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That was me . Wow what a great mention makes me so so happy! I also saw the fight in person (well obviously) and to people who were not there, the video does not make the size difference justice. I was so surprised by the sudden KO because Sylvie looked so much smaller and I remember thinking that "jeez so much power in that small body". Sylvie arrived during fight 4 I think and she was fight 8. And they drove all the way from Pattaya. It's a pretty insane thing to do, so many hours in the car and then arrive an hour before your fight. Her opponent's corner man you see in the video ended up wrapping my hands and helping me on with my gloves. He was very cool and calm and great to be around to calm fight nerves. And the cat was super cute.

I have just suffered my 4th cardiac arrest, heart attack or whatever you want to call it. Wednesday last week after teaching a class. However that is not the focus of what I am about to write. At 40 I had my first two and the specialists all were of the opinion I may last to 50. At 45 I had my 3rd one, that one they had to "zap" me and then CPR. At 48 comes number 4. This associated with chronic back pain and a compromised left leg, from spinal surgery, has made life very challenging to say the least. So as 50 looms so near in the future, I have a few things to ponder. Now that the back story is complete, I would like share with you (aside from my wife and my own strength), the single most important soul enabling me to continue and strive for life, is Jack,he is a 4 year old magpie. My wife and I rehabilitate birds and other animals, with the view to release. However, Jacky Boy is different, he can't be. We estimate he was a week old when we were handed him as a rescue bird. He had a broken wing and a broken leg. Over the course of the last 4 years, he's under gone an amputation and complications that have nearly killed him. Where I am going this story, is simple. This little creature whom I am convinced has a soul, who has showed such toughness and a will to live and thrive and is so loving, came into our lives and provided me in particular a totem. A totem representing, strength, will and compassion. In a lot of ways I credit him with saving my life. If he could struggle through, then why couldn't I? So, I wish to pose this question, do any of you guys out there, have or hold something so dear to you, that in times of need may seem to be your only salvation?

Ah! That's cool that Jomkwan's corner helped you get ready. I arrived during her teammates fight, which I think was bout #2. I was setting up my mat and talking to the promoter, so I didn't really get to watch her in the ring but saw that she was dealing with some serious leg kicks afterward. A few of your knees had both my husband and my cornerman going "oooiiii" as we watched from our mat

LengLeng, oh man... her knees and elbows were awesome. Her opponent was also very strong with punches and I heard a few of them even from far away from the ring. It wasn't close though, LengLeng blew the fight out. Awesome, awesome performance, really.

Chatchai Sasakul in Bangkok. 100%: Chatchai is all about balance and weight transfer. Everything is the legs and feet, then not breaking the frame with your upper body. But man, the way he can generate power from such simple and minimal (economical) movement is just incredible. It doesn't require translation between the boxing movements and Muay Thai, and he was a very good Muay Thai fighter before he went into boxing, so he's able to bring it all together. Manop in Chiang Mai: this is again a big point about balance. Manop is kind of rangy, but he understands and can articulate small details about footwork and leg/stance for balance and power. His English is pretty good as far as I have seen, but I mostly speak Thai with him so I'm not totally sure how he explains things in English. But he is able to articulate the nuances into words, so I imagine he does so in English as well. Detail-oriented, for sure. Burklerk in Lampang: his technique is Old School, but it's absolutely useful to contemporary Muay Thai as well. He's really good at breaking down the minute differences between what you're doing and what he wants you to do, but it's not verbal. You have to watch and imitate. But he'll totally point out exactly where the difference is, so you don't have to play "guess what's wrong," you just have to pin-point the adjustment and he's very good at helping you see that. His balance is great, he's scary, and his distance is one that literally any sized fighter has an advantage fighting at.

I just watched the fight video with the voice over commentary. ( I saw it live too. I missed the 1st round live but saw it from 2nd round middle on) congratulations!! ( no further comments Bc I’ve only been doing MT for 5 months so I have no real insight or in-depth knowledge. I just enjoy watching and listening. And learning if im luck enough) who is the other fighter that is on here that you said fought really well even though it was her 2nd fight only? Congrats to her also.

The very first recorded fight in a fixed stadium ring in Bangkok (1921) was between a man somewhere in his late 50s (muen muay Kueng Tosa) vs a 22 year old (Phong Prapsabok, the son of an opponent he once defeated).

I had a beer with some fighters yesterday including Keng Sarikadong. He is 36 works as trainer on Samui and just won the King's Cup. If your body is fit, why not? You write the book of your life. Would you want to read it?

The commentary version of Sylvie 244:

To me a super key to switching is getting the footwork down. Here's a public clip of Yodkhupon's galloping footwork. He's a southpaw fighter, but his gallop contains the element of being able to just switch in the cut off. It's part of his strike from any position. You can find his sessions in the Muay Thai Library, or watch detailed sessions with him in the Intensive Studies (I think 6 hours are up there). Yodkhunpon told Sylvie to practice this footwork 20 minutes a day. I think that it is core to a flexibility in switching. Ideally you don't want to be "now I'm orthodox, now I'm southpaw", you want to be fluid, and access the advantages in each, when appropriate. You need a basic footwork, and Yodkhunpon's is pretty damn beautiful.

As for a drill (I'm only a beginner myself, so take that as you will), I tried letting the heavybag swing (with a teep for example) and then evade by taking a step back into southpaw (I'm orthodox), directly followed by a left kick. The idea was to keep a distance on an incoming opponent and counterattack. Seemed a good thing to practice since most of my sparring partners are much better punchers than I am.

