CAMBODIA VS. CHINA

Bokator could not look more different from Chinese kung fu, and yet they have some interesting commonalities — technically, culturally and historically. Bokator includes a Cambodian kickboxing component known as pradal serey and a Cambodian wrestling component called jap bap. Similarly, kung fu includes san da, the Chinese kickboxing style, and shuai chiao, Chinese traditional wrestling.

It’s been this way for a long time. In The Method of Chinese Wrestling, shuai chiao master Tong Zhongyi (1879-1963) writes that in ancient China, wrestlers learned both striking and grappling. In the same way, bokator students traditionally learned both wrestling and kickboxing.

Eyewitness evidence: When I was students was which spans wrestling, kicking, punching throwing and ground fighting. Similarly, in Cambodia, my classmates and I had to learn both jap bap and pradal serey to pass the exam for black krama.