Bokator

Bokator (ល្បុក្កតោ, Lbokkator) is a Cambodian martial art of strikes, grappling and weapons, practiced in Cambodia and in Khmer communities abroad. UNESCO inscribed it as Kun Lbokator on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity on November 29, 2022.

Illustration inspired by a training ground in a Cambodian temple yard.

Tradition details
Khmer name	ល្បុក្កតោ
Also known as	Kun Bokator; Kun L'Bokator; L'Bokator; lobokkatao
Practice type	Martial art
Usual occasion	Festivals, tournaments, before fights
Subjects	Crafts & Material Culture
Creator pages	Ith Pen, San Kim Sean

Names

The full name is Kun L'Bokator (គុនល្បុក្កតោ). The word Bokator appears in the first Khmer dictionary, compiled in 1938 by Samdech Sangharach Chuon Nath. It is commonly linked to the phrase bok tao (បុកតោ), "to pound the lion," and Kun Bokator means "the art of pounding the lion." The same dictionary gives a narrower meaning: a short stick fixed along the forearm, from elbow to hand, used to strike or to shield, or a fighting technique with that stick. Kun refers to fighting, leaping and facing an opponent, and lbokkator also names techniques fought from a half-kneeling position.

A founding legend tells of a lion that attacked a village. A warrior armed only with a knife fought it bare-handed and killed it with a single knee strike. In another telling, the hero defeated the lion with only a sword.

Practice

Bokator combines striking, grappling, wrestling, ground fighting and weapons. Fighters may attack with nearly every part of the body, including the knees, elbows, hands and feet, and the art was made for real fighting and victory rather than for sport. Close-range strikes with the elbows and knees are its foundation, together with shin kicks, submissions and ground fighting. Its range is wider than that of Pradal Serey, the more condensed ring style of Khmer boxing.

The system is counted in 341 sets drawn from life and nature, with more than 8,000 unarmed techniques. Many forms follow the movements of animals: birds, horses, tigers, elephants, monkeys, crocodiles, crabs, snakes, dragons and ducks. Others follow the everyday work of people. Grandmaster San Kim Sean has said that some movements come from lions, snakes and wild boars, and some from plants and trees. Modern Bokator as taught under San Kim Sean had 9,750 movements in 2020.

Contemporary Bokator is taught in twelve gates. Gates one to eight build physical fitness, and gates nine to twelve teach weapons. The weapons include knives, swords, spears, arrows, rice-threshing sticks, short and long sticks, shields, bamboo staffs and a wooden lotus stick of about 20 centimeters (8 inches). The krama, the traditional Khmer woven scarf, can itself serve as a weapon, and the style trains fighters to defend against attacks from all eight directions.

Practitioners wear a krama around the waist in place of a belt, and its color shows their level of skill. The Cambodia Tourism Association gives seven colors in this order: white, green, red, brown, blue, black and gold. Siemreap.net and UNESCO ICM give white, green, blue, red and brown before black. Black krama has ten degrees, and reaching it takes at least ten years of training and at least 1,000 techniques. The gold krama is the highest rank, given to a master who has learned almost all the techniques.

Fighters wear uniforms modeled on those of the Khmer soldiers of the past. A silk cord, the sangvar, is tied around the head and upper arms. It was once believed to give strength and is now worn for ceremony. Training traditionally begins with a prayer of respect to Brahma. Before every fight, fighters perform the ceremonial dance Tvay Bangkum Romleuk Kun Kru, which remains an essential part of Bokator. Masters with at least five years of experience teach new generations, often from their homes, and men and women train together several times a week.

Meaning and significance

Bokator is part of Cambodian customs, culture and daily life, and it is held up as a symbol of Khmer morality. Its postures and gestures express gentleness, agility, vitality, strength and the life of society. Bokator forms live on in Khmer folk dance, folk games and classical dance, and its techniques shaped the combat scenes of Lakhon Bassac. Practitioners meet for competitions and entertainment at Khmer New Year, Pchum Ben and other festivals, and Bokator has been performed at Kathin.

History

Oral tradition holds that Bokator, or an early form of it, was the close-combat system of Cambodian armies before the founding of Angkor. It is believed to reach back to the first century, when early Khmer people copied the movements of animals to survive. A seventh-century inscription at Vat Phu praises King Jayavarman I for his knowledge of combat with elephants, cavalry and men. A ninth-century inscription at Thnal Baray portrays King Yasovarman I as a wrestler who could overcome several strong opponents. Two large statues of wrestlers made for King Jayavarman IV, dated to about 930, were found at Koh Ker. Angkorian records treat boxing as a recognized activity. In 966 a boxing match was held by royal order, and the winner received a rice field.

Temple carvings from the ninth century on, at Preah Ko, Banteay Srei, Angkor Wat and the Baphuon, show fighting scenes. The reliefs of the Bayon show many of the arm locks, hand locks and neck locks still used in Bokator. Many people trace Bokator to the twelfth-century walls of Angkor Wat; UNESCO ICM states that clear evidence for this is lacking. In the sixteenth century Longvek was Cambodia's military center and a meeting place for scholars and martial artists.

