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Maybe there's a way in like this. Most of aggression = domination comes from imposing pain, or the idea of that. But, there are so many other things. I'm not going to let you breathe (when you want to), going about taking away someone's breathing pattern. I'm not going to let you stand where you want to, moving them off their spot when you see them settle. I'm not going to let you rhythm when you want to, or on your tempo. Just three. 1. look for breathing. 2. look for standing in a spot 3. look for rhythm Many people don't ever really LOOK for those things, they aren't trained to do so. But, if you get them to start to see it, then it can become a target, even a fun target. And then they can feel how it is domination. If you made a mental exercise. Walk into a room with people you are familiar with (work, the gym, school), and have a conversation with someone you know. But decide in advance to move them physically, while you are talking. Come with me, put your hand on their back, as we talk. Stop here, while we talk. Move them back, gently, while we talk. You use the customary space of talking to move the person, position them. This is fighting. If anyone did this exercise they would immediately understand domination without any aggression. Purposely interrupt someone every time they start talking in a conversation. You can do it rudely, or aggressively. This is counterstriking. This is breaking rhythm. It doesn't have to be aggressive, in fact it could be fun to see just how gently you can do it. Sylvie in the few times she's taught would show how if you stand too close to someone when you are talking to them, they will move back. You can use this to steer someone, without them really realizing it. It's just using energy and proximity. Aggression is like the crudest tool in the box. I know you know all this, but just some random thoughts.

