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off the cuff, crowd them often so memorized combinations are hard to pull off. Elbow, kickboxers hate it. Clinch, kickboxers hate it. Teep a lot, kickboxers tend not to be super experienced vs teeps.

This post contains some of my photographic study of the Diamond Guard, a Muay Thai specific modification of an old western boxing guard often called the cross-armed guard, used by fighters like Archie Moore, Joe Frazier and George Forman. What I'm really interested in here is how photography itself can be used to explore a technique or a muay (a style), and the role that aesthetics plays in developing truly effective fighting skills and approaches. This is a particular interesting thought case because during the covid-19 shutdown Sylvie and I are working a great deal on this guard, something we would probably never do during regular training stints, and in many ways we are kind of making up its applications, and favorabilities, modeling them on Sylvie's muay as it already is trajectoried. Her Muay Khao forward advances, her drive to clinch engagements, the history of Muay Khao styles she models herself on. I shot these photos as a way of taking an aesthetic slice into the work we've been doing. What I'm interested in here is the way that aesthetics (or Aesthetics) - which often can be derided as the poor of a spectrum which holds "efficacy" on one end, and aesthetics on the other end - is actually the inflection point where the affective powers of the soul, the person, come to bear on the practicality of a technique. How it appears, what it feels like, what it communicates cuts into the shoreline of the Real of fighting. If one is to develop a defense, for instance, how it feels, what it expresses, what it looks like, may be vital questions for a fighter if one is going to reach the higher ceiling of one's capabilities, of its capabilities. Aesthetics, ultimately, allow the fighter to draw on the greater resources of the soul, the Self, to tap in a deeper poetry. And, this photo study is asking the question: What role can photography have in this?

Yeah we will be wearing protective gear including elbow pads. Thanks for your advice mate and wish you the best too!

That's great news. Rare opportunity to elbow! Will you have elbow pads? If you want to slow him down if he is a bouncer, I'd recommend going for low kicks. I'd try to use the clinch best you can, just make sure you're controlling his arms. Don't make the mistake of thinking Muay Thai > Kickboxing, because you may find that he's more confident striking, because it was all he was doing for a while. So IMO control his arms in the clinch, go for knees and elbows. Wishing you the best!

JWP says that the title 'kru' is for Thais. Being called 'coach' or 'teacher' in a foreign language doesn't make sense to me. It just seems to me like a way of floating ego. I've been called Kru before, but I prefer people just to use my name. I have a similar opinion of the insistence of 'sensei' or 'shifu' being used in japanese and chinese martial arts. It's just weird to me to throw in a substitute word in a different language

God dang watching these make me miss the gym Awesome set up though dude! Keep grinding! I'll do the same

Thanks, I'm glad to finally find a good community that shares the same passion for the art of Muay Thai. Yes I will start doing my homework and exploring more of this awesome website and it's content. Also thank you for the suggestion on the home gym your setup is really awesome keep up the good work. Hey Mitchell thanks for the warm welcome I appreciate it and it's awesome to see someone else from L.A practicing Muay Thai. I also made it my goal to start training last year. I actually used to be really overweight and I decided that once I lost a good amount of weight I would give Muay Thai a try. I'm so glad that I decided to try it out because it's been something that has kept me motivated to keep pushing for my overall health. I would love to meet up one day to practice some moves and just bounce back some ideas off you. The gym that I go to is in Midtown (Crenshaw and Adams) so it's really close to my home and it's been a blessing to have them open up in my area. You're always welcome to come check them out when all of this clears up of course. It's been really hard adjusting to a new routine but I've been doin a good job about staying active. My sister also trains Muay Thai so we've been training here at home running drills and doing some HIIT training as well. The online streaming classes have actually been really engaging and in a way it's kind of fun training with the squad from home. Keep up the good work Mitchell and keep pushing and striving to reach your goals. I would love to see everyone sharing their at home workouts.

You know what the real trajedy is with these douchebags? If they were just honest from the getgo, people would be cool with it and that gym would likely still make the same money. If they just said, "Hey guys, we train K1 here, we're a kickboxing gym" - nobody would think any less of them.

I’ve come across this! Another reason why I left my last gym. That was the final straw along with some other things. I did a few months with John Wayne Parr when I lived in the Goldy and not even he demanded that title. (And he probably could if he wanted to) The arrogance in the west can be exhausting. Amazing gym by the way and highly recommend training with JWP