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Yeah not the video game unfortunately, the usually douchey dude that comes to the gym for the free trial and wants it to continue because (gasp) he has so much experience in street scrap. Also usually, is exactly like the video meme. Curious as to whether this is only a thing in the west. I cant believe it only exists here, but I can believe it looks slightly different elsewhere. Its enough of a thing out here, that my peers both laugh and sigh at this meme. Sound off on any funny stories of your experiences. VID_20290702_125451_886.mp4

Hello! I can only echo the advice that has been said here. However, there is one little thing I have experienced that has helped me both psychologically and physically. Try to find someone that is either a bit above your skill level or at the same level. With a little bit of courage, ask them if they could do some pad work with you, go through some drills, or show you things they have learned and really like. The reason why I recommend this is because the other person teaches what they have learned which; in turn, helps them develop a deeper understanding of what it is they are talking about. You also learn something (or perhaps are going over somehting you already know) and can build relations with others in the gym. Besides learning Muay Thai, the biggest thing I have successfully taken away from the gym is the social interactions with people. The more relations I have, the easier it is for me to learn and really internalize what it is I am learning. Plus, it feels good to train with friends. Hope this helps in terms of defusing the anxiety that comes with sparring progression.

Ive actually had a few of these as well. I dont usually put them in the same catagory mainly because they do have that politeness and willingness to learn. That whole party hard then come and kick ass attitude is almost mythic. Theres a fighter who now owns a gym in Thailand, Im sure Kevin knows who he is, Skarbowsky I believe, who was notorious for this. He was on the ultimate fighter, brought in as a special coach by GSP. He schooled the mma guys on the show even though he had known habits that were contrary to what an athlete are supposed to have. Real interesting cat if you guys wanna look him up.

I've met several types of people over the years. The street fighters are common, you also get the guys who have very clear mental problems training in their jogging bottoms with that weird look in their eye. One guy I met and ended up sparring with was a guy who was new to the gym. He wasn't allowed to spar because he had no gumshield, but I offered to do a few rounds with him light contact. I had a feeling about the dude because he was in baggy jogging bottoms and had thick unkempt stubble going all the way down to his neck - and he'd said he was 'watching the other guys to learn their styles'. For some reason I thought 'lets not judge the guy by his appearance, maybe I'm wrong'. The next thing I know this dude is dancing, trying to fight-dance, has his tongue hanging out of his mouth and when I warn him, he gets annoyed about it. I slap a few kicks on him but the dude is so physically unstable - that I have to call a quit. I say to him, there is literally no way I can spar him without hurting him, because he's messing around with shit that doesn't work. He's swaying so much that if I kick this guy he'll be knocked out. He says his style has worked on the streets, and I inform him that these guys are not guys on the street. They are trained MMA fighters. I talk to the MMA coach about it, and he said he had to warn the dude the day before. He said: 'listen, there are bigger, stronger men in this gym and at the moment they're being nice to you, if you keep acting the way you are then one of them is liable to hit you.' Ended up seeing the same dude the next day, he asked if I'd teach him a switch kick. He was MUCH better behaved. The dude never came back after that little mini lesson I gave him on his kick. I asked our front office lady about him, and she says: 'The lift doesn't go all the way to the top floor with him' and that he'd been homeless. He was an odd dude, I had to warn him not to talk to the kids in the Jr. class - because I knew his energy would freak them out. He wasn't an arsehole by any means but definitely someone I'm glad isn't here now.

Only once but the dude didn't actually talk about it - you had to get to know him, but down the bar after a couple of drinks his stories came out... which were both shocking and hilarious - but also 100% true. Not a bullshitter at all. Fairly quiet guy in the gym actually, from Russia. Came up in sketchy places where these altercations weren't uncommon for young guys growing up. Extremely polite and courteous, with an understated cleverness to him, but also *really* fucking strong, *really* fucking athletic, and *really* fucking skilled. He'd be out getting trashed and high on god knows what every Friday night, then Saturday morning he rolls in to sparring session with no sleep, still wearing the same clothes, stinking of whiskey and ky jelly. Then kicks all our asses in sparring. Half way through training we're looking around wondering where he is, and it turns out he snuck outside for a cigarette break. Got curious so asked him once about Russian athletes and what made them so successful in so many sports, expecting more street fight stories or something. He just said one word in his usual stoic demeanour. "Attitude".

