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I have a special place in my heart for a long hook into low/quad kick. Always puts a smile on my face, even if I'm on the recieving end

Thank you Kevin, I truly appreciate all that you and Sylvie do for the culture. You both have dedicated your lives to help share and inspire this amazing place and people! With my site I try to just give people a little insight into training here and the amazing culture in order to spark that interest for others to take that step to start their own journey and experience everything that Thailand is.

Teep all day.

[admin edit: some of the photos in this thread were lost due to a probable attack on our website, unfortunately. We recovered most of the thread. Thank you to everyone who supported us through this.] Hello all. My name is Tim. I live in California and in a few days I’ll be leaving for Bangkok, Thailand to train Muay Thai Lertrit under the guidance of General Tunwakom. I contacted Sylvie some months ago about her participating in interviews for my masters thesis. I ended up spending hours talking with her husband Kevin. The next thing I know, I’m buying a ticket to Thailand. When Kevin proposed I come to Thailand to train with General Tunwakom, I was somewhat skeptical about the proposition coming to fruition, let alone the project turning into a full feature on their websites and media channels. But they made it happen for me. I am so very thankful for the faith both Kevin and Sylvie have in me and the opportunity they have presented me with. Thank you, thank you, thank you to both of them! I started training martial arts at age 17 and it’s been an all consuming venture since. I’ve trained in various disciplines of boxing as well as Brazilian Jiujitsu, and Kung Fu. Currently I’m a Jiujitsu blue belt in the Carlson Gracie organization and I hold a 7º black belt in Kung Fu San Soo. I’m not a fighter by any means however. Fighting as never been an interest of mine. I just like moving. Despite my recent academic achievements, I had an incredibly difficult time in school - I didn’t learn to read until the 6th grade and spent most mornings of my youth throwing heavy objects at my mother in an attempt to avoiding going to school. I sought refuge in sport. I've never been a natural athlete though, I had to write L and R on my shoes for during my first year of high school American football to know which direction to move (left or right), but moving my body was mediative and made me feel like I was a person. It’s what I love about martial arts - the meditative repetition of learning something, not until you get it right, but until you can’t do it wrong. I’ve learned more about my self and the world in the hours spent learning a punch or kick than doing anything else. It was my faith in martial arts which took me back to school. After achieving my black belt I thought: if I could apply half of the effort I put into getting my black belt into school, then it would be no problem. It was true. I always found away to make school about the things that interested me - food, skateboarding and of course martial arts. My master thesis seeks to blend theoretical sociology with martial arts. Which brought me to Kevin and Sylvie. They have presented me with this opportunity I feel is much bigger than me just traveling and training. I don’t know how to process the whole thing. Sitting here trying to articulate my thoughts has been has difficult has writing my thesis. I have all sorts of anxieties and fears about traveling and my skills as a martial artist. What if I miss my flight? What if my kicks are really bad? What if I say something dumb on video!? But anymore, embracing the things that make me anxious, embracing the things I’m afraid of are my favorite things. They make me better as a person. I’ll need to plan well so I don’t miss my flight. If my kicks are bad, I’ll throw 1,000 more. If I say something dumb, I’ve already said a million dumb things, I’ll try better. I expect I’ll be uncomfortable and cry at least once. I also expect I’ll learn much more than Muay Thai. I hope to make all my instructors proud, both the ones who have taught me to punch and kick as well as the ones who taught me to think and write. I hope I have fun and give the General peace of mind that he’s teaching the right student. Thank you, thank you, thank you to all who will take the time to read this and comment back. More to come. tm

