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In all of my years associated with the martial arts, there have always been women involved either as instructors or students. Each and everyone of them has/had the respect of the class. I don't know what it's like in other parts of the world, but I've always found martial training, be it Karate or Muay Thai to be a pretty even playing field where you earn your respect regardless of sex. At least that's been my experience. Bare in mind, I come from Queensland and in American terms we were and still are considered rednecks. Of course there has been the occasional knob head, both male and female but they have usually left of their own accord or have been asked to leave. As a teacher, I have one particular female student whom three months ago wasn't very confident in herself. She's a naturally big person. Anyway she could not kick higher than halfway up her own shin height. Now, she's kicking almost to head height, she's 6'1". She feels more confident in herself and the secret to bringing her out of shell was something I learned from Sylvie. Try not try, let things just flow. I do think in general, women are more eager to please and seem more attentive in regards to learning.

I agree with Jeremy - in general women are more eager to please and seem more attentive to learning (this goes for the academic classroom as well). I would say this may be the case across most personalities in women, even with shy individuals who do not express themselves as loudly with their voice. In Taiwan, I was and under-10yo children’s kickboxing and BJJ assistant coach. The girl:boy ratio was always 1:10, or something like that. Of course there are cultural differences, but in general, I still noticed the girls were very quiet and not as vocal as the boys. Yet, it was clear they wanted to learn (for example, they would try to correct their technique when I pointed something out). The main coach always had me work with the girls and the newcomers as the only female assistant coach. So, I got to see how they grew over time too. One girl was always down to spar bc she would willingly and literally walk up to challenge. She “became more aggressive,” or stood her ground when she was in the center of the ring to spar with everyone watching, but still no screaming or crazy sounds, like the boys. Another girl was always more hesitant, but would go up since I constantly yelled, “You can do it!” As time went on, the girls seemed to become more normalized to the procedure of getting over nerves and going on their own. I think the mad cheering helped them because they were receptive and eager to please. The boys were objectively more talkative and “silly.” Even the “leader types” goofed off more than the girls. While they knew when to be serious and work hard, but they seemed to enjoy a flexibility of seriousness-playfulness as a child. I saw less of this behavioral breadth in the girls. This is just my general observation. There were some shy boys too, but the more extroverted personality traits were dominant amongst the males (also given the highly unbalanced gender ratio). At this age, there is not too much “sweetheart of the gym” present. Sometimes fitness-goal-centered gyms have this issue amongst adults. I can feel competition in the air to be “seen” by the male coaches or men in the room. But in serious gyms that train to fight, this dynamic is not as common. Women are usually THRILLED to have other women fighters step into the space and work with them. Occasionally, I would hear from female friends that this dynamic is going even in serious gyms. Even though, I am one to be sensitive to gender dynamics, I was surprised because I was unaware. So despite the gym space itself, perhaps the experience for women will still vary per individual. I can on, but I’ll stop here for now haha.

To spin a varying amount of rotations. I come from a muay thai background where you don't see many spin kicks, and from there have dabbled in Combat Sambo, where you definitely see them, and I've begun training Shaolin for fun, the combat sport variant of which is Sanda. I think you should be proficient with at least a spinning backfist or elbow. Obviously there's no real need to use spinning techniques offensively - although mixing a back spin kick and a wheel kick together are VERY useful - but if your leg is caught and parried the quickest way to get your momentum back is to take that spin and go straight into a back elbow or fist. Artem Levin was particularly proficient at that. When you know you have something like that up your sleeve, it lets you kick with more confidence too. You don't have to go to it every time your kick get's parried, but it's usually not a bad idea to throw it, especially when you know their guard will be down after just parrying your kick. That being said, I don't think reliance on spinning is a good thing unless you have multiple weapons. You'll see Sanda guys (despite kicking being far riskier in Sanda than it is in Muay Thai) routinely incorporating double attacks between spinning back kicks, wheel kicks, backfists etc and it works because that turn becomes a chamber where you can't predict what is coming. It's also why we've seen quite a few good Thai's be KO'd in China. That being said the approach to training in Sanda comes with the forms and Qi Gong that grants you the flexibility and mobility to throw those kicks with ease, that you don't really get in Muay Thai training. You see some Muay Thai purists act as though spinning techniques don't work, and that's categorically wrong, it's more that Muay Thai kicking is so based in power that you see great fighters kick in a way that most other martial arts would view as over commitment, I don't think those heavy swings of kicks necessarily lead themselves to spinning technique. The Thai approach to fighting just doesn't lend itself to spinning techniques in the same way martial arts rooted in Kung Fu (Shaolin, Karate, Taekwondo etc.) do. I think unless you're actively training a form of Kung Fu or Karate alongside your Muay Thai training regularly, I'm not sure spinning kicks are a good idea - because learning the technique of a spin kick in a vacuum doesn't teach you the timing or type of footwork you'll need to make that technique effective. While Sanda has a lot of similarity to Muay Thai, there's a definite "springiness" to it that makes explosion into spinning techniques more unpredictable. TL;DR: if you're going to throw spinning kicks spend a substantial amount of time in a martial art/combat sport that actually makes use of them - because you'll just telegraph them if you try to bust them out with a Muay Thai rhythm.

Thank you so much for this essay. It seems to culminate in an almost fateful way with an event that took place in my life yesterday. I have been doing mental training for the past 5 years, following an experience in my life which required that I undertook that journey. This weekend I was at my wits end, feeling like I kept running into the same wall, not seeing any way out, not seeing any progress and no path towards progress either. Feeling very down, I went to training yesterday. I was dehydrated and hadn’t eaten properly, and the gym was steaming hot, so I decided on just coasting through this one training. Warm up went alright, got to pads where I was working with a young fighter who’s incredibly gifted, but due to age and size difference, wasn’t getting me too hard. First round goes okay, I’m still not feeling great, but I got through relying on routine. I figure the day will be alright at this point. And then I’m called over to do a round with my kru. My kru is an old thai gentleman who grew up fighting at Sangtiennoi Sor Rungroj (as far as I can gather from the other fighters). He’s quite reserved and distant, in his late 40’s, and he’s an incredible teacher. He moves so beautifully. He can be a mean son of a bitch though, and he was in a monday mood yesterday. He was very hard on me, not so much focusing on technique as burning me out; of course, not just in a physical way, but rather in a mental way - the physical exertion just acting as a medium, an instrument to unravel and reveal. This wasn’t just pad work, this was feeling for my heart. So, I gave all I had, physically trying to manifest what I believe I am made of, not backing off and channeling aggression and heart even in the face of such superiority - technical, experiential and physical. When the clock finally gave me pause, I fell to my knees to try and breathe, grateful I’d gotten through it as well as I had, feeling proud, thanking him. I was getting ready to return to my initial young pad holder, when my kru ordered me towards one of the gyms best fighters. This guy is a great pad holder and he is intense as fuck. He’s an incredibly sweet and nice guy, but he’s almost dionysian in his energy when he walks into that gym. To the point where you can barely get through to him while the training lasts. He could tell how battered I was, but quickly made it clear in a nice way that I was not to quit under any circumstance. Not just quit as in leaving the pads, which I wouldn’t do, but quit with the heart while remaining on the pads. Having tapped into the will, which you wrote about, in the previous round, I figured I would try that again, and sure enough I got through it. He embraced me and told me I’d done a great job, which felt amazing coming from him. I was almost puking at this point, so I just got through the rest of the training as best as I could. Only today did it dawn on me that will hadn’t gotten me through that second round wasn’t the will power that got me through the first round, and which has also gotten me through this first year of training. Something else appeared in me – or through me – that I havn’t experienced before. Something like tapping ‘’into forces and streams that lie outside of that frame’’ of the ego, the persona, the I. Make no mistake, I in no way dare to compare myself to Sylvie or the monumental path that she is treading, but I do believe I caught a glimpse of what you are trying to communicate in the essay - only having understood it, connected to it - through reading these words. In some way this new unknown that I will now need to familiarize myself with (in so far as that is even possible?) has carried over to my mental training, seeming to sort of unknit some of these knots that have bound me for a long time. Today has felt different. I have felt different. This event is something that has been underway for a long time – this shore hopefully – and I thank you deeply for writing the essay to give me the words to see myself in, words that show me that I am not alone, words to hope through. Thank you so much to both of you for all that you do. Best, Asger