I haven't seen this exact scenario, but I've seen more than a few guys leave the gym after a couple weeks. Almost always after they decide its a cool idea to spar hard and someone who actually knows what they are doing "learns them" with a liver shot lol. Tough doesn't translate to fighting if you aren't open to learning. You'll just get TKOed by someone more experienced or with better cardio. It is really funny to just watch them whiff shots as their partner uses footwork to get out of the way though.

AHAHA. Generally I find they have NO balance, can't throw a punch to save their lives and well, kicking, that relates to balance. But I give em a go because even some fuckwits can be redeemed. Oh, I forgot to add the, "You can't teach me how to fight, I know how to fight.", line. Well, what the fuck are you doing here then?, is what I really want to let go with.

100% agree. I learned so much when I was first starting because the two guys I was sparring with regularly were A) much better than me and B) were friendly enough to show me when I made a mistake or how I could do something differently. Talking about that stuff during sparring turned into doing other drills outside of the ring and overall really helped me improve very quickly compared to if I had been left on my own. It also allowed us to turn things up a bit in sparring (occasional hard sparring sessions) without anyone getting emotional because we "knew" each other. Most of the times I have seen sparring get out of hand is when the two partners don't know each other outside of that setting. Someone feels like they get tagged too hard or starts to panic a bit and it just escalates. If you have talked socially while drilling together it typically removes some of the emotion. I've found most people in the gym to be quite helpful and social (even if they don't outwardly appear to be). Don't be shy and remember, you've already got something in common that you can talk about, you both love Muay Thai!

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.

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!

I actually understand this. Its similar to how I deal with things now. Going from angry person with an alter for being nice, growing into the nice and learning to have a switch for "business". It became a dimmer switch for me. I dont ever go fully emotionless, but there are levels to it.

This post grows out of a really excellent thread started by James Poidog on training fighter aggression, especially for those uncomfortable with aggression themselves (that thread is linked at the bottom here). I started answering James and then just realized that this probably deserves a thread of it's own. This was the beginning of my answer: I hope she hops on here to discuss, but I'm just giving my view. I've seen female fighters go this way. Roxy Richardson advocated for it in some blog posts, Michelle Waterson talks this way. For Sylvie the creation of an alter never was super effective. She wasn't at peace with the values in that alter, and Muay Thai is so much of her soul I think it all was a little jarring, and in a way "not believable" to her, so it didn't quite stick. You definitely see this in male fighters too. The whole "persona" which works well with marketing, etc. But what Sylvie seems to have discovered for herself is the mantra: "The way you do one thing is the way you do all things." which means that if you want to fight differently, you have to bring those values and habits into your life, the way you do other things. An interesting example for instance is that as a Muay Khao fighter you need to constantly be taking up space. More and more space. Sylvie's physically small, often shy or reclusive person. She has been moving out of the way of people for a very long time, sometimes just out of the reality of what happens on sidewalks. So...when you are moving through supermarket aisles, who is the one who moves out of the way first? You don't have to be an asshole about it, but always one person makes the gesture to move first. Who is that person? If you really want to naturally be a certain way in the ring. for instance somehow who takes up space, yes, you can make up the "Space Eating Monster" alter who just gobbles space, or...you can become someone who increasingly takes up space more often, in all things, in all ways. What I find really interesting about this is that the reason why people are drawn to certain personas, or let's say certain fighting styles, like literally drawn like a moth, is that they speak to something deep inside, something that they might not be reconciled with. Training toward something in technique, or in style, or even persona, in the gym, is a way of working toward that expression, that thing. Alters are way of approaching that, but it seems much cooler, much more rich and transformative to literally take that thing, that desire onto yourself, and start to shape your life with it. I think that's much closer to the arc that fighters are spiritually aiming for in the first place. There is also always a suspicion for me that when people put on alters that those masks can break, if you push on them hard enough, that the fighter, or even the person in life, doesn't really, really, really believe that that is who they are. And that there can be a kind of fragility to that path. Yes, you can put on masks to grow into them, to give permissions, that's a tool, but what is is stronger, like a slowly growing oak tree, to really become what you dream. The original thread conversation spin off:

Me personally, I love using kicks to the body. Especially if I can land it right to the liver. One of my favorite techniques to see was Rammon Dekkers elbows that came straight to the middle, right between his opponents guard. Especially the clip where he blocks a punch while simultaneously coming forward with an elbow up the middle using the same arm.

