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)
$18.95 | 9781954600171 (pb)

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 (Khun Khmer, used in mixed martial arts and UFC). 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. 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.

PRAISE

“The story of the legendary martial arts fighter and kickboxer Oum Ry is by turns pulse-pounding, disturbing, and powerful. His is an astonishing life told beautifully by his daughter Zochada Tat and Addi Somekh. The book will grip you from its first pages and not let you go.”
– Jeff Chang, author of Water Mirror Echo: Bruce Lee and the Making of Asian America and Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation

“This memoir strikes hard on multiple levels. It is a reflection of contemporary America and the transnational, transcultural, immigrant experience that many Americans live, whether themselves or vicariously. Oum Ry, like many other fortunate refugees makes his way to the United States where he finds both happiness and deep disappointment. The life of a migrant is bittersweet, filled with hope and longing. Oum Ry’s life has been a rollercoaster in and out of the fighter’s ring, dramatic in positive and negative ways. His is a life worth the reading.”
– Dr. JoAnn LoSavio, Washington State University, Vancouver (review)

Cambodian kickboxing master Oum Ry Ban knows a thing or two about resilience. But the 79-year-old who fled a communist regime, survived a brutal gang attack, and can only hear out of one ear, says that these are nothing compared to the importance of keeping an ancient martial art sport alive. […] “Oum Ry fought so hard to keep this place, this martial art style, alive. We learn how to defend ourselves, but also a piece of culture and history,” [trainer] Calvin Darby said. “He is someone who refuses to let a tradition die.”
– Long Beach Press-Telegram

“The smallest man in the room has the biggest heart.”
– Greg Mellen, Orange County Register / Long Beach Press-Telegram

Read Oum Ry’s interview with Philip Sherwell of the UK Sunday Times here.

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 transcribe and 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.