I've just watched this old fight of Sylvie's yesterday and I find it particularly memorable for many reasons: - This fight like most of her fights happened late in the evening. The whole day prior to it (like for 20+ hours) she was badly sick with food poisoning. She couldn't rest; nor hold water down. She went into this fight in bad shape with pretty much zero energy. - It was her second fight in three days, and she had another fight scheduled the day after this one. So basically, the four days went like this: fight 167 - food poisoning - fight 168 - fight 169. Damn. I hope I'll never come to a point where I'll just be reacting to her achievements like: "Oh 13 fights in one day while suffering from pneumonia? Whatever. It's Sylvie." Because whatever craziness she's up to is never not absolutely awesome. I must nurture my constant state of "being awestruck by Sylvie" forever and ever. - Her commentary for this fight is so damn funny. I think it was after the second round, during the break, that she said: "I haven't pooped myself. So far, so good." Yeah, she had me there. I laughed a lot. Kevin sometimes filming everything but the two fighters is also funny. Maybe he's like me, and gets distracted by ghost cats. - Despite being sick and unusually tired, she held her own against Thanonchanok - a world champion way bigger than herself and very strong. Sylvie beat her once in the past; this was a rematch. (Actually, as of today they have fought 9 times with Sylvie winning twice.) She said in the commentary something along the lines of being sorry this rematch wasn't going to be much of a challenge for Thanonchanok. Got to love Sylvie's concern for her opponent's quality time. It was still a close and pretty exciting fight. Sylvie was in a state of "I don't give a fuck about anything anymore" which I suppose was most definitely an asset. It's the kind of attitude she aims for in her fights. She doesn't credit herself for it here because it was not a conscious choice on her part. If it's a result of being ill, then it's just luck. Yeah but it wasn't luck that she chose to be in that ring that night. She could've stayed home to heal. "Fucking impressive" doesn't even come close to describing her strength. This was her Post-Fight vlog: She also wrote a blog post about the fight, check it out for even more insights: https://8limbsus.com/muay-thai-thailand/fight-168-sylvie-petchrungruang-vs-thanonchanok-kaewsamrit

I’d be curious to hear from the coaches in particular how they see differences in male & female athletes, and also what are the main similarities. I ask this here rather than Sherdog or Reddit cause I’m not begging for an earful of sexism, more an open field of experience & opinion from both men & women & also non-binary people if you’re here.

