Tradition

Bokator

ល្បុក្កតោ

Bokator (ល្បុក្កតោ, Lbokkator) is a Cambodian martial art of strikes, grappling and weapons, practiced in Cambodia and in Khmer communities abroad.[1][2] UNESCO inscribed it as Kun Lbokator on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity on November 29, 2022.[3][4]

Names

The full name is Kun Lbokator (គុនល្បុក្កតោ).[5][6] The name joins bok, "to pound," and tao, the lion, so that Kun Lbokator means "pounding a lion."[5][7] The dictionary of Samdech Sangharach Chuon Nath 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.[4][2] Kun refers to fighting, leaping and facing an opponent, and lbokkator also names techniques fought from a half-kneeling position.[2]

A founding legend tells of a soldier who beat a lion that attacked villagers, using a stick with hand and knee techniques.[4] In another telling, the hero defeated the lion with only a sword.[8]

Practice

Wooden staffs of two lengths leaning against a fence.
Short and long staffs used in Bokator. Photo: Newnewbalance, CC BY-SA 4.0

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.[8][1] Close-range strikes with the elbows and knees are its foundation, together with shin kicks, submissions and ground fighting.[4][9] Its range is wider than that of Pradal Serey, the more condensed ring style of Khmer boxing.[9]

The system is counted in 341 sets drawn from life and nature, with more than 8,000 unarmed techniques.[9] 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.[4] Grandmaster San Kim Sean said that some movements come from lions, snakes and wild boars, and some from plants and trees.[10] Modern Bokator as taught under San Kim Sean had 9,750 movements in 2020.[8]

Contemporary Bokator is taught in twelve gates. Gates one to eight build physical fitness, and gates nine to twelve teach weapons.[4] 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).[4][1] 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.[4][10]

Practitioners wear a krama around the waist in place of a belt, and its color shows their level of skill.[8][10] 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.[4][9][8] Black krama has ten degrees, and reaching it takes at least ten years of training and at least 1,000 techniques.[4][9] The gold krama is the highest rank, given to a master who has learned almost all the techniques.[4]

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.[4][2] Training traditionally begins with a prayer of respect to Brahma.[2] Masters with at least five years of practice pass on their knowledge to new generations, and women have an equal chance to train.[5]

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.[4] Bokator forms live on in Khmer folk dance, folk games and classical dance, and its techniques shaped the combat scenes of Lakhon Bassac.[4][2] Practitioners meet for competitions and entertainment at Khmer New Year, Pchum Ben and other festivals, and Bokator has been performed at Kathin.[4][2]

History

A black-and-white photograph of two fighters in a ring surrounded by spectators.
A Cambodian boxing match, 1930.

UNESCO's listing dates Bokator back to the first century.[11] San Kim Sean traced it to before the Angkor period, when the ancestors of the Khmer lived by fighting and learned from the movements of wild animals.[10]

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.[4][1] Many people trace Bokator to the twelfth-century walls of Angkor Wat; UNESCO ICM states that clear evidence for this is lacking.[8] Longvek, in what is now Kampong Chhnang province, was known as a gathering place for scholars and martial arts experts, and from the end of the Angkorian era it was the heart of the country's military.[12]

Under the French protectorate (1863 to 1953), Bokator was kept alive in monasteries and remote areas, and monks and village elders passed it on.[4] The news agency Agence France-Presse describes the art as discouraged by the French colonial rulers.[13] The master Om Yom recalls that as a child under the Lon Nol government (1970 to 1975), Bokator could not be practiced freely because it was linked to opposing forces, so he studied it in secret.[12]

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.[1][4] Bokator was taught and practiced only in secret, and the regime destroyed its written records.[8][2] 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.[4] The Vietnamese occupation that followed outlawed traditional Cambodian martial arts.[1][5]

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.[14][3][8] Sources give different years for his return to Cambodia: 1992 (UNESCO ICM), 1993 (CGTN) and 1995 (English Wikipedia).[8][14][1] 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.[1][9] He is widely credited with reviving modern Bokator and is often called its father. He also wrote its rulebook.[1][8][14] 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.[4]

