Yodsanklai's powerful kick thundered through the ring, hard and deep—but at the instant of impact it was blocked. His base shifted, his center of gravity faltered for a heartbeat.
Yogan didn't rush recklessly to exploit the opening. Instead, instinct guided a new and unfamiliar way of generating power. He exhaled sharply and snapped out a fierce, axe-like kick at the very moment Yodsanklai's weight was on his supporting leg. His shin struck low, not at the thigh but at the right calf, the tender band of muscle that anchored the veteran's stance.
"Pat!"
A muffled crack echoed through the gym.
A sharp, tingling numbness shot up from Yodsanklai's calf into his nerves. He rocked back two steps, surprise flashing across his usually impassive face. Then—something rarer—excitement.
He raised a hand to stop the exchange and, pointing to his own leg, said in halting English:
> "You… kicked here… not thigh… why? This idea… very dangerous! Very smart!"
The condescension he had worn as naturally as his shorts vanished. For the first time he studied the young fighter before him as an equal, not as a foreign pupil. He saw not only Yogan's unparalleled reflexes but also a tactical intelligence capable of founding an entire school of fighting.
Yodsanklai understood in that moment: this UFC champion hadn't come to Thailand merely to "learn" Muay Thai. He had come to absorb its nutrients, to graft its best elements onto his own style, and to build something the sport had never seen—something perfectly suited to modern mixed-rules combat.
The sparring stopped and the discussion began. By the end of the session Yodsanklai had formally agreed to serve as Yogan's technical adviser and chief training partner for the next month, helping him develop his striking arsenal. Their relationship now resembled that of two master craftsmen collaborating rather than a traditional master and student.
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Training in hell
From that day forward a study of hellish principles began.
Before dawn each morning Yogan went into the gym's backyard and kicked bare-footed at tough banana trees, striking until his shinbones rang. Pain came first—white-hot, excruciating—followed by swelling and numbness, and finally a strange loss of sensation. Whenever he staggered from exhaustion Yodsanklai pressed a warm herbal pack against the bruised skin and murmured:
> "Your idea is lethal. But to use it, you must wield the fiercest weapon. You must turn your leg bones into blades."
Besides toughening his limbs, Yogan immersed himself in the hell of the clinch. Hour after hour he wrestled with Thailand's most skilled neck-fighters, learning not flashy knee strikes but the subtler arts—how Muay Thai athletes control an opponent's center of gravity, how they generate explosive power from stillness, how they suffocate posture and breath. Sweat poured down like rain, soaking the mats. His neck and shoulders burned raw; more than once his vision went black from oxygen deprivation. Yet each bout dragged his clinch defense and counter-control to a new level.
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Re-engineering power
Most critical of all was the evolution of his power-generation mechanics.
"Strength does not come from your arms," Yodsanklai reminded him, guiding his stance with callused hands. "It rises from the ground."
He showed Yogan how to twist his feet into the floor like tree roots, feeling force surge upward through the ankles, knees, and hips before whipping outward into fist or foot. Using Muay Thai's basic principles as his "engine" and his battle-hardened shins as his "warhead," Yogan began polishing a brand-new trump card.
Drawing on his own deep knowledge of human anatomy from a previous life, he refined the technique into a precise calf-kick system. After thousands of repetitions on sandbags and live partners, a unique set of leg attacks emerged.
This was not the crude low sweep of old Muay Thai, nor the obvious calf kick popularized by Pereira. Yogan's version was surgical. He used his shin like a scalpel, striking the common peroneal nerve on the outside of the opponent's calf again and again. Within seconds half the leg would go numb, muscle control would falter, and mobility would wither like a flower starved of water.
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Building the "Law Net"
A weapon alone wasn't enough; he needed a tactical ecosystem to deploy it. Yogan studied how to make opponents expose their calves willingly. He combined the counter-punching concepts of Mayweather boxing with the agile footwork of Sanda and the subtle Thai blocks Yodsanklai had taught him. Out of this fusion grew what he called, privately, the "Law Net"—a defensive-movement system designed to lure aggression.
In future fights he would present a tight shell, dancing just out of range, inviting opponents forward. The moment they stepped into the trap they would be met with the brutal precision of his calf kicks, their foundation crumbling under them.
His imagination didn't stop there. Watching footage of Edson Barboza—the Brazilian king of the leg—he wondered how to merge Sanda's stealthy spinning back-kick with Muay Thai's piercing front-kick to produce a more threatening, linear strike. These concepts became side projects for his growing arsenal.
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Transformation of body and mind
With punishing training and unlimited nutritional support, Yogan's body transformed. No longer bound by the extreme restrictions of featherweight weight cuts, he ate three hearty meals a day, each one a measured balance of high-quality protein and complex carbohydrates. His muscles thickened and firmed visibly.
From a depleted post-cut 88 kilograms his walking weight climbed to 92 kilograms and beyond. The mirror no longer reflected a lean featherweight champion but a sculpted cruiserweight filled with dense, measured power.
Equally important, Thailand's relaxed, faith-suffused rhythm seeped into his mentality. He no longer chased the adrenaline spike of a single knockout. He began to relish the art of slowly disassembling an opponent, of controlling every beat of the fight. His style grew calmer, more precise, more efficient—less a prodigy's flurry, more a ruthless fighting machine.
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The first weapon forged
A month later, when Yogan boarded the plane back to the United States, he was no longer the new featherweight king who relied solely on skill and reflexes. He carried with him the first special weapon of his future campaign: a calf-kick system and tactical net capable of striking fear into every opponent in his path.
But he also knew he was only at the beginning. In Yodsanklai's camp he had achieved the breakthrough from "zero" to "one," the theoretical foundation of an entirely new arsenal. To make that theory an unbeatable weapon inside the Octagon, it had to be pressure-tested against masters of many styles.
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Seeking the Dao
Under Yodsanklai's introductions Yogan began a pilgrimage across Thailand's legendary Muay Thai gyms. No longer appearing as a UFC champion but as a devout seeker of the Dao, he arrived at one training hall after another with a translator, a small team, and generous consulting fees. In each gym he exchanged techniques with champions, sparred with specialists, and filed away their secrets.
He was no longer merely learning—he was synthesizing, distilling, refining. Each stop added another thread to the tapestry he was weaving: a combat system not tied to any one nation or tradition, but born of them all.
By the time his month's odyssey ended, Yogan had ceased to be simply an athlete. He was becoming an architect of violence, a strategist of movement, a craftsman forging himself into a weapon only he could wield.
---more chapter available in p@tréøñ(Atoki_29)