One of the most difficult things when trying to train pretty much anything is that the human organism, in fact all organisms operate with a profound sense of homeostasis. When the system finds its equilibrium it sets its internal thermostat to stay there. The human body regulates its temperature to fall within a certain zone, ideal for its chemical interactions. The alcoholic (just to pick something) stays within the circularity of habits that maintain a symbiotic relationship to the substance alcohol. Each is a system composed of a network or networks that circles back on itself, stabilizing the relations. One may be at the bio-chemical level, the other may involve friends, conversations, work habits, advertisement consumption, diet and many other things (also perhaps reduce-able to bio-chemical chains). How does one change a homeostatically driven system? The first thing to appreciate is that if you have any "bad habits" they are likely part of a homeostatic system. They are part of a sameness, a stability. They aren't just "bad", they are "good" in a set of relations. If you keep dropping your hands in sparring or on the pads, this isn't just an error. It's also something that your body is reading as right or helpful in maintaining itself. If you don't figure out how to replace the "good" that is being done with another, more operative good, it's very hard to convince the system to make the change. In fact, it's pretty much impossible. An example from Sylvie is that we've figured out that she lowers her hands at times in her movement. In particular we were thinking about how she starbursts them when kicking, for instance, instead of being more in guard. They aren't just dropping out of laziness. In fact they are forming part of a balancing mechanism, probably brought on by leanbacks in her kick, when her head moves off of the centerline. Her hands are part of a system of stability. IF you want to stop lowering your hands then you probably need to stop leaning back. You have to teach the whole system a different kind of balance. You can keep yelling at yourself to keep your hands up, but what you are telling the system is: "Don't save yourself." It isn't going to happen. There is a reason they are down. There are probably several reasons, in fact. A single thing like lowering the hands can play a role in several stabilizing systems, physically, mentally, emotionally, etc. But the point is: look to the system. Look to what stability is being accomplished. This is a long way of saying, if you are trying to change one thing you probably need to change the whole thing. Sometimes you can change the whole thing by really pushing hard on the one thing. For instance, you can tie your hands in place, and make it so you can never drop them, and the whole system of balance would be forced to learn another way. That's a brute force approach. It's usually better to globally try and shape the whole system, that way all the connective tissue between parts gets touched. This is one of the reasons play in training is a powerful tool, it pulls more and more into the system, and guides it all to evolve without critical judgment. So, onto the Critical Brain. Some ruminations on the possible nature of the brain and how that might help us see mental (and physical) training under new models. With new models come new expectations and methods. The best article to read on this is the recent Ars Technica Rat brains provide even more evidence our brains operate near tipping point but the quotations in this article are from the Quanta article Brains May Teeter Near Their Tipping Point, Quanta Magazine. Both are summarizing the consequences of a new paper presented on how brains may be structured around criticality. In taking up the idea of training away and through criticality we can see homeostasis in a new way. This theory of the brain suggests that it fluctuates just below criticality, which is in very crude terms like a sandpile. How the Brain is Like a Sandpile The stability of the sandpile system comes from it's inherent instability. What is interesting is how they are very broadly analogizing sandpile avalanches to biological processes, and brain activity like cascading neurons firing to some effect. For instance, waking up. How is it that a sleeping brain moves to becoming awake? What is the process? What is it like? This theory suggests that it's very much like a sandpile. It gets dripped on by grains and slowly moves toward its big avalanche, the cascade of neurons that in unison moves it into a waking state. You can read the articles and see how this may only be a rough analogy, but it's helpful. It's talking about how the organism moves between stabilizing and destabilizing states, and positions itself between. How the Brain is Like an Atomic Bomb The above positions the human brain between thresholds of Noise and dumbness, ever balancing itself in a Goldilocks zone which allows a helpful rate of cascading. I present it here just for digestion. I'm going to veer off on my own tangent. It's my intuition - and I did not read this hypothesis in the literature, and I have no particular reason to think it true - that the way that a cascading, avalanche prone brain dampens its sensitivity (super criticality) is likely that the overall critical system is nested. Which is to say that when a rice grain falls on subsystem x, this grain is released by another, more localized sandpile, if you will. You have hour glasses linked to hour glasses. And at times they cascade all together. At times, in fact many times, the cascade is well below the threshold of consciousness or action. Nested criticality is a very interesting model of development. If we are perusing a physical change, say perhaps snapping back on the jab, or maybe more interestingly developing a quality, let's say being light on your feet, it may be productive to think of this element as a nested subsystem of criticality. Which is to say, we are building sandpiles. Many times we are working on something and it just seems like nothing is happening at all. We are just wasting our time. And, we very well may be. On the other hand, we may be also dropping rice grains with the aim creating a sand pile, which will then critically balance itself with cascades of the desired effect. What is kind of interesting about this is that we tend to look at states in very idealized ways. A good fighter is always calm. A good fighter is always on balance. This fighting style is quick and accurate. But in nested criticality there is no absolute quality. This particular sandpile tends to avalanche, to cascade with this effect, over time. At any one particular moment, a single fall of a rice grain, the system might express that quality, or it may not. If it does not, it isn't failing. It's only a tendency of that subsystem, a tendency to cascade. When we watch someone like Mike Tyson we are struck with significant essentialism. He is just so powerful. He is powerful in all things he does. But it isn't really that way. Many shots aren't powerful. Many shots miss or are miss timed. But then that huge shot lands, accurate, fast, explosive. That's a sandpile avalanching. Lots of grains fell in that fight in which there were only tiny avalanches, and lots fell when there was nothing. Instead of imagining that those were misfires, or failed, perhaps we imagine them as a system near criticality. His training, the state he had developed, was one when power tended to manifest itself. The whole fighter would cascade with a certain effect. The same thing with maybe someone like Samart who is so slick, so on balance. The illusion he creates, often by virtue of great moments in fights when everything avalanches, is that he is ALWAYS this way. He isn't, he's off balance all time, he mistimes things, but he catches himself, the system is tending toward slickness, towards timing. The reason why this is important, or productive, is that it's a way into seeing into the nature of "error" or even unresponsiveness. The failure of a system to produce the desired effect is quickly read in very critical terms. It is broken. It needs fixing. The first thing is to understand that the system, any system, is already not broken. It is operating under a homeostasis already. If the theory of the criticality of the brain is anywhere close to being true, at minimum any particular state a person is in, any habit they have, is part of a pretty delicate and miraculous balancing act of hovering near a tipping point of maximum efficacy. As we try and train that system to have different qualities, we are just moving its tipping points. We do that by addressing nested subsystems and their criticality. The other aspect of criticality and error is that just because the sandpile isn't cascading with the desired effect doesn't mean that it is broken. It just may be that not enough grains of sand have fallen for it to reach criticality. It's just a fairly insensitive pile as yet. Yeah, you flinch still in sparring. Not enough grains have tumbled down. Your eyes and other senses haven't seen enough yet. Yes, you can train bad habits, create sandpiles that cascade in an undesired way, but if you understand that you are building sandpiles in the first place, the role of error or unresponsiveness can be seen in a different way. You are not trying to create a perfect response, as in mechanical views of the world where you push a button, and gears turn, and then the gumball drops out. The same way every time. That is the model we often think of in training. Instead, you are creating sandpiles which tend toward certain effects, certain qualities. And, once you have a pretty good sandpile you are fine tuning its sensitivity to inputs, making it more and more prone towards sensitivity and flow. But, there is no "perfect" state of the sandpile. Even the most revered fighters existed in states where if a single grain fell, nothing would happen. Its only if when enough grains fall, beauty happens.

