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Raja is super nice, but too expensive for me. So just wear whatever.

With Stamp Fairtex about to fight probably the hardest fight of her career since she fought Loma years ago and bumped her head on the ceiling of "unfightable", it seems like a good time to just take stock in the elite female Muay Thai fighters of Thailand and the orbits in which they are stalled. These are female fighters with hoards of experience, fighting since they were very young, and now find themselves packed with all the things that could make them the best fighters in the world, if they were swept up into elite training programs and promotions. Watching Stamp ascend from what she was, maybe 2 or 3 years ago, maybe a B/B+ local fighter in Chonburi, to a celebrated, and somewhat transformed star by ONE, really calls back to all her sisters in Thailand who indeed were much more celebrated, much more unbeatable than she. There is a sense that the immense talent of female Muay Thai fighters is languishing. Lommanee - One of the most intriguing talents in all of Thailand. A surreal sense of space and distance, she basically Cadillacs through fights (a complement in Thailand), finishing of rounds and score cards, her talents topped with a sweet lead arm elbow. She trains out of Santai Gym now in Chiang Mai, but really her fame came years ago before her current situation when she reached the ranks of the "unfightable". She's fought nobody of elite talent for many years, with fights falling through, or opponents supposedly ducking. As with many top, top Thai females at this stage of their career one never knows how fight ready they are at any particular time. They've been training and fighting since they were kids, developing skills like nowhere else on the planet, but without regular fights or even daily training challenges it can all stagnate dramatically. One of the best female Muay Thai fighters in the world, just sitting there on the shelf. Probably the only person in the world with a winning record against Loma in Muay Thai, who is also on this list. Sawsing - Could be the most weaponed, and charsimatic fighter of the list. She can fight and dominate at any distance, but above her skill she possesses a kind of fight nobility, a pride and ascendant spirit that is like no other. This is a superstar in waiting, ready to burst onto the world scene, who has been an emblematic star in Thailand since she was maybe 12. She's been shaped by the hardcore Bangkok gym Dejrat and the Old School values of Arjan Surat, there is no female fighter in all the world like her. But, as a mother, and an owner of a gym her attention is divided, and her progress as a fighter in terms of opportunity and training in doubt. a photo montage of one of Sawsing's 2019 fights, above Loma - can lay claim to perhaps the best female clinch fighter in the world. She has been a fighting star out of Isaan since a little girl, and she shut the door on Stamp's ascent years ago, defeating her in a big showdown of the "unfightable" ones. Nobody has her sense of timing in the clinch, developed at a very early age. She is on her own level in this. She is now at Tiger Muay Thai in Phuket who took up her sponsorship maybe a year ago (?) helping her transition to MMA where here clinch awareness and sense of counter fighting space pay off dividends, especially against opponents who are not ready for it, and are expecting a Muay Thai star to be a big, powerful "striker". That isn't really her game. She's an elite, elite grappler. Unleashing her on an unsuspecting western talent pool is a little like introducing someone to a fighter with an arm bar game that nobody has really seen. Loma is climbing the ranks at Invicta, and has largely moved out of and away from Muay Thai (I heard she is skipping the IFMAs this year, where she has rung up Gold many times). Loma, as an Invicta MMA fighter, above Amp - Amp is maybe best described as The Best Female Fighter in the World that nobody knows. She used to fight Muay Thai under the name "Pizza", finishing up her career with an absolutely dominant performance against much hyped Japanese champion Little Tiger, taking the WPMF World Title (seen below). She then dropped out of Muay Thai (often this is due to contract disputes, but I really don't know) and has been training in BJJ and MMA seriously in the last few years. She blasted back onto the fight scene, for those who were paying attention, by a very unexpected win vs Loma in MMA, beating her at every distance in a rather short fight. While Loma's clinch is a hot knife through butter against most, Amp's solid base and own high-level clinch (not the same skills, but still, accomplished and uncommon) allowed her to neutralize Loma's confident move toward where she expects to rule. I'm sure pretty much everyone who didn't know her was surprised by just how good Amp was. And she might be as good as any female fighter in Thailand, still in her native art of Muay Thai. She also possesses an incredible outward magnetism of confidence that you don't often seen from Thai female fighters, check out the Thai language interview of hers below - you watch her talk, and you just want to see her fight. She's over at Phuket Top Team when she trains, though I'm not really sure there is a promotional avenue equal to her talents immediately apparent. watch this interview with Amp, above watch Amp vs Loma, above watch Amp's world tile fight vs Little Tiger, above *I include the fights and interview because of everyone Amp is the most little known in the west, though she very well may be as good or better than anyone on this list Chommanee - For some time could lay claim to being the best female Muay Thai fighter in the world. She has a beautiful. unorthodox switching style that makes her very hard to read, a master of distance and tempo-change, there is