CULTURE & RITUAL

The lethwei yay could be described as a fight dance. It is performed before the fight as a way to showcase the fighter's skills, and as a victory dance after the fight.

Before modernisation, especially in colonial times, the pre-fight dance was more commonly referred to as han yay. Performed in accordance with the tempo of the traditional orchestra, it incorporated a much more elaborate dance and show of skills. Boastful poetry was sometimes recited along with the dance.

A documented example: at the Thein Pyu Stadium in Yangon on 10 December 2017, Dave Leduc executed his ceremonial fight dance, the lethwei yay, announcing the start of his match against Corentin Jallon.

The lekkha moun is the traditional gesture performed by Lethwei fighters to challenge their opponents with courage and respect.

It is a solo gesture, made by the fighter with his own two arms. He claps three times with the right palm into the triangle-shaped hole formed by bending the left arm. The clapping hand must be in the form of a cup, while the left hand is placed under the right armpit.

The lekkha moun is done at the beginning of the lethwei yay and can also be done while fighting. It is usually confused with the lethwei yay, but the two are different things: the lekkha moun is done along with the lethwei yay.

The gesture is described as inspired by birds of prey, like the eagle, as they flap their wings when flying and hunting.

In the 10 December 2017 fight at the Thein Pyu Stadium, after performing the lethwei yay, Dave Leduc challenged Corentin Jallon with the lekkha moun just before the first exchange.

The hsaing waing is a traditional Burmese folk musical ensemble that accompanies numerous forms of rituals, performances and ceremonies. Burmese scholarship recognises five main types of hsaing waing; one of them, the bala hsaing, is performed at celebratory occasions such as weddings, Buddhist ordainment rituals (shinbyu), ear-piercing ceremonies, funerals, Lethwei competitions and pagoda commemorations. The earliest pictorial evidence of the ensemble dates to the 1600s.

Its instruments include the pat waing, a circle of pitched hand drums played with the bare hands by a player seated in the middle; the kyi waing, small bronze gongs in a circular frame; the maung hsaing, a gong chime made of larger bronze gongs in a rectangular frame; the hne, a double-reed oboe; the si, a bell; the wa, a clapper; and the lingwin, cymbals that are typically made of bronze.

Reference sources, which give no period for it, say that in ancient times matches took place in sand pits instead of rings. Boxers fought without protective equipment, only wrapping their hands in hemp or gauze. Back then, Burmese boxing champions would enter the ring and call for open challenges. An 1893 account describes it this way: “At a Burmese boxing match, a champion will jump into the ring and dance about, smacking his chest and arms and cracking his fingers, challenging all comers.”

Sweeps, throws and take-downs are permitted techniques in Lethwei. Tun Tun Min's first fight, at the age of 9, was one of the amateur Lethwei fights fought on the sand and not yet in a ring.

Traditional matches are still fought throughout Myanmar, especially during holidays or celebration festivals like Thingyan, the Burmese New Year festival, which usually falls in the middle of April.

In modern times, the sport is kept alive in Lower Burma, in Mon State and Karen State, where matches are held for events such as New Year's celebrations. One documented card is the Karen New Year Festival at Taung Ka Lay, Hpa-an, on 8 January 2019, where Saw Nga Man fought Parinya M.U.Den; the result is recorded as a draw.

Tun Tun Min started his professional career fighting for prize money in Lethwei fights in pagodas and other religious festivals.

Although popular throughout Myanmar, Lethwei has been primarily and historically associated with the Karen people of the Kayin State; a 2001 encyclopedia is the cited source for the statement that the vast majority of competitive Lethwei fighters are ethnolinguistically of Karen descent, a claim that is not quantified.

WLC 8: Karen Spirit was held on 5 May 2019 at the Chit Tu Myaing Park in Hpa-an. One description of the event calls it the first major Lethwei event held in Kayin State, and calls Kayin State the epicentre for Lethwei culture, where the sport is held in higher regard among the Kayin.

Karen Lethwei Fighters

• Lone Chaw — of Karen descent, born in a village in the Ayeyarwady division. He became the Openweight Champion in 2006 and lost the Openweight World title to Saw Nga Man in 2009.
• Saw Nga Man — an ethnic Karen fighter who won the Openweight Lethwei Golden Belt from Lone Chaw in 2009 and lost it to Tun Tun Min on 21 September 2014. He signed an exclusive contract with the World Lethwei Championship in 2017 and announced his retirement on 9 January 2019.

Wikipedia's Lethwei article says the sport went through many years of suppression during the British colonial rule of Burma and was revived under General Ne Win's nationalistic government. In 1996, the Myanmar Traditional Lethwei Federation (MTLF), a branch of Myanmar's Ministry of Health and Sports, added the modern Lethwei rules for the occasion of the Golden Belt Championship in Yangon.

The World Lethwei Championship (WLC) was a Lethwei promotion based in Yangon, described as Myanmar's first international Lethwei promotion. In 2019 it broadcast WLC 7: Mighty Warriors, the first Lethwei event shown internationally live on UFC Fight Pass. Its most recent card was WLC 14 on 25 September 2020.

The Canadian fighter Dave Leduc defeated the reigning champion Tun Tun Min to become the first non-Burmese to win the Lethwei Golden Belt title. International media coverage of the sport increased following his arrival in 2016. He married Moldovan model Irina Terehova in a nationally televised traditional Burmese wedding ceremony in Yangon and became a superstar celebrity in Myanmar.