Best of luck man just have fun - very few people get a chance to do what you get to do!

AirBnB might be a good option, but for 90 days I think it would get expensive since the rates are typically similar to nearby hotels. I've only used AirBnB a few times in BKK though so my experience is limited. The one thing I would caution about AirBnB in BKK is that it is technically illegal and you can have issues with the building jurisdiction. Last time I used AirBnB I stayed for two weeks while a friend was visiting and we basically had to sneak past the front desk every time we wanted to enter or leave the building. Security didn't care, but the management hassled us a lot even though we went with the owner of the room and told them we were friends with the owner and would be staying for a couple of weeks. My building rents rooms on a monthly basis for about 9,000 baht plus electricity/water but I'm in Thong Lor and pretty far from most of the gyms so it's probably not a great option. I'd check around On Nut area though, there are a lot of places close to the BTS that are renting for 5,500 and lower.

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.)

Just a note on FA Group, one of my friends who was training there recently just left because he said there weren't many people training there at the moment. As has been mentioned, all gyms go through cycles so it can be tough to determine what it is like without physically going to see the gym. Accommodation is plentiful in BKK, though finding somewhere that will let you pay month to month can be a hurdle. Check on the BANGKOK EXPATS Facebook group, there are some real estate agents who might be able to find something for you. You can also try DDproperty and Renthub. Figure out your gym situation first, then find a more permanent housing situation. You definitely don't want to be traveling across town every day just to get to the gym. Attachai's would likely be a good gym to check into though their prices are pretty high (22k a month last I looked). That area should have lots of cheap apartments/food around, and the gym (or Emma if she has time) might be able to help you find a room for a short term stay.

I can understand that. (Also because her gym seems incredibly nice.) But also gym culture being so dependent on atmosphere and the people training. A group of people coming to train can easily change things. I used to train with my husband, but now I am more or less alone training due to his work. And I feel my current gym changes with each group of people that comes and goes. I always wonder how it is for the thai fighters who sleep and train at the gym.

I am also surprised, but maybe they do not market heavily as they focus on their thai fighters? I also heard something about 24000/month for training and accommodation (and food at the gym if I am not mistaken). I haven't heard from anyone who has been there long-term though. I have never been to yokkao but the image they send out on social media is not really what I am looking for. And I feel a lot of thai gyms do not get the reach what they deserve, but maybe that is why they are so nice haha. For example, there is one gym in Saphan kwai (Punrith) I used to go to when I first started out. Only girls working there including admin, PT and two tomboy trainers, one of them a member of the thai national western boxing team who also became a friend. Sadly both trainers left and I have not been there to try it out since. Back then I did not understand how great that was for me to have women as trainers. It is not a camp though and currently targeting Thai middle/upper class.

Hi there. There are quite a few options in Bangkok, as you mentioned most cost around 8000-12000 month for 2 sessions/day. My advice is to check gyms you are interested in on facebook or instagram to get an impression of what kind of people train there at the moment. It is so hard to recommend a place as trainers change, students change and so on. Organize accommodation for the first few days in Bangkok and visit a couple of gyms to get the feel for it. And then pick the one you prefer. If you want to fight, ask other foreigners at the gym if the gym helps you arrange fights and how well they prep you. Some gyms let their students wait forever, promising them fights that never happen... Also at the moment it rains quite heavily now and then in BKK and some places get flooded easily. Might be worth to keep in mind when looking for a place to stay. Some gyms in the city that might be of interest to visit are: FA Group in Chatuchak (thai fighters and foreigners, they sometimes have quite a few larger guys) Attachai (Onnut) Muay thai academy/Rompo (Klong Thoey) Superbon trains there Numponthep (also in Klong Thoey. Mix Thai fighters, Japanese/Chinese and some westerners. Currently no one heavier than 65-70 kilo training there) PK Saenchai gym (Thawanchay, Rodlek and others train there) Sathian gym (Sangmanee trains there if I am not mistaken) ...and then all the camps found here: https://muaythaicampsthailand.com/category/bangkok/ You can also ask here: https://www.facebook.com/MuayThaiCampsThailand/ Good luck!