maybe nobody more beautiful to watch when she is on top of her game. Unfortunately she does not train very often (I believe) or maybe very hard. She is almost the epitome of the wasted talent of Muay Thai, just unimaginably loaded with instincts and knowledge, but with no career path forward there is no real program for her to develop her talents further, or even maintain them at the razor sharp level that made her a nightmare to face. She's had several losses on big stages over the last few years, and you can't help but think that this is really due to inactivity, . By the time of their early 20s elite female fighters are often losing or dimming their skills due to inactivity and loss of focus, just when western fighters are finding their feet. Chommanee, as talented as any female Muay Thai fighter anywhere, anytime - above Thanonchanok - Like Chommanee an extremely talented fighter, but unlike Chommanee her connections to famed Kaewsamrit gym and the the WPMF organization has kept her fighting for world titles and facing relatively high level talent throughout. She's very likely the most decorated female Muay Thai fighter ever in Thailand, a perennial holder of the WPMF belt through weight classes as she grew. She has great hand, is an artist at managing rounds, and a beautiful demeanor that is tough, stylish and intelligent. Because of her belt opportunities she does regularly cycle back into shape, but there is also is the sense that she is always almost-out-of-shape at any particular time, so you never quite know which fighter you are getting. When at the top of her game as good as any fighter in the world at her weight. Thanonchanok, perennial WPMF World Title Holder, above Phetjee Jaa - The great Phetjee Jaa who has faded largely from view. She gained fame fighting and beating boys on television until the government cracked down on those shows calling them inappropriate. Her clinch game, when she was fighting regularly, is the only clinch game that I've ever seen that might be equal to Loma's. But unlike Loma who was largely a counter kick scorer in Muay Thai, she had a complete striking arsenal to go with that clinch attack. Samart told us that she was pretty much the only female fighter he knew of who could really fight. Her family managed her career in maybe something of traveling sideshow way, putting her in show fights with her brother, I'm not even sure of the full nature of some of her wins, and ended up demanding unreasonable fight purse sums when she gained fame. There were accusations that she backed out of proposed Loma showdown fights a few times when both seemed the best at that weight, and then she moved out of Muay Thai and to the Thai National Boxing Team, I suspect motivated to go for the big financial payoff of Olympic Gold. She owned almost all the opponents she faced, many of them ridiculously. She beat Stamp pretty definitively, giving up weight. In fact she would fight up in weight regularly (something not all top fighters would do), but as she bumped her head against opportunity at 16 or 17 it pretty much pushed her out of Muay Thai. Now that she's been developing as a boxer for a few years it might really be that she's the best fighter of the bunch. Combine Olympic hands with a mad teep game, and some of the best clinch fighting females have ever shown, and that may be something like no other...but we may never know. above, Phetjee Jaa amateur boxer Stamp - Stamp is the only fighter of the list who wasn't an elite fighter in Thailand itself, when at the height of her Muay Thai development. She was maybe a B/B+ level fighter in Chonburi before Fairtex picked her up, and it was looking meager before joining Fairtex's brand new MMA fighter program. She had lost to Phetnaree (a solid, rising fighter at the time), and to Phetjee Jaa (who beat Phetnaree for a WPFM title), and it was very unclear where she could go. The reason she is on the list is because more than any other female fighter she received the training and fight promotion opportunity that could expand what she was as a fighter. She was given the space to grow. She gained confidence, aggression, extended the length and ferocity of her combinations, and grew to a new level. It's not really sure how high of a level that is because her ONE victories were not really against elite world talent. Her fight vs Alma is the first step into that proving ground. No matter how it turns out, Stamp is feasting on the kinds of stimulation and growth that one would wish so many other Thai female fighters could see. The fascinating thing about Stamp is that there are 100s of female fighters in Thailand, right now, about at the skill level she was at before taken up by Fairtex. In a way she represents the whole of Thailand potential. You can watch one of the best Muay Thai documentaries ever made, Todd Kellstein's "Buffalo Girls" which followed Stamp as a young stadium fighter, above Stamp Fairtex, above These are really the top tier of great Thai female fighters right now, in varying degrees of semi- or soft-retirement, or inactivity, or passing onto other sports and opportunity. There are others who are just below this tier, fighters like Buakaw (I could have easily replaced Stamp with her as Buakaw indeed passed into "unfightable" status like the others on the Thailand circuit, while Stamp did not, but it felt important to include Stamp, and limit it to 8), Saifaa, Dokmaibaa, Mesa, Nong Biew, Faaseethong, Faa Chiangrai sitting there full of mad talents and skills found nowhere else in the world. The difficulty with almost any fight vs the elite of Thailand is that one is never quite sure how honed the blade is when it enters the ring. In terms of skill-set, fight intuitions and hard-fought ring experience there are no fighters like them on the planet. I'll probably be editing in and updating this post over time, adding information.

