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I do it because I really enjoy it. I really regret not starting when I was younger, but nothing I can do about that. It keeps me fit, my flexibility is getting better, but mostly I think its learning new skills and seeing myself slowly improve. It also provides me with a connection to Thailand (I love it there, see). I’ve also really enjoyed learning about the history of it - reading up about all the golden age legends, then looking up their fights on youtube, studying them in Sylvie’s library. I’ve been able to get over to Thailand a couple of times this past year and train with some of them, which was amazing. I think another thing that fascinates me about Muay Thai is how the sweetest, most softly spoken people you could ever meet have developed such an explosive and brutally effective martial art. It’s all about causing the maximum amount of damage in the most efficient way possible. No fancy unifroms, no grading system, they just put on a pair of shorts, train real hard and fight!

I don't have much more infos to add to what's already been said. Plus I've only stayed one week in Pattaya so my input is very limited. I was staying at the Royal Thai Residence and I ate outside everyday. Basically my eating routine was fruits for lunch and a meal consisting of rice and veggies for diner at a street food stall nearby the hotel. That evening meal cost me about 50 bath. The fruits I'd buy them in the morning before training at a market near Jomtien Beach. If I remember well I would buy for around 100/150 baht of fruits and it would last me two days or so. I'd also buy cheap snacks from convenience store sometimes; and coconuts everytime I see them. I think one whole coconut costs around 50 baht. As for water you can buy a bottle for cheap (10 or 15 baht I don't remember) and when it's empty just fill it back up for 1baht at the many "water providers thingies" you can find everywhere outside. It's cheaper to do this than buying packs. All in all, I think I was spending around 150 baht on food/water everyday. I guess you could do less if you don't snack at all. I told Kevin the more time you spend at the gym the less money you spend on food (or otherwise) so there's a tip if you want to save money. You could also try fasting every other day like Sylvie and Kevin. Hahaha.

Hahaha more on the food topic.... This is a great start to practicing Thai language skills. I'm not entirely sure why, but food vendors tend to be the easiest/most accepting while beginning to learn a little Thai. I think it revolves around food being a common thing between people from all countries. Thais LOVE food! It's like 40% of what gets talked about throughout the day lol. I didn't know a single word in Thai before I arrived in BKK, and the first thing I learned was all the names of fruits, small necessities like eggs, and how to order a few basic dishes. The great thing is that you always can point and it gives you an out if you suddenly get overly self-conscious. One thing I will caution you about is that if you begin buying food from one stall regularly, don't start buying stuff nearby (like within eyesight) just to switch it up. I made this mistake and it soured the owners towards me a bit. Either regularly spread it out (buy one thing from each stall), or find a place you like in each little neighborhood and travel around. If you order regularly from a place they will likely form a bit of a relationship with you and can get upset if they one day see you spending your money at a competing location. Forming these relationships can be half the fun of eating out though, and its a great way to start learning Thai culture.

