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You obviously know much more about both Sylvie, the legends and the climate of the muay of Thailand, so I will not contest any of this. I sincerely hope you are right and that the legacy will survive in whatever form.

Thank you for the recommendations, those will be my priority when I finish Deleuze! I agree about the femeu, it is at least as much an establishing of a positive, an assertion of power and display of self affirmation. There's both the dynamic part: They aren't deer escaping wolves, they're the lion playing with its prey. But there's also the performative part: When Karuhat fights, he radiates; you aren't watching two fighters, you're watching Karuhat fight against this or that fighter. He's always the protagonist of the fight through his sheer presence. I don't know what to make of that philosophically yet, but I can't help but feel that is what happens. Very fascinating thoughts on the technos and magic of the femeu, I will definitely have to consider that. Maybe there's a correlation between the evaluative/interpretative character of the will to power, technos and the question of the clearing of enframing, which is not directly a negating phenomenon, but which does compromise the aesthetic and magic of the fighter dominated by the femeu. This may be far fetched, I'll have to think some more about it. Interesting points about Achilles and his other attributes than sheer force of fighting (Probably his rhetorics, music and charm are derivative of the same thing that makes him the greatest fighter.) There is also the question of his immanence against the transcendence of Odysseus. The man purely conditioned by his immanence is absolute against the man of many turns, who can go in any way, who always has his foot halfway out the door. Of course one the same beauty and strength is never channeled in the case of Odysseus, because the stakes are never as high as they are with Achilles. The totality of his being is determined at every moment, he is always active becoming (You write beautifully ''He was something like a direct radiation of Being''); Odysseus however responds to the world, he survives, he begs. He lives in the end, but at the cost of becoming the first man of negation, ressentiment and reaction. The self-affirmation of Achilles is what is at stake constantly, be it on the battlefield or in the tent of Agamemnon; he is uncompromising in his dominion. What it always at stake with Odysseus is his survival (his bare life, as Agamben would put it.) Albeit understandable, this compromises the aesthetics of human life which according to Nietzsche is the only justification for life and existence as such. There is no doubt in my mind that Dieselnoi is the reincarnation of Achilles, then. I'm sorry I cannot engage on the topic of female muay thai with you; I don't know enough about it to have any qualified opinion or thoughts on it.

I think there are some parallels. Achilles is the complete man, the archetypal man of war. Not only is he the most skilled, most unbeatable, but also is portrayed as coming from a time, a Golden Age of men and gods, in which the arts of speech, song and performative oath are high. Odysseus is the "modern man" who uses his intellect and cunning almost like a villain, in comparison. There is a sense of fallen-ness. At least that is the juxtaposition in the play Ajax. I'm not sure that it all matches up, but when we talk of the heroic, the charm of Achilles feels like the same kind of charm of the yodmuay of the Golden Age, in a very rough sense. Like, there are no fighters like this any longer. And I think for fighters like Dieselnoi, there is a generation before that, when Wichannoi and even perhaps Suk reigned, which feels like another kind of man who no longer exists. Ha. I don't know about that! Authority in such cases is never too good. But, it is cool that you have read into my past essays of life before Muay Thai when I took such a deep dive. I'm glad to have them connected. I find it super fascinating how deep the art and sport of Muay Thai is when seen through the philosophical lens. This was a very informing article about Old World masculinity in Thailand, and magic, which I really enjoyed. It helped shape my perspective on some of these things, including Thai concepts of magic, and a kind of old sense the West: Rural Male Leadership, Religion and the Environment in Thailand's Mid-south, 1920s-1960s by Craig Reynolds Rural_Male_Leadership_Religion_and_the_E.pdf Ancient Greek Love Magic and studies such as these helped ground my sense of magic in the roots of Western thinking. I think that any perspective taken on Thai masculinity and Muay Thai that does not incorporate a perspective on magic is maybe incomplete. I was talking about this with Sylvie after my last post and I realize that my own view of Muay Khao vs Muay Femeu has maybe missed out on this dimension some. Muay Femeu is not just a negating power of deflection, or evasion, but ultimately is about - I think - asserting a positive kind of power, a magic (where maybe magic is read as a more powerful technology, a technos) over the technos of the other. I seem to recall that in the original poem lines that captured the fighting superiority of Naikhamtom before the Burmese, it was accredited to him the enchanting power of his Wai Khru/Ram Muay, which bedazzled his multiple opponents, not just his skill. You also get the coincidence of magic and masculinity in the story of Kuhn Pan, a story Sylvie has really fixated on, the great warrior/monk/mage/Don-Juan of the epic. I think you also get a sense of that magic in the nickname of Karuhat, Yodsian, which is really untranslatable. The Great Master, the High Guru, the Superstar, maybe even Midas Touch, not too far from some of the Hong Kong movie fighting masters who possessed magic powers and spiritual powers, in those wire-fu movies. This was a really good book in understanding the relationship between magic and masculinity, and spirituality in Thailand: The Lovelorn Ghost and the Magical Monk: Practicing Buddhism in Modern Thailand by Justin McDonald It does a really good job of outlining the kind of syncretism that we mentioned above, the old animistic beliefs, and the overlay of State Buddhism. If I recall the author suggests that this is Thailand's capitalism and commercialism's way of digesting multiplicity in a postmodern world. But, the figure of Somdet Do, one of the great monks of the 20th century, embodies some of that magical/man masculinity. For me, this is why Aesthetics matter in Muay Thai, and they should matter. Aesthetics, like notions of magic, enable one to draw on the pre-rational affective forces of "Man" (in the humanity sense, put in the figure of a man). Spinoza's maxim: We do not even know all the things a body can do. The affective powers a fighter draws on, through aesthetics, go beyond the rational of exportable techniques. It's all the connective, inspired tissue that makes it a living art, a magic, and that magic is what transports and raises up the audience outside the ropes. The question is, starting back at the beginning, why cannot women also possess those powers and position of transformation and control? There is no doubt a great genealogy to this question's answer, but I sense it is not foreclosed. That it is possible. And maybe that the future of Muay Thai may depend on it.