I think it's really instructive when thinking about the rules of Muay Thai to consider the influence of Judo, and the Nationalistic identities involved between the two sports. It's important to see that as Thailand moved toward modernity after the turn of the 1900s, just as "Boran" schools of Muay Thai were formalized by King Chulalongkorn (1910), Thailand was also encountering Judo which was being spread and internationalized out of Japan, as an act of modernity as well. (Judo's founder Kano Jigoro was a moral Educator, and was influenced by American and European philosophies of education.) Two years after Boran styles were official recognized, and teaching masters designated, royalty returned from study abroad in London, where Prince Wibulya learned Judo. He began teaching Judo to interested parties in Bangkok. By 1919 civil servants and officers were being taught both British Boxing ("civilized" fighting, as the world would see it) and Muay Boran, under a single discipline which is best broadly termed muay, they were also taught Judo. This is the cadre of a class of the modernizing, many would say, westernizing forces in Thailand, transforming its governance, and making itself open to the world. Read the Modernization of Muay Thai Timeline for more details. In 1921 the first permanent Muay Thai ring was set up in Thailand, at the same Suan Kulap College, for not only Muay Thai matches, but British Boxing matches as well. You can picture the cadet, civil servant, internationalist feel it must have had. Before this time all rings were festival rings, set up just for events, the biggest ones staged at the Bangkok city pillar. To give an idea of historical perspective, This ring predates the introduction of Karate to Japan from Okinawa. That's right. A Siam prince was teaching Judo in Bangkok, and western boxing fights were being held in a fixed ring in the Capitol, even before Japan had received Karate. In fact, Judo arrived in Thailand a few years before it reached Brazil, where it would eventually grow into its own powerful tradition. Not Judo - Why Some Throws Are Illegal All this is prelude to say that that these euphoric, modernizing trends did not last in Thailand. Over the next decade Western Boxing would have a lasting impact on Muay Boran, for instance the civilizing adoption of gloves (formally, 1928), and it seems that Judo would also grow in this early time period, the Ministry of Education established inter-school Judo competitions (1927), but at a certain point while western boxing continued to influence Muay Thai all the way until this day (Thailand's biggest stars have been western boxing stars, not Muay Thai stars, one could argue), it became aesthetically paramount to make clear that Muay Thai is NOT Japanese, and therefore anything that gave a whiff of Judo in the ring was formally made illegal. Restrictions On Foot Sweeps This I believe is the key to understanding the meaning of the written prohibitions against certain moves that are found in the few written rule books available. The somewhat vague rule is no "leg sweeping the opponent using the calf or inside of the foot". What is this inside of the foot? To really understand what is being talked about you have to look at actual Judo foot sweeps. The "inside of the foot" is connected up with the use of the bottom of the foot. This also illuminates the prohibition against "tripping the opponent with the ankle". If this isn't clear, it isn't any part of the ankle, its those Judo trips that use the back of the ankle. Thai officials and probably fighters - and I suspect this developed after the resented Japanese occupation of Thailand in World War II, which corresponds to the opening of Rajadamnern stadium (1945), and then Lumpinee (1956) - came to distinguish Muay Thai from Japanese Judo. There was a history of Judo in Siam, reaching back decades, but after Thailand was occupied by ultra nationalist forces, and used as a staging area for it's Greater Asian conquest, as an ally, ended up producing a chill between the two countries. At some point you did not want to "look Japanese" in any way, at least this is something I suspect from where we have gotten to today. You can read an enumeration of illegal moves in Muay Thai here. When you look at the Judo sweeps below you can see exactly what the later written rules were trying to bar. These rules were likely not written rules for decades, but an unstated shunning of all things Japanese in the self-identity of Muay Thai as essentially a Siam, and then Thai fighting art. I can remember Master K admonishing Sylvie - Master K was in his 70s at the time, had fought in the 1960s, and older generation - "Do not be a shrimp (curled in posture), you are not Japanese". And even to this day when Sylvie was learning a borderline illegal throw if you do it incorrectly (it isn't technically illegal, but it has an unexpected force of a Judo like move, invented by Karuhat as far as I can tell), I heard a Thai yell out that it was "Japanese!" with some disdain. I've written about some of the tensions between Japan and Thailand, as Japan tried to assert it's martial, Karate-based fighting efficacy vs Muay Thai. It feels like even since World War II there is still a Thai combat self-identity that distinguishes itself from Judo. There is another prohibition in the written rules that isn't completely clear, which involve locking an opponent's arm, (Sport Authority of Thailand, 2002) rule 16.2 (English translation) states that, “throwing, back breaking, locking opponent’s arms, using Judo and wrestling techniques” Using the same interpretative framework, it is actual locking of the arm as in a Judo "lock", and not just immobilizing an arm as you often have in Muay Thai clinch. Again, nothing Judo! Nothing Japanese. Gradual Change in the Rules Note: all the technical descriptions on the illegality of trips and throws can be bent, in practical terms, if a fighter is very artful about the trip, and distinctly gives the impression it was not a foul. There is an element of deception in real ring scoring. I'm not quite sure when it was, but sometime around the early 2000s maybe National Stadium Muay Thai started to accept artful foot trips as long as the did not violate the kind of physical descriptions found below. I strongly suspect that the original prohibitions were not ever written down, but everyone understood and wanted nothing that even remotely felt Japanese (Judo-ish). For this reason there likely developed just an aesthetic prohibition against any foot-trips or sweeps, if only because they were ugly or low...not-Muay-Thai. This probably contributed to clinch attacks being much more continuous and fluid in style in the Golden Age. As fighters started to explore the legal and aesthetic lines with trips and throws, it seems that a much more grounded, strength-based and locking clinch style also co-evolved, something that a lot of people who love Thailand's Muay Thai bemoan. Foot sweeps came in (still technically not Judo-esque) and the clinchers became locking clinch fighters. Artful Ways Around "Not Judo" - Developing Muay Thai It isn't only clever but still legal sweeps, throws and trips that have developed inside the rule set, ex-fighters like Karuhat and Rambaa I've seen work out edge attack throws that remain legal, and skirt the "no hip throws" prohibition. You can see Karuhat's beautiful throw here: And there is this total improvisation by Karuhat, which I filmed in real time of his wheels turning. You can see him develop the counter to the wall of china, moving it away from a waist grab tackle (which can be illegal), to his preferred attack of tipping the opponent, using the thigh as a fulcrum: And Rambaa's trip/throw designs can be found below. Interestingly Rambaa is a Thai MMA World Champion who trained and fought in Japan, and perhaps was exposed to Judo, so his Muay Thai application may have come from inventively exploring that line between Judo and Muay Thai [update 2020, since writing this I've seen this trip from several fighters, including Luktum in the Muay Thai Library as well]. Here is a graphic I made for Sylvie's post on illegal moves in Muay Thai, which you can read here, Muay Thai Illegal Moves: The above narrative holds my conjecture, combined with facts I've researched over the years. Nothing authoritative.