Hmmm. If you are responding to my thought experiment it really shouldn't involve pushing people around anywhere. The whole idea is to develop a sense of domination, which is really just control over your environment, submissive people are also trying to control their environment as well, they do it hrough submission. In my example this is done without aggression, which means you aren't pushing against anything. A good example I can take from my bartender years. I used to bar tend during some shifts in NY in a very small service bar (making drinks for waiters) where customers would come and kind of corner me, and talk to me. Ha, I'm not the talkative bartender type at all. One night I just decided to see if I could move the person in front of me who was jabbering away - it really was only maybe 4 feet across, the little bar space, I tried to move them to the left and to the right. I would talk to them and look off center, slightly to their left to move them slowly across the bartop, and then slightly to the right, and like a cat with a laser they would move to be in front of my gaze. I felt trapped, it was my degree of freedom. I wasn't really pushing them. I'm not sure that classifies as aggression. Maybe? But, I think it's something far below aggression. It's just the natural desire to control the environment, and there are many ways to do it. Not just aggressively. When a fighter like Samart is just drifting backwards, teep juggling his opponent over and over, looking bored, leading them quietly around the ring like a dog on a leash, is this aggression? There are moments of aggression in his style to be sure, but the domination he exhibits is the same as me looking to the right, and to the left. I think the confusion is the idea that as a fighter you need to tap into some fundamental, probably repressed aggression, and then stay in this aggro state for long stretches, in order to fight. No, not really. Not in Thai style at least. You have to learn how to control the space, control your opponent, and control yourself. Yes, you can use aggression. Yes, you can tap into repressed energies, as a tool, but it isn't fundamentally that. I think there is a lot of misleading about aggression in fighting, it necessity, etc. Is there fighting with absolutely ZERO aggression, probably not. But if you watch some of Somrak's fights you seem almost none. Dieselnoi when asked about Somrak said: He's a tall person who refuses to fight you!!! And basically implied, he's a nightmare for that reason. This stuff goes way, way back for Thailand. The oldest recorded fight between a farang and a Thai is from the 18th century when a French Man challenged a royal champion. The Thai champion just retreated (and probably teeped and whatnot) the French boxer became totally enraged. It was so humiliating that the Frenchman's brother then apparently hopped into the ring to simultaneously attack the Thai. I wonder who was dominating whom?

I ask outve general curiosity because Ive actually had so many different people exhibit different responses to this. Yes, Ive definitely had people that couldnt (or maybe wouldnt) tap into this and Ive had some that tapped into it too much lol. I was the latter and more conan but had to learn to be more dexter. Im definitely someone that can scale back my aggression and domination depending on the person's needs in front of me. And thats how I see it too. From a coach's perspective, its about the needs of my students. Thats also part of why I ask these things, to be able to use what I find here for them. Currently, I have one fighter that has as close to a perfect mentality when it comes to this as Ive ever encountered. He is just that way as a human. Rarely gets overtly emotional, but can show as needed. Hes easily able to be dominant with clinical detachment. He keeps that detachment even when its not going his way. In his last fight he got his nose broken during the second round. It wasnt until the end after finishing his opponent that he then asked me "Hey coach, can you look at my nose? Is it crooked?". He knew something was wrong but just put it aside til the job was done. I find all of that, all of this psychology fascinating.