This is an offshoot of a previous thread I started, on the "light" versus "hard" sparring and how that kind of divides down the emotional line, rather than the physical power of strikes. I wanted to ask my trainer, Kru Nu, about this. He's been teaching Muay Thai for 25 years or so, grew up in a gym that had the very, very early westerners who lived and trained in Thailand, has raised countless Thai boys to be stadium fighters and champions; and has had his fair share of "what the f*** was that?" experiences of people losing their cool in sparring and things erupting into potentially dangerous situations. My impetus for asking Kru Nu about this subject was two fold: 1) the "Thai sparring is so light," refrain I hear from westerners is often one that I've failed to witness with my own 7 years' experience living in Thailand. Thais don't spar super light, at least not the way that I see it performed by the westerners who are trying to mimic what they deem to be "Thai style sparring." And 2) I've seen some pretty intense sparring under Kru Nu's supervision, where he doesn't tell people to turn it down, whereas I - and probably most coaches in the West, would have done. With very little kids, like 7 and 8 years old, when they're clinching they aren't allowed to throw knees. Kru Nu tells them explicitly, "if anyone throws a knee, it's a foul." That's so they don't hurt each other, because they don't have control of themselves yet. They're tiny, so the impact is relative to their size, but I think it's more of an emotional precaution - they don't have control of their emotions yet and so they'll knee hard and hurt each other. They're emotionally not in control, so if they get mad they don't have a stick in their hand at the same time, so to speak. Most of the time, sparring or clinching with little kids like this ends because someone's crying. They're learning how to control their emotions way more than they're learning how to do proper technique, although they do get a few pointers here and there. Mostly it's just spending time in the water, as I like to say, and learning not to cry about it being too cold or deep or whatever else. Back to adults. The teenaged Thais in my gym have mostly been training for a lot of years, so they've gone through the emotional bootcamp long before they ever get big enough to really do any damage to anybody. We have one young fighter, Maek, who is often my clinching partner, and he's new enough and young enough that he gets a little emotional sometimes. He's ignored most of the time when he gets like this, or he's teased to put him in check. But he's pretty big, 60 kilos at only 13 years old, but a little butterball so he goes with partners who he outweighs but is shorter than. So, with his weight he can do some damage, but with his size and age he's kind of not so dangerous. In contrast to this, the westerners who come to train in Thailand are mostly pretty big, compared to me and Thais. They can do damage before they have any kind of skill, or moderate skill, and they've done usually no kind of emotional formation by a culture that esteems "jai yen yen," cool heartedness. So, you've got giant babies. Yesterday, my regular sparring partner and I were told to go spar but to go "bao bao," which is Thai for gentle. I've never been instructed to go light before. The reason was that both Carabao (my sparring/clinching partner) and I have fights in a couple of days, so a clashed knee or bruised eye or ego is not on the ticket. I fight often, Carabao doesn't. So, the instruction to go light is more to do with his fight than mine, but interestingly, Kru Nu has credited Carabao's wins in the past with being my clinching partner. In clinching, nobody is ever told to "go light." Just maybe to be more careful with hitting with the inside of your thigh instead of with your kneecap. So, this sudden "go spar, but bao bao," thing got me thinking. I wanted to ask Kru Nu about how he does sparring at his gym. I told Kru Nu that westerners seem to think that sparring in Thailand is all really light. He frowned at me when I said this, like "why?" I laughed. I don't know. But then I used the example of this Indian guy, who I referenced in my other thread. He goes too hard (in my eyes) with everybody. He's not out of control, but his power is enough to do damage. In the example I gave in my last thread, he sparred with an Italian who also goes quite hard. Hard vs hard, and Kru Nu said, "they like that, so I give for them." But I reminded him of a match up that was not a syncing of likes, where one guy didn't like to go hard. A few weeks ago he was sparring with a fellow from Spain. The guy from India is cracking these leg kicks and has good boxing, so he's touching up the guy from Spain and then just bashing his leg. The guy from Spain is not super experienced, but not totally green. He does okay for a round, listens sincerely to my advice to teep with the leg that's getting kicked when I talk to him between rounds, but ultimately lays down and sparring is ended with a "TKO" late into round 2. I thought that was shitty, honestly. I asked Kru Nu (yesterday, not when this happened), why he let the sparring go like that. "Because I want the guy from Spain to understand that in a fight, if someone kicks you hard here (he chops the side of his hand into his leg), you cannot ask them to stop. And you cannot stop. He has to understand." And, as I recall, the next sparring session, Kru Nu put the guy from India with Team (Thai, stadium fighter) and he got worked, which Kru Nu had said was, "so he can understand." Keeping everyone in check. I nodded my head in understanding when I was listening to Kru Nu. It's what I was saying about hard sparring, how it teaches you that you have to figure shit out under duress. You have to know what contact feels like and how to hide your fear, your shame, your pain, but you also have to be able to not get upset yourself. If you're going to hit hard, you have to know you'll be hit hard back. Kru Nu actually pointed at me, poking my shoulder as I sat next to him on the ring for this conversation. "Sometimes Carabao kicks you too hard, I know, I see," he said. Honestly, guys, I know Kru Nu sees everything but I totally assumed he was not clocking the times that Carabao is hitting me hard. "But you don't get angry, I know you are okay. And if you want, you can show him that you kick hard too and then he understand." I know there are times I've lost my cool in sparring and clinching when I feel like I'm being hit too hard. I've been punished for that by Kru Nu before, basically by him telling me to get out of the ring and go kick the bag and he ignores me for the rest of the session. But I've also learned how to control that shit myself. With Carabao it's a bit harder, just because of his size and the relationship we have in the gym, but with Maek I've learned how to take a too-hard strike, hit him back hard as a warning shot, and then use the next shot as an immediate comparison (much lighter), to let him choose which kind of strike he wants. You hit me hard, I hit you hard, but we can always go back to this. And know what? He always tones it back down. No words spoken. No looks. No complaints. No calling "dad" over, and the escalation in emotion is super short. But I wouldn't know how to do that if I'd never been hit too hard in sparring; if I'd never been overwhelmed and wanted to cry. When Kru Nu lets these big Western dudes bash on each other, he's giving them the same lessons that led me to where I am now, but on a much shorter timeline. These two go hard, they go hard together. This guy goes hard with someone who doesn't reciprocate and he doesn't read the temperature, make him go with someone who will touch him right back (Team) and then some to keep him in check. It reminds me of the Cesar Milan approach to reconditioning aggressive dogs: put them in with the pack and a natural order will shake out, pretty quickly. I remember taking our dog Zoa to a dog park in New York and she was growling and nipping at some dogs who came to sniff her. I immediately thought to go control her and Kevin told me to wait, let it sort itself out. Sure enough, within 3 minutes the group had figured itself out and Zoa was playing chase with a dog she'd just been ready to fight with. You can't control everything. And if everything is always controlled for you, you never learn to control yourself.

Ive tended to have maybe a little more male students than female in general. The only real difference Ive seen is that as a whole the female students are harder workers, put more attention into their training than men. Personally I love my female students because of this. Recent example is a youth students who just started 2months ago and is already the equal of males in her class that have been training twice as long. Honestly shes a joy to have in my class and because of it definitely geta extra attention from me (as any student like her, male or female, would). Some of my best students and fighters have been female.

First, this is exactly what I am interested in - nice to know how it works beyond my little East Coast America frame. So the Taiwan point of view is interesting and makes sense. I love imagining you yelling "you can do it" OMG. The best. Incredible and well put. Thanks that is a very helpful distinction in sorting out my own two minor but annoying experiences. Both women were more fitness oriented people even though damn, they are adults (one is at my karate gym, the other was at Western boxing). Nobody does this at my Muay Thai gym. NOBODY. You are so right - no real fighters ever look the gift horse of being able to punch me in the mouth, in the mouth! Thanks again!

There is a tale that as Dionysus walked from India to the West his adornments gradually fell from his body, until he stood as Apollo, in Greece. That...is super cool and more or less amazing. It's a beautifully written response, and observation too. Very happy to have read it. It sounds like you are on an amazing journey, well worth everything you have bet on it.

Would love it if Kaitlin will hop on and will be watching her fight! My thoughts & intuitions are kind of a constant stream, actually. I know its a general question but I am doing a show in NYC that includes a ladies MT fight night and this will result in people asking me why I think women ought to do martial arts in general, Muay Thai in particular. These will be people hostile to the idea of violence generally. For myself, I usually adore the women in my gyms, because there is less coquetry and more directness. Twice though, I've had another woman try and throw me under the bus to be the "favorite student" with the male coach - that's fun lol. So I am just searching for thoughts and impressions. I actually hate generalizations and think the cloud of socialization is so powerful (habitus) in developing gender roles that its difficult to find what is real and what is just driven by social needs, but all, in the end are real so I am just trying to trace patterns. Thanks.