Thank you for your support and enthusiasm, hope I meet your expectations!

Yeah there is a lot more competition in kyokushin than kickboxing, I think it's the appeal of karate to kids and parents - and because of knockdown also drawing peopel from kyokushins offshoot styles. Although I wouldn't say we need to reach agreement, because I'm not really disagreeing with you

Soooo. The kickboxing talent pool is incredibly weak, you say. But the Kyokushin talent pool is amazing. I sense, well, someone who loves Kyokushin, hahaha. No matter this isn't going to reach agreement. I personally am really interested in the heritage and changes of martial arts, but honestly listening to Karate people tug of war over who was an authentic teacher, and who was the fraud is incredible boring. You never get any of this in Muay Thai, why? Because the quality of the Muay Thai is shown in actual, high level fights, fights that become incredibly famous. In actual fighters. It would be like arguing about the greatest baseball players the history of Baseball in America, but then there was an totally different version of the sport in, let's say, Norway, where it was customary to argue about who was the best TEACHER of alter-baseball, and not actual Norwegenian alter-baseball games, actual alter-baseball players. When you say: Wow, Karuhat was as good any fighter Thailand has every produced, you never get "But who was his master? Where did he get his "fight style" from?! What school is he? All these questions really point to nonsense for me. You know where Karuhat got his fighting style when you ask him? He made it up. He made it up because he was forced as a kid to spar and play with lots of other high level fighters, and he was pushed through a beautiful and difficult regime. And he made it up because he had to beat the very best fighters who ever walked, in real fights, with lots of money on the line. Please give me a fighting art that has no "masters", as the definition of its authenticity.