Maybe think about Santiennoi's Gym outside of Bangkok? He's handled some higher profile westerners (Samon Dekkers for instance), is a legend of the Golden Age. It's also a pretty traditional gym, probably a little unlike your past two experiences, which might be cool. In general though, checking out accommodation through AirBnB is always good. You can see the general cost of apartments and rooms around wherever you choose, and get a foothold that way.

If there is an assistant to the monk somewhere, that's always an appropriate person to ask. If there's nobody to ask, you can tell the monk that you would like a blessing ขอให้พรมงคล (koh hai pon mongkol). It's appropriate to offer something to the monk before he does the blessing. You can often buy these at the temple, right at the front and they come in kinds of packets or baskets of pre-set items. Usually they're toiletries or things that are needed to be shared by the monks for day-to-day living. But you can always offer fruit, flowers, packaged foods like soy milk or those yogurt drinks. It doesn't need to be (and likely shouldn't be) fancy. Once you've communicated what you're asking for, put the Mongkol on a tray or just hand it to the monk (women can't hand it directly, so put it on a piece of cloth that the monk will have in front of him, or on a tray). On your knees, bow to him 3 times, touching your hands and forehead to the floor like in the Wai Kru in the ring. Then sit with your feet behind you or under you with your hands in a "wai" as the monk does whatever he does with the mongkol. He'll likely bless you at the same time, with the water splashing, but once he's done with the mongkol he'll put it back on the tray or cloth or hand it back to you. Wai to him the same way you started, the 3 touches of the head to the floor, thank him and leave a donation in an envelope at the appropriate place in the temple for this. Don't give it to him. Put it in the box or whatever they have there. The amount is up to you, but 100 Baht is perfectly enough. But the fruit or gifts you can give to him at the start, after you've done your first "wais". In my experience, monks LOVE blessing mongkols. They get excited to see farang fighters doing this. So, just smile and be polite and any of the miscommunications or awkwardness is no problem.

I have a colleague who recently spent two weeks at a temple as a monk. I asked him if he could help me and he sent me a pic of three monks and told me to pick and choose . My advice would be do the same, ask a thai person you know (maybe use google translate?)to help you. Or simply bring your mongkol, visit a temple and ask. My experience is that most thai people are incredibly helpful about these things.

This is a poison of western fight culture. I've learned to never underestimate anybody. There's no such thing as an easy fight, really and truly. I was listening to Kru Nu tell me about how this opponent couldn't fight me, which is a Thai phrase that is often used to imply that skill levels are just crazy different. But even after telling me this, he paused and then told me never to underestimate anybody. He said anything can happen in a fight, it depends on how important it is to the other person, etc. I've felt that in my opponents. And I think that when your opponent is talked down - and people mean well when they do that, even though it's so shitty - it takes something from your own heart. It makes it seem less important. It allows you, even for a moment, even if you know better, to let your guard down a little. You SHOULD have an appropriate level of fear, or awareness, for every single person you will ever get in the ring with. Even if on paper it looks like there's no way you could lose. It's a fight. You've prepared for it. It's your preparation that will let you win, not your expectations about your opponent. You can fight anyone, Lisa. Literally anyone. You can be the one who everyone is down-talking and you can win in those conditions. Your opponent has the same possibilities. But don't doubt yourself or believe in yourself based on who or what your opponent is. Believe in yourself for what you've done, for who you are, for the work you've put in. None of that guarantees a win. But you can't disappoint yourself if you know you've done the work. Just do the work. The fight is part of it, not the result of it.