Basics, basics and more basics. I'm really anal about balance. I don't mind spinning elbows and I'm really partial to the spinning back kick to the liver. You can take the boy out of karate but you can't take the karate out of the boy. Ahaha. Back to balance, before you can do anything, you have to be able to move and maintain balance. Some people have a great deal of trouble understanding this.

somehow I recalled my first ever sparring session in Muay Thai, well actually K1, reading this. I had experience with full contact sparring from Kali several years back but it was my first time doing any sort of actual kickboxing sparring with gloves, mouthguard, shinpads and all. I had asked if someone was up for some light sparring with a beginner. and found a guy who was like "sure! lets spar with open hands! don't want a headache tomorrow either" so I climbed into the ring expecting LIGHT and just feeling this out for a first time. Granted, the hands weren't a great problem even though I sucked at boxing technique but he totally surprised me by starting to throw hard lowkicks over and over. At least I had learned defence against stuff like that in Kali so I was like "oh, ok, so thats whats going on here? unexpected, well ok then but I'm not just gonna stand and get smashed". I started defending with me own legs as good as my somewhat rusty technique would allow which actually worked better than I would have expected. Then I misjudged his attack and raised the "wrong" leg for a block but had enough time to realise my mistake and pull the leg to the other side for a cross-block that hit right in the perfect spot. It was a hard kick but it didn't hurt me at all since it connected flush with the largest portion of bone just below my knee but we actually had to stop sparring after that because HE had hurt his shin in the process. Don't know if he took that as any kind of lesson and it certainly wasn't my intention to teach anyone anything as the newbie but I think it can serve as an example for lack of control in sparring. How would you say should people who start at adult age best get into sparring? Start out light to improve and test out techniques without too much fear of getting smashed for mistakes? Hard(er) to get used to the feel and stress? Some kind of mix approach?

Maybe Kaitlin will hop on, I think she is fighting today or tomorrow, but is a coach and has thought a lot about this I believe. What are your thoughts or intuitions?

This made me tear up, no exaggeration. Thank you so much for sharing your journey.

This is so neat - to use chicken fighting and Kru Nu’s Gym as case examples. Art seems to draw in community, maybe even form community, because this is the nature of beauty. We want to discover it for ourselves, but we also want to gather others around to celebrate, study, learn from, and test Beauty together. There is a larger, communal validation of the Beauty. Also, we want to absorb as much of it as possible. Specifically in regards to Muay Thai, I perceive nak muays want to “inscribe” the Art into our bodies. For it to become a partner of our bodies’ natural flow is a beautiful thing indeed. (On a relevant side note, I think fight photographers want to savor and capture the beauty in a different form. Not on their own bodies, but within different cascades and shadows of light. They can then share something closer to their exact personal perceptions to the onlooker via the camera’s malleable eye and the dramatics of light/color/effect). On the topic of patrons, there seems to be layered motives to wanting to support. Some patrons want to tap into this beauty and grow from it and ultimately support it by tangible means. Other patrons want to invest in it because Beauty is also a source of raw power. (These motives are not mutually exclusive, but just two types of motives I am currently thinking of). I think the rarer ”Beauties,” like Petchruongrang Gym, are the ones chasing after the art, not the money. They could chase the latter if they really wanted to, with probably just a few tweaks, but they are so consumed by the art itself that may not be their primary concern. In a sense, they have reigned in the true power of Beauty because it is untainted. This is a pretty romantic view of power, money, and art, but I think I ascribe to it.

I think Wilde was not a Muay Thai fighter, and lived in an altogether different universe. There are, in this other universe, a trinity of transcendentals (as they are sometimes called), Truth, Beauty and Goodness. Three dimensions of the same thing. All three strike me as quite useful. One of the things that I find extraordinary about Muay Thai is how a truly beautiful move is incredibly beautiful BECAUSE of its efficaciousness. The right move, at the right time, is defined by its utility, without falling into utility. It also has the transcendental quality of mathematics, which has all 3 qualities, a mathematics of the body. At its highest, Muay Thai seems to possess all 3 through its utility. It has an almost Spinozist quality to me.

Thank you for sharing so much, Kevin! This speaks to the functionality versus symbolism of art. Is it just meant to express the artist or hide/free the artist? I am reminded of the preface in the classic novel, “The Portrait of Dorian Gray.” It’s a page and a half but my highlight is the last line after all is said and done about the greatness of art itself. [Admin edit: these photo files were lost in the takedown of the site]

Oi. In the still you can really see the massive size difference. She's so hard to beat because she's super skilled and expert at controlling tempo. If you give her size too (which distorts all scores), its an uphill run. That being said I have such a memory of this fight. Sylvie was really, really whacked. We went to our all-time most dependable restaurant in Chiang Mai and she had a dish she always has, and just got clubbed by the food poisoning, nothing you could do. But yes, there was no way she wasn't going to fight. We've treated every fight as precious, that's our motto. Sometimes the fights you really might think to pull out of are the most precious. This one gave Sylvie a lot.

Jeremy thank you. I am interested to read that the schools are generally egalitarian in Queensland. I am back East in the US, and grew up out West (which is probably culturally more like Queensland). I love the story of your big woman. OMG. I am very tall too and its strange being a bigger woman - you are constantly challenged on your gender (as many muscley women of all sizes are; I reckon Sylvie has written about this). Three months and a huge difference! You must be a great coach.

In my opinion light sparring in the physical sense is hard for a beginner as they don't have the technique down enough to go light. I actually start my students off with reciprocal drilling, starting with 5 for 5 and soft, once they get the gist of the combination they go 1 for 1 and soft, under my watchful eye. Once I feel they exhibit enough control in drilling, they then spar. This may take 1 week or 6 months, depending on how I feel the student can control themselves physically. At my school, sparring is done with solid contact, with the idea of enjoying it, (I don't run a fight gym). Where I go for training, beginners are always started off sparring (if they want to spar) with the more experienced students and instructors. This is so there is no ego involved, the student knows he/she is with someone who is there to teach and help and not bash.

Man Kevin, I always need so much time to read and just absorb what you write. Its not even the quantity of words but the quality thats so rich and needs digestion time. I love the analogy of the box being fighting. Even more I love this: "You think you understand what fighting is after 50 fights. After 100 you realize that you didn't really understand at 50, but now you know. Then at 150 you suddenly see things differently. Now at 240...well, you see where I am going. What is infinitely cool is that the vision you have at any one particular point, let's say that particular ledge on the mountain where you stand, overlooking a drop off and valley, that was earned by you, and you simply could not have had that view 300 meters down, or at basecamp." I see this as a good description of life and perception through the years (ie: your 20's, 30's, 40's and so on). Great write up as always man.

