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  1. This is a great point and something I think about with former fighters who've retired, those that stay retired and move onto other ventures and those that cant seem to stay retired even if the majority of fandom thinks they should. I feel like its part of the reason some cant retire to save their lives and others end up with major personality problems that end up on the news (like domestic disputes, etc). Its a tough subject one has to individually address. If your only outlet for certain emotions is fighting then what do you do when you cant? Personally, Ive had to deal with this aggressively. I know now that Im not completely made up of rage and aggression, but it took years of learning to deal with these emotions when they werent appropriate to the situation. Finding other outlets (like exercise) and learning dealing tools (like meditation, psychology, etc.) became invaluable. It became about finding a balance between the things that have become who I am. Not an alter so much as a blend, or a mix that has more of a percentage at the surface during specific situations. Its a work in progress, one I think Ill always be working on, but its always better the longer I live and deal with it.
    4 points
  2. This post grows out of a really excellent thread started by James Poidog on training fighter aggression, especially for those uncomfortable with aggression themselves (that thread is linked at the bottom here). I started answering James and then just realized that this probably deserves a thread of it's own. This was the beginning of my answer: I hope she hops on here to discuss, but I'm just giving my view. I've seen female fighters go this way. Roxy Richardson advocated for it in some blog posts, Michelle Waterson talks this way. For Sylvie the creation of an alter never was super effective. She wasn't at peace with the values in that alter, and Muay Thai is so much of her soul I think it all was a little jarring, and in a way "not believable" to her, so it didn't quite stick. You definitely see this in male fighters too. The whole "persona" which works well with marketing, etc. But what Sylvie seems to have discovered for herself is the mantra: "The way you do one thing is the way you do all things." which means that if you want to fight differently, you have to bring those values and habits into your life, the way you do other things. An interesting example for instance is that as a Muay Khao fighter you need to constantly be taking up space. More and more space. Sylvie's physically small, often shy or reclusive person. She has been moving out of the way of people for a very long time, sometimes just out of the reality of what happens on sidewalks. So...when you are moving through supermarket aisles, who is the one who moves out of the way first? You don't have to be an asshole about it, but always one person makes the gesture to move first. Who is that person? If you really want to naturally be a certain way in the ring. for instance somehow who takes up space, yes, you can make up the "Space Eating Monster" alter who just gobbles space, or...you can become someone who increasingly takes up space more often, in all things, in all ways. What I find really interesting about this is that the reason why people are drawn to certain personas, or let's say certain fighting styles, like literally drawn like a moth, is that they speak to something deep inside, something that they might not be reconciled with. Training toward something in technique, or in style, or even persona, in the gym, is a way of working toward that expression, that thing. Alters are way of approaching that, but it seems much cooler, much more rich and transformative to literally take that thing, that desire onto yourself, and start to shape your life with it. I think that's much closer to the arc that fighters are spiritually aiming for in the first place. There is also always a suspicion for me that when people put on alters that those masks can break, if you push on them hard enough, that the fighter, or even the person in life, doesn't really, really, really believe that that is who they are. And that there can be a kind of fragility to that path. Yes, you can put on masks to grow into them, to give permissions, that's a tool, but what is is stronger, like a slowly growing oak tree, to really become what you dream. The original thread conversation spin off:
    3 points
  3. I am something more like this, except I had almost over-trained my functional self in years of sobriety, such that the “crazy” kept leaking out around the edges. Fight training has been a godsend, restored me to sanity not least because I don’t have to pretend I’m something else. Violence for fun was normal in my family.
    3 points
  4. For me, its more that the persona I have when I train or fight is more the real one the one I cant let fully out in normal life. Ive had emotional issues as a kid from past abuse that left me with an unhealthy anger and no real way to deal with it...until I started training. Training let me use it and let it out to a degree that made it manageable in regular day life. If I have an alter its more the good and kind person I trained myself to become. The killer mentality has been there so long, its a part of me no matter what but it has so many detractors in regular dealings I had to learn to manage it and training helped me. Specifically in learning when and where to unleash it in training and fighting. Btw Kevin, this post is exactly why I posted earlier. I love to see how an idea expressed leads to other ideas and thoughts.