There are definitely plusses and minuses to being a product of this kind of environment. It can make you strong, but can also give you a lot of self-esteem issues. The desired effect is that the guy will fight back (which earns you cool points if you do it right), but if you aren't familiar with that kind of situation or come from an abusive background that can quickly spiral into unintended territory. What may have started out as mild shit talking turns more into confrontation and can escalate from hurt feelings to physical altercations. With most groups of guys, you are either in or out and it can really suck if you don't understand that kind of treatment. Not responding appropriately will basically lock you out of the group. There isn't an in-between area really and that can be hard to deal with if you are someone who wants to be included. As someone mentioned above, I think there is a lot of pressure regarding body issues too (not unlike women). We all have different genetics though and sometimes you just have to re-frame that kind of stuff in your mind. I think men often times aren't taught how to communicate at all, we just kind of figure it out as we go. For better or worse. A lot of guys never learn to communicate their feelings, their desires, etc. Women often complain about being taught to communicate or act in certain ways from early ages due to how women "should" be perceived (being "lady-like"). I totally understand that frustration, but I think it at least provides some bearing one way or another. Even if they disagree completely with how society tells them to act or talk, at least there is some kind of structure to observe and makes changes from. Through female social circles they learn to communicate better and with more variety from when they are young and begin to make changes about how they act or want to be perceived. Accepted by everyone you respect, guys and girls. Usually the people with the most experience, most fights, best techniques, etc. While we compare ourselves against other guys most of the time since that is who we are directly working with for the most part, most of us still want to be accepted by everyone. I don't think (at least for me) impressing the girls has anything to do with it. That's just immaturity in my eyes. I think the gym environment can really affect the desire to be respected though. In a laid back fitness gym its not as much of an issue. If you are training in a gym where everyone fights, it becomes much more of an issue because there are immediately expectations (I think everyone male or female probably feels this kind of pressure). Depending on your background though I think there are a lot of guys who have overlapping issues with women in gym settings. For example, I have a friend that started doing Muay Thai and BJJ about two years ago. I really had to push him into it and eventually I realized he was just incredibly nervous about the whole thing. He was nervous about getting hit, nervous about not being accepted, nervous about doing exercises the right way, nervous about embarrassing himself, etc. Lol basically anything you can think of. He's a pretty introverted guy and hadn't really done any kind of exercise most of his life and had certainly never been in a fight. It took him a long time to grow comfortable (hahaha and I pushed him a lot to keep going), but eventually he used that nervous energy for positive things. He did extra workouts at home, extra bag work at home, etc. He got really good in a short amount of time and now isn't afraid to mix it up with anyone in the gym. He is still nervous about competing though. I think most people regardless of sport/performance get nervous about that though. Hahaha that all ended up being a bit of rambling and potentially an incoherent mess. Overall I don't think guys have nearly as many fears, difficulties, drama, emotions, etc. coming into a gym compared to women, but I also think we are conditioned for it a little bit more. For me personally, I've never really felt nervous at a new gym or going into a fight. If anything, that's where I am most comfortable. Inversely, I can go to social settings that my gf is completely comfortable/fine in (dinner with new people, parties where we don't know people, basically places I am completely safe lol, etc.) and I'm a complete mess lol. We've just got strengths in different areas, and I think that's perfectly ok so long as we also keep working on our weaknesses.

Whenever I see things to do with fragile masculinity in regards to training, I often get the impression that it's a cultural thing more than it is a gender thing. As a young man training Muay Thai I had a lot of issues that pushed me into training Muay Thai but it for me never came from training it. Challenges sure, but I never felt as if I couldn't get advice from more experienced guys at the gym, and now I'm in the position of a more experienced guy, training teenagers I do the same. More so than issues to do with muay thai, I find that guys training have issues more related to body confidence, such as not having visible abs, or lacking confidence due to their age (young or feeling that they are too old). That being said I find that people who train more tend to move past these issues.

This is something that keeps popping up for me. Why do you do muay thai? Whether you are just training for fun or fitness or if you are career fighter, i wanna understand why muay thai? I find myself asking if its "right" or of "net benefit" training and fighting, I'm coaching and i see loads of positives. Fitness, friendships, motivation to eat well and take care of your body. Challenging mental and physical to another level. I also see negatives from severe weight cutting, to deaths in the sport, head trauma, long term injuries. I wonder if influencing kids in the west to train or compete in muay thai is a net benefit, as well as adults. Hearing your experiences is what I'm hoping for. Good or bad. This is what i do for a living, and Ive been doing some soul searching lately.

Out of my little training experience in Thailand, I would say as long as you're doing something they most probably will appreciate the effort. I trained at Lamnammoon Muay Thai (in Ubon Ratchatani) for about two months and during that time I saw that most people (foreigners) weren't always doing the full 10k in the morning, and some had to walk or skip altogether because of injuries or exhaustion, etc. Even the Thai fighters didn't always run non-stop. Sometimes they walked, especially in the afternoon run. Also their running pace were usually quite slow. Not that they can't run fast but most often they couldn't be bothered. That said, the more you run (and the harder) the more the coaches will be content and take you seriously. My coaches basically told me I could fight when they saw how much I ran. Not when they saw how hard I hit or how slick my techniques were (Lol I would still not be ready then). Running is really essential. You say you're an awful runner, but how many days per week do you run usually? Unless you're a rare exception, your running endurance should definitely improve if you run everyday. It sucks for a while but that's okay. It should stop being awful once you're used to it. Unless you personally want to keep improving your pace for whatever reasons, then running will suck forever haha.