Yes, the way he's always watching. Kevin took those. Kru Nu is very handsome but hard to photograph, haha. This is what he looks like when I take his photo:

It's very interesting for you to expand the subject to the level of arts in general. I did not expect that! In combat arts there is an added dimension, which is that fighting itself - and by that I mean "real" fighting as a capacity - tends to favor those who are raised in rough lives. Having to scrap, or be physically competent is something you learn at a young age, generally, and these qualities and their relationship to violence, really seem to help performance in combat sports. The rich or affluent are widely seen as "soft", which is why many of them may be drawn to fighting arts/sports, as a way to prove or improve themselves. In Thailand we are seeing a huge trend of this from the Chinese middle class males who are now coming to toughen/prove their manhood, now that their country is in full economic bloom. This is repeating much of what has happened from the last in previous decades. You saw it in the huge success of the book A Fighter's Heart, by Sam Sheridan, which was basically a rich Uni boy traveling around looking for tough adventure. So in fighting there is a kind of contrast, it seems. Over generalizing, you have the "real fighters" who come from rougher backgrounds, and then the meeting them on the other side, you have the affluent who are drawn to the arts because of their affluence. I'm not sure it's the same in the arts, maybe you would disagree. Yes, we have the image of the starving artist, there isn't the same feeling that he is a better artist because he's disadvantaged. One might imagine that an affluent person might make a very good painter, or writer. But, I'm not entirely sure of the argument there. What is "real" art? In the story of martial sports and arts there is a very interesting example in Karate, as it was disseminated to Japan in the 1920s and 1930s in a very abstract way, to the affluent, and that even sparring was removed from the equation. Funakoshi, was the man most responsible for bringing Karate to Japan from Okinawa, someone who prided himself on never injuring a single person:

Yes that makes sense regarding the sexuality business. And I love what you say about technique over power.