In the nineteenth century King Norodom held and watched martial arts fights in the royal palace. Auguste Pavie, who lived in Cambodia from 1876 to 1879, saw stick fighting and wrestling at festivals. The bouts were held with respect, order and discipline, and the crowd applauded controlled strikes. Under the French protectorate (1863 to 1953), Bokator was kept alive in monasteries and remote areas, and monks and village elders passed it on. In 1920 the French colonial administration banned Buddhist monks from teaching or taking part in Khmer martial arts. In April 1930 King Sisowath Monivong invited Resident Superior Fernand Lavit to watch traditional martial arts in the Royal Palace. Before the Second World War, Phnom Penh held competitions on sand rather than in a ring. Members of the Khmer Issarak, the anti-colonial movement founded in 1945, practiced Bokator. Under the Khmer Republic (1970 to 1975) the practice raised suspicions of mutiny, and fighters trained in secret.

Under the Khmer Rouge, from 1975 to 1979, practitioners of traditional arts were killed, fled as refugees, or stopped teaching and hid. Many Bokator practitioners were killed, deported or forced into labor, and some masters concealed who they were. Bokator was taught and practiced only in secret, and the regime destroyed its written records. When the regime fell in January 1979, very few masters were alive. Some fled abroad, and those who stayed could not practice, so the art was nearly forgotten. The Vietnamese occupation that followed outlawed traditional Cambodian martial arts.

San Kim Sean learned Bokator at 13. He survived the Khmer Rouge years and went to the United States, where he taught Hapkido in Houston, later moved to Long Beach, California, and taught Bokator to Cambodians. Sources give different years for his return to Cambodia: 1992 (UNESCO ICM), 1993 (CGTN) and 1995 (English Wikipedia). In 2001 he moved back to Phnom Penh, began teaching local youth with the king's permission, and sought out the surviving masters, the lokru. He is widely credited with reviving modern Bokator and is often called its father. He also wrote its rulebook. More than ten surviving masters helped restore the art, compiling documents and founding schools, clubs and associations across Cambodia with the attention of government leaders.

The Cambodia Bokator Federation was founded on April 24, 2004. That year San Kim Sean also founded the government-approved Cambodia Bokator Academy, and training centers opened across the country. The first national Bokator competition was held at the Olympic Stadium in Phnom Penh in 2006, with 20 lokru taking part. Bokator was introduced to the World Martial Arts Union in Chungju, South Korea, in 2009, and Cambodia took part in the Chungju World Martial Arts Festival in 2010. Since 2012 the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts has recorded masters, clubs, communities and possible students, and it has identified 76 high-level practitioners to pass on the knowledge. In 2020, masters from several provinces formed an interprovincial network to share training methods and document their knowledge. UNESCO inscribed the art in 2022, and Bokator became a discipline at the Southeast Asian Games in 2023.

Variations

Techniques and training traditions vary by region and by master. Bokator master Om Yom names Svay Chrum, Kraing Leav and Pungro in Kampong Chhnang Province as former training grounds, and the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces still train in that area. Bokator is often confused with Pradal Serey or used as a general name for Khmer boxing. In its wider sense, Bokator is the general name for the Khmer martial arts, Kbach Kun Boran Khmer. These are divided into bare-handed fighting (Atmani Yuth), which includes Kun Khmer boxing and Baok Chambab wrestling, and fighting with weapons (Ani Yuth). In its narrower sense, Bokator is one style among them. Some people claim that San Kim Sean invented the name and style, and some dismiss Bokator as a modern version of the old Khmer tradition.

Bokator is regarded as having two forms of fighting. Divine fighting is shown in the galleries of Angkor Wat, in combats of Rama, Hanuman and other beings. Human fighting is shown on the walls of Angkor Thom, built under King Jayavarman VII.

Community

Bokator is kept by Cambodian masters, instructors, apprentices and young people. Community schools operate in thirteen Cambodian provinces, with the largest number of schools in Phnom Penh and more in Siem Reap. Its grandmasters include Ith Pen, Sen Sam Ath, San Kim Sean, Ros Serei, Am Yom, Suong Neng, Ponh Keun, Voeng Sophal, Ke Sam On, Kim Chiev, Chet Ay and Kao Kob. The Cambodia Kun Bokator Federation, created under the National Olympic Committee of Cambodia with support from the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, runs national training, workshops and seminars and documents Bokator techniques. Since 2020 the ministry has worked to bring Bokator into formal and non-formal education. Bokator is also part of the training of Cambodia's police and military, and tournaments are held at regional and national levels.

Bokator is practiced outside Cambodia, including in the United States, Europe and Australia, with the support of the Cambodian diaspora. Bokator representatives have given seminars in Japan, the United States and France. The documentary Surviving Bokator follows San Kim Sean's work to revive the art. Tharoth Sam uses Bokator in the fight scenes of the film First They Killed My Father.

References