I'm not sure what is your question, exactly. Yes, people are afraid of him but he's a demigod and semi-demonic, so that makes sense. It's my feeling that this is a misunderstanding of his powers, but those people aren't wrong. So, walking around with that kind of thing on my chest certainly gets different reactions from people. But the only path away from ignorance is knowledge, so you just have to do as much research about him as you can in order to understand what he means to you. It sounds like you have a kind of inherent connection, which is beautiful. I have that, too. And he's not specifically villainous enough that you don't see the tattoos on fairly normal people. I've seen a number of women getting a Rahu on their lower backs in the years I've been visiting Arjan Pi, so clearly not horrific to any and all. But Arjan Pi was definitely skeptical about my Sak Yant, on my chest and in the middle of an already-not-for-women-generally Sak Yant. I think if he's tattooed on people, women especially, it's generally in a place that remains hidden by clothing.

I discovered Muay Thai about 4 years ago (I'm 29 now) but only really put myself into it 2 months ago, because I was scared of the risks, of the "Why da hell should I suffer so much if I can be in my sofa?". But now I am addicted to it. For me, every 2 hour Muay Thai training session is a way to rediscover my body, my sensations, feel pain so I can feel good afterwards. It might sound very "spiritual" and bullshitty, but that's what it is. When I practice Muay thai, do Sparring, I feel like I'm ressucitating. I've always been looking for my "passion", after reading "The Monk who sold his Ferrari", and Muay Thai just might be it.

Tyler is right, inexpensive accommodation doesn't have cooking options. You can buy a hot-plate and a pan, which is an investment on your own part. Middle-level rooms will have a balcony with a sink where you can kind of turn it into a kitchen with a microwave and electric kettle. It's much, much easier to just buy your food from stalls but obviously the tradeoff is you don't have as much control over your diet at all. Chicken+Rice is a common meal, generally running 40 Baht for a serving. Anything that's served on rice is about 40-100 Baht, soups are about the same at most stalls. If you get a dish plus rice (not the same as "on rice"), the vegetable or meat is a bigger serving and so the price is maybe 60-120 Baht. I go to a place near the gym that's grilled chicken and Somtum (spicy salad). A whole chicken plus the salad is 199 Baht and it takes me two meals to finish the chicken. If you sit down at an indoor restaurant with air-con, food prices are around 120-250 Baht per dish. If you get western food, it's 200+ for almost anything. Cheap rooms can be as low as 2500 Baht per month (for any price I give, water and electricity are not included), but usually they don't have air-con or hot water. 5000/month is the lowest I've seen for having air-con and hot water, but the room will be small and often there's a 6 month contract on those. We did this in Bangkok our first trip out and just paid the penalty for canceling the contract before 6 months, which was the cost of our deposit (1 month's rent). I recommend a motorbike in Pattaya, those are probably 1500 Baht for a month, plus whatever gas cost to fill it, which depends on how much you drive. I drive a lot and it's probably 120 Baht/week in gas. Otherwise you can walk and use the truck-busses or motorbike taxis for longer trips. I'll try to add more to this as I think of things. But ask if I've missed something and I'll try to find out.

I totally feel that destructive, super-passionate relationship thing. The way the very same thing that builds you up and makes you feel AMAZING, also tears you apart and makes you question everything you are. But the good times are sooo good, it makes you think the bad times are worth it. Basically, find something you love and let it destroy you. But not in the abusive relationship way, in the "you cannot possibly remain the same person through this process" kind of way. Destroyed and rebuilt, all the time. All the time. I've never thrown myself into anything the way I've been consumed by Muay Thai. Not only is it my whole life, it's Kevin's whole life, too. Maybe it's not possible to answer "why" you're obsessed by something, because the answer is always the same, that you're just fascinated and enamored and it never dries up. I can't picture myself doing anything else. The frequently asked question of "what are you going to do when you stop fighting?" is fucking heart-breaking. It would be like meeting someone's dog or husband and asking them what they're going to do when the thing they love the most dies. I don't know... feels like the end of the world.

