Leaderboard

So Ina and I were studying the library session with Kaensak, watching closely and taking notes, marveling at everything he teaches. Then our cat Chichi decided it’s time to give her some attention. But on a serious note: This session for me is another hidden gem in the library. It’s easily comprehensible, Kaensak is brilliantly adding and building up techniques and it’s just so enjoyable watching Sylvie and him train. If you haven’t seen the session, watch it. Now it’s time to try, learn and implement the stuff shown here. Once again thank you Sylvie AND Kevin for doing what you do, preserving the legacy.

Thanks, that is a very cool response. As much as I often feel that hyper-marketed forms of combat sports like MMA & kickboxing are destructive forces to traditional views of dominance that are still reflected in Thailand's Muay Thai, there are also stories such as yours, where the genuine attempt to weave together the golden threads of authenticity in all of them, even or especially as a judge, is full of a great hope that the Muay Thai of Thailand can help combat sports in general, transcend the lower common denominators that sometimes help fighting sports highly successful in the marketplace. Very cool. The spear and the bouquet.

Kevin, there is both poetry and power in the way that you write and explain. I am captivated by the aesthetics of traditional Muay Thai, and you are the only scholar these days that I have found that expresses this aesthetic. I have lived in Chiang Mai (part time) now for 10 years and truly love and respect all things Thai and Muay Thai. Presently, I am training to be a Muay Thai official (over 10 years experience as a pro MMA judge) . One aspect of judging MMA is adherence to the criteria for judging; many judges and the public see judging as subjective, but good judges know and implement the criteria for scoring and evaluating a MMA round. In the same sense, I am interested to see if Muay Thai judging criteria (in the west and in Thailand) maintains the aesthetics and criteria for Femeu style, and for aesthetics and ruup, or if the criteria now focus on aggression and power/damage. If I ever do work as a MT judge, I'd be interested to see the fight through the lens of Phra Pirap. I'd like to be a part, and an advocate, for keeping the Golden traditional aesthetics in modern MT judging.

I've been meaning to write a blog post about this for a while and recently, as I think it's an amazing topic. A lot of folks who become dedicated to Muay Thai find it to be a form of therapy, out outlet, a time for themselves away from the pressures and stresses of family/work/school. Muay Thai is empowering, but it can also tear you up; but for most of us, Muay Thai is something that has forever changed us and keeps forming us the more we work in it. I came across this post from a woman who has found her experiences at her gym (Onyx MMA in Singapore) to be helpful in dealing with her Depression. For whatever reason, I think Muay Thai beckons to those of us who are struggling with ourselves and gives us a set of tools and a process through which we can translate that struggle. This thread is to share our thoughts and experiences on the usefulness and challenges of Muay Thai as therapy. For me, Muay Thai is an incredible outlet. Physically pushing myself is, at times, a very real necessity in dealing with my personal demons. But it's also difficult because all the things about Muay Thai that make me feel empowered and strong and capable, ALSO make me feel useless and stuck and self-critical. A mirror is just a reflective surface - it's YOU that interprets what you see in it. Muay Thai is like that - some days it shows me beauty and some days it shows me a monster. But I do feel that I'm able to work through things on a personal, emotional and psychological (even spiritual?) level through the language and art of Muay Thai that I wouldn't be able to address otherwise. It gives me the courage to keep trying, I think. And I can see improvement; it's measurable, whereas being a more stable or happy or good person is harder to gauge. But man... sometimes it just crushes me, too.

I highly recommend that no woman face menopause without Muay Thai. Kidding...sort of. I started training when I was 48, and am still gamely at it while I'm looking down the barrel of 53. The hormonal roller coaster, and all the freaky physical, emotional, questioning everything in your life shitstorm, is a lot easier ride when you know you've got a solid hour of training coming where you won't be able to think of anything else, you get in a monster work out and you secretly start hoping some fool will try to jump you in the parking lot so you can beat the daylights out of him (I really am kidding about that last part...not the first part though) It's well known that regular exercise helps alleviate mild depression, and a martial arts practice is no exception. I get a little skittish about admitting something along those lines, as the prevailing attitude towards women in any martial art is that they train only because something is wrong with them. But screw those fools, my experience tells me otherwise.

This is a powerful post that she wrote! It is really interesting to see why and how people come into martial art. I remember I started judo (this was the only martial sport in my island) when I was a kid, because my dad was worry about me. Since I am a girl, it is most likely that I would get trouble when I get older (harassment and such). I didn't really liked it mostly because I was forced, and also because I had that urge to punch. When I finally moved from my small island, I had to support emotionally my mom who was in depression, dealing with a lot of new thing (new country, language, culture, people, etc). I fake being super happy for about a year, I was struggling with bulimia and trained 7/7 kickboxing. I had to stop going to the gym because of an injury and health problem, you probably all know how doctors don't really like boxer (and if you are a girl, this is not a sport for you (!) ... I was at that time in a really machist country). Stopping training got myself into depression too. I partially blame it on the country and moved again. After 2 years of doing nothing, I wanted to go back to kickboxing, and by mistake register for muay thai. For me muay thai became synonym of freedom. Daniel Pennac said in one of his book "learning is first to learn how to 'master' your body"; but for that you need to overcome emotional and mental barrier. I've learn that it is not about what happen to you that matter, but what you do with it. They kick you? Grab that leg, make them fall. Got hurt? Train harder! Same in life, if someone hurts me or if I'm down, I don't blame it on the other, maybe I'm not strong enough, maybe I could have avoid it. (For me) Muay Thai is freedom of mind/body, plus when you train you don't have time to think about how sad you were earlier that day :)

I love love love this post. Muay Thai and my amazing trainer are the reason I'm coping at all! Muay Thai gives me strength, courage and belief in myself. In recent times I have had to