As told to Zochada Tat and Addi Somekh
Afterword by Michael G. Vann, Ph.D.
224 pages with 80 illustrations, including maps.
December 2022. Hardcover.
Ebook also available.
$26.95 | 9781954600072 (hc) December 2022
$18.95 | 9781954600171 (pb) June 2023
From champion to refugee to martial-arts teacher, a kickboxing innovator tells of his career, remarkable survival and journey toward self-understanding.
When I was 6 years old, my grandmother told me, “The rice won’t bear grain if it stands tall, but it will if it bows.” I have always followed her advice: “Be calm, be kind, be brave.” To this day, because of my grandmother, I am not afraid of anybody.
Oum Ry grew up on a Central Cambodian island in the MeKong River in a family of silver engravers. When his family couldn’t afford his food or schooling, he lived with monks until seeking out masters of Cambodian kickboxing, a martial art called Pradal Serey. He was the smallest kid but would become national champion at 23 years old. Over 15 years, he toured Southeast Asia and without ever suffering a knock-out won more than 250 fights. After a young man’s dream-life of stardom, parties, and girls, his new wife gave birth to a child in 1975, two months before the Khmer Rouge entered Phnom Penh and pushed the country into an abyss of mass executions, disease, and famine.
Oum Ry survived the genocide though much of his family perished. He was saved many times from death in Cambodia due to fame, talent, and his resilience, but suffered a life-threatening attack during Southern California’s epic gang violence of the 1990s. Earlier, as a refugee with his young family in Chicago, Oum Ry learned English while working cleaning hotels. But within a few years, he had an investor in Long Beach, California and opened one of the first kickboxing gyms in the United States.
This book is his oral history and includes a historical introduction, maps, and photos. Like Muay Thai, Pradal Serey is used in mixed martial arts and the UFC. The book culminates with Oum Ry's return trip to Cambodia in 2022 with his daughter and coauthor Zochada to reunite with family and pass on Pradal Serey traditions to the next generation.
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS
Oum Ry was born in 1944 on a Central Cambodian island in the Mekong River to a family of silver engravers. Most of his family was killed in the Cambodian genocide but he miraculously survived, in part because of his fame as a kickboxing champion. His immigration to the United States in 1980 was sponsored by an American pastor and in 1987, he founded Long Beach Kickboxing in California, one of the oldest kickboxing gyms in the United States. His gym has been open six days a week for the last 33 years, training several kickboxing champions and keeping countless kids out of gangs.
Zochada Tat is Oum Ry’s daughter, an author, and kickboxing instructor. She took her first steps in the ring at Long Beach Kickboxing and has trained with him throughout her life. She traveled with him to Cambodia in February 2022 and helped translate his oral history.
Addi Somekh is an author and an instructor of critical thinking at University of California Santa Cruz.
Michael G. Vann is a professor of history at California State University, Sacramento, who specializes in Southeast Asia during the era of colonialism and the Cold War. He is the author of The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt: Empire, Disease, and Modernity and his work can be found in Jacobin and The Diplomat.