I asked my friend on this point because he knows more about it than I do. He said that Kurosaki wasn't Oyama's student, they both trained Goju Ryu together. They founded KK together. They had big differences on where they thought karate should go from there, Oyama was a big believer of knockdown rules karate, in his opinion it was more realistic to keep karate bare knuckle and restrict punching to the face - Kurosaki basically wanted kickboxing. Kyokushin competition as itself now is huge, Holland, Japan and Brazil are the big three as far as that's concerned and those fights are brutal. Oyama himself was a lot of hype and marketing (not that he was PURELY that) but fighters that he trained definitely live up to those ideas. Those dudes can walk through anything, their conditioning is that tough.

The problem was a particular, historical problem. I'm sure there is no contemporary Thai who thinks about Japanese Kickboxing as anything at all. The tensions around the 1982 World Championships were apparently VERY high. The Japanese didn't steal techniques, they copied the commercial product of fighting, put on 3 weekly televised kickboxing shows, made huge iconic stars (probably through lots of fixed fights), and then tried to bring it over to Thailand. That, apparently was the problem. As to taking the "Thai kick" or the whatever, Thais wouldn't care less. Maybe on the forums and conversation spaces you visit this is a big deal - because westerners are all about authentic technique, etc, because gyms commercially sell themselves as holding authentic technique - but Thais couldn't care less. There is so much variety of technique in Thailand it isn't even funny.

This, while a 100,000 fights are being fought all over Thailand. It's kind of silly to even compare them, they are two very different things.

Oyama was good at marketing himself, but Kurosaki marketed much of the actual martial art itself. Oyama knew his stuff - but there was a cult of personality surrounding him that you find with most influential martial artists. Jon Bluming talks about it here:

I think this is a huge problem when discussing this subject. One part of that problem is I have no idea what you are referring to because Sylvie developed outside of US gym culture, and all the online history. Everything she's done is far removed, and me as well. My opinions mostly formed far from any of the talk of Muay Thai's superiority. I'd run into old AX Forum stuffy from Googling, but it's a different world for me. I don't have fighters to defend, a gym to run, students to attract. I'm only really interested in preserving and acknowledging what is special about Muay Thai, because we neck deep in it, and we personally know and are closely connected to many of the legends of the sport who are now being forgotten, not only by westerners, but by Thais themselves. But, I understand that this kind of talk, the kind I'm putting forward, probably connects up with all sorts of western conversations about martial art vs martial art which honestly I'd run away from a million miles an hour. Thais don't talk or think like that, at least how I've seen. They don't even think about comparisons. If they saw another martial art they might think such a thing is silly, or that it's totally worth stealing because Thais love efficacy. I think it was only in the period when Thais felt that the Japanese were stealing their art, creating their own copycat sport, and then kind of staging its superiority, that they were like: Hey, fuck off! But all the same, other Thais were very willing to fight on Japanese TV and fall down for one of Fujiwara's amazing 99 KOs too.

That was so cool. I have to tell you, I've lived in Thailand for now maybe 7 years? I've read and heard a lot of western experiences and had my own as well. For some reason your entire description really moved me. Really, almost to the point of tears. (Ok, maybe a tear.) There is such sincerity that we all feel, but we just also feel like we are only going to do it wrong. But really all it takes is moving forward, taking the adventure a little, and opening yourself to chance. That you just went and did it, and how your driver helped you, and that you realized that these are just very human things, that a blessing in Thailand is not some fancy - better not blow it! - event, but it's conditioned by heart. Fuck, this is good stuff. You have a very blessed mongkol! This is the very best of Thailand. Pretty cool. (Would love to see a photo of your mongkol if you can post it.)

Hi Tim Don't get too anxious, just make it on that flight. You've got a battle buddy here now! I'm gonna be out there training with you and I've been living in Bangkok off and on for the last 4 years so. If you need anything at all please feel free to message me here, LINE (tylerbyers1 is my ID), or on Facebook and we'll get you sorted out. I went out last weekend and trained with the General during the seniors class, it was a total blast! Everyone there is super friendly and helpful. I had a bunch of older Thai folks coming around correcting my form as the General expects students to teach everything they have been learning. It's a wonderful philosophy for creating a good learning environment and I think we are going to have a lot of fun. I've taken the next month off school so I've got a lot of free time on my hands. Let me know where you are going to be staying and I can do some prep work to make sure you've got everything you need (i.e. mass travel info, where to get groceries/food, cheap massage, etc.). I look forward to meeting you soon, have a safe flight. - Tyler