    3 points
  5. I need to keep that very much in mind. I have been trying for years to stop being the one who moves out of the way of people when walking in the street. Sometimes I succeed, but most of the time i fail. I'm not the confrontational type. I hate contact and I hate conflict. I've only very recently told people I don't do cheek-kissing (this is the French way of greeting people - I fucking hate it) and sometimes i still do it: when people are too insisting or when I care too much about their feelings or when I'm just caught off guard, and the conditioning takes over. Yet I love the contact in a Muay Thai context. I enjoy the violence and I actually do enjoy hurting people - and being hurt too, just as much, maybe more. I find it so much easier to take space in this context. But I don't want my personality/mind to be fractured and dispersed. I think it may be a lot easier to have different personas than to build yourself as a whole person. Having Alter Egos sounds very cool, appealing and romantic. It's a popular trope in pop culture. You see it all the time in super heroes. I was drawn to it for a while - as a sort of trendy thing to aspire to. But when I think about it and after reading your take on it, it does sound way more badass to simply be whole, just completely yourself all the time. Also to be accountable to everything that you do, and not just be like "well, can't help it, that's my other persona / the demon inside me / the addiction / bla bla bla". Like Eminem with his Slim Shady. "I can be an asshole, and a monster and a psycho because that's not really me actually. That's my other darker me." -> it sounds a bit like escapism. The ring can be a place where you escape. You think you're dealing with whatever troubles you deep inside that created that fracture in yourself by being a monster in the ring, and maybe it does help a little. But if you're ONLY "dealing" with it in the ring and never outside of it, what happens when you can't be in the ring anymore? When you don't have your mean to escape, to let off some steam, what then? I guess that's what happen then. You're more likely to break at some point. It's too fragile to be split. Look at what happened to Voldemort and his horcruxes. Lol.
    3 points
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  7. My spinoff thoughts on this!
    2 points
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  13. There's a couple of good articles here about the early days of Muay Thai in the UK: http://fightland.vice.com/blog/when-manchester-was-mecca-for-muay-thai http://fightland.vice.com/blog/the-gym-above-the-restaurant-master-woody-the-other-thai-in-manchester
    1 point
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  16. This is a very good article, probably the best I've ever come across, detailing the local Muay Thai fight scene on the East Coast of the US, but connecting it up with National movement in the sport, and large scale philosophical values. If interested in any of these things do read: Changing the Way Muay Thai is Done on the East Coast by Pari “Cherry” Aryafar I really enjoyed the folding of description in with interview and leadership perspective, and the photos. Events and orgs are just never covered with this kind of scope and depth, totally refreshing to read. I can't go along with the idea that this is necessarily "real" Muay Thai, in that the USMF/IFMA line of representation necessarily pushes this emphasis, blurring the notable and significant differences amateur ruleset brings to the sport, but I can certainly go along with this is real-er Muay Thai, bringing local fighting and youth fighting closer to the fighting of Thailand. This article, this writing, creates excitement on every level providing an important keyhole into the efforts being done to stimulate and nourish Muay Thai in the United States.
    1 point
  17. 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.
    1 point
  18. 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.
    1 point
  19. 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.
    1 point
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  21. 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.
    1 point
  22. 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.
    1 point
  23. 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?
    1 point
  24. 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?
    1 point
  25. 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.
    1 point
  26. 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.
    1 point
  27. 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.
    1 point
  28. 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.
    1 point
  29. 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.