For those that know the Dune series or Dune movie the message above will make perfect, poetic sense. The Gom Jabbar is a method designed to test whether you are a human (and not an animal). I'll leave behind my committed belief that humans definitely are animals, and that it is wrong to imagine a separation and not a continuity between them, but essentially it's the order of a prescription that you must be able to resist your greatest impulses. In this case, your impulse brought on by pain, and ultimately fear of pain. In the story the messianic hero Paul is told to place his hand in a box that will submit him to incredible pain, and the fear of pain. If he removes his hand he will be pricked by the mother superior, and killed instantly. It is a test, but a test that stretches out the soul of the hero, from an attenuation of fear all the way to certain Death. This is fighting. Fighting is not about winning. Fighting is not even about surviving. Fighting is about putting your hand in the box. Its about all the training that you do so you can endure with your hand in the box. The purpose of training, ultimately, is not to train your hand so it can do oh-so-many-things when it is in the box. It's about keeping the hand in the box. We are mislead into thinking what training, and even fighting is about. It's easy to imagine that it's about handling yourself, physically, under pressure. Or, being able to impose yourself upon your opponent. These are worthy ends. There is a great deal of self-cultivation in both of these. But, it isn't about that. It ultimately is about just keeping your hand in the box. This is the wonderful thing about fighting a lot. I'm speaking here not as a fighter, but as a very close, compassionate observer of a fighter who happens to have fought more than any western Muay Thai fighter...ever. Fighting a lot you get to glimpse through the veils. You think you understand what fighting is after 50 fights. After 100 you realize that you didn't really understand at 50, but now you know. Then at 150 you suddenly see things differently. Now at 240...well, you see where I am going. What is infinitely cool is that the vision you have at any one particular point, let's say that particular ledge on the mountain where you stand, overlooking a drop off and valley, that was earned by you, and you simply could not have had that view 300 meters down, or at basecamp. It doesn't mean that what you saw at 50 fights was wrong, it was limited. It was limited not only from your perspective - where you are standing - but also because of your narrative. When you are at 100 fights your view will be informed by all the other ground that you covered. You have become enriched. At first when you put your hand in the box, seriously, with focus, all you have at your disposal is Will Power. You feel that Will Power is your only ally, the only thing that can get you to keep your hand in the box, facing the pain (and the fear). You just grimace in one way or another and just keep that mutha' fucker in there. You keep it in there because it matters to you. You do another round on the bag. You bust it harder on pads. You train through and around injuries. You endure. It's a beautiful commitment. And, it would be enough if that is all there was. Just keeping your hand in there out of force of will. But a funny thing happens when you keep your hand in there for a really long time. Or honestly, what has been happening is that you keep choosing to put your hand in there. It comes out, you put it back in. It comes out, you put it back in, fully knowing what that will feel like. You come to realize that Will Power isn't your sole resource. In fact, there is something else far more powerful and complete. It's the peace you can try to make with the pain itself, and more properly with the fear. And this leads to personal excavation. This is the real beginning of fighting. Of course it is wrong for me as a non-fighter to talk of the real beginning of fighting. Fighting has many uses and many values. But what I mean by "real" is perhaps what I would call the superseding value and use of fighting, the one that lies behind all other other values and pleasures we take in fighting. The guiding principle. We would not have really encountered this, in our path, at 100 fights, or even 150. It just wasn't realizable though the seeds of this understanding were certainly growing then. Sylvie had a real breakthrough in this area, back in 2015, four years ago, when she received her Tiger Yant after her 108th Fight. As a close, compassionate observer, this was the first time that it seemed that she became released by the notion that submitting to the fact of the pain - and here, read "pain" as encompassing all the experiences and associative thoughts that repulse - was the only true doorway through it. Sylvie's been soaking in that truth for 4 years now, and over 120 fights more. Keep putting that hand in the box. The hardest thing to digest about all of this is that it's not Will Power. It's not straining and pushing yourself back into it. There is something addictive for people who have strong wills. Will is immensely successful in this world. It pushes through things, through people, through circumstances that have less will. The world will bend to will. But the Jom Gabbar is about something else. Fighting is about something else. It involves Will, but it is the wings that grow out of Will, when you let go of that branch and discover you have wings. This is why people who put their hand in the box, over and over and over again have value. Yes, some of them are just toughened. Great examples of fortitude. They've cut pathways of commitment and focus that others of us, mere mortals, can follow. But occasionally, they break through in their relationship to the box. They find another way, a higher way, that could not otherwise be found in shorter stints. And I'm going to detour here toward what actually is my focus of writing this. Fights are The Box. Stepping into the ring is putting your hand in the box. And anyone...and I mean ANYONE who has stepped in the ring, no matter how dubious or controlled the circumstances, has done something worthy. They have put their hand in the box. But then becomes the path of the fighter. What follows that first fight is putting your hand back on the box. And then putting it in the box again. And again. And again. What is inside the box is different for every fighter. In the beginning it's just pain, and the fear of pain. Then, pretty quickly, it's the shame of possible defeat, or fear of being "unworthy" of even being in the ring. What develops, as you put your hand again and again in the box is a certain relationship to the fears and pains of the ring. A fighter will build emotional armor for what is encountered in there. Habits or mindsets that shield her or him from what's in there. And honestly this armor is largely just a defense against a deeper relationship with what's in there. You aren't fighting an opponent. Your opponent is just a stand-in, a proxy, a figure designed to trigger your own demons. And those demons will come whether you win or lose. I say all of this because I'm witnessing a revolution in Sylvie's self, her soul, and I don't even know where it came from, other than to say that it came from putting her hand in the box repeatedly, and opening herself up to what the box can teach. When fighting so many times you can get looped into 20 fight, 40 fight stretches were you have a pretty firm conception of yourself, but then it breaks down, and another conception arises. These kinds of things simply cannot happen at lower repetitions. You cannot know these things with 20 fights, because they come from putting your hand back in the box. Yes, you can learn a lot from training incredibly hard, patiently honing your weapon, struggling through all the adventures of training. Yes. But it isn't the same as putting your hand in the Box as a fighter does. Take a look at this mental training vlog from yesterday: This might seem like just some good mental training advice, but I'm really astounded by it, simply because of the meta position Sylvie finds herself in, and importantly the comfort she has achieved in taking that meta position. She's been there many, many times. Groundhog Day. So much so that its starting to lose its tension. It's starting to gain relief. The fundamental issue, the struggle, which might be called the Fighter's Quest, isn't what it seemed it was. Having the right attitude toward the struggle, yes, is the focus of training and ultimately of fighting. But the excavation comes in realizing and working on the structures of judgement that surround that struggle. It is as if we are all watching a television show, and then suddenly realize that the cameras in the studio, the audio and the cue card holder are really the point of the show, not what's happening "on screen". This is pulling at the threads of who you supposedly "are". These are all the things that make the tv show happen. You cannot get to these things only at the level of the show, what is on the screen. The fighter's struggle, the Box the fighter repeatedly puts their hand in, is the pain (physical pain, fear, humiliation, shame) that draws attention to attention to the frame around the picture. The fighter will be limited in entrench-able ways if they remain "in frame", and do not look at the frame itself. You can win lots of fights without dealing much with your personal framework. This is why winning doesn't really matter to the value of fighting, and often works as a disservice. The point of fighting is to keep putting your hand in the Box, until you learn. You may never learn. It may feel like it's just a goddamn pain box. The lesson cannot be forced. But, if you keep putting your hand in there, and give it time, you will/can learn something incredible. In this way Sylvie is an absolute astronaut, traveling far beyond the dimensions any of us regularly can reach. She has been blessed in her circumstances. She's very small bodied and she lives and fights in the country of fighting that is like no other. As a small bodied fighter she has an endless number of available, high-skilled opponents that can increase in size. She now is giving up 5 kilos regularly, sometimes 10. A year or two from now, it may be 8 regularly. It's the very rare opportunity to keep putting your hand in the Box, where it really, really, really does hurt. The hurt isn't the pain itself, its all the thoughts that surround the pain of the public display of your soul, as an adversary works incredibly hard to discredit you. And, you do that over and over and over again. Fighters of the past, or present day fighters of larger size who have limited chance, simply did not (do not) have the same opportunities to put their hand in the Box as many times. What they know of the Box is necessarily limited by this. They do not know less than Sylvie, but maybe it's fair to say they do know less of what they could know themselves, at least in terms of this particular Gom Jabbar. The trial of what a fight is. I wish I could describe this not as a negation. What we are looking at is a shooting star. So many people put their hand in the Box, maybe even many, many times, and then hold onto the "Hand in the Box" award. It's understandable. The Gom Jabbar is fucking serious business. If you've done it many times, or even a few, it is worthy of all our celebration. Every time the hand is placed in the Box something is learned, and there is infinite variety and even contradiction in these lessons, fighter by fighter. But I want to call attention to this other thing. What it means and what it is worth when you really just submit and turn yourself over to the Box itself, all the fears, all the pain, in such a way that it will unravel you, so that you can be remade. I'm rambling here because I'm reaching for something. I'm witnessing something in my wife that is unexpected, and could never be predicted or forced. The fighting has opened up into very large and valuable truths that point to the fabric of what we really are. It's a kind of alchemy that maybe can only happen at very high repetitions. I'm not sure. Sylvie could have retired at 150 fights and never come close to this, and all praise would be upon her for what she had done. We would never have a sense of what was lost by her not persevering on. She's passed through several personal veils since then. What is the value for all of us? This is the fighting equivalent of Walking on the Moon. What is so interesting to me is that vanishing from our sight is even the question: Well, how well did she fight? The aim to fight well, to express oneself in the Thai vocabulary, impose oneself, to solve duress, to meet up with Thai aesthetics demands ultimately unraveling. To get there, where one wants to be as a fighter, requires a disassembly of what might be called persona, the thing you think is "you", that you tell yourself is "you", so that you can tap into forces and streams that lie outside of that frame. The artform of Thai boxing, its full aesthetic, is a pathway to a very unanticipated becoming. If you want to fight a certain way, if you are reaching for a beauty or efficacy or a soul of movement, you have to become other than you are. A soul has been defined as "all the affective capabilities of a person", the spectrum of everything that one could possibility, feel. Like all the radio stations a radio could turn into, even if it currently is on one. Muay Thai, and what I'm calling the Gom Jabbar of fighting, pulls the soul deeper into its spectrum of possibilities. You cannot feel that pull, necessarily, to the same degree, in the same fashion, unless you keep putting your hand in that Box. The reason for this is that the Box, fundamentally, exposes you to your limit, what you think you are, who you are. And each time you revisit that limit, which may or not be changing, you have a chance to alter your relationship with not that limit, but to understand what any limit is, the very nature of limits. Where Does the Nature of Limits Lead? A Fighter is nothing if not a metamorphosis. Every fighter adapts, every fighter is changed. The fighter takes on a mask, a persona, a shape...forms. This is a ritualistic donning in which the fighter is imbued with power or responsibilities that are not her or his own, and however ill-fitting, or altering, or heavy that mask is, is what changes the fighter. Sometimes the fighter wears different masks. Tries different masks, but they are all in the ritual of fighting, and they are all calling down that god of that particular mask. As you wear masks into the ring - and masks can be anything from ideal thought patterns, to embodied fighting styles, to alter parts of yourself, personalities, armorings - you come to understand masks and yourself better. When you fail a particular mask, many times, you understand yourself and that mask better. Maybe you need a different mask, a different god. Maybe you need to grow into that mask. Only by wearing that mask, over and over, are you ultimately transformed by it. Only by working through masks, do you come to understand what a mask is. Masks are not "false" selves. (It's true, there are many inefficacious masks, usually masks detached from higher values or traditional transport, from process.) Masks are technologies of change and transformation, they pull with them the unseen, the range of affects beyond what you are "are". And, the fighter comes perhaps to understand that she or he has been wearing masks all along, only masks they have become comfortable in, masks they have been told and that they tell themselves are really them. But you cannot just throw off your mask, any mask you've grown into. You have tissue, blood vessels, skin, organs even that have become symbiotic to it. The act though of putting on a mask, to stretch the soul, uncovers something about yourself. And, what is special about the alchemy of the process of fighting is that this is done, this art, is done under duress, sometimes extreme duress. It's an art-form of mask making that pulls on our deepest evolutionary threads, triggering all the alarm bells of our organism - physical survival, and shame (social survival). The things to be learned from growing in your relationship to mask are unending and profound. There is a theme building in Sylvie Muay, which directs itself away from the ring, beyond the ring, through the ring. The ring stands in as an analog for the soul in life. It presents in extreme, stark relief the Nature of things. Your relationship to all the things that steer you, unconsciously, in living. The Ring exposes your conditions, and your conditioning. Because it is real, because this mirror is real, there are many ways to fail it. There are serious handholds in the rock where you will be tempted to say: "Ah! Here is a good place to stop." and then to head back down the mountain. The Ring in this way feels Impenetrable. It can feel like proverbial and metaphysical "sound and fury, Signifying nothing". Many fighters come out of their ring days and feel like they've simply survived. But within their souls, even those who have been muted, I think they know something others do not know. And in some sense the limits of what they have discovered is conditioned by the circumstances and pressures of fighting. I cannot shake the feeling though, the dramatic feeling of difference that I feel between what Sylvie has discovered, and is discovering as a person, maybe in the last 6 months, from where she was, as a person with 150 fights. All of that veil passing would have been lost. There is a feeling like she is now stepping on a whole new continent after sailing across a long and variously believed endless sea. There is a shore here. On the other side.

