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First of all, apologies for bringing Myanmar traditional boxing (Lethwei) into this but as far as I understand muay boran (and other fighting styles in the region) originates from Lethwei. I feel there are some people who want to create an impression of animosity between lethwei and muay thai, but I just experience it as two beautiful versions of the same thing. Anyhow, one of my teachers sent me this old photo from his home in Kachin State, northern Myanmar and one of the most active armed conflict zones. And I wanted to share just to remind foreigners who come to fight in Thailand or Cambodia or Myanmar what cultures they are actually interacting with and where your trainers actually come from. My teacher in the photo is a sweet, friendly guy in his 20s. He works at three different gyms in Yangon that focus martial arts fitness and he leads his classes with enthusiasm and smiles. He sleeps at the gym where I'm training. Regardless of skill level he'll find and push you beyond your boundaries. He has had about 30-40 fights and is currently recovering from a nasty knee injury and subsequent surgery, waiting to be able to fight again. He's also waiting for an invitation and visa to go teach at a western gym in a western country. To prep for the visa process he goes to English school in his free time. His biggest dream is to become a One Championship fighter. And he keeps his body fit in the meantime. This photo simply got to me. It's just such a harsh reminder of what it means to really want it. The endless hours you put in that no one is there to see. And it, as so many times before, painfully reminded me of how spoiled I am as a foreigner when trying to choose the most suitable gym for me, or complaining about pad holders style, or not getting fights, or the whatever. And the caption I was given with the photo also summarizes the attitude so well: "Now ok before ok you know?"

I don't really comment on politics in countries I work in and I don't really want to either Myanmar politics are way too complex for discussions like these. But I think you misunderstand my point. I couldn't care less about which of these disciplines are more pure, I find these debates stupid. What I do see is similarities in what it means to grow up in Thailand or Myanmar and fight for a living. And how far this is from westerners dreams of fighting "real fight" and experience a traditional gym ("but the trainers should speak english please"). I'm myself a westerner with these kind of fight aspirations and it's probably why this clash of cultures fascinates/disturbs/interests me so. Please feel free to edit my post if you have issues with whatever things I wrote (and really did not claim were facts).

What a great insightful answer! Thank you!

There are a few things that are involved. The first may be that you have to keep in mind that Muay Thai evolved from rope bound fighting, where by report fights lasted very short periods of time, knock out or nothing, because they were basically barefisted. When hands were padded, this lengthened fights. I suspect that padding a part of the body devalued it. You are hitting someone with bare shin bones, or with padded hands. You can understand why the padded part might be devalued. Yes, if you rock someone, punches definitely count. But if you are just touching them stiffly, then nothing much. Punches need to have impact. Another element of this is that it is my theory that Thais and westerners map the body very differently. In the west we picture the head as the center of the self. Anything that strikes the head, even lightly, feels like it is hitting the very identity of a person. In Thailand you have a much more Old World conception of the body, something you see in traditional cultures, like those of Ancient Greece. In this view the "Gut" is a major center of self. In English we still have the vestigial belief in phrases like "gut check" or "I could feel it in my gut". For Thais, I believe, strikes to the gut, especially by kicks and knees, just FEEL like they are hitting the center of a person, more than they do in the west. Striking their vitality. In the traditional view of the body, the gut, the spleen, was a core of the self. Yes, the face also holds a symbolic sense of identity, but it is not the same as in the west. And lastly, I suspect that because so much of Muay Thai striking is geared toward kicks (and knees) to the body, and because this centerline is very well defended, there is a kind of "capture the flag" aspect to this. If you are able to penetrate defenses, and nail the mid-section, you are really showing skill and control over the fighting space, something that was quite appreciated in the Golden Age. Control over the fighting space was the art of Muay Thai. I suspect punching people in the face (or for that matter, low kicking them, which also ends fights) was considered low-hanging fruit. These are relatively easy strikes to be had. The Muay Thai of the age was really about pushing the technical limits of attack and defense.

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.

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.

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.

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.