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Hey everyone I've been lurking for sometime and i decided to share my experiences with you all, why not? Intro I have trained at quiet a few gyms all over Thailand except Northern (Chaing Mai) and the southern islands excluding Phuket. All of the gyms I mention besides most in Phuket and Pattaya I have trained at for at least 2 months. For some gyms my girlfriend who trains but has no intentions of fighting was with me so ill give you views from that perspective as well I'll list gyms and give some info working down the list. Gyms Lamanmoon Sor Sumalee (Ubon) 2 trips 3 years apart 5 months each. Sitmonchai (Kanchanaburi ) 2 months Sitjaopho (Hua Hin) 10 months Venum (Pattaya) few weeks Petchrungruang (Pattaya) 2 weeks Sinbi (Phuket) Rattachai(Phuket) 2 trips 1 year apart 1 month and 3 months Phuket top team (Phuket) Kingka Muay Thai (Phuket) Lamnamoon Overview: Lamnamoon was the first camp i trained at in Thailand and I'm so happy for that. I think being in Ubon/Isasn set the tone and helped me understand Thailand and Thai culture a lot better than if a more popular city was my first destination. My first trip i was lucky at having good timing at the time i was surrounded by lots of high level foreign fighters. Sean Kearney, Jordan Coe and others and How they work The training is very traditional. We never did drills or practiced scenarios, repetitive bag work both sessions (LOTS of teeps knees and More Knees) . The coaches especially Kru Yo pay very close attention to your training it may seem hands off but you many not realize hes spoken to your pad holder. In the course of a week sometimes you will have clinched everyday sometimes both sessions and spar a few times as well. Feel free to ask any questions about technique you wont be chided, i once asked a question about skip knees in the clinch which turned in to 10 min knees on the bag both sessions supervised for two weeks. Gym vibe The gym is very family orientated Food is cooked by Kru Yo's parents who live behind the gym with the thai fighters. Plenty of laughing but also very forward instruction. No one will hold your hand and make you, run, jump rope or do bag work but they pay attention especially for fighters. My first fight in Thailand and all my favorite fights are through this gym Plenty of fight opportunities in temples and festivals all through Isaan occasionally Laos and Cambodia via Buriram. It can be harder for larger fighter to find matches in festivals sometimes. Location There isn't much to do in Ubon holiday wise (my preference), Movies,temples, markets festivals. Accommodation: If you choose to stay with the camp it will be with Kru Yo's family separate apartments on a small complex hot water laundry across the street and small shops for coffee etc down the street. The gym and rooms are different locations. Temples: Many of the temples are of the forest style Including Wat Pah Nanacha the temple for foreigners , Wat Nong Pah Pong who grounds are a beautiful and forest like. Last words I think Lamnamoon is a good gym for the disciplined even if you're a beginner. Small class attention to detail Always seem invested in my progress Ubon great city to avoid distractions(but some people will find them anyway) The Isaan cultrue music and food is great. Temple, festival and Air Force base fight opportunities. Ubon is Cheap cheapest part of Thailand i Have ever stayed Most people dont speak English in Ubon but great place to start learning Thai and Isaan most locals support it. So let me know what i can do with upcoming reviews to make them better or ask any questions. Ill try to get better at this sorry for typos also I have got a weird setup here.