I agree. Alma had broken Stamp. I'm not saying this just because she's from my town. I was worried Stamp would clinch her up. Alma doesn't like that. But she nullified Stamp's attempts really well. I'm a fan of both women. Unusual decisions do indeed happen.

May favourite Aussie girls are Yolanda Schmidt, Sam Brown and Alma Juniko. Maybe a rematch with Yolanda and Chommanee. I think Yolanda is under rated. It would be great to find a big promotion/gymto sponsor these women. There maybe opportunities for them, given the right circumstances, kind of like the early male muay thai fights here in Australia. In Queensland in particular we took them like fish to water. Everybody wanted to be a Muay Thai fighter. Maybe the same could happen for Thai women. Yolanda Schmidt is my fave by the way.

That was a very painful fight to watch, at a personal level, because I do pull for Stamp and cheer for her. You can make all sorts of technical arguments for who added up the most rounds (points) for either fighter, but a fighter should not win a close fight with the kind of emotional performance Stamp had in that 4th round. She was not gassed, she was defeated and showed it, not even returning to her corner. That was a serious dis-qualifier to me, not her best performance. Hopefully it makes her stronger and she grew from it. Alma won that fight in my book, mostly due to that 4th round, and I suspect that Stamp also felt that in her heart as well. But, unusual decisions is kind of par for the course in the world of fighting. What can you say.

I think the shame you feel comes from your expectation of how you would perform, given that you had been able to perform well sparring with the guys at your gym. You know, I felt shame even when I won. Because there were things that I thought I should be able to do but couldn't. When I told that to my coach, he said that you will always feel that (having things you should be able to do/do better) unless you have a 1 second KO. In contrast, I had lost in an open tournament against an opponent with 10 fights when I had only 1 fight at the time. I was outmatched and got dominated the whole time. It was a tough beating to take. But I didn't feel shame. While I didn't go in expecting to lose, I didn't actually hold any expectation to win OR lose. It might be rare situation to never have expectations of yourself. What makes fighting beautiful is perhaps that dignity is on the line. But maybe while you feel shame, you may also remember pride at the same time. A CBT technique I have used is that I save screenshots of the fight of moments that made me feel proud, and whenever that feeling of shame rises up, I look at those screenshots to teach myself to recognize pride as well. Not to override shame, but to have both shame and pride at the same time (if you've watched cartoon movie "inside out", it's kinda at the end when Joy and Sadness both touch the memory ball). Kudos for having your first fight

Top King are super nice. Closer to the shin than my poofy ones. I’d love to try them but I wonder about my leg length; they look short & I’m long (plus I just dropped $ on the Yokkao’s so obviously cannot). Can’t see the gloves too well. “Danger”? Gloves nice & banged up. The best. Shin guards are, sorry to be an artist about it, but they’re kind of beautiful.