This is incredibly interesting! I haven't paid much attention to magic ever, but it lends itself incredibly well as a description of what we're trying to get at, that je ne sais quoi of the greats. I fell over this performance which to me expresses this masterly display and expression of self that almost surpasses the human: The beauty of her body, her eye contact, the voice, the lyrics and images, the moves, the sovereignty - it all comes together to just fucking blow you away. What is expressed and created here is made of the same stuff as that which is expressed and created in the Yodkhunphon - Namtaotong fight (my all time favourite - that fifth round elbow!) The modalities are very different, but the magic is the same, the ecstasy, the force and self-affirmation and exteriority. You can't not be seduced and taken, you can't help but affirm that power which overpowers you and still raises you. It is really an aura of magic. I'm interested in your point about Odysseus, because I love the essay of yours that treats the immanence/transcendence dichotomy of Achilleus and Odysseus, and I'd think that Achilleus would be the hero that functions as the paradigm for the active forces that we are investigating, whereas Odysseus seems to me the reactionary of the two. What do you think? PS: It is very much an honor to have helped you, considering you are my absolute authority on all things philosophical, poetic and artistic concerning muay thai. Your articles, photographs, texts and videos have been a massive factor in the development, aesthetic and philosophy of my muay. So thank you very much.

Richard, you're in my hometown! I was going to suggest that if you get a standing bag, one that has a base, that you can fill it with water because then you can empty it and move it more easily than if it's sand. But because of all the snow and change in temperatures that Boulder experiences, the water might be a risky move. A hanging bag is preferable for all kinds of reasons, but obviously depends on budget and if you have somewhere to hang it from. Leather cracks if you don't fill the bag properly at the beginning. Any slack, "bagginess" between the filling and the leather, if you hit it for a few weeks it will crack and break open. So make sure you really pack it and keep adding to it over the first couple weeks to make sure it's full, even as the filling starts to settle. I'm looking at everyone's gyms and am jealous of these mats. Kevin and I are working on tile and it's very slippery when we start to drip from sweat and I think I hurt my foot by stomping around like a maniac on such a hard surface... I thought I was tougher, I guess.

Unfortunately, this one didn't work out all that well! We got Dieselnoi to set it up, and he came with us and we all sat down and had a conversation, chatted old times, but Vichannoi was not in a place where he wanted to do any instruction. He's gained a fair amount of weight, and seems like a super successful businessman. So, we didn't push it, and instead and a nice talk. Not every effort to film works out!