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.

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.

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

One of the most powerful and probably meaningful aspects of fighting as an entertainment form, but also an art, is that fighters do something that is a "peak experience" in most lives. Most of the fans in an audience have had very few purposive fights, and if they had them there were under extreme conditions. What fighters do the "normal" person will rarely do. It makes fighters kind of emotional astronauts, having to live in spaces - to perform in front of audiences - over and over in peak states. I think it can really be a struggle in how to manage going into those states, or at the very least exposing yourself to that kind of duress.

I think I see where you are going with this... (I hope you don't mind my humor! I just couldn't help it, just love the Hulk too much...)

This is why Ive been against it 100%. That sense of it being fake. For me because being "normal" vs my anger self (or whatever you wanna call it, hulk or something like that) felt so fake I had trouble seeing aspects that I could learn and become. Now I see it differently. I realise for me that these are things I can learn amd absorb to make my own. In doing so they become my version and 100% real. Theres this theory that everything we eat and love to eat is an acquired taste. As adults we can eat something and immediately like it, but the thought is its because we already acquired the taste as a child. As children we learned to like some things. Remember coffee the first time? Or beer? The idea then becomes that we dont really have set things in place as to who we are really and as we age and grow we collect the things we become. In that sense we can continue to become, to grow. For me to become better, I had to accept that my perspective of things being fake was limited. Now Im a different person and very much not the angry kid. I became more my "alter" than what I thought was who I was truly. And to be clear I dont mean fake it til you make it, but to really learn to walk in those shoes, to learn to become something else.

It truly means a lot to hear that others are sparked by my thoughts and my words. As you can tell my mind is ever expanding in its search for implication, and I truly believe that Muay Thai is the great arts in the world, period. And I mean any art. The plastic arts, the literary arts, all of the performed arts. There is nothing that pulls on so many strings, and has the potential to reconcile the traditional and (hyper)modern worlds as much as Muay Thai, that is, the Muay Thai of Thailand.

This is a great point and something I think about with former fighters who've retired, those that stay retired and move onto other ventures and those that cant seem to stay retired even if the majority of fandom thinks they should. I feel like its part of the reason some cant retire to save their lives and others end up with major personality problems that end up on the news (like domestic disputes, etc). Its a tough subject one has to individually address. If your only outlet for certain emotions is fighting then what do you do when you cant? Personally, Ive had to deal with this aggressively. I know now that Im not completely made up of rage and aggression, but it took years of learning to deal with these emotions when they werent appropriate to the situation. Finding other outlets (like exercise) and learning dealing tools (like meditation, psychology, etc.) became invaluable. It became about finding a balance between the things that have become who I am. Not an alter so much as a blend, or a mix that has more of a percentage at the surface during specific situations. Its a work in progress, one I think Ill always be working on, but its always better the longer I live and deal with it.

For me, its more that the persona I have when I train or fight is more the real one the one I cant let fully out in normal life. Ive had emotional issues as a kid from past abuse that left me with an unhealthy anger and no real way to deal with it...until I started training. Training let me use it and let it out to a degree that made it manageable in regular day life. If I have an alter its more the good and kind person I trained myself to become. The killer mentality has been there so long, its a part of me no matter what but it has so many detractors in regular dealings I had to learn to manage it and training helped me. Specifically in learning when and where to unleash it in training and fighting. Btw Kevin, this post is exactly why I posted earlier. I love to see how an idea expressed leads to other ideas and thoughts.