This is the gear I use most at the moment. Didnt think Id like this style of glove but I really do. For shins I just love Top King. Havent found much else as good to me.

Hi "Coach" Jeremy, (great way to be referred to if you don't like "titles". ---it helps clarify what you do and what they are there for... When you say "Mentally Challenged" kids, have they been specifically diagnosed with a condition? Do they have Down syndrome or do they have ASD--Autistic Spectrum Disorder? or both?

In one of Sylvie's videos, I think it was with Sagat. His eye's just lit up, I can't do the feeling I got from seeing that with words that do it any justice. I'm pretty sure all I could come up with was, wow look at his eyes. But those eyes were a great insight to him at that very moment in time.

Mind you I went for five years in a pair of shitty mma guards that came with a package deal at an old gym of mine, but these feel like a #^*#}} CADILLAC when compared. Comfortable, thick, color makes me happy. What are your favorites, Coach James?

I had my first sparring tournament a little over a week ago and lost. She was a good bit smaller than me so I’ve taken a bit of ribbing from my coaches. I’m not sure if I feel shame but I do feel a little bit of frustration and maybe some embarrassment for not using the tools I know I have. Im chalking it up to first time jitters and hoping next time my nerves calm down a bit. I’ve only been training for a year so I guess I can hardly expect my first experience with someone outside my gym to be a stellar performance. Lol I’m any case, I’m telling myself that many people who train Muay Thai or other combat sports never step in to any sort of competition. I won a different kind of battle by being incredibly nervous and doing it anyway. Good on you for doing the same. The hardest one is behind you and now you know what to expect a bit more.

Hi and thanks for your reply and encourageing words! (And also sorry for the enormous font of my text. At least that’s what it looks like on my phone. Not sure how that happened. Don’t mean to be screaming at you:)) Two days later I’ve calmed down. I’ve been agonising and hiding and trying to put it in perspective. Last night I managed to watch the fight and it wasn’t at all bad. Well it wasn’t what I know I can do in training and I can se how my waiting for openings looks like I’m passive etc etc but it wasn’t at all in relation to the shame I felt. She did not humiliate me. I was just too passive at times. As you say ones feelings about something doesn’t make that something true. And my feelings said that I hadn’t landed anything, that going blank had leaved me with absolutely no skills or weapons what so ever. But seeing the fight showed that that wasn’t true. And I can almost feel a bit proud of fighting my first fight. I read your reply Sunday, still so sore I couldn’t really take it to heart. Reading it again today it all rings true. My hard work hasn’t been in vain and this doesn’t mean I can’t ever control myself. The whole situation also makes me think of something you’ve written about that failures aren’t necessarily your true self. Which it feels like when they happen. Thank you!! So, good news! I can go back to my gym haha!

Hi! I need some advice on how to handle my shame after losing my first fight. So, the fight was yesterday. I’ve had the date to work towards maybe six or seven weeks and I’ve trained like a freakin’ mothereffer. I’ve sparred at least four days a week with a lot of hard sparring with guys much better and bigger. My gym is quite big with several pros and national champs so I’ve really had the best possible chance to get good at this. Or at least good enough for a first fight. Leading up the fight I’ve been reading up on mental training and Sylvie and Kevin’s discussions on shame and fear and all of that. I haven’t been afraid and I’m tough physically. I’m tall and heavy and the guys go pretty hard at me so I’m pretty conditioned like that. The nerves have been manageable, every other day wondering if I’ve lost my mind for doing this and the next feeling like yeay this will be fun!! The goal was to breath have fun (and then of course win). Not to stand there with the shame. Anyhow, the bell rang and I leaved the room. Not really, my body was still in the ring and the other woman was punching and kicking and kneeing but I heard nothing and felt nothing. I vaguely heard kick and I kicked. Like in slow motion and without power. I so totally lost control of myself and my body and the whole situation. None of the sparring, NONE, has been anything near this experience. The closest situation I’ve been in where I’ve so totally lost control of my body was delivering my two children. But by the end of that I had a baby in my arms. And I did not have an audience seeing me lose my head. I picked up in the third and final round with a fuck it attitude since I’d already lost but it wasn’t enough. She didn’t totally dominate me. I’m not at all bruised today apart from my shins from kicking. Today I’m just leaved with such shame! I’m so ashamed. Not really for losing the fight but for not being in control of myself and the situation in front of all those people. I’m used to being super in control of things and myself and I can’t see how one ever could do anything rational or conscious in the state I was in. The fight was filmed but I can’t bare to watch it. Sorry about the essay. What are your experiences of your first fights and adrenaline rushes and losing your head? Thank you!