I think it really matters if you are talking about taking a few private sessions, or you are just talking about training at a gym. The Thai way does not really involve constant and repeated corrections (that produces stress and lack of flow which is not conductive to fighting), but there are krus that can and will be corrective in a private, as that is what westerners want, and it happens to be how they in particular think. The Krus Sylvie lists are pretty precise. Of all of them I would think that Manop is the most precise. He has a lot of experience training westerners as the head trainer at Yokkao, and now with his own gym it seems that he brought a lot of that precision to his approach. In Sylvie's session with him we were shocked at some of the very tiny details he brought out (timing on when the heel came down for instance, after a kick, made a huge difference). You can watch the full 90 minute session as a patron here: #55 Manop Manop Gym - The Art of the Teep (90 min) watch it here You can see beautiful slow motion of his technically beautiful teep here: You can watch a segment of a session with Chatchai here: #64 Chatchai Sasakul - Elements of Boxing (72 min) watch it here Here is a segment with Burklerk, you can watch his session here: #17 Burklerk PInsinchai - Dynamic Symmetry (82 min) watch it here

Thanks so much. Jomkwan is such a great fighter, I really wish I could see more of her... when not against me.

It's hard to say whether it's "worth it" to train there or not, as giving generalized gym advice is hard because every person is different, has different needs and expectations. I haven't trained at the new Lanna Muay Thai, so I can't give first-hand experience, but I've heard from people who are training there recently that it's crowded and more "class" structured. How busy a gym is changes ALL THE TIME, so I can't say whether that's the case at this moment or not - it's low season in Thailand. Kru Daeng is still there and he's always worth training with. He's fight-oriented, experienced, knowledgeable and a great guy. But you could always take a private with him if the gym itself is not what you're looking for. Hongthong is another that I've never done regular training at. Both Gen and Joe are 100% worth taking private sessions with, but regular training is something that I can't comment on from experience. Both Lanna and Hongthong are gyms that can get you fights, if that's something you're interested in. Manop's gym looks good and Manop is a great trainer. Looks like they have a good group of people training most of the time, so you have clinching and sparring. It's a bit out of town, so you'd need to get a motorbike or be happy staying put most of the time. In general, I advise people to try more than one gym and make their longer-term plans based on their own experiences. None of these gyms are so far away from Chiang Mai that you can't take a few days to try each of them and make your decision from there. You'll know better than anyone what feels right to you, and there's no reason to commit before arrival. You might find this thread helpful:

Jaroentong is also a switching fighter. I'm not sure what you mean by drills for practicing the switch, as it seems you're trying to learn how to switch in the moment, rather than fighting out of both stances. I haven't been taught "how to switch," but rather Karuhat literally reversed my stance and I had to learn how to fight in Southpaw. When literally going from right handed to left handed or vice versa, in general it's just like walking into the opposite stance. Namsaknoi has a really nice galloping switch on a punch, but he doesn't stay in the opposite stance. He just switches on that punch. But I reckon you could use it as your switch and just stay in that other stance. Karuhat does the same thing, but from the opposite stance, which is meaningful because he's going from his "unnatural" stance into his natural stance for a power cross, whereas Namsaknoi's is the inverse of that, so you're landing into the non-dominant position. Sifu's "when to switch" drills and philosophies are the only time switching is talked about conceptually by a teacher in the Library. Otherwise it's my own take on what the switches feel like or mean. The dangers of switching are being off-guard for a moment as you're switching and landing into a position where your "open side" is vulnerable. But you just have to be aware of that and guard or set up the switch by off-balancing your opponent first. In general, don't switch stance in kicking range. Either closer or farther out. I'd choose closer. Karuhat often uses a simple step back (again, same as walking) when reversing his stance and then his attack just flows directly out of that. Almost nobody switches and does nothing. They switch on an attack or on a defensive step that becomes an attack.

I can’t LOVE your reply and these facts/videos you shared any more. Just awesome. Thank you.

I’m just now seeing this! The advantages are that most people have a bit more humility and understand their challenges and limitations as well as their strengths. Not saying that this isn’t possible for younger people but for most, getting older means getting more grounded. And life experience helps to gain a bit of perspective, I think. Hard to explain until one experiences it.

Good Lord (response to Kevin's posts). That's a lot of beauty. Very cool to have an origin story for the both of you.

Hi David. I notice you are in Pai. I would suggest Kru Suk who is nearby. He just opened his new gym there, I believe it is called Border Pai Muay Thai Gym. The phone number is +66 093 389 5528. He has trained a few champions and notable fighters from the Meenayothin Gym in BKK. You can tell him I sent you. If you can't get a hold of him let me know and we'll figure it out.

I put together a video of the blessing on my Mongkol.

I don't think 35 is too old at all! We've had people in their 40s join our team and fight for the first time and do really well. A lot of fighters stop by 35 because they've been doing it a long time and want something different or feel like they are slowing down. Part of that is the amount of wear and tear they have after training and fighting for more than 20 years though. They've been pounding on their body for decades. A vehicle made in 1983 with low miles will still run just fine

I'm also 35, so I don't think that's too old at all. I plan on another 10 years or more, so long as I can keep doing what I'm doing with adjustments where they're needed. But I do think that as a caveat, you just have to consider what YOU think is enough. A guy at my gym the other day asked me whether I think someone could fight, training only one session per day. I said for sure, but you'd really have to put the work in during that one session. I think you could fight with NO training, but it's about what you want out of your fights and what you want out of your training. So, if you think you're to old, probably that's going to direct your mind a lot. If you think otherwise, you can go farther.