Hey Chris, sorry it took me so long to get to this thread, we've been driving all over and are finally back in Pattaya. Here, I think, is the thread @Tyler Byers mentioned where general budgetary details were shared by him: Here is his comment where he lays some things out that seem pretty close to Pattaya costs (even though BKK): But yes, definitely fly into Suvarnabhumi Airport (BKK). I don't have experience with the bus as Tyler mentioned, we usually take a taxi which I think runs about 1,500 baht? When flying into a whole new country, new city, etc, it sometimes is worth it to just get to your hotel pronto, to settle down and locate yourself. Then begin the adventure. But, I would guess that the bus is also a perfectly reasonable option as well. I'm a "get me to my bed, first" kind of guy. Royal Thai Residence is kind of a middle of the road hotel. It has surprising amenities, like a pretty nice pool, for a pretty reasonable cost, but it is not the lowest budget option. Though, one of the nice things about it is that Dieselnoi stays there 3 days a week Maybe you can hang out at the pool or the local sauna with him. I'll have Sylvie hop on and maybe suss out how low clean low-budget hotels can go. And I've asked Kero to maybe jump on re: food costs?

I just got absorbed by it. It's like this destructive super-passionate relationship I keep coming back to even though I keep getting hurt and the guy is a dick but all other sports I ever loved are friendzoned forever. Mainly I love being in the gym. Or having a gym to go to. It gives me a purpose and feeling of improvement even though work might suck or other stuff in life might suck. Muay thai allows me to get out of my head and into my body. I like the feeling of being sweaty. The sounds of someone kicking pads. I love the feeling of pushing through exhaustion. Of always hurting a little bit. The constant presence of pain makes me feel alive. I like the physical closeness in the gym, with other students, with the trainer. To discover movements and skills I practiced suddenly becoming available to me. I learn so much and I discover so many things about me and others that I could never have understood in any other way than physically experience it. I learn patience. I learn how good things and beautiful things are parallel to pain and frustration. I get the physical experience of hard work pays off. I learn about violence and I discover my own violence. And I really like gym when people don't talk much. When bodies do the talking.

Hmmmm....... I love it because of the freedom it allows. You don't get that freedom from Karate, etc. That's my opinion. The freedom one gets from expressing their muay. It becomes integral to your state of being, of who you are. Once someone discovers the difference of feeling of training, teaching muay thai as opposed to kickboxing, I believe their lives change. I might be rambling, as this is just coming straight from the heart. I enjoyed my Karate, Kickboxing etc, but I love muay thai. At least as I understand muay thai. My understanding is my own, and will be totally different to anyone else's. They say this feeling can be achieved in other martial arts, but I never experienced that feeling. That's why I gave away karate. When I go to sleep I dream muay thai, I think continually about muay thai and how it can benefit everyone. If I was the all,powerful emperor Ming, I would decree that it should be in every school's phys. ed. programme.

At least part of what keeps me coming back is the way that the fear/adrenaline/exertion of training do wonders to stave off anxiety and depression. It also give my life a certain continuity in that I have something that I can feel like I've improved at every day.

There's a female only section on this forum which is very helpful for women training muay thai. But for a long time I've been wondering about issues men face in the gym. Where I train there are mainly guys. Young boys up to very experienced fighters. I watch them train and spar and bond. I see escalated aggression. Frustration. Inexperienced boys being pushed around learning to control the temper. I see bromance. I see all this touching (is this a thai or universal thing stroking each other's butts?). I see language confusion. Dominance. I see guys being laughed at for being chubby. I see guys not knowing how to clinch with a girl or whether to go hard when sparring. I see westerners trying to seek approval from thai trainers. I would be very interested to hear about common struggles men face in the gym.

