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Hi everyone, I recently read the blog from Emma Thomas that Sylvie had re-posted (I am posting the link to it below). https://8limbsus.com/female-fighters/by-emma-thomas-muay-thai It gave me the impulse to write the few words below and I wanted to share how Emma's post touched me to the core: If you would ask me what kind of individuals I look up to… I would answer that I admire people who have incredible personal qualities such as Courage, Kindness, Generosity, Determination, and Dedication… If you also have great wisdom, chances are you are a role model to me. Emma's post touched me in many ways and I’d like to express support to this incredible person. I am one that agrees that the best learning outcomes come from our failures. And more often than not, the harder you fail, the greater the lesson. This is where I stand anyways and I have yet to have managed to deal with successes better than with failures. I noticed in the article that the rationale for the person to tell Emma to quit was the amount of consecutive losses she had had. Not a valid argument in my opinion. You do something because you enjoy it, want to improve, are passionate about it, want to share the moment and practice with someone who shares the same passion as you, sense of accomplishment, to gain wisdom, know what you are made of and so on… The list of valid reasons for doing something can be endless. I really don’t think that the opinion of the judges sitting ring-side (no matter how qualified they may be) and the official outcome of a fight would be the main reason why fighters fight. It could be the main motivation for spectators but that also has to be proven (many spectators can actually appreciate a fight regardless of the official outcome, unless they bet money). Let’s not mention that stepping in the ring is, alone, a win each time. Let’s also not mention that Emma Thomas stepped in the ring right away at the most difficult place to do so: Thailand, the mother land of Muay Thai. How could anyone with a little bit of common sense tell her to quit after only 11 fights in Thailand. That just doesn’t make sense at all… I have had successes in life, although I do not recall any of those successes occurring before failing first. I have failed more times than I could ever count; from every failure, there was a learning outcome. At times it was a big lesson and sometimes a smaller, more subtle one. In many occurrences I repeatedly failed before any kind of incremental improvements. All the times I failed helped me become a better person. For each time I failed there was a lesson around the corner and incremental improvements arose. On another hand, the ego trip and euphoria provided by unexpected successes have blurred my thoughts and ultimately set me back. Things that worked out on the first try have had a tendency to make me stop pushing and searching for a better self. The kind of feeling that gives the illusion that you’ve got nothing else to learn after all. Retrospectively that feeling is infinitely detrimental to one’s mind and soul.

Hi and thanks @Matty. Think you hit a spot with your thoughts on my expectations. I must admit to myself that I expected to win (cringe!:)). I had seen her previously. People at my gym were boasting me saying it would be an easy win. I thought that my fear of the shame somehow would carry me through and make me win. (?!? I know this sounds ridiculous!!!) I thought that all my training would overpower the stage fright and adrenaline. So yeah I think that part of the shame also was that I and people around me expected me to win. I wasn’t better than the woman they had been down talking. I’m up for a second fight in a few weeks. I’ve been off and on whether I wanted to risk the shame again. But wtf! I don’t want to leave it like this. Having my first fight, not being happy with my performance, losing and hiding under the covers. I want to try it again and see if I can improve on not completely checking out mentally. And also this time around my expectations are different.

Thanks for your thoughtful response and kind words, Joe. It's really interesting for me to look back on that post with the perspective that I have now. I knew at the time that the person who'd told me to give up was wrong, but it seems even more ridiculous now. It's crazy to read that I'd only been training for a year and a half at the time, that I'd had 11 fights, and that I'd only had three consecutive losses at the time. Those numbers are so insignificant, they're almost nothing! A few years later, I would go on to have five losses in a row, and even that doesn't mean much at all. Also, looking back, I think I was way too kind to the person in question in my writing. But, I respected them a lot, and that's part of why it hurt so much. You're absolutely right about that not being a valid argument, and the reasons for fighting being so much bigger than winning. I actually haven't fought now for over a year and a half, and I go back and forth constantly on whether or not I still want to. Sometimes, all I want is to get back in there. Other times, I'm fine with letting that part of my life go. It's bittersweet to think of that, but the important thing is that those feelings are coming from myself, rather than someone else who thinks they know what's best for me. That guy wasn't the last person who told me to give up, either. After one of my last fights, my boyfriend at the time did, too. Yeah, he's an ex now. Thanks again for your post and for bringing this article to my attention. I never liked to revisit this one because it always brought up some feelings of shame and inferiority for me, but this time it was a very different experience. I actually really needed this today

That is the key. At least as I comprehend Kokoro. I saw similarities to caesura in a more abstract way. The metrical pause as a simily to dropping into kokoro. This connection helped me fully appreciate what you wrote you about. As I could relate to it way better. I looked at the gap as it's own kokoro.