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.[4][8] The first national Bokator competition was held at the Olympic Stadium in Phnom Penh in 2006, with 20 lokru taking part.[1][9] 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.[10][2] 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.[2] UNESCO inscribed the art in 2022, and Bokator became a discipline at the Southeast Asian Games in 2023, held in Phnom Penh.[1][11][13]

Variations

Techniques and training traditions vary by region and by master. Bokator master Om Yom names the communes of Kraing Leav, Pungro and Svay Chrum, in Rolea B'ier district of Kampong Chhnang Province, as places once known for martial arts training. He says the national military still trains many of its forces there.[12] Bokator is often confused with Pradal Serey or used as a general name for Khmer boxing.[9] 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.[2] 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.[9]

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.[10]

Community

An older man in a krama and headband holding a fighting stance.
Grandmaster San Kim Sean, who led the revival of Bokator, 2023. Photo: Ali.qaradaghy23, CC BY-SA 4.0

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.[1][9] An IntoCambodia.org article, published on a Ministry of Foreign Affairs site, names twelve grandmasters who have worked to safeguard and pass on the tradition: Ith Pen, Sen Sam Art, San Kim Sean, Ros Serei, Am Yom, Suong Neng, Ponh Keun, Voeng Sophal, Ke Sam On, Kim Chiev, Chet Ay and Kao Kob.[5] The same article says the national federation, which it calls the Cambodia Kun Lbokator Federation, was formed under the National Olympic Committee of Cambodia, with support from the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, so that masters and apprentices across the country can keep practicing.[5] Since 2015 some of its techniques, among them weapons tactics, have been part of Cambodia's military training.[12]

Bokator is practiced outside Cambodia, including in the United States, Europe and Australia, with the support of the Cambodian diaspora.[5] Bokator representatives have given seminars in Japan, the United States and France.[10] The documentary Surviving Bokator follows San Kim Sean's work to revive the art.[8] Tharoth Sam uses Bokator in the fight scenes of the film First They Killed My Father.[14]

References

  1. ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 Wikipedia, Bokator
  2. ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 Traditional Sports, Bokator (Cambodia)
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Wikipedia (French), Bokator
  4. ↑ 4.00 4.01 4.02 4.03 4.04 4.05 4.06 4.07 4.08 4.09 4.10 4.11 4.12 4.13 4.14 4.15 4.16 4.17 4.18 4.19 4.20 Cambodia Tourism Association, Khmer martial art of Bok Tor (November 29, 2022)
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 IntoCambodia.org, Kun Lbokator, the Khmer ancient martial art, on the Economic Diplomacy site of Cambodia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (undated)
  6. ↑ Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts, Kun Lbokator, traditional martial arts in Cambodia (undated; inscription of November 29, 2022)
  7. ↑ Asia News Network, from The Phnom Penh Post, Cambodia's Bokator now officially in World Heritage List (November 2022)
  8. ↑ 8.00 8.01 8.02 8.03 8.04 8.05 8.06 8.07 8.08 8.09 8.10 8.11 UNESCO ICM, World martial arts: Bokator (December 22, 2020)
  9. ↑ 9.00 9.01 9.02 9.03 9.04 9.05 9.06 9.07 9.08 9.09 Siemreap.net, The art of Khmer boxing: Pradal Serey, Kun Khmer, Bokator (August 23, 2022)
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 10.6 Cambodianess, Khmer Bokator: a martial art adopted from animals and plants (June 3, 2025)
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage, Kun Lbokator, traditional martial arts in Cambodia (inscribed 2022)
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 VOD, Ouch Sony and Danielle Keeton-Olsen, An Ancient Martial Art, Transformed by Time, War, Seeks Return to Prominence (January 12, 2021)
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Cambodianess, from AFP, The resurgent Cambodian martial art nearly wiped out by Khmer Rouge (May 9, 2023)
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 14.3 CGTN, Cambodian ancient martial art Bokator sees revival
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This page was last edited on 9 October 2026, at 03:54.