Hey all, I've been doing Muay Thai on and off for about three years now and am looking to get more serious about it. I'm looking at doing a trip to Thailand for a couple of weeks to train in Chiang mai and or Pattaya October. My conditioning isn't the best, but I'm in decent shape and can do two classes at my gym back to back without much trouble. The only thing I'm a little worried about is road work. I am a godawful runner. Like, I did cross country for my Highschool P.E. credit and I pretty much never improved after the first couple week. I always feel like i'm dying beyond mile two. I've heard most gyms run 5-10k every morning, and that to get the most out of training one should show the coaches that they are willing to give their all. What I'm wondering whether it would be frowned upon to only complete part of the morning run, or walk for sections of it.

Because Muay Thai is breathing to me. Everything else is just drowning. There's a quote from Rosa Luxemburg that goes: "Those who do not move, do not notice their chains". In a similar fashion I wasn't aware I wasn't breathing before starting Muay Thai. The oxygen it gave me is my life-changing discovery - that and kitties.

What make of pads is your gym using and what sort of condition are they in? My old gym had pads that were way past their best and left me with a sore wrist for a couple of weeks. So I just bought my own set of pads (Twins). Definitely a worth while investment

Hahaha I can't tell you how much I fucking love this statement. FIND THE VIOLENCE!!!

hmmm, why do I do it.... First off: I'm a beginner, started at 35 (36 now) and right now I don't plan to actually fight. There is this fantasy about fighting in the back of my head though so well, we'll see if it ever gets to that point. I have been fascinated by martial arts since I was a kid really. Wanted to start Karate which was pretty much the only martial art I knew back in the day haha but there was a minimum age for Karate so my parent's put me into Judo. Did that for a year or so but it wasn't for me so... Took me some more years until in my twenties I finally started practicing an art seriously which was Pekiti Tirsia Kali after looking around what was available in my area and finding it interesting. My reasoning for starting was that I absolutely needed more exercise and taking up a martial art seemed to be a good way to connect that with a childhood love. Later I noticed that training and sparring also helped my psychologically as well as physically. I felt better, was more confident, felt more confident to deal with opposition or obstacles. I guess this is when I realized that a big point of training was for me to fight myself more than others, to get out of my comfort zone and prove to myself what I can do. Work interfered a few years later and I stopped doing Kali altogether a while later. another few years went by until I decided I wanted to get back into this kind of thing. I had gotten interested in stuff like MMA a bit and kind of felt I wanted to try a different art that was more in the sports-realm though I still love Kali. Muay Thai had seemed interesting for a long time and still had this traditional element interwoven with the sport-aspect. So I tried it out at 2 different gyms and started. I would like to get back to a level where I can do meaningful sparring again as one of my main points still is to work on myself and dealing with psychological problems I see in myself, learning to deal with direct opposition and difficult obstacles better and be more aware of my strengths as well as bring my body into better shape again. Also it is a great way of "getting out of my head" as LengLeng put it. When dealing with heavy everyday problems it was just super-relaxing to go to training in the evening where our coach had us smashing pads or whatever and I had a totally different set of things to think (or NOT think) about. I am much more of a beginner though as the time since I started in Muay Thai may suggest as I have hardly trained the last few months. Lots of important "real live" stuff getting in the way. I keep talking about wanting to get into it and at least I still get at least some training in but I know I will get back into being more serious with it when I have a few things off my back finally. Also have to say that I have quite a few other passions, too and their relative importance to me slowly fluctuates over the time of months or years. So far at least I haven't found just one thing that I can throw myself fully into without missing something else some day.