We'll be in Bangkok on maybe the 1st or 2nd, if he's available. Would love to film with him.

I don't really find the notion of the gap or the null in either of the links you provide, in fact kokoro feels very different. It feels like it's the beating core of ourselves, the wholeness or force. This is what is often experienced as threatened by the fighting gap in front of us, and why we take distance, from all things. But...I will say that it makes sense that if you dive deep into kokoro you might discover the keys to the void, or that the void and fear in front of you is a key to your heart or consciousness. But I think maybe this is kind of an extrapolation of the concept? Not something that people mean by it? It would be like saying that the English word "heart" implies "nothingness"...well, maybe, in a very profound way, but only to very few people. Would that be fair? What I find interesting about the gap, the fear-space, is that you don't even have to be profound to think about it. Everyone understands what this is. In fact I assume every organism has some experience of this, somehow. If someone stands too close to you when they are talking, you can feel "the gap". Is this kokoro? Maybe in a very philosophical way?

Thats the beautiful duality of big guys that know their stuff. They can easily let go and be brutes but usually are so aware of their strength, they dont...unless provoked lol.

So my question is, is it better to buy gears in Bangkok or Pattaya? I heard Action Zone is pretty good in Bangkok, any other address in Bangkok or Pattaya that would be better than Action Zone? I need to buy quite a bit of gear that I'll send back to Canada so a place that have good choices, good prices and that will give me discount for buying a lot of gear at the same time?

I wanted to start a thread where we can just place video of female Muay Thai fights that are good to keep together. The title says "top" female fighters and fights, but also hard to find video too, like fights of Thai female fighters that lack exposure. Mostly just a place where you could browse and see interesting full rules female fights. You can post video here and on its own thread too, if you like. [Edit Update: When YouTubes of fights posted become "unavailable" (are taken down), I'm going to delete that post just to keep the thread clean. If you find another video version of the fight feel free to repost it.] Relatedly, this is my P4P World Rank List of fighters 48 kg and under. Little Tiger (WMPF champ) vs Faa Chiangrai The first one I wanted to put up was this underated fight in August of 2014. Little Tiger who is the WPMF pinweight champion seems to be a little selective about her opponents, and I was surprised to see that she was fighting Faa Chiangrai, one of my past opponents, but perhaps not well known internationally. This was for a WBC International Belt. Faa Chiangrai is a really under-appreciated fighter. Great toughness and quite femur. I think she was robed of this decision, even though it was in Pattaya. You can see she was shocked at the outcome. After this fight though Faa Chiangrai was suddenly ranked as the 2nd challenger to the WPMF belt in the 105 lb division. This is pretty interesting because this is a weight class above Little Tiger, and also is a weight class above Faa herself. She is one of the top 100 lb fighters in Thailand, in my opinion.

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!

You are very welcome! Your post definitely hit a soft spot in me. There are so many people who don't try to better themselves and I think that it causes them to completely miss out on certain fundamental and universal truths. The fact alone that you had the courage and determination to repeatedly step in the ring and pursued your passion for so many years makes you a Winner in my book (and I'm positive thousands of other people feel the same way I do). Sorry for the bf, his loss...