For westerners and particularly beginners, I truly believe they expect a mechanised, structured and organised system of learning any martial craft. I'm only relating this to martial crafts, however it could applied to almost anything westerners engage in. I feel this it is the only way a westerner feels he/she can gauge the value of whatever they are taking part in. So it fits perfectly with your last sentence. My personal opinion is, there's not many westerners that could be taught in any other way. Of course as you gain experience, mental and physical and of course if you are inquisitive enough, your attitude will change and the sandpile will become the driving force as opposed to the sheer mechanical process.

Quite interesting and makes intuitive sense, especially your points about the industrial age. A cascade of sand is such a nice way of thinking about physical and mental, even emotional epiphanies, as well as waking up. Its always good for my horribly perfectionistic brain to find another way to think about errors as productive as well. I am wondering if you would be so kind as to define the brain in "criticality" under these terms a bit more.

What is at stake here is pretty much the mechanistic world view which we have inherited from the industrial age. Models of the world call our attention to certain features, and suppress our attention to other features, and let's just grant that there is no one "all features" model of the world. A great deal of what we do in the west in terms of Martial Art or combat training comes out of our gearworks mentality. We largely see the world in terms of interconnected cogs or forces that behave in practical ways. And if something predictable fails to occur we lift up the hood and check for where the connection is broken. We do this with ourselves as well, often trying to fix or replace "broken" parts, like our beliefs (that may be holding us back), or habits. We imagine that if the parts line up the machine of the world will work as it should be. And you can see this kind of mechanistic thinking in fight training. Especially in Dutch Kickboxing (taking its cue from Karate's katas, fused with boxing combo thinking), we practice set patterns that are imagined to work like a mechanism unfolding. In fact people partner up and exchange set patterns in simulated "sparring" just to make sure the well-oiled machine of responses is properly geared. You jab, I slip. You cross, I lowkick. Etc. One reason why this patterned teaching proliferates is that it fits in well with our mechanistic world, another reason is that just like in the world of commerce, making widgets (discrete units), and selling and moving them quickly, is a very keen business model for the production of knowledge. You can just stamp them out and put them in a relative assembly line. I'm not saying that all patterned instruction is like this, but we should understand that there is a certain cultural, commercial and paradigm-based balast to all of this practice,. What the complexity systems theory does to this mechanistic world view is change up our expectations, and revise our concept of "error" (or non-response, null value). Error is not necessarily a feedback of a broken part. It may simply be a criticality building system under development.

This is ongoing for me. Ive had success and failure with this, which is why I pose the question to fish and see if theres anything I can use to be more succesful with it. Kevin gave gold in what he said above which will definitely help me with people that dont necessarily like the agression aspects of fighting (negative connotations to their past, etc). Being able to teach them how to be dominant (positive) without the aggression (negative) is an excellent skill set I can develop further because of the things you guys have said.

No, thats the point of these actually. Just let it spill out lol. Its like round table discussions. The idea is to pose something and see what comes out. Thanks for being such a good interactive person. I for one appreciate it.

I will quickly comment on this. Maybe the term used by westerners, instead of mechanized, is structured. I truly believe we crave structure. I had a coach teach that mentality to me from the system he used and honestly since I started using it, its been easier to teach people. Ive never taught outside the US but I have taught a lot of people from other countries that move here and they respond just as well to a structured system. I wonder if its a by product of how we a re raised and taught growing up. If it doesnt have something to do with comfort. Similarly to the essay above, we crave structure because its familiar and familiarity breeds comfort.

