There’s a phrase, “it’s 90 percent mental.” I’m coming to realize that the more experience you gain. the more time you spend on a single, focused endeavor, the closer that 90 percent goes toward 99.9 percent. Or maybe it’s even all mental and we can escape the body in some kind of Nirvana-state of Muay… I don’t know yet. The other day an Instagram post from Mental Coach, Kara Loewentheil came up on my feed. I needed it. I have needed it: yesterday, today, probably a bunch of tomorrows. It’s an important...

We are doing a Muay Thai Mental Training Reading Group, together. On Facebook for everyone – you can join here – and on Patreon in live video conference call with my supporters – you can see our first session here. We’ve covered the first two chapters of the book The Inner Game of Tennis, and on Friday morning (Thai Time), we’ll meet and talk about chapters 3 & 4. This is a small, short book that changes people’s lives, as it teaches us to quiet down our Inner Coach,...

Read Sylvie’s Post on the Mental Training Reading Group: LIVE edit: We’ve started an Open Group to discuss themes that come up As Sylvie’s Patreon has expanded, we’ve taken on new projects, all the in vein of increasing the awareness of legendary fighters, and their techniques – for instance in the Preserve The Legacy – Muay Thai Library project – and then by creating a new website sylviestudy.com which hosts in-depth study of Intensive Series with single legends, one at a time. I’m writing this to give a little...

The Keto Diet, ketogenesis: The keto diet features very low carb (- 20 g), moderate protein, and high fats, designed to switch the body from sugar-burning to ketone-burning, with suggested benefits of mental clarity, recovery and anti-inflammation, and weight loss (for those that need it), making use of hormone and metabolic responses evolved in humans through long periods of fasting or lean eating. What follows is not an expert telling, you can Google about and find more on all the things I bring up, but it is my telling....

So starts my path to enlightenment. Kevin and I turn down the street indicated on our Google Map directions and it’s pretty clear, immediately, that this isn’t what we’re looking for. Kevin immediately suggests we ask someone, which is super easy for him to suggest because he doesn’t speak Thai, so he never has to do the asking. I’m shy, so I decide to creep down the street on the motorbike first, seeing if maybe, somehow, this street lined with bars might suddenly turn into the kind of street...

I’ve introduced meditation into my practice many times. I’m not consistent with it, so usually it’s trying to get 10 minutes per day, or at least 2 minutes before practice, or maybe 5 minutes during an emotionally tumultuous stretch in training. Basically, I just think that quieting your mind and learning how to breathe can’t ever be a bad idea. But I’ve also never done any formal practice with it. I’m a very fair-weather meditator. Just after my 200th fight – literally the next morning – I woke up...