I can second Vegas Pro. I use 13, and it's been good for me with a lot of things. I'd recommend Da Vinci Resolve too, it's primarily for colour grading but it has decent enough editing tools for a free software (and in colour grading its second to none)

I've stumbled on a giant idea, in fact an idea so large it touches on nearly every aspect of life, and every aspect of what make Muay Thai like no other fighting form in the world. It's also an idea that is so large writing about it proves daunting, an in fact unimaginable, as so much of it is full of the tangential (consequences), and explanation. Just taking it on feels like selecting a single hair at the end of a tiger's tail, and giving it a quiet pluck. But here's to just diving in... The Paradox of Courage - How the Poet Saves the World There is a fundamental, seemingly logically paradoxical contradiction to bravery or courage. Without fear, there is no courage. The courageous person is not someone who feels no fear. In fact fear itself can be argued to be essential to courage. Much as someone who has lost the ability to feel pain, and so might move physically and emotionally in seeming defiance of pain, a person who has no fear might appear courageous, but what we cherish about courage is very different. It's the very ability to feel it, and then overcome it in someway. The value lies in contradictions being able to persist together. This contradiction will form the essence of the heroic, in a certain line of Philosophical thinking. Walter Benjamin, a German social critic and philosopher was living through the tidal rise of World War I. He was a young man and two of his friends had committed suicide over the impending catastrophe that was about to rip European culture to shreds and end any semblance of the Old World. He was struggling with the role of the poet, what could a poet matter in the face of this terrible World conflict that was going to tear at the fabric of reality? What did the deaths of his friends even mean? He took on the examination of a poem by the German poet Holderlin, which itself was an examination of poetic courage. In fact that poem existed in several versions, one of which was titled "Courage", the other "Stupidity" (or "Timidity"). It's hard for us to imagine poets and courage placed together in the same thought construct, except in maybe the most metaphorical way. Can a poet be "brave" choosing words as men are being brave (like, really brave) in trenches while everyone around them is being cut down? But bear with him, and me, because this is about studying the nature of an art, and its importance to us. We love and value an art because it reveals things to us, important things, and it sets our course. The soldier in the trench is brave, in part, because we have stories, indeed some very artful, poetic stories that last for epochs, of bravery. Walter Benjamin took hold of what was a fundamental logical puzzle of Holderlin's version of the poem. Why did Holderlin go from "Courage" to "Stupidity" or "Timidity" (what is the meaning of this change?). What Benjamin locked onto, and of course there is debate over his interpretation because people like to debate, what he locked onto was that fundamental binary of what courage is. That one is courageous in spite of, but in a sense dependent on FEAR. And, correlate to all of that, the more fear you felt, the more courageous you could be. Note: for instance, a fighter who just walks forward, numb, feeling nothing, not even perceiving danger, as if that part of her or his brain is turned off, is not admirable. Is uninteresting. Such an imagined fighter is only interesting to the degree that we project our own fears, what we would feel if we stood there, if we create the contrast. The poet, he argued, in his most heroic (and this is a very male world, Germanic heroism) is the one what looks straight into the divine, straight into the beauty of the world, with no filter on, and is completely dumbstruck. He is immediately aware that no word he utters is of any value, cannot communicate that terrible, awful, tremendously beautiful thing that he sees, his only response is pure gibberish, imbecility, nonsense. That is the extreme condition out of which the poet's courage take seed. That is the reason Holderlin changed the title of his poem in the last version from "Courage" to "Stupidity". It's supidification. Once stupidified, the poet then courageously seeks to speak. At first he is merely babbling. He is like a baby, but he wades in, and seeks to hold onto the thing that terrifies him. He does not try to dismiss it, or nullify it. He wants to keep it, and bring it forward. He struggles with that terror, and seeks to articulate it. He wants to bridge the world of terrible beauty (the unspeakable, divine) and the articulate. Above is an essay fragment describing the way that Benjamin proposes that the poet saves the world through his submission to fear itself as a fundamental relation, embodying all the fears we have of the bounded world. Now, this might sound like a bunch of mumbo jumbo to you. Abstract words describing Germanic Philosophy far removed from the concrete things that matter. But let me suggest to you that what it is talking about is perhaps the most concrete thing in the world. Fear. When I say it is concrete, I do not mean its a "thing". It's concrete in that it is a fundamental relation. Every organism that has ever existed is built on a single grammatical plan. Attraction vs Aversion. Philosophy likes to talk about