Christopher Shays, once a resident at the Phnom Penh Post, writes about Master San Kim Sean and bokotar in Time.

Though there is no evidence that lions ever populated Southeast Asia, the Cambodians certainly took no chances. According to their legends, lions once roamed the countryside attacking villagers and their precious buffalo, and long before the great Khmer Empire began in the 9th century, farmers developed a ferocious martial art to defend themselves against the predator. These techniques became bokator (sometimes written as boxkator).

Meaning “to fight a lion,” bokator is a martial art depicted on the walls of Angkor Wat. There are 10,000 moves to master, mimicking animals such as monkeys, elephants and even ducks. King Jayavarman VII, the warrior king who united Cambodia in the 12th century, made his army train in bokator, turning it into a fearsome fighting force. The Khmer Empire wasn’t just an empire of grand temples, says bokator grandmaster San Kim Sean. It was also “an empire of martial artists.”

Great stuff.