Oh! I'm a mad man, how did I read this thread and not say Youssef Boughanem. First ever farang to hold Lumpinee and Rajadamnern titles simultaneously. That'd be my number 1 suggestion!

Absolutely. Wilde was not a Muay Thai fighter, and this was his only novel based off of a Faust legend. If he had seen a Muay Thai fighter fighting within the trinity of transcendentals, he might have written about that experience/story instead haha The arts is such a large umbrella term and often (too?) all-encompassing. I’m realizing now that different kinds of art philosophies don’t always occupy the same “shared venn diagram space” as each other, though they all lead to a form of art.

So awesome James, happy it struck you! Means a lot.

Thing is, you can kinda feel sorry for that every new guy with the red hat. Sounds like you guys had good training starting out so were decently schooled, but in loads of countries it's a bit shocking. In the beginning, this one gym (stayed there about 5 minutes, for this reason) had a trainer only wanting us us to do his bizarre convoluted long ass 13, 14 hit combinations. No joke, one would involve superman punch, then flying knee, then spinning back something, then another jumping teep, then his own ninja matrix move he invented... I mean it was cringe. Didn't know where to look. Growing up, there were guys running gyms this way to keep paying members coming back because it felt fancy and exciting. He knew his... well, basically cult members, loved to know they were learning the same thing they saw in a highlight reel the previous day on their instagram.

I love this part too: "You can win lots of fights without dealing much with your personal framework. This is why winning doesn't really matter to the value of fighting, and often works as a disservice. The point of fighting is to keep putting your hand in the Box, until you learn. You may never learn. It may feel like it's just a goddamn pain box. The lesson cannot be forced. But, if you keep putting your hand in there, and give it time, you will can something incredible." It really resonates.

Kinda let down now. Was partly hoping it was true.

This is a beautiful and amazing feat of acrobatic skill but I can definitely see why you wouldn't want Muay Thai heading in that direction.

Horses in the Age of the Gods were 20 ft high, little known fact (pretty damn spectacular, though)

So wait wait... then the whole thing about TKD's jumping spinny spinny stuff being from infantrymen who knocked the cavalry guys off their horses..... was that an urban myth all along?

Great essay, and perfect timing for me (I actually meditated to the Litany against fear last night). I particularly like how you approach use of Will, you do have to force yourself thru Will to fight initially (or even just to spar). Early on though, I found that if it was just will that I was struggling against myself so much that I didn't have much for my opponent or the greater opponent (e.g. fear, anger, desire). I also think you undersell your "right" to talk about this, this is all our struggle (every single one of us) because we all walk around looking at the existential inevitability of the end. I fight for a lot of reasons, but most importantly to live a better fuller life because we always have our hand in that box (even if we aren't always aware of it).

Yes I have seen you posting about it and bought it. Expensive! But nerdtastic. Thank you for putting up screenshots.

Off Topic. Sylvie, Are those your photos of Kru Nu? They are beautiful.

I love that idea of a compressed files and I don't disagree that much of karate has taken a turn towards the unreal. Part of it is I don't really like the word "karate". Seems important to be precise. I also don't think being original (Okinawan) necessarily makes things right. I am not always looking for the oldest thing although that is also of interest, just not definitive. I tell you what Kevin, I was in tears when it became clear that for family reasons I was going to have to add in Korean Tang soo do (a precursor to Tae Kwon do, heavier roundhouses, many other differences but still a 20th century hybrid like so many). I just absolutely hated it but I have to do it (my mentally ill daughter is trying to get back to her practice and she needs to see a beginner, me, for courage). I am learning some brutal things (so many approaches to yanking off the testicles lol), and because my teacher knows I prefer Muay Thai, he is at pains to explain the real purpose in different movements. The single blow thing, for example, is obviously ridiculous so Tang soo do also teaches nasty little hand and wrist locks as a sort of backup in case your opening salvo fails on the street. But this is not a defense of karate. Go ahead. Chop at it. I love that video! Two smart guys making solid arguments for the necessity of "kata" or forms. Makes sense. I didn't know Okinawan was so grappling based. Style I hate is Shotokan. So still, so low. Seems just fucking pretentious. That is probably similar to peoples' reactions to flying shit. I have shot thousands of frames of different styles of karate at tournaments so I'm somewhat aware of the variety. But my heart and soul are with Muay Thai, as much as they can be from this country.

Totally so. I do have a problem with mystification of fighting styles. I mean, I was a huge Kung Fu cinema fan, and so absolute love that kind of mystification, in film, but it's difficult when it comes into the real world. Karate is a difficult subject. Much of what is "Karate" is quite far from it's origins in Okinawa (reportedly then, it had very few kicks, now its stereotypically identified with kicks). Even when it came to Japan in 1922 it took a hard turn away from its roots and continued on a fairly strong path towards un-realism. They tried to correct that with full-contact, but it really seems like it never found its realism root, for a hundred reasons. But, I like to think of Karate as kind of compressed file, that likely contains a ton of wisdom and knowledge from eras that are not our own. And that is super cool to me. If you can unzip the file there is probably a Goldmine in there, and I'm sure many have claimed, or have worked to do so, translating it into fight contexts, but wholesale Karate feels a little fantasy based. In thinking about unzipping files, I really like for instance what these young dudes are doing:

Both I guess :). Everybody does it. Substantive analysis like you do is valid. But shit talk generally, knee jerk stuff is something I try to be careful with, just for myself. I try to maintain 100% curiosity all the time, though critique is part of that. Doesn’t apply to anyone else so I’m gonna drop it.

It's wonderful to have you contributing here! A forum is really shaped by who participates in it, so your enjoyment of it is very much to do with your own part of it as well. So thank you!