all kinds of binaries, it plays games with concepts left and right, but when you dig right down to the root of binaries you are entering the absolute fundamentals of not only human experience, but all of experience. Fear, aversion, trepidation forms the very weft our what we are. You cannot get below this fundamental pole in the binary. There is nothing more fundamental. So when Benjamin is waxing poetic about the poet and his relationship to fear, this is not just the imagination of Greeks lounging near white statues eating grapes. He is talking about the Ur-logic of all of life. And he is talking about the death of his friends, as the horrible figure of World War is about to rip through all life and culture. In the figure of the poet he is outlining the beauty of the fighter. He gives us the key to understanding why we love fighters so much - for those of us who do - and what separates out fighters from each other. What is it about fighting that invokes so much that is important? Autarchy of the Relation - What Sets Fighters Apart The Greek suffix -archy we know in words like plutarchy, patriarchy, matriarchy. It means something like "rule by". But in Greek it goes much deeper than that. Something that is ruled is really genetically founded by, in something. It goes like a mighty oak with roots that sink deep within a soil where we cannot see. Benjamin proposed phrase to describe the irreducible nature of the Poet's Heroism (and for us, the Fighter's Heroism). The Autarchy of the Relation. The thick girded oak is self-founded, self-ruled (auto+rule) out of the relationship itself. It is not founded on fear, nor on courage, but out of the relationship between the two of them. We talk a lot about overcoming fear, and sometimes imagine that fear is something that we fundamentally need to be done with. You finish it off, and them move onto the next thing (ideally), and when you struggle with fear you are somehow failing in some way. But Benjamin, in his figure of the poetic, is saying no: you bring the relationship with you. The heroic consists of the relationship itself. There is no maturing past fear. There is no growing out of fear. If you have lost touch with fear you have lost touch of the relationship. It would be like a poet who writes and is no longer terrified of Beauty. Anyone who has sparred understands this immediately. These abstract words and concepts suddenly boil down to real things. The fundamental core act of sparring is really an emotional one. Sylvie writes about this in a forum post here, if you want to take a tangent: What I want to call attention to is how even the absolute beginner in training, when she or he stands in front of someone who can possibly hurt them, or shame them, is standing right on the precipice of greatest heroic, chasm-facing dimensions of all the world. This is the same precipice that every organism that has ever beat has lived. This is the Autarchy of the Relation. Fear, and how to speak when you are dumbstruck. As fighters many learn fixed patterns of how to "speak" in sparring, and then in fighting. These are formulaic vehicles designed to take you forward when you feel fear. When you feel aversion. And trusting in these, using them to cross the divide, is much appreciated. But...using vehicles to crossover is missing what is really happening in fighting when it comes to its highest art. At its highest art, what is principal is the Relation itself. It is the presence of fear, and the willingness to submit to it, fully. The Ceasura - Poetry's Gift to Understanding Fighting Much of what we do, in fact maybe almost all of what we do, is to try and get fear (and its sister, pain) to stop. We move away from things that threaten to hurt, either physically or psychologically. Or, if we are really brave, we rush through the dangerous zone to the other side. We have all kinds of irrational "fears" (fears that we imagine if we looked at them soberly, would vanish) and if we can just get through the immediate "Stop!" we are told everything will be ok. We jump in the cold water, swim across the brook, and are refreshed on the other side. This is something that is different than the Autarchy of the Relation. At its highest art you do not rush through the fear-zone, only to find the happy ending on the other side. The happy ending is just one more version of the avoidance of fear. What you are afraid of will simply disappear. At the highest form of fighting, it does not disappear. It is preserved. It is held in a sacred binary. Note: This perhaps speaks to the western preoccupation with the knockout, and the deep dissatisfaction it has with Thai style Muay Thai which often shuns the knockout. The knockout for the west is the relief, the cessation of the fear. It's all over, nothing to fear anymore! The monster is dead. It's nothing more than the parallel of having run away so well you never have to see it again. Muay Thai in Thailand has developed a much keener sense of the preservation of the Relation, holding fear and courage together. You are not, principally, trying to END the fight, as in, end the fear, the aversion. You are standing in it, graced. Readers of David Goggins will be familiar with this. Goggins an an ultra athlete who uses his extreme training to confront and overcome his own weaknesses and fear. Not to move too far from the topic here is the Rogan interview if you don't know him: One of the most compelling things that Goggins preaches is how much he chaffs at people who work out, work hard, expose