We were talking to Chatchai Sasakul, a fighter who fought so many of the greats in the Golden Age in Muay Thai, and then came into fame winning the WBC World Championship western boxing belt. He's in the Library here, and we are about to add another session with him. We were asking him why in his fight style back in the day he wasn't doing many of the things that he was advocating now. He said, "back then I didn't know". He looked at us like we were crazy, like "what do you think I've been doing for 20 years since I retired" or "of course I didn't know, I was young". It brought home for me one of the most special things about the Library. We talk about it as if it is preserving the literal techniques of the Golden Age, but it is much more than that. It's preserving those techniques AS they have undergone a period of reflection and refinement. If you talked to an active fighter you may very well get some very noteworthy pointers on how to fight. But if you talk to that fighter 15 or 20 years later you get something very different. You get those elements having passed through a very long stage of reflection. You get to see those elements, very often, taken up as craft. Sometimes, if that fighter has fallen out from the fight game entirely, like maybe someone like Samson Isaan (in the Library here), and who is a taxi driver, this is mostly the craft of recollection, of memory. What he knows and thinks about are all the things that worked for him, and probably some of the things that didn't work for him, things that had success against him. The whole thing goes into a process of memory's slow boil, low and slow, and what you get is a condensed essence of fight knowledge, his style, under refinement. Even if he isn't actively working on improving on or conveying his fighting style, it has been worked on by memory and reflection. It is the art of his style, his knowledge. On the other hand when you have someone like Sagat - you can find him in the Library here - this is someone who has been teaching Muay Thai for probably three decades. Not only is he bringing his fight style, the one he once had, but he has become a craftman about it. What he is teaching is a rarified, purified form of his fighting style, something that has been honed and polished over decades of communication and thought. What he is showing you in the ring today is very different than what he would have showed you 30 years ago. It is enhanced, has been worked on endlessly. Not in the "I've got to be a better teacher" way, but rather that each time you try to convey something you touch it a little, you change it, you add reflection on it. Sagat teaches a great deal of precision and correction on his strikes, as does Chatchai, who also has been teaching for years. Chatchai as a fighter would drift away on his jab. Today he insists, do not do this, this is stupid. I've seen Sagat incorporate things into his teaching that I know he recently has experienced - for instance he has been helping General Tunwakom teach Muay Lertrit lately. These internal elbows are now in his mind, as he teaches movements. Sagat is 60 years old, and his Muay is still evolving. I've watch Karuhat come up with brilliant throws, things he is simply inventing on the spot, feeling his way on, things I've never seen before, because Karuhat when he was a fighter in his gym would always be experimenting, stealing things from others, dreaming up new wrinkles. When we look back in time, through our telescope of the Library it isn't like how starlight is reaching us from far away, how it was years ago. It's instead coming to us with immediacy, having passed through the reflections of these men, as they have become craftsmen, working on the raw materials of their fight days, lifting it to art. Perhaps nobody is more like this than Master K, Sylvie's first instructor back in America. He's 80 years old now, and his Muay Thai is this incredible time capsule of Muay Thai before the Golden Age, the Muay Thai of the late 1960s 1970s. But...it also is filtered and hand sanded by the mind of a Thai man who was no longer in Thailand, reflected on, improved and dreamed up through watching the great boxers of the decades, long ruminations in his own basement kicking the bag until 2 AM, the result of a craft-work of elaboration and self-creation. I think that is what a lot of us miss. These men, all of these men, are producing the work of their mind, as artists, as creators, bringing to life and carrying forward a new thing. It isn't just their techniques, or even their fighting styles. It's the fecundity of the years since they stopped fighting. It is their meditation. What is also kind of incredible is that these ruminations, these craft-works, have been documented and continue to be documented. And that Sylvie has first hand seen them. You can see the full library here.