That really exemplifies the western idea of domination. It's really a macho thing. I myself like the I will get you to do what I want with out you even realising it was my idea and not your own. To me that is real domination and control of your environment. However when it comes to physical confrontation I am the total opposite, I like to impose my will and assert my dominance in a quick and timely fashion, there is very little subtlety involved.

I've always thought the same. You either have it buried somewhere inside you or you don't. Some people fake it but they come undone especially when things don't go there way.

Did not mean to make it "if" there are clear terms lol. But evidently I did. Thanks. I am really enjoying the new improved forum. Very rich.

Yeah I guess I see passive aggression as aggression flat out. My point of view comes from being annoyed at American white females for using the tool of victim behavior as a powerful weapon. I love passive aggression in, like you say, the Samart backing up, the Thai Champion enraging the French boxer, and you as a bartender. I do it myself. I just think on a meta level there is a habit of princessy victimhood in my own culture (and i don't exempt myself) that can be remedied by experience of harnessing direct aggression (hence my posing martial arts for women). You can expand the phenomenon of aligning with the powerful, acting submissive to do it and throwing other to the winds (aka cultural passive aggression) in early U.S. voting rights (black women didn't get the vote - who did that? White women), current states overturning abortion laws (all white women doing it, disproportionately affects women of color). But I am going far afield from James' question. Sorry James. My final thought is one has to be able to use all kinds of concealed and overt aggression in life and in fighting, and not rely on just one.

I am interested to read this. I always thought of the killer instinct as more of a buried quality that is either there or not (perhaps dependent on trauma or some combination of genetics and nurture). Then the instinct should be trained for self-control, but there are examples of people who don't like fighting but who must for economic reasons (in Western boxing; I'm not familiar with how people talk about it in Thailand. You can distinguish domination from aggression and that is elegant but it still takes a certain amount of aggression to want to push people around. You typical submissive person does not try that). I've definitely seen fighters at the gym quit fighting cause eh, they are not really fighters? Too sweet? Have you had athletes you could not bring this out in? Is this why you ask the question, James?

I have always had the ability to switch it on and off, as well as the mental clarity in training not to go over board on my partner. I really don't train it, I guess because of the areas I have lived the majority of my life in, you have to have it and keep it honed. So for me it is definitely a subconscious thing, no special mental exercises or physical cue training. I would make the assumption one of the visual cues associated with sparring would be the look of fear your partner may express orva look of surprise, like Whoah, Dude and audio cue would definitely an exacerbated sound of pain. I'm a very controlled type of person and never engender these experiences in a sparring partner unless they're being complete dicks.

Totally agree. I think also western mentality has a lot of mix with domination and aggression. So many cant have one without the other, and that just in regular day life. The teaching of domination without aggression is such a huge aspect of martial arts.

A big variant is how Muay Thai teaches/trains domination, not aggression. You can use aggression to dominate, but only to a certain degree. You don't (often) get a "killer" mentality for this reason. It's all about controlling the other person, imposing yourself. This is really a different world than a lot of western thinking. But it's worth pointing out.

Real good thoughts, and no I dont necessarily know this either or maybe I do but its not foremost in my brain at the moment, so its great to see it written out. Its just excellent tactical training. Maybe thats it too, tactical is domination without necessarily having aggression.

Wow. Wowow. Thank you, this was an excellent essay. You put into words things Ive felt for a while. Ive got to digest before I say more, but this was really great.

I am interested to read you understand this as a trainable quality rather than something you have innately or not. I would love to read your experience with bringing it out in people (though I know you are asking for others’ point of view).

hahahaha. Sure. This is the better article: Ars Technica Rat brains provide even more evidence our brains operate near tipping point

I'm not entirely sure how you mean. Do you mean differently than the two articles cited do? Like, just in terms of error production? Or, do you mean more generally, how these articles paint a picture of the brain as a tipping point complex system?