themselves to the extreme in order to be done with it. He felt he ran into this when training to be a Navy Seal. He felt many of the men were "tough guys" who walked around with the badge of their official mark, having gotten to the other side. Goggin's motto was "always back to square one". For him he was always returning to exactly how he felt when he lifted his first weight, ran his first mile. This is the very same horror that Benjamin through Holderlin was talking about. Just because you run ultras doesn't mean that when you wake up at 5 am to run you don't feel horror. In fact, for Goggins, you put those shoes on in order to feel horror. That's the Autarchy of the Relation, remaining in touch with the core binary of fear and courage. Now, let me take a further detour into the poetic to explain one of the most beautiful things about fighting, and give key into how to watch and appreciate fights. The caesura. The caesura is a gap, a break in a metrically line of poetry. It's used in various ways across human history, but it always has the impact of placing an empty spot, a null value, within a larger economy of expression. Here are famous uses of caesura from the history of literature (from wikipedia): The opening line of the Iliad: μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ || Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος ("Sing, o goddess || the rage of Achilles, the son of Peleus.") Opening line of Virgil's Aeneid: Arma virumque cano || Troiae qui primus ab oris (Of arms and the man, I sing. || Who first from the shores of Troy...) The opening line of Beowulf reads: Hwæt! We Gardena || in gear-dagum, þeodcyninga, || þrym gefrunon, hu ða æþelingas || ellen fremedon. (Behold! The Spear-Danes in days gone by,) (and the kings who ruled them had courage and greatness,) (We have heard of these princes' heroic campaigns.) There is great nuance to how caesura are used, but for us its enough to just appreciate how it is always a gap, always a silence, a breath. Holderlin argued that this gap, this break - not only in lines, but in dramatic structures - had the potential to signify the fundamental relationship between fear and courage itself. Benjamin's Autarchy of The Relation is signified by the caesura. It's the moment when in the film-strip of representations (frames which each "show" some event), there comes a frame which shows representation itself, which is just a weird, fancy way of saying "I'm speechless", or "representation isn't sufficient". Pictures won't do. This is the dumbness of the poet before the beauty and tragedy of the world. It's a single piece of emptiness in the presentation. Now this is where it gets really fascinating. And how we come down off of those ivory towers of the poetic and narrotology, and into the nitty-gritty of the things that motherfucking matter to all of us in this world. The caesura, the gap, is the gap that exists between fighters. It's the space that sits there and is unresolved. It's the bubble that is invisible that generates the entire theatre of conflict. It's what generates the heroic and the poetic, and its what makes fighting, when it is at its highest, one of the great art forms of the world. We are dealing with the very fabric and Ur-source of all relations, of every single thing you and I do in the world. Every word we say, every gesture we make. When I say that that space between fighters is the caesura, I'm not being metaphorical, at least to the degree that they perform the same thing. They invoke and instantiate the Autarchy of the Relation. The reason for this is that each fighter feels fear in relationship to this gap, this space. We think of a fighter maybe fearing another fighter, but fundamentally they are fearing the space itself. As organisms our virtuality, the way that we experience space, project ourselves into the material world, represent and orient ourselves is through both fear and spatial compassry. We are negotiating the caesura in front of us in all things. And in the art (and sport) of fighting this is not only literalized (the performance involves a real space) it is performed by agents, by actors, onto which we can graft ourselves. We are projected into the space and relation through the spectacle. This is the interesting, vital thing. At its highest the fighter does not seek to extinguish the fear. This would negate the relation. She/He seeks to preserve it, and act it out in terms of courage itself, to create a continuity between fear, being dumbstruck, and action (finding words). And all the things we love about fighters, each and every style of fighting and be defined by the quality of that fighter's relationship to the gap, that space sitting between fighters. How much do they stand it in, how often? Can they persist in it? Do they avoid it? Do they rush through it? And, at a deeper, more poetic sense, how do they relate to the gap in terms of their own rhythm? What metrical expression do they use to work through that gap, gauge it, negotiate it? For me, when I watch fights now, I don't even watch strikes anymore. I mean, yes, I see them, but my eye is locked onto the gap between fighters. What is the relationship between each fighter and the gap? It's the glue, the Autarchy of The Relation, which puts all the elements together. If you read poetry, it's like discovering that there was a ruling meter all along, beneath the words. Watching the Gap - Why Muay Thai Is Special Watch this fight between two young Thai fighters providing an example of what I'm