The Ambiguity of the Female in Noir There is an obvious connection point between Classic Film Noir and Tech Noir, in the figure of the female or the feminine. Classically, the Noir hero is threatened by the lure of the femme fatale, whose powers of attraction are magical ("Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic") and deadly. The femme fatale is a figure whose motives cannot be discerned, a character who operates by its own devices. This is modernized, or hyper-modernized in the figure of the fem-bot, an often highly sexualized version of femininity, who has powers that cannot be properly judged or anticipated, who operates with hidden motives and capabilities that cannot be resisted. They are one and the same figure brought forth in the two genres. The woman is "danger". This Muay Noir photowork by Emma Thomas really strikes me as powerful for any number of reasons, but first and foremost of which is how it captures the classic femme fatale sexuality in the context of training, without displacing it. She's mentioned to me that my own photography probably influenced her edits. There is a world of moral difficulty whenever inserting female sexuality in the male-coded Thai kaimuay, layers and threads everywhere. The traditional and the modernist projects collide, but this photo (go to the original posting here), for me, opens the door to the feminine figure that is buried in any Muay Noir juxtaposition. As a matter of sketching out the meaningful possibilities, what is the correlate to the female Noir figure in fighting? Who is the unpredictable, alluring, threatening, dangerous, surprisingly powerful, hyper-embodied "Other"? Clearly, the opponent. The feminine Other in fighting is all of the indiscernible, indecipherable qualities of your opponent. The cleanliness of technique, the unexpected powers, or motives, intentions, can rise to the android (mechanism / drives) in any of us. The automaton, is ultimately the thing that operates according it it's own laws [auto (self) nomy (law)]. Fighting, it might be argued, is the art of imposing your own law (rhythm, spacing, tempo), on the other. A completely, hermetically autonomous opponent would be, by logic, undefeatable (one of the fears of AI). Note: One of the most brilliant and subversive structural changes in the Tech Noir cannon is found in the Alita manga, where the subjective development of personhood unfolds in the figure of the female "bot", the locus of the usual projection of fantasy and fear. She starts out being given the literal body of a sex-worker (being discovered on a scrap heap, bodyless) by transplant, and passes through various bodies as vehicles and incarnations. This isn't to say that the figure of the female, if any, is found in a possible Muay Noir, necessarily. But it at least opens up that space for possible interpretation or inspiration. With my own subject matter including female Muay Thai, I find that within Muay Noir, and female fighter depictions there does lie the possibilities for syntheses or resolutions. For instance, as Dana Hoey hinted toward, there is something transcendent or transmuting about this photograph of the Thai female yodmuay Sawsing Sor. Sopit, between rounds, when put in the context of the femme or most Noir: It strikes me as a possible amalgam of the classic Noir pairing of the detective (fighter) and the girl (lure), the Brute and the Beauty:

To any sense of nostalgia - a return to the 1950s, which does have parallels in Thailand in that much or some of the country does feel anchored in a conservative or traditional past - must also be added the influence of what is often called Tech Noir, which could be oversimplified as "everything that flowed from Blade Runner". The unique and beautiful way that cyberpunk, Japanese anime futures and overall alien-ness became grounded in a backwards facing Noir world. Yes, replicants are running about, but a 1950s gumshoe detective is on the case. The combination of the future alienation, and throw-back aesthetics has a deep and satisfying history in our culture, and there is a sort of sci-fi, Blade Runner experience to many ex-pat realities in Thailand, though these seem quite far from Muay Thai depictions which already turn back up on the real. The Real. But, there is in that Tech Noir history a powerful sense of figure depiction that could play a role in what we could be looking for in Muay Noir meanings. I recent read through the Japanese manga Battle Angel Alita (1993) and its connective books, and was terribly struck by the force of its action depictions, the cleanliness of the lines (Noir contains excessive contrast, purifying the subject) as well as the emotionality of its characters while in action. It is a Tech Noir work of art. btw, you can buy the digital version of the Alita manga here, highly recommended. The Guided View, cell-by-cell presentation is very cinematic The possibilities of Muay Noir seem to reside in the confluence of these two aesthetic traditions. There is the classic evocation of Film Noir, with it's Raging Bull-like call back to a time of clarity and figure bas-relief, perhaps set against a morally ambiguous Universe, and there is the Tech Noir negotiation with the future itself, and the entire history of action depictions in manga and anime, with explicit action captures through bold lines/outlines, and intensified character states. Between these two shores: the evocation of the very old and classic, and the hypermodernity of the figure alone in space, lies the territory of Muay Noir, perhaps.