Hmmm kind of difficult to answer but I'll think about it some more and maybe come back with another answer. As to men training with women: I like to train with some of them if I like them but training with other men, especially of around equal or higher skill level (as long as they're not assholes about it) usually feels more "free". Especially as a tall and heavy guy (I'm not exactly well trained but have a certain natural level of strength from my bodytype) it kind of feels like you always have to low-key take care about your training-partner more. Of course you should always take care about your partners, but it's different here. Then for me there is the added problem that most women are quite substantially smaller than me which distorts some stuff for both of us. And yes, having to be more careful is a thing too of course. I've trained with women who were much more on the tough side and when you find out about that and the right level of intensity has clicked into place that's cool. There is still that bit of risk remaining that you have to be careful not to overdo it anyways. Then of course you sometimes get other women who are or act much less tough which brings it's own set of problems. Me being naturally introvert and shy doesn't help either of course but that's also the case (though to a slightly lesser extend I think) with other guys. It's not that I don't like interacting with people and of course training needs partners but I sometimes find it more difficult anyways. Then or course there is this male dominance thing. Comparing yourself to others, not appearing weak, also the thing Sylvie talks about in the text Kevin posted about being more careful about how much you tire yourself out. I'm not one of the guys who have been doing some form of training all their live. I'm actually pretty damn untrained right now and it pisses me off when I see that I'm holding a partner back because I'm gasping for air all the time and also that it keeps me from concentrating more on the technical aspects of what I'm doing. Also it's a showing of weakness that doesn't feel great of course. I remember doing a bit of boxing-sparring with someone at the gym (I've never trained much in boxing so far. We did a bit of it in Kali as our trainer was a firm believer in that you should at least know the basics of what you might be up against though) and it kind of felt embarrassing. Objectively I know I had no business looking great against someone much more experienced but I wasn't really used to the contact and feel of punches against my own body and I couldn't even use my legs which I seem to rely on quite a bit so that made it worse. I got a short video of the session taken and I actually look kinda scared from the outside which is what I was feeling, too. It felt somewhat embarrassing because, as someone else mentioned, as a guy you are kind of expected to know how to fight to at least some degree and somehow you end up believing this to some extend as being a natural thing. Then in a situation like this you kind of get this image shattered to a degree. It's not like the guy was going hard or beat me up or anything. It's just that the ego get's kicked down a little when something like this happens. It's this kind of thought that you HAVE to be strong. You can't appear to be weak because being strong is supposedly the standard for a man.

Nothing really that bad, probably not enough to qualify as 'issues' or 'struggles'. First of all, if you're working hard enough you shouldn't even notice things that probably should piss you off, you're too exhausted to realise or care if you do. Second, even if there is something it's thankfully rare, like a psycho weirdo 1%er joining the gym. Then, at least you get a funny story out of it. And third, for a lot of guys - at training it's a hell of a lot better than anything else you got going on in life, so why complicate it? Hard as the training is, it's definitely better than working bullshit job. It's nowhere near as bad as douchebag co-workers you have to put up with, nowhere near as bad as a moron you share a house with who knocks on your door complaining about loud music when it's only 3pm on a Sunday afternoon. At training there's none of that, so it's better just to be grateful. 99% of people are cool and you're lucky to be doing the most fun sport ever. Maybe the psycho weirdo 1%er is the only thing that really comes to mind. But it really is a 1% thing. In Thailand it's the westerner who wants to be king of the white people - never shuts up, demands attention, long stories filled mostly with lies, comes to the dinner table where 4 of you are already sat chilling, talking & laughing - and immediately talks over everybody and tries to hold court. This dude also tends to suck the Thai dick as hard as he can to try and ingratiate himself. Don't really use terminology like toxic masculinity / fragile masculinity to describe this guy, personally not remotely into any of this political / ideological / gender stuff. He's just a worm.

I have seen fragile masculinity so, so often over the years. I just realised I didn't know what to call it. I just used to call it weakness. I've seen it in, muay thai. I've seen it lifting weights. I've seen it in everyday life. Blokes piss me off, alot them never want to over extend themselves. The bloke that looks good on pads, but punch him in the face and he sucks. The bloke who benches 90kg but won't whack on another 10kg because he's scared. I could rant ad infinitum about weakness as I perceive it. I don't regard myself as anything special or hyper masculine, but I do know what I am and what I am not. This self belief has made making friends quite hard all my life. I guess I just don't do bullshit. Oh and I forgot to mention the one who thinks he's tough as nails and knows everything about muay thai. In his mind he's Tong Po, but when it comes to the actual fight he'll pull out with a week to go, or if he actually fights he'll usually throw the towel in. PS. I'm a big Tom Hardy fan.