Not to get too much into this, but this is something that happened to Stamp in her last fight, vs Janet Todd, in the 5th round. She was kind of broken by Janet, but she already had too big of a lead in that fight, so survived it. You could see it in the ring when they were waiting for the decision - Stamp looked defeated, Janet not - I discussed it on the Muay Thai Bones podcast. But in this fight it happened in the 4th round, and it was way, way more apparent. It was very evident. I give her credit, she didn't completely collapse, she stood resilient in the 5th throwing get-off-me counters (but hey, that didn't make up for what happened in the 4th. not by a mile for me). This is just an emotional flaw she has as a fighter, and the pressure of fights is bringing it out. All fighters have them, when they come out you can work on them, I hope she will! I've written elsewhere, I think Stamps clinch has been somewhat overrated, I've even overrated her. I think in the media it's maybe because of Loma's incredible skills in the clinch. Stamp is nowhere near Loma, like not even in the same world, in terms of clinch, and truthfully almost zero women, Thai or otherwise, are either. Maybe it's just fashionable to ascribe Loma-like qualities to Thai female fighters? Or, the way the highlights looked from Stamp's first fight for a title in ONE, when she faced someone who looked like they had never clinched in their life, maybe that's where it took root? (When you are ok in clinch, and you face a novice you can look like a magician.) In any case, Janet Todd who doesn't count clinch as a strength (I believe) completely neutralized Stamp, and then Alma did the something close to same, also someone who isn't a big fan of the clinch. That's two moderately skilled clinch fighters who stood up to her in the clinch. I will say that this neutralization, especially in the Alma fight, was GREATLY aided by incredibly fast clinch breaks by the ref. It was K1 style, nearly. The fight was basically kickboxing with elbows. If Alma had been forced to defend in the clinch for longer periods of time as she would have to in a normal Muay Thai fight in Thailand she probably would have gotten into some pretty big trouble. She was taking positions (partially turning herself to her opponent) that are serious no-nos in clinch. (Humorously, the announcers were praising Alma for this.) This alone showed that Stamp is really not an elite clinch fighter in that she was not able to take advantage of this, it's a very bad position. I do believe though that with extended clinch time, without the breaks, it would have eventually have spelled doom for Alma.

It seems that I am the odd man out on this topic. I have and still do practice the split personality. I am a practitioner of several martial arts but I was not in competition fighting so that may make the difference. I spent many years in law enforcement and executive protection. I learned the hard way after the first time a female managed to cut me that I had to change my attitude. I learned quickly to flip the switch. I can instantly go into a neutral mode to deal with situations. I no longer view people as male, female, friend, foe, young or old. You are just something to be dealt with without emotion or remorse. This does not mean without thinking though. I have been told that people could tell the exact moment when I went into this mode just by the way I look and present myself. I will say that sometimes it was hard to come out of this mode but with practice it just became like flipping a light switch. For me this is better than walking around being a asshat all of the time. I just don’t see how it could work any different for my position but I am sure as a fighter this is how I would operate. But that is the difference in the occupations I guess.

Yolanda is seriously underrated, she's beaten both Chommanee and Saifaa 2x. The problem is, these fighters are nowhere near their peak shape or skill-set. I don't think Chommanee trains much at all, to be honest. It's one of the big problems trying to assess the skills of the Thais, they are usually far removed from their best, most focused fighting years when they were much younger, and are not in life situations where they are motivated to get back to them. It's a great accomplishment to beat Chommanee, but she also isn't really "Chommanee" any longer, I fear.

They're all autistic. I'm just gonna go with the first name option. Just like any normal class.