I need to keep that very much in mind. I have been trying for years to stop being the one who moves out of the way of people when walking in the street. Sometimes I succeed, but most of the time i fail. I'm not the confrontational type. I hate contact and I hate conflict. I've only very recently told people I don't do cheek-kissing (this is the French way of greeting people - I fucking hate it) and sometimes i still do it: when people are too insisting or when I care too much about their feelings or when I'm just caught off guard, and the conditioning takes over. Yet I love the contact in a Muay Thai context. I enjoy the violence and I actually do enjoy hurting people - and being hurt too, just as much, maybe more. I find it so much easier to take space in this context. But I don't want my personality/mind to be fractured and dispersed. I think it may be a lot easier to have different personas than to build yourself as a whole person. Having Alter Egos sounds very cool, appealing and romantic. It's a popular trope in pop culture. You see it all the time in super heroes. I was drawn to it for a while - as a sort of trendy thing to aspire to. But when I think about it and after reading your take on it, it does sound way more badass to simply be whole, just completely yourself all the time. Also to be accountable to everything that you do, and not just be like "well, can't help it, that's my other persona / the demon inside me / the addiction / bla bla bla". Like Eminem with his Slim Shady. "I can be an asshole, and a monster and a psycho because that's not really me actually. That's my other darker me." -> it sounds a bit like escapism. The ring can be a place where you escape. You think you're dealing with whatever troubles you deep inside that created that fracture in yourself by being a monster in the ring, and maybe it does help a little. But if you're ONLY "dealing" with it in the ring and never outside of it, what happens when you can't be in the ring anymore? When you don't have your mean to escape, to let off some steam, what then? I guess that's what happen then. You're more likely to break at some point. It's too fragile to be split. Look at what happened to Voldemort and his horcruxes. Lol.