Not sure how germane it is to the discussion, but @Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu's article on what she perceived to be one of the fundamental challenges for men from the west: https://8limbsus.com/blog/fragility-western-masculinity-muay-thai

Thanks for sharing this is really interesting. To be accepted, meaning be accepted by the other guys right? Or if it's a mixed gym, does it matter what the women think at all? Or you want to seem impressive to the girls to be respected by the guys? Because as a woman, most of the time all you want is for the guys to accept you as well. Much more so than other girls accepting you. Re the support system, I think most of us simply think it's a chosen thing. That you don't need people. But of course we all need people. I guess this is why they say men are usually worse off after a divorce than women, simply because the woman did all the relationship building and maintenance with their common friends and without her the man suddenly finds himself alone.

I grew up with a guy as my best friend and hanging out with him and his friends was sometimes just about taking the piss out of one guy until he lost his temper or started crying. It was so insanely brutal and I never wanted to be part of it. In retrospect though I wished I had been hardened like that would've helped me a lot, especially in the gym. Regarding sparring with girls yeah we know. And we use it to our advantage all the time. We know the guy can't go too hard without looking bad. However I've sparred with a guy I knew was angry with me and it's pretty uncomfortable knowing he can kill you if he wants. But nothing is worse than the heavy tall dude who has no control. Thanks for your post.

Interesting post. I'm curious to see what others post. I think the main thing I have seen is the constant competition and pressure to "make the grade" (be good enough to be accepted). Being "tough" is something that is ingrained in a lot of us from a very young age and most of us have no support network. Most women I know have a good support network if they have a bad day or something goes wrong in their life; men are left to struggle through on their own. We don't help each other out or support each other when something goes wrong. Instead the answer is to simply learn to deal with it and do better. That's a lot of pressure, especially if you are having a tough time and already feeling down.

For me it's simply relaxing. It's healthy (from a fitness perspective), and it just makes me happy. In a weird way its like a physical form of painting. I get to express myself through my movement and style. I also love the challenge of trying to perfect different movements and make things fluid.

Like women, men do face a lot of pressure. I don't want to sound old, however back in the day, if you weren't supreme alpha in your attitude and full of testosterone you were really behind the eight ball. This wasn't at every gym/stable but it was pretty prevalent. Now days, I feel the pressure is still on men to perform as men, ie. stereotypes. As a man you're expected to be able to fight to some degree. You can see this phenomenon mainly in new comers. Plus they want to fit in. They will fit in over time, but the bromance thing you speak of, is a bond made from blood, sweat, and spew. Men in general aren't that hard to work out. We generally take the piss out of each other as a way of cementing our friendship. We say things to one another that to a woman may seem incongruous with deep seated friendship. As a rule of thumb the more piss you take out of someone, the more you like them. When it comes to training with women, some men do find it hard. Not because of any bias, it's just because you know if you get stuck with a dickhead bloke, (especially in sparring), you can always belt him. Now, if that dickhead is a woman, that presents a conundrum. As well, if you are training with a woman and she gets hurt, automatically the man is looked at as an arsehole. I can only comment on the things I've seen over the years and general observations.

ACTUALLY.... have a look at this video I just found: Lethwei again, but right in the beginning at around 0:38 there is a young fighter training on what seems to be a Makiwara. Later in the video you can catch glimpses of fighters using similar things with an added bigger padding at around stomach-height to train kicks and knees on. It says that this teacher set up his first gym in an alleyway with what scrap-material he could muster.

Lion fight just said that they wired her the money this morning. Better late than never!

It's a shame that Lion Fight is struggling financially, because they're really the only full-rules Muay Thai promotion of that caliber in the US. But you also can't put on shows and ask fighters to work for you without paying them, that's bullshit. It's a lose-lose scenario.