referring to, the sense of fight space. watch the fight here - or if that link doesn't work, try this one (mobile) I'm presenting two fights that just fell into my feed, almost by accident, together. It's not that they are individually primary examples, but they do work to illustrate fundamental differences between the Thailand of Muay Thai and the Muay Thai (and kickboxing, and MMA, etc) of the rest of the world. If you would take 10 minutes and just watch the fight above, but in so doing, mostly just watch the gap between the fighters. Yes, the variety of strikes, the changes in tempo are beautiful, but watch the entire fight looking at the gap, the caesura. This is the fear-gap buried at the heart of all fighting arts and sport. Now watch this fight below, from ONE Championship, a version of Muay Thai that is maybe closer to kickboxing in its encouraged fighting styles (fast clinch breaks, etc) as it seeks to popularize Muay Thai to an international audience. It features a popular western fighter in Liam Harrison, and an older Thai in Rodlek. Almost all the talk about this fight was about the strikes. But watch the extremely simplified gap-relationship, when compared to even the children fighting above. The very vocabulary of relations to the gap in this second fight consists of Harrisons' safe leg-kicks (his specialty), and his kind of hold-your-breath-and-go memorized combinations through the zone (a very common western style of fighting). Rodlek on the other hand also takes a very simplified approach to the gap, he's just gradually shrinking that gap, in a kind of slow motion vice-grip, making Harrison more and more uncomfortable. It's nothing complex, Rodlek though is in positive relation with the gap. More comfortable in it, and working through the gap, almost using it as a weapon. Debates occurred as to how much "damage" Harrison did with his leg kicks, or how tough Rodlek is. But what I want you to see is far beyond this fight. Look at the differences in vocabulary between these two fights. Look at the intense variety of spatial relationships, and attempts to control, work through, live through the gap in the Thai fight, and the very simplistic march down of the One fight. These are not the same sport, not the same art. As a commercial product you can certainly see the imperative of the 2nd fighting style. It can appeal across cultures, enter into different markets. It encourages viral like fight edits that can frictionlessly slip through social media platforms. It is segmentable. Reproducible. It also grafts more easily onto the immense popularity (and visual structure of) MMA. (Think about the gap, the caesura in MMA.) But, what I'm calling attention to is that the deeper, more profound vocabulary of fear and its sister courage as found in traditional Muay Thai in Thailand, and reaching for an explanation as to why Muay Thai might be the greatest artform in the world. What is incredibly special about Thailand's Muay Thai is how it has created a value, an aesthetic of performance that maintains the Autarchy of The Relation. It has created a poetry of staying in the spaces of fear, and relating to them. And in that aesthetic and those skills it accedes to the highest endeavor of humanity, reaching up to and beyond the poetics of German Philosophy, and Ancient Greek culture itself (considered a root of all the things we think and believe as westerners). And, it presents it all, without dilution, for the common man to see, to witness. Yes, it does require some education of eyes to see, you have to learn to look at the gap between fighters, and not their strikes - I am reminded of the admonition: The music, not the words. Now look at this Golden Age fight, all time legends of the Golden Age. You can pick 100s of fights from this era, but just watch this fight looking at the gap. Karuhat takes a big lead counting Kaensak who is one of the all time greats, 2x fighter of the year. Kaensak happened to be using the low kick as an early primary weapon. Much of this fight is Karuhat defending his lead. Just look at how buttery he is in the gap. On the edge of it, in it. It's like a force field, a bubble, as Kaensak fights his way through it trying to come from behind. Kaensak was a ferocious kicker and puncher. There is some concern that the poetics of Thailand's Muay Thai are being lost, a real concern. But one can see much of what Karuhat does in the fight between the young fighters above. You can feel the same relationship to the gap, the caesura, so we have not lost the thread. What I want to call attention to is not what is better fighting than some other form of fighting, but rather to the buried meaning in fighting itself, and the secret way that is expressing something so close to our soul, all our hearts, and the urge that we must hold onto this. Fighting, at the highest, vocabulary-rich manifestation is putting into reality the things that poetry and the plastic arts, what many consider upper reaches of cultural achievement, and fashioning them out of the raw sinews, nerves and spirit of human beings. Fighters are artists of themselves, and in that way are the mid-point between the dumbstruck and the brave, what we all aspire to be. The fighter takes up in her or his real hands the substance of the thing that the painter lifts when she or he lifts the brush, the composure does when striking piano keys, in a way that transcends or at least bridges class, and radicalizes art itself, touching the chords of what makes us what we hope to be.