This is an offshoot of a previous thread I started, on the "light" versus "hard" sparring and how that kind of divides down the emotional line, rather than the physical power of strikes. I wanted to ask my trainer, Kru Nu, about this. He's been teaching Muay Thai for 25 years or so, grew up in a gym that had the very, very early westerners who lived and trained in Thailand, has raised countless Thai boys to be stadium fighters and champions; and has had his fair share of "what the f*** was that?" experiences of people losing their cool in sparring and things erupting into potentially dangerous situations. My impetus for asking Kru Nu about this subject was two fold: 1) the "Thai sparring is so light," refrain I hear from westerners is often one that I've failed to witness with my own 7 years' experience living in Thailand. Thais don't spar super light, at least not the way that I see it performed by the westerners who are trying to mimic what they deem to be "Thai style sparring." And 2) I've seen some pretty intense sparring under Kru Nu's supervision, where he doesn't tell people to turn it down, whereas I - and probably most coaches in the West, would have done. With very little kids, like 7 and 8 years old, when they're clinching they aren't allowed to throw knees. Kru Nu tells them explicitly, "if anyone throws a knee, it's a foul." That's so they don't hurt each other, because they don't have control of themselves yet. They're tiny, so the impact is relative to their size, but I think it's more of an emotional precaution - they don't have control of their emotions yet and so they'll knee hard and hurt each other. They're emotionally not in control, so if they get mad they don't have a stick in their hand at the same time, so to speak. Most of the time, sparring or clinching with little kids like this ends because someone's crying. They're learning how to control their emotions way more than they're learning how to do proper technique, although they do get a few pointers here and there. Mostly it's just spending time in the water, as I like to say, and learning not to cry about it being too cold or deep or whatever else. Back to adults. The teenaged Thais in my gym have mostly been training for a lot of years, so they've gone through the emotional bootcamp long before they ever get big enough to really do any damage to anybody. We have one young fighter, Maek, who is often my clinching partner, and he's new enough and young enough that he gets a little emotional sometimes. He's ignored most of the time when he gets like this, or he's teased to put him in check. But he's pretty big, 60 kilos at only 13 years old, but a little butterball so he goes with partners who he outweighs but is shorter than. So, with his weight he can do some damage, but with his size and age he's kind of not so dangerous. In contrast to this, the westerners who come to train in Thailand are mostly pretty big, compared to me and Thais. They can do damage before they have any kind of skill, or moderate skill, and they've done usually no kind of emotional formation by a culture that esteems "jai yen yen," cool heartedness. So, you've got giant babies. Yesterday, my regular sparring partner and I were told to go spar but to go "bao bao," which is Thai for gentle. I've never been instructed to go light before. The reason was that both Carabao (my sparring/clinching partner) and I have fights in a couple of days, so a clashed knee or bruised eye or ego is not on the ticket. I fight often, Carabao doesn't. So, the instruction to go light is more to do with his fight than mine, but interestingly, Kru Nu has credited Carabao's wins in the past with being my clinching partner. In clinching, nobody is ever told to "go light." Just maybe to be more careful with hitting with the inside of your thigh instead of with your kneecap. So, this sudden "go spar, but bao bao," thing got me thinking. I wanted to ask Kru Nu about how he does sparring at his gym. I told Kru Nu that westerners seem to think that sparring in Thailand is all really light. He frowned at me when I said this, like "why?" I laughed. I don't know. But then I used the example of this Indian guy, who I referenced in my other thread. He goes too hard (in my eyes) with everybody. He's not out of control, but his power is enough to do damage. In the example I gave in my last thread, he sparred with an Italian who also goes quite hard. Hard vs hard, and Kru Nu said, "they like that, so I give for them." But I reminded him of a match up that was not a syncing of likes, where one guy didn't like to go hard. A few weeks ago he was sparring with a fellow from Spain. The guy from India is cracking these leg kicks and has good boxing, so he's touching up the guy from Spain and then just bashing his leg. The guy from Spain is not super experienced, but not totally green. He does okay for a round, listens sincerely to my advice to teep with the leg that's getting kicked when I talk to him between rounds, but ultimately lays down and sparring is ended with a "TKO" late into round 2. I thought that was shitty, honestly. I asked Kru Nu (yesterday, not when this happened), why he let the sparring go like that. "Because I want the guy from Spain to understand that in a fight, if someone kicks you hard here (he chops the side of his hand into his leg), you cannot ask them to stop. And you cannot stop. He has to understand." And, as I recall, the next sparring session, Kru Nu put the guy from India with Team (Thai, stadium fighter) and he got worked, which Kru Nu had said was, "so he can understand." Keeping everyone in check. I nodded my head in understanding when I was listening to Kru Nu. It's what I was saying about hard sparring, how it teaches you that you have to figure shit out under duress. You have to know what contact feels like and how to hide your fear, your shame, your pain, but you also have to be able to not get upset yourself. If you're going to hit hard, you have to know you'll be hit hard back. Kru Nu actually pointed at me, poking my shoulder as I sat next to him on the ring for this conversation. "Sometimes Carabao kicks you too hard, I know, I see," he said. Honestly, guys, I know Kru Nu sees everything but I totally assumed he was not clocking the times that Carabao is hitting me hard. "But you don't get angry, I know you are okay. And if you want, you can show him that you kick hard too and then he understand." I know there are times I've lost my cool in sparring and clinching when I feel like I'm being hit too hard. I've been punished for that by Kru Nu before, basically by him telling me to get out of the ring and go kick the bag and he ignores me for the rest of the session. But I've also learned how to control that shit myself. With Carabao it's a bit harder, just because of his size and the relationship we have in the gym, but with Maek I've learned how to take a too-hard strike, hit him back hard as a warning shot, and then use the next shot as an immediate comparison (much lighter), to let him choose which kind of strike he wants. You hit me hard, I hit you hard, but we can always go back to this. And know what? He always tones it back down. No words spoken. No looks. No complaints. No calling "dad" over, and the escalation in emotion is super short. But I wouldn't know how to do that if I'd never been hit too hard in sparring; if I'd never been overwhelmed and wanted to cry. When Kru Nu lets these big Western dudes bash on each other, he's giving them the same lessons that led me to where I am now, but on a much shorter timeline. These two go hard, they go hard together. This guy goes hard with someone who doesn't reciprocate and he doesn't read the temperature, make him go with someone who will touch him right back (Team) and then some to keep him in check. It reminds me of the Cesar Milan approach to reconditioning aggressive dogs: put them in with the pack and a natural order will shake out, pretty quickly. I remember taking our dog Zoa to a dog park in New York and she was growling and nipping at some dogs who came to sniff her. I immediately thought to go control her and Kevin told me to wait, let it sort itself out. Sure enough, within 3 minutes the group had figured itself out and Zoa was playing chase with a dog she'd just been ready to fight with. You can't control everything. And if everything is always controlled for you, you never learn to control yourself.

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!