The Founder of Choke Clinch Crank Combat (CCCC) talks about the emotional journey of publishing a book that immortalises a moment in a fighter’s life.
“I’ve been doing martial arts since I was 13 – that’s more than half my life. I started with judo, and that was really by accident. A judo club came down to my school one day, and I saw this man throw this other man down in a beautiful arc. I wanted to do that too! [laughs]
So I went for my first class, and it was so tough. I remember there were not many girls; mostly boys. But it’s always been like that, right? There are not many women in martial arts, but I like the challenge and physicality of it. So, that’s how it all began.
I pursued judo for two years. I stopped because it got too difficult juggling sports and school. I had to prepare for the O-Levels then. But later on in my adult life, I decided to try Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ) because I missed grappling so much. I’ve been doing BJJ for eight years now.
In all these years, I’ve had the privilege of meeting some really wonderful people who have taught and inspired me, including my BJJ professor Alexsandro ‘Leke’ Machado. But I realised that if you’re not part of this community, it’s hard for you to know these people.
As someone who also writes, I occupy this unique intersection between two worlds. I wanted to bridge the world of martial arts and writing by sharing heartfelt stories of people from the local fight community. That’s how Choke Clinch Crank Combat (CCCC) came about.
CCCC is not just about martial arts; it’s about people. People have all these misconceptions about combat sports. They think it’s a blood sport; that it’s just about two people brutalising each other. There’s some truth to that. But at the heart of it, it’s really about people, right?
These people come from such diverse backgrounds and have wonderful stories that are so amazing to me. It’s just a shame that nobody gets to hear these stories unless you know these people personally. So that was the impetus for doing this book.
We started working on CCCC in 2019, but I got the idea for the book in 2017. I knew from the start that I wanted to do a physical book. As I was assembling the publishing team, Alvin Ang, one of our co-writers, said, ‘You know this might fail, right?’ And he was right.
We did consider doing an e-zine because of that whole ‘print was dying’ thing. But in a world where the news cycle moves so fast, you’re constantly bombarded by content on social media, and I didn’t want our stories to get lost in the noise.
We wanted to create something timeless and tangible that people could hold and be proud to say, ‘Hey, I’m in a book!’ This option also gave us a lot more leeway to write long-form. We were quite sure we wanted to do a compilation of features and interviews that were in-depth.
And if we were really going to do this, we wanted to try to represent the whole ecosystem of combat sports in Singapore. So we interviewed a wide spectrum of people from the worlds of wrestling, boxing, Muay Thai, MMA, capoeira and BJJ.
It’s not exhaustive, of course. People always ask us, ’Hey, why didn’t you feature taekwondo or judo?’ We would have loved to, but time and money were very real limitations. We’re just a small, independent team of writers and photographers, publishing a book out of passion.
All of us were working on this project while holding down full-time jobs. I’m an educator, so I had to juggle teaching with doing interviews, transcribing and editing. And I think the biggest challenge was that none of us had done this before. We had to learn fast and on the spot.
There were many heartbreaking mistakes we made because of inexperience. It’s even more heartbreaking because you’ve invested so much time, money and resources. And when things don’t turn out the way you want them, you take it extra personally.
I’ve gone to my dad crying about the challenges and problems I was faced with a few times. He is a lovely person, but he’s also a very frank businessman. When I told him that CCCC is something that I really wanted to do, he said this doesn’t sound like it would be a good idea.
When some things went wrong eventually, I thought he was going to say, ‘I told you so.’ Instead, he reminded me that I wouldn’t have gotten this experience anywhere else. And I always remember those words. He was right. This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
It’s been two years since we completed the book. Now, I can safely say that everything was worth it. A lot of things bring me joy when it comes to this project. People telling us they love the book, the photography or how we presented the stories makes me very, very happy.
We didn’t present the fighters in the typical fashion one would expect. We presented them in a very intimate way. We took pictures of them in their homes, with their pets or with their babies who are now toddlers. What I didn’t expect was the emotional resonance.
One of the fighters we featured is Amanda Chan. We photographed her with one of her dogs which sadly passed a year later. With the permission of our photographer, I asked if she’d like to have the photos of her with her dog, and she was so thankful to have them.
An athlete we featured told us a person she mentioned in the book passed away, but she’s so glad that he is remembered in some way in the book. And that’s one of those moments where this book takes on a life of its own, and in ways that you didn’t expect or imagine.
Life happens, and things change. A person could be a world champion when we featured them, and they might retire a year after. And that’s perfectly okay. Because this book captured a snapshot of a person’s life, and we’re happy to immortalise that moment.” – Andrea Yew
CHOKE CLINCH CRANK COMBAT
From now to 31 March 2025, we’re treating our readers to a 25% discount using the code “TEPXCCCC”. So grab your copy of Choke Clinch Crank Combat today!
Leave a Reply