Thanks Sylvie, thats exactly the kind of personal explanation I was looking for from people when I wrote this. Ive had the same issues in training as well as being a coach. Even coaches need to exhibit this kind of mentality with fighters or people that too easily give up. Slippery slope for me as a coach. It means I have to really know the person Im pushing, what are their goals, how are they built mentally, and can I break the chains theyve developed without breaking them in the process.

I think most people do. The "game face" as its called. I always wondered how deep people went though. In a fight, its pretty much kill mentality until the bell or your opponent is unconcious. How does one train that with control? What are the visual or auditory cues to get you to scale it back before you hurt a teammate? The reason I ask is because for everyone its different. Not the kill aspect but the control aspect. Also, we always hear about the different ways to condition our minds towards battle, but what about battle at the right time?

Do you want to train mainly or are you looking at fighting as well? If you haven't fought yet, but want to, you might want to look at Phuket. From what I've heard training might not the greatest everywhere, but quite easy to get fights as beginners. Bangkok has many good gyms, but getting a fight as beginner can get tricky. I heard great stuff about PK Saenchai gym where Tawanchay, Rodlek and many others train and you also see them there regularly. There's also FA Group (very clinch focused) in Chatuchak which is not far from Ari a very nice neighborhood sort of hipster area of Bangkok. They have many great fighters such as Yothin. Mixed thai fighters and foreigners with a higher skill level. For a "true" thai experience there's Numponthep gym in Klong Toey (sort of regarded as the slum of Bangkok, but not bad at all and close to Sukumvit) very simple facilities but good training. Nonsai who many westerners know come there to teach now and then. Sitjaopho in Hua Hin I also heard should be really great. And there's Lionheart on Koh Samui run by a nice Irish fighter and his family. Bit touristy and many beginners but still very nice. But I want to make you aware that if you want a true Thai experience the way I understand it, this means you won't be important. The Thai fighter is the focus and foreigners a side business. That doesn't mean you won't get good training, just that focus is not on you. At gyms where the foreigner is main figure well...it won't be the most thai experience I guess you would be looking for. Most gyms regardless of what they are will have great teachers that take pride in teaching their art. But also, they see thousands and thousands of foreigners of all skill levels come and go and that's just the way it is... It's difficult to build relationships in a short time. My advice would be to find a nice gym in a nice area/town you also like. Not pay in advance. Get a room close-by and make sure you are comfortable and happy so you can enjoy and learn as much as possible.

this is the craziest thing, Isaan seems like it's the bread-basket of amazing techniques, but it is saddled with rural stereotypes.

I 100% get what you're getting at with the Dexter vs. Conan example, but I chafe at the serial killer comparison because I believe you have to actually be quite empathetic to be a good fighter. You have to know what fear and pain and shame feel like to be able to impart them on your opponent - and to a softer degree your partner in training scenarios. But yes, definitely not the "beast mode" of the Conan approach. I've found that for myself, a degree of insistence is what works the best for me in training. I'm slightly pissed off, but not in a way that's directed at anyone or anything. It's just that my version of slightly pissed allows me to let go of judgement, I think. There is a kind of Hannibal Lector quality to feeling the emotional and energy state of your partner and calmly guiding them toward the deep end. Like, "you look close to quitting, let me just nudge you a bit." I've personally had a hard time learning how to have that "killer instinct," or your version of a kind of sociopathic instinct, in aiding your partner's weaknesses because it feels shitty. For a very long time, if I knew that what I was doing was putting my partner in an emotionally difficult place, I'd back off. Even though in part of my mind I know that's no favor at all. There's a fighter at my gym who is the universal little brother. He's literally the little brother of one fighter, but he's the youngest (without being the 7-8 year olds, who are kind of their own set), and he's a butterball who gives up and hates being tired, so Kru Nu is always working to toughen him up. Like, if he can't finish the morning run in 1 hour, he has to run more. A few times, he's been running on the road, all of us in the van with the doors open just kind of crawling alongside him. It's punishment, for sure, but it's not just him. If Alex comes in behind so-and-so, he has to run extra or do pushups or whatever also, and he's kind of a "star" of the gym. So, I struggle with this because I have a compassionate impulse to get out and run with the little brother. Just so he has a partner, a friend, something to make it less all-eyes-on-you. But I also know that a lesson is being taught and by jumping out and doing that, it comes off as "motherly," which I 1 million percent do not want to associate myself with in the gym. It's that same struggle when I feel my partners wanting to quit, or having a hard time, or hitting an emotional wall. I've been there. And I've had people ease up on me - so I know that just lets me stay exactly how I am. And I've had people not ease up, and I know that helps me grow. So, it's a weird version of "serial killer compassion," as it were.