    1 point
  30. Fun story. This fella is a professional wrestler from Amsterdam who used to work shows near where I live. Two of my friends who are way into wrestling got to interview him and have photos taken with him for their podcast they were doing at the time. He's one of my favourite professional wrestlers because of how convincing his striking is, especially compared to other pro wrestlers. He's got a background in dutch kickboxing, and started kickboxing because he wanted to be a wrestler, but being a kid, he wasn't sure how to start, so he took up martial arts. He says himself he doesn't have the best technique, but man he's pretty good. I really like how he walks into his switch kick and he gives solid fundamental advice for Sheamus, who as far as I'm aware doesn't have much kickboxing experience. I particularly like how he reminds Sheamus not to fully extend his arm to prevent accidental hyper extension. Not the sort of stuff we'd usually talk about here, but I thought I'd share it to show how muay thai and kickboxing can cross over into other professions outside of combat sports. Here's his a combination of kicks, he has to pull them for his opponents safety: And his very popular finishing move:
    1 point
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  33. 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.
    1 point
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  37. 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.
    1 point
  38. It's hard to care about anything when you feel as drained and unsure of bowel control as I did in that fight, haha. But it's a beautiful example, being sandwiched between two other fights, because it demonstrates how it doesn't matter. Each fight has meaning, and importance, but they don't MATTER. None of them... and somehow all of them. I was fine and fought, clinched with Pettonpung and then got food poisoning at dinner that night - terrible night and day, fight, then I'm okay again the next day (albeit tired) and you go fight again. It's like 0 and 1, as if fights are a binary, "good" or "bad," win or lose. None of them are like that. I did laugh when you said you fear the day that you just react with "ho hum" to feats like this, because that's how I respond to my own achievements sometimes. I need friends like you for perspective. So, thank you for that.
    1 point
  39. When I say this is an amazing Thai soap opera there has to be a qualifier. Thai soaps are notoriously unwatchable, at least for me. Full of huge Thai stereotypes, silliness, sound effects, and at times offensive forced sex (rape) scenes, big rambling drama, they really push the patience meter, even when in Thailand there may be nothing else on TV. We don't watch them. But for us we kept running into this one which seems brand new, and were shocked to see Muay Thai being portrayed as a central theme in the soap. When we found it on we watched for few minutes, if only as a kind of observer, to see what stereotypes would surround pop culture, soap portrayals of Muay Thai. It wasn't until we sat down and binge watched 3 episodes that we found all kinds of pleasure (and information) in this innocent soap. We actually found ourselves laughing, repeatedly, at the portrayals (that were meant to be funny), and the surrounding story lines, as best we could follow. The plots are not complicated, and even though I had the aid of Sylvie jumping in, I think I could follow them despite having almost zero Thai myself. Whether it would be worth it for you, I don't know. Our 3 years here may have softened my resistance to some of these portrayals, and made watching things in a language I don't understand enjoyable, but I found it both hilarious (slapstick style, and I'm not a fan of slapstick) and oddly illuminating. As far as I can tell the story follows Phet, a young man who is the lead in his family's Likay troop. Likay (lee-kay) is a traditional form of Thai Folk Theater (this Bangkok post article fills in some details). Phet, through circuitous events finds himself wanting to join a Muay Thai camp (all of this in Isaan?) which is run by several women. The most prominent female is Pim, who also seems to be the star fighter of the camp. The title of the soap is Likay - Matsang (Folk Theater - Directed Fist), and it balances a tension between Phet's traditional dance theater troop - and its attendant (effeminate) almost boy-band masculinity - and the Kai Muay which is run by women. The camp emphasizes female fighters to a surprising degree. The stereotypes abound, and much is being said about Thai masculinity, of course in endless silliness. Also, the portrayals of the camp, with the men all training in clean shirts and discordantly in white sneakers (is it transgressively low class to see men hitting bags topless?), create a kind of Muay Thai fantasy space, that is half a cleaned-up Bangkok upper middle class, and half low-class and provincial mash up. Muay Thai figureheads