What are your thoughts on the Stamp vs Alma fight? I personally thought Stamp won but many think otherwise.

Wow, your answer was really thorough and insightful for me. I am getting more sparring now at my gym than I ever have in my 7 years in Thailand. I consider myself only moderately experienced in sparring, given that I've had access to it so infrequently. That said, I have also experienced more significant injuries from sparring than I have in fights, with the exception of cuts. My nose was broken in a fight only once, but in training 3 times. Sometimes shit happens and it's that we spend way more time training than we do in the ring, so the probability is a factor, but in every single case of my nose being broken, it was my sparring partner getting emotional. I'll take some responsibility for the last one, I got pretty emotional, too. But I couldn't do that kind of damage to him. Your point about it not transferring to the ring is so important. That's, for me, the whole question about hard versus light sparring - or really whatever it is that you're working on in sparring. If you need to be "tough" and that makes it into the ring, great. That's one of the things about watching Arjan Surat at Dejrat and how fucking hard he is on some of those fighters, is that you see them handle themselves in the ring and you're like, "oh, I know where he learned that." If it was just the hardness and the guys folded in the ring or were bullies in the ring, the exact same "great training" that I see would be shit training... for them.

Footwork is a very good place to start, as it's what allows literally everything else to function. For me, being able to "see" is the main difference between being overwhelmed and being able to wait out an combination and fire back. Everyone has patterns - ever single person - so generally you can start to read or see where those are and know when to counter in the middle of or after a flurry. There are different ways of being able to "see," but 100% it requires you to be calmer, which means focusing on your breathing and knowing literally what you're looking at (where are you looking when you spar? The face, the chest, the hips, the legs?). Trying different areas of focus is a place to start. Focusing on your breathing is a great start. Working on only one thing, like a hook or a kick and seeing when it lands and when it doesn't. All of this depends on you not being overwhelmed though, so step one is just focusing on how to bring your heart rate and stress down. I decide on some days that I'm just going to let myself get hit in the guard, so that I can find the holes in it, feel secure in it, learn to see out of it, etc. There's this guy I spar who hits too hard, so I practice this with him because I don't want to get clipped with his power if I'm open. And there's a guy I spar who is too fast for me, so I also use this approach with him, to find momentary openings.

@Kaitlin Rose Young Thanks for your perspective and congrats on your recent win. I apologize for my delayed response. I was quite at odds with your response, not because I disagree with it, but because I had a hard time thinking what that means for me and putting that into words. That was the path I was heading towards. I am usually the smallest and shortest in the room and I feel like I was spending the larger part of an one-hour class just covering my head, seldom actually on offense. I hated the experience and even get emotional from it. The thing I'm at odds with is that I still think I am with a good team and at a good place for training. It's just that I am too small, too easily breakable, and fear that I am going to be "discarded" when I do become broken (injured). I had been taking a break from sparring at my home gym (while still training there) and have been sparring at another gym every 2nd saturday. It helped a lot in terms of not being emotional about sparring. I am thinking of adding back sparring at my home gym into the mix. There has been 1 concussion (that I know of) so far this year. But I think some of the people that go especially hard has cycled out. So hope things get better.

Swear that's a true story.

Whatever fits my wallet.

No James, I don't teach a kids class. I've often been asked, but have always declined. I don't have any reason, other than I'd rather not deal with their parents, LOL. I've been giving a lot of thought and sort of come to the conclusion to interact with them as you suggested. I'm also going to ask the physical trainer that takes them for a class every fortnight how he keeps them engaged.

I hardly train at all right now, but I just love my Thaismai Gecko gloves. Everytime I see them, or even think of them, they make me happy.