Rereading this AM. I am struck by this passage: You are clearly hyper-literate and its both beautiful and strange to have to mediate and explain the caesura and its relation to fear and trembling through Western terms, in a non-Western field. The great thing is you are translating and not co-opting (one thinks of Picasso getting credit for his radicality by taking from African sculpture; its as if Picasso brought some sculptures to light in the Western world, then lectured on their greatness instead of painting them, or at the very least titled his paintings "after Maliean head"!).

oh, that is very, very cool.

He's teaching at a FitFac location in Bangkok I believe. I tried to figure out the exact location before so I could go visit, but I had a hard time with the translation. I'll send him a message and see if he can find a friend to help him with Google Maps.

I'm sure you'll it fascinating. I've been aware of the concept for a long time now. My understanding of it as it relates directly to me grows a bit year by year, little by little.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.kendo-guide.com/what-is-kokoro-the-concept-of-kokoro.html&ved=2ahUKEwjE--Lj4vziAhUFeysKHXMhCsEQFjADegQIBRAB&usg=AOvVaw1E3zO6B77oGjt_g4_-9dYb https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://qz.com/946438/kokoro-a-japanese-word-connecting-mind-body-and-spirit-is-also-driving-scientific-discovery/&ved=2ahUKEwjE--Lj4vziAhUFeysKHXMhCsEQFjABegQIAxAB&usg=AOvVaw3nzimbsghZTosfqdDooWIj One is how the concept relates to Kendo. I put it there for a martial aspect. The second one is far more interesting. For me, the concept of kokoro relates to the void or gap. It's in this place you find your fears and fight ( the fight can be any form ), you use them to your benefit. Your kokoro can be many other things as applied to life in general as it in it's simplest form is a meld of mind, heart, body. You can view life from kokoro, the centre of things, the void and decision making becomes more of an intuitive thing, where right or wrong in the conventional sense, may not be the answer you come out with. I think in the second link if I sent you the right one, Japanese apply their view aided of course with an innate understanding of kokoro to such as robotics.

Where is he located? Bangkok? Would love to have him.

Could be, but some "tradtional" martial artists were literal artists, such as in the Sword and The Brush philosophy, and the warrior/poet traditions, where the refinement of the warrior included the refinement of the man, not to mention the rise of the Budo philosophy (self-cultivation) in early 20th century Japan. If it was a mis-translation it fit with many Japanese ideas about what we call martial arts.

IFMA is quite different than Thailand's Muay Thai, so much so that Thai athletes were regularly befuddled by the scoring. I guess the way to say it is IFMA is kind of a compromise between Thailand's Muay Thai and International Kickboxing aesthetics, designed to invite International participation and ultimately success. Even wearing headgear changes the fight space, but the differences are numerous. It would be almost impossible to export Thailand's Muay Thai to the rest of the world and have it be comprehensible. I think IFMA did a pretty good job translating it all so it can graft onto western participation, but its a very different thing, imo.

Makes sense. Appreciate the clarification.

It's not so much TKD, but in that book tracing the history of Karate itself, and how far it came from it's actual martial roots. It passed through a bottleneck in which almost all of its fighting context was removed, compressed into kata and Budo practices. It became quite rarified. And then modern Karate all descended from that bottleneck. I have some problems with this Ur-sourcing, this abstraction in its DNA. Then, it developed along various lines, each of them incorporating varying aspects of fighting, but each of those aspects also quite codified and restricted. For me this heritage of development means that there is a highly mediated relationship to the full contact fighting space that arts like Thailand's Muay Thai or western boxing were shaped by much more directly, as they developed through 10,000s and 10,000s of iterations of fighting in a very challenged fighting space. Altering the fighting space, the fear zone, providing safe passage or landing spots, really changes the metaphysical quality of what it means to relate to and stay in that space. This is just my opinion of course, but I find these difference qualitative.

wow, interesting. Do you have any kind of links to where I can look through that word? I did a quick Google and wasn't sure if I was finding the right stuff. I'd love to follow that path a bit.