Well, I would be careful about wanting the "thai experience", for that is exactly what I sought and that disappointed me about training in Thailand. Unless you speak Thai fluently, and you are only and exclusively into fighting, you won't enjoy being surrounded by Thais only in some camp in the outskirts of Bangkok. I went to train at Sitsongpeenong (Bangkok) for a few weeks, thinking that its isolated location, its huge stable of Thai fighters, the lack of any distractions around the facility, would lead to the ultimate Muay Thai experience. It turned out, however, that mine was a foolish way of reasoning: the eastern outskirts of Bangkok became rapidly boring after a few days, the Thai fighters wouldn't really speak to me or any of the other students, while the trainers barely spoke a few words of English; it was impossible to socialize, and that, added to the fact that there was nothing in terms of distractions outside the training hours, quickly made my stay very different from what I expected. I learnt that distraction from training, as long as it is not intended as drinking and partying, is equally as important as training itself. For what concerns Yokkao I can strongly recommend it. Not only is the gym located in the heart of Bangkok, in a beautiful area in which you won't feel isolated, but the training and the vibe around it are great. The vibe, in particular, is what struck me most pleasantly: there is a sense of joy during training; everybody laughs, smiles, has a good time; you see Manachai smashing pads, Singdam coming back from his daily run, and Saenchai arriving at the gym looking for the first victim to prank. The quality of training is high, the level depending on your skill: I have seen lazy tourists doing the minimum required and professional fighters being pushed to their limit; you will have to show interest and motivation, for you will only get what you are willing to give. But no matter what, Yokkao has nothing deserving criticism. I had a private session with a trainer named Sak, and found him a great coach, highly experienced, patient and motivated. Please consider training with him if you are at Yokkao. For what concerns privates with Saenchai, I recommend you to book them in advance and be ready to pay 200$ per hour. Saenchai is not only the legend of this gym, but also the head of it: it was my impression that the type of Muay Thai taught at Yokkao resembled very much Saenchai's style on the ring: clever, elusive, fun. That would be it about Yokkao, but there is another gym I want to recommend to you, though it is located in Ao Nang, in the South of Thailand. It's called Khunsuek, it opened only recently and is a state-of-the-art facility. It certainly caters towards westerners but there is a trainer here, named Peteak Sor Suwanpakdee, who is by far the best coach I have ever had, who will tear your technique apart, and push you hard; one class with him is worth the entire trip to Ao Nang. Hoping it helps, I wish you a good trip.

Yes, just book a room nearby so that you can get to the gym for a day of training to see how you like it, then decide whether you want to stay. For Banchamek, if you go there, just book one day and night at a time or whatever and decide whether to book a few weeks after that. If you expect to be training WITH Buakaw and Yodsanklai, you will be disappointed. If you're lucky you'll see them walking around, but they're not at these gyms all the time. Yodwicha is at Buakaw's gym now and if he has a fight coming up might be training, but fighters like these aren't training all the time (or even often). You're more likely to see Yodsanklai at Terminal 21 mall across the street from Fairtex than you are in the actual gym... my husband and I see him there when we are eating dinner, hahaha. This is not to dishearten you, you can train anywhere you want. But be realistic about your expectations and be flexible in your plans so that you don't get stuck. If you land, check out the gym and like it, then that's awesome and you will be happy where you are.