I'm going to leave this here for maybe further elaboration and comment. It's compelling to think about any striking technique in these two terms, either the acceleration created (usually through the storing of energy in tendons, ligaments and muscle, which comes from fixing one's point on the ground), or through the transportation of mass (which usually involves involving a greater portion of body weight in that acceleration. There is so much in this it is tough to unpack, but advisments like those of Thai Krus that say you must step on every single technique (in the Library Kru Thailan, and Rambaa) is about mass. Discussions about the Thai Golden Kick, like on this forum, are really about the subtle techniques of creating both acceleration and mass involvement. And then you can reach all the way back into Daoist energy imaginations of Yin and Yang, connecting to Earth energy, and coming to release it as Yang, how the torsions of the body, and it's relaxation (which allows parts to connect together, energy to transmit), work to deliver the Earth through accelerations. The full span of this analysis can really be immense. Yodkhunpon Transmitting

That looks awesome!!

That is super cool. And pretty awesome that it flowed out of the shirts that Sylvie made of Karuhat. This is just the best stuff. Artistic creativity, respect paid, inspiration from others. Btw, it looks great.

Lisa... this never goes away. It changes, like you have only a moment of shame, or glimpses of shame, or rounds of shame, or you feel it like an echo... but it never fully goes away. And there are times you don't have it, when fights go great and you feel awesome, and then it appears again and your thoughts are "what the f***, I thought I was over this." It's okay. Firstly, the fact that you fought yesterday and are already trying to get over your shame is a really good sign. The thoughts and emotions are still fresh, so it's a bit raw feeling, but lots of folks try to hold on to those shitty feelings for a long, long time because they feel like they SHOULD be ashamed, even when it's time to let those feelings go. It's good to feel them for a short time, I think. They have meaning. But the feelings and the fight are not necessarily a 1+1 equation. Consider this: when you're sparring in your gym, you know everybody. You know the space. You know that you're training, even really hard sparring has a slightly different intention and emotion to it. "Doing well," or whatever you tell yourself in training is under conditions that are not as similar to a fight as we think they are. We think creating the physical conditions, like getting hit a lot, will prepare us. But the emotional unknowns are a big deal. It's incredibly hard to recreate those in familiar spaces. So the fact that you blanked in your fight is not unusual at all. The way I see it, if you hadn't put in the work and then blanked in the fight, that's shameful. Folks who don't put in the work, that's a shame. But you get to keep all the hard work you put in in the gym beforehand. Losing a fight doesn't change any of that. Kevin and I call it "shitting the bed," when a fight just goes totally the wrong direction from what you know you're capable of. If you wake up and you've shit the bed, you're embarrassed and ashamed, don't want anyone to see it are afraid they will, etc. But it doesn't mean you don't know how to control yourself. It means the conditions for that situation to take place were all in line. There's nothing wrong with you to have performed the way you did. There's nothing wrong with you to feel the way you do. But don't hold either of those as permanent states. Just wash the sheets and move on.

Yes, that is way too much in my opinion. There is no need for that. It sounds like the culture in that particular practice probably values "winning," and using physical attributes to do so, rather than skill development. I'm all for the occasional hard spar, but it needs to be between two people of similar size and experience. Sparring in a manner that creates concussions with such frequency is both unnecessarily AND it trains people to be fearful strikers. If we need to survive in our home gym, we will only ever work our A game and defense. We will not be able to risk the costs of potentially being hit while we develop our B and C game. If you are a smaller person in a room like that, it is a good way to never really develop striking and potentially receive career ending injuries. It would be like trying to learn by only taking tests, with no actual lessons. Now, it's important to take tests here or there (fights) but if that's all we do, we stunt our growth. The team I spent many years with prior to working with a Thai trainer was exactly like that. I suffered multiple broken noses, several cuts, separated ribs, a separated shoulder, a broken hand, and a couple of popped MCLs. I was injured in that room more than I ever was in a fight. Since leaving that group, my injuries have been incredibly rare and my performances have been better than ever. Here's the crazy thing, almost none of the guys in that room were finishing people with strikes. It wasn't transfering to the ring. The big guys had become accustomed to using their power on smaller people that they did not have on their opponents, and the smaller guys would give opponents too much respect as they were used to being hit harder than an opponent their size ever could. The team I work with now does primarily timing sparring, with harder rounds here or there against similar size/experience teammates. Our results are WAY more consistent, and even the big guys have a very high KO ratio. It's not just safer training, it's more effective.