To me, this is a great example of balance. Neither going too light but definitely not hard. Good back and forth, good flow, full speed but no where near full power, recognition of landed strikes, etc. victorsaravia_mtag_20190603084728.mp4

I think this is an important thing to realise both before and after the fight. A lot of fighters I know feel fear before the fight not so much about being hurt but not performing in front of friends and family as well as they should. Thats a lot of pressure to take with you in there. Why did she start to compete, what was the motivation? That is the part that needs to still have importance, but not as pressure, as motivation. Fear cant be ignored but it can be used. Losses suck, no way around it, but they dont define and they also can be used (in fact often times they can be of more use than wins). The idea for me as a coach is to reduce pressure before a fight, to get them to harness what fears they have. Everything is a matter of perspective, its how you choose to see it.

I still get nervous in the last training sessions before any fight, because I think that how I "perform" there should be a copy of how I will perform in the ring. And I'm very often tired, sore, mentally fatigued, and hurt somewhere or many places. All of that comes with you into the ring, but you don't have to give it importance. To have doubt os very, VERY normal. You can fight against it, or you can fight with it there but it's not significant. Physical pain is the same. You can't "leave it at the door," as it will be in the ring with you, but you don't have to give it significance. "It hurts, but that doesn't MEAN anything." Remind her that she's already done the work. There's nothing more that needs to be done. Confidence is not first a feeling, it is first an action. If she's not feeling confident, fine - just ACT confident, whatever her version is, days and hours before climbing into the ring. Like putting on a coat. Those thoughts are just as real as her doubts; doubts, also, are only thoughts. They are no more real than self-belief. She has both, both can be real, but you have to breathe life into the one you want. Also, fights don't mean anything more than what happens during the minutes they are taking place. They do not determine ability, or worth. They determine if you like fighting or not.

It's not to far afield assessment. You can see it in general terms at a lot of clubs and gyms. The more genteel an environment a person comes from, the less comfortable they are with violence and the notion of getting hit, especially in the face. It's not always the case but from observations over the years it's an accurate one. Working class people generally don't react that way.The very notion of single shot death blows is far removed from reality and you can really only understand that viscerally if you come from a rough neighbourhood. Look at Alma Juniku for instance, she comes from Logan City. I don't know what suburb of Logan. I come from Logan. To most people from Logan, just merely existing is a daily fight. My point to that, is she feels it viscerally, instinctively that one shot does not make the kill. Such high and mighty deliberations on one shot kills can only ever be made by the rich, as they have the time to ponder such things. Here's a sad but funny anecdote on how people regard Logan City....... My son was out and about in Brisbane City. He starts up a conversation with a girl. She asks him where he comes from. He says Logan. The girl replies, don't people die in Logan?

(This is in reply to the discussion up the thread; didn’t manage a quote because I could not choose which one). In visual art there is most certainly an expectation that the poorer artist will be more “hungry”, “primitive”, “raw talent” & other patronizing terms. Add in race and you have Basquiat as the paradigmatic “poor genius” (meanwhile he was terrifically sophisticated & strategic). The rich artist on the other hand, is the “Sunday Painter” (the expression is an insult referring to dilettantism. It’s not that he only paints on Sunday because he works, quite the contrary, it’s that she only paints on Sunday cause she’s yachting & shopping the rest of the week). Because of mfa programs in the US, which are now legion & terrific money-makers for universities, art is now evermore a playground for the rich & it’s pretty disgusting. Columbia, where I taught a decade, costs @140k without housing etc. so you’re either rich, or your permanently in debt for an art degree. There are many interesting parallels with martial arts. The comfort with violence as a working class phenomenon has a relation to the common expectation that the artist be rough, drug addicted & possibly disturbed (like me as a kid lol). It’s a limiting thing, much like expecting a Thai fighter from the North to express him or herself in a non-intellectual (non-femeu) way.

Tying this to art is interesting in a few ways, both in that the poor artist had to have "patrons" who supported them - and sportsman have to have an audience and a camp - but also in that the rich practitioner/artist is able to devote himself due to his leisure. Listening to Joe Rogan, I'm always pretty surprised by how "good" a lot of these celebrity Jiu-jitsu players become, but then it's not that surprising at all when they have a lot of time to devote to it. It's not a "hobby" just because they're wealthy, but in a poor practitioner it's a kind of hunger because the way to "find time" to practice is to either devote yourself entirely and kind of let other responsibilities atrophy, or you're a "weekend warrior" because you have to work all the shifts, take care of all the kids, etc. A painter who can paint 20 hours a day is "better" than a painter who can paint 2 hours a day, and whether you're rich or poor doesn't make a difference other than how you go about having the time to dedicate yourself to it. In the world of Muay Thai in Thailand, this conversation becomes interesting because it used to be like Fighting Chickens, where a rich man would pay a trainer to take care of his chickens, like a patron. A gym supported the fighters so that they could fight. Introduce the affluent (relatively or directly) westerner who pays for training and over enough decades the patterns of the gym space actually change. In Pattaya this is distinct. Kru Nu is the head of the second oldest gym in Pattaya (behind Sityodthong) and holds a certificate that identifies him as a real traditional fighter's gym (of which there are only 2-3 left in Pattaya, despite the small city have TONS of gyms now), as opposed to a commercial business. Kru Nu's gym, Petchrungruang, is still a business. But it has a certificate from the Muay Thai Authority of Chonburi (our province) that identifies him as a different class than the newer gyms, which cater mainly to tourism... and have taxes and certificates from the Board of Tourism, rather than the Sport Authority. The tourist market allows gyms to cover their overhead and it puts much less pressure on the fighters of the gym to earn a living to support the whole operation. That's kind of good in ways. But it changes the priorities of the gym a lot, which I love about Petchrungruang because Kru Nu invites anyone and everyone to train the same way his real fighters do, but they're his priority. He's not catering to the guest, so to speak. The commercial gyms are doing much better, business-wise, and with money comes power and they can throw weight around for opportunities. Something a small gym can't necessarily do, but has very long-held connections with promoters and other gym owners (Thai and western, many of the western gym owners came through Kru Nu's gym at some point). Even Sityodthong, after the death of the absolute Legend founder, Master Yodthong, has completely changed now that it's under the management of his children, who grew up affluent.

The role of the rich in the arts in general! In the context of History, I’m learning that with wealth comes the birth of the opinionated man. Preferences and taste are socialized by the richness of exposure and education. This is a fascinating topic because art is one of the intersection points of the rich and the poor. (I’m thinking of the rich art collector and the “poor artist” cultural motifs). Also, art has the potential to be an equalizer of class, like death, because of the arguably more inherent nature of human creativity. As for martial arts, I see money all over the gym and fight scene both locally and internationally (travel, equipment, nutrition science, etc). But, I would like to see...how much of its survival is fueled by human fight philosophy or technology, than pure monied privilege?