like Khaosai Galaxy and Somrak appear in it, and the adventures are off the charts mad cap at times - the razing camp shower scene, leading to a near naked run through the camp at night has to be seen to be laughed at. But if you are someone who loves all things Muay Thai, and loves all things Thailand, I can't help but feel that at the very least it deserves peak. One of the more interesting things is the lead character of Pim, who could have stepped out of the Sud Suay Muay Thai campaign, aimed at making Muay Thai much more amenable to the middle class, and in particular middle class Thai young women. Her position and experience as fighter (and she fights two ridiculous fights in the first few episodes against a giant opponent named "moo daeng") gives her a strength, aggression and confidence in social situations which does not seem to have to be balanced by overly "feminine" qualities. Not knowing Thai to check her language, she seems like a woman who is just empowered by her fighting and Muay Thai, which makes for an interesting case of public image making. I'm not completely sure what the juxtaposition of Likay and Muay Thai is supposed to serve, but I am sure that it has resonance. Muay Thai and traditional dance performance (like lakhon) actually hold a very long history together, going back hundreds of years, each performed for royalty in celebrations. And now both Muay Thai and Likay performances can be found in the same festivals that countlessly dot the countryside and serve as the bed of Muay Thai in Thailand. And it isn't just in Thailand. Hong Kong Kung Fu cinema (1970s) was born out of the acrobatics and storytelling of Chinese Peking Opera as well. Fighting and dance go together, as any Ram Muay will tell you. You can find all the updated Likay Matsang episodes here streaming. Episode 1 Episode 2 Episode 3 Episode 4 Episode 5 This is the first part of the first episode. If you can get through this you'll be more entertained later.
    1 point
  40. Okay, no... I love this soap. Consuming it from a standpoint of someone who has been trying to figure out positions, status, stereotypes, depictions and attitudes about class and gender and Thai-ness... this soap is simply packed full of fascination for me. The swapped gender stereotypes - but not too far outside of norms - of the male actor (Phet), who they mockingly have nicknamed Likay and who simply cannot help himself as he over-performs everything he does with song included, and the sometimes sadistic and a little gruff but beautiful female nakmuay who beats up gangsters and abuses the new guy for being soft. But then the women at the camp, featured so heavily with the male nakmuay kind of being background noise (and ridiculously soft-bodied and white-skinned) end up being both his torturers and taking pity on the male protagonist. If this were an all-male camp, Likay would actually just be hazed and doing grunt work all day; with women around he's given a little bit of sympathy. Then, too, he teases Pim for being so cruel - she's the star nakmuay of the camp, it seems. Certainly tougher than the boys. Twice when she's ordering Likay around (not letting him drink sweet tea and waking him up to run) he asks her "are you a nakmuay or a nakleng (fighter or gangster)?", and "are you a woman or a sadist?" clearly calling in to question and therefore regulating Pim's "femininity" while Likay's masculinity (by his inability to hang with the nakmuay) is pretty much the ongoing joke of the show. The owner of the gym has a daughter who trains sometimes and looks bored the rest of the time, periodically meeting in secret in a cemetery to make plans to escape to Bangkok - her big dream is to NOT be a nakmuay. She's a reflection of Likay, too, who was born into the troupe of actors and now wants to be a nakmuay, thereby snubbing his own father's legacy. It's deep, man! I also get a particular joy out of Pim's constant upstaging of Likay in manliness. Her Muay Thai is terrible, but it's depicted as fierce and so is she. He kind of can't do anything and always wants to turn everything into a soft song and dance, whereas Pim is overpowering him with kicks, outrunning him, showing him how he's wrapping his hands wrong, etc. He's teased endlessly in this depiction of being outdone by a woman, which I'm watching with absolute fascination because as the only woman at Petchrungruang but who has cut out a place for herself as an accepted fighter (which Pim is in this show), the boys are always being teased for losing to "a girl" (me), but also with the understanding that me and Pim are both very fierce. Pim and I are not similar, but in a way we are. It's interesting to see this depicted on screen because it's like a Cliff's Notes to idealized and theatricized Thai attitudes that relate pretty closely to what I'm experiencing. But with more hilarity and less crying. Definitely less crying so far.
    1 point
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