lead leg in Muay Thai can serve as both a needling annoyance and a powerful weapon all in one.
Damien will harass the lead leg of his opponent with his inside leg kick, before mixing it up with the lead body kick. The lead body kick in particular is very hard to see coming as Alamos only uses a very small switch in order to launch it. This means the kick comes up quicker and almost quieter.
When the lead leg isn’t kicking, it is nearly always bouncing. A bouncing lead leg serves two main purposes, it keeps your lead leg mobile, which makes it easier to both throw a teep or check a kick, and it also makes the it harder to see the beginnings of a teep. All this perpetual motion keeps Damien active both in the ring and on the mind of his opponent.
Chambering
Chambering is a different technique, but serves a similar purpose and the majority of the time great fighters use them, they don’t realise that they use them. In martial arts like karate and taekwondo, the fighter will raise their bent leg before kicking, this being called a chamber. The idea of the chamber is that in addition to helping you form the kick, it is hard for the opponent to know what kick comes out of the chamber.
In Muay Thai kicks are usually not chambered, although some fighters like Samart Payakaroon do make use of them. The chamber instead comes from switching the legs. When a fighter switches their legs to load for a switch kick, they force the opponent to react to what kick they think is coming. The truth is from a switched position, it’s very hard to know if your opponent is going to throw to the leg, body, head or even to just throw a punch from that position. Across his career, Damien Alamos has used all of these techniques. When Alamos switches, he has forced his opponent to guess, and that guess can be wrong.
Countering
This constant motion, be it through traditional feints, chambering or double attacks apply pressure to the opponent and this will normally result in an opponent who makes more predictable attacks. The more predictable the attack, the easier it is to counter, and Alamos is very good on the counter.
While not usually thought of as being a massive power puncher in the same way a fighter like Pornsaneh might be – Alamos’ hands are very quick and he’s able to find tiny openings and capitalise on them in a microsecond. This saw him drop Kongfah in the third round of their contest. Kongfah stepped in with a double jab, something that Damien himself had been doing earlier in the fight, and in doing so, made the mistake of dropping his right hand from guard, allowing Alamos to very quickly throw a hook, dropping the Thai. From there Alamos upped the pace, with flurries of punches and elbows when close enough, to try to secure a second knock down.
There are plenty more techniques that Damien Alamos uses to defeat his opponents, but I’ll let the man himself explain when he comes to Diesel Gym next week.