I don't follow Karate, but I assume you cannot punch the head with the fists. This is huge change in spatial and fear dynamics. If you can't strike me in the head with your hand (or even elbows) as I move through the fighting space, this is a vast difference in how I will move through that zone.

Head's not off limits in Tang soo do. Head kicks all day. But I understand what you mean about giving charge to the space, the risk level. There is no question that MT is a more martial martial art. My new friend the Army Ranger agrees.

It's definitely an artform, as are all fighting sports. The problem with Karate (at least point fighting Karate) is that without blows to the head you are changing the intensity of the gap, the fear-space. Part of what elevates fighting is that fighting triggers some of our most primal, defensive reactions and instincts. Protecting the head when moving through the space, the centering of the perceptive self in the head is a large part of what gives charge to the negative space. When this charge is lowered, or alleviated in someway, the heroic quality, the poetic value falls, just as a mater of course. Of course there are things that happen in that space which are full of fear. You can still be hurt, and still be humiliated. But, with the head off limits it is just a very different thing, making it hard to compare to fighting sports/arts where the head is at risk.

We use Vegas Pro 16 which is pretty comprehensive. They have non-pro versions which are just fine too. For me the workflow was pretty easy to learn. You just drag clips into a timeline and do stuff to them, then render it all. Aside from a big Windows purchase I strongly, strongly recommend Kinemaster for the mobile phone << that's the android link, there is an iOS version as well. Hands down this is the best designed app of any sort I've ever encountered. Sylvie learned how to use it in 5 minutes, and it's so intuitive that she now edits short videos on it for sheer enjoyment. I think there is a free version of it, not sure. But...it would be a great training ground for any desktop version of an editing software, or at least for Vegas 16. It's the same basic interface.

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

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

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

Hi everyone, i've looked it up and it seems like in Thailand scores are way different than western fighters, any idea where could find in depth scoring system, or would be kind be enough to elaborate on that? What gives the most points? I've also noticed that you can kick someone in the back? how about punches to the back? i'n our country it's illegal to do such thing's, any more insight on things like these , what's not allowed , what's allowed and what gives the most points. Appreciate the time you take to respond! Thank you and have a beautiful day!

Only if you disturb your opponent, which means moving them off the spot, or psychologically affecting them. There is a secondary, more subtle way that it can score, and sometimes score highly. If you use it to "ring control" your opponent, meaning, juggling them in some way, appearing as if you are keeping them at the distance you want them to be, when you want them to be there. You can do this without disturbing your opponent physically or emotionally, and still score. But just a single, well placed teep that has no visible effect doesn't really score, at least by my observation.

Sylvie has written and spoken a lot about this. Here is a list of articles that will give you insight, it's a very different scoring system that prizes balance, dominance but not necessarily aggression, and what is called Ning, the performed in ability to be affected, check those articles out: 8 Limbs Us - Muay Thai Scoring But yes, you can be hit in the back, and even the back of the head, which is why there is very strong advisement to never turn your back in the ring.

Teep all day.

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!

I am a fan of Action Zone and their sharp prices! :D But if you want something specific it is better to email them as soon as you know what you would like and mostly they can fix it. Also a big fan of the Boon retro style shorts. :woot: :wub:

Super Export Shop had pretty good prices and selection for Fairtex gear. I also got Fairtex shinguards from Muay Thai Mall for a decent price, and they seem to be the only store open on a Sunday (it's near Channel 7 Stadium too). If you're after a good Thai brand, Thai Smai has nice quality gloves in a wide range of colours. Also much cheaper than your usual Fairfax, Top King, etc Boon Sport Shop is also worth checking out. They are my favourite for shorts and shirts. I don't have any experience buying in bulk though. I would recommend contacting the store/s ahead of time as the multi-brand stores may not have everything you want in stock and they can give you prices over the phone.