Thank you for all the help was able to get this done today. I was not sure what temple to go to so I just want to the one near my condo here in Jomtien and the ladies out front said they do not do it here and actually called the monk that was closest and wrote down the address (in Thai) for me to give to a motorbike taxi. I went and spoke to a motorbike taxi and he was happy to take me not yet knowing why I wanted to go to this temple. We got to the the temple (Wat Thong Phatthana Ram) And he asked if I wanted him to wait. I said sure and then explained why I was there and showed him the Mongkol. He offered to help me out after asking if I spoke Thai and I informed him not enough lol. We walked up the stairs of the first small building where the monk was and he was super happy and friendly especially after my taxi driver told him why I was there. I said I need to get an offering and the monk insisted I not worry about it. It seemed like there was no one else even at this temple. At first I was feeling bad and unprepared. He insisted I not worry and he said him and I were the same. I placed the Mongkol on the plate. and my driver retrieved an envelope that I put 100THb in and it was placed on the tray with the Mongkol. At this point I was instructed to sit with a few incense facing the buddha statue on the monks right side. I did the 3 wais to the buddha then I was told to repeat the chant the monk was saying and did so I believe 3 times . I placed the incense in the pot in front of the buddha ,Then 3 more wais and moved back in front of the monk. I now handed him the tray with the Mongkol. He retrieves a small bag with gold leaf and a small jar with white paste. He dotted the Mongkol with the paste and applied a gold leaf to it. He then places it onto my head and I wai to him as he recites a chant and sprinkles water over me. he removed the Mongkol handed it to me and had me place it back in the tray as I did the 3 wais to the monk. He made sure to remind me that it was not to touch the ground and must be kept up high. The monk was very friendly and laughing. I respect the Thai culture so much I am always afraid I will do something wrong in these situations but it seems I am alway over stressing them. It was a great experience. I will be making a video of the for my site soon. Thank you again for your help!

Hey, thanks for that! The forum is nice because it gives everyone room to think and go on about things, and to cover topics that might not fit in a Facebook post, or even a blog post. Very cool that you enjoy it all!

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.

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

Parry jab with a counter right cross. Sometimes it surprises people. Feels great when I get it just right.

There are real things about age one has to take into consideration BUT if you do that then there is no reason not to compete. I train way differently than I did when I was 20 (48 now) because of injuries etc but its made it so I could compete now if I wanted to. Its just being realistic about who you are now vs how you were then. Too many remember the past but dont consider the now. Thankfully, starting later kind of makes that a moot point. Its all new. If you were my student, Id say do it.

I have a few but Id say my favorite as a go to for both exploratory probing and straight damage is the leg kick. Its a lot more versatile than people think. Timed wrong and you can be made to really pay for it, but if done right it opens up so much, especially to the body and head. And it hurts in a different way than other strikes. Youll know quickly if they have a weakness in their legs and/or balance. With that said there are different techniques for the low kick too. My current favorite is in using it to create engagement without exposing yourself. (I mightve said this already somewhere else) Bazooka Joe Vallentini teaches a really slick way to use the momentum of the kick thrown (not hard, just testing) to pull the whole body slightly back. You can use it to cause the opponent to come forward slightly into range for hooks and even teeps. It creates just that amount of space that the opponent has to step to engage. That step is your opportunity.

The teeps mixed in with muay thai kicks are really my bread and butter. I love linking together teeps to the xiphoid with kicks to the ribs and quads. I feel like I am dancing a little bit when my hips are going back and forth to deliver the kicks and transition into the rear or front teep. That and I love watching people stepping back. Something else I also enjoy a lot are timed teeps to the hip or xiphoid to counter incoming kicks. I haven't sparred in a long time due to a concussion; however, when working the bag or shadow boxing, I love laying it on thick with the teeps. I hope that when August rolls around, I can get back to linking teeps with kicks on my partners. Some secondary faves are elbows and knees. Elbows because they just feel smooth and I love how they can link to a lot of combos at short-to-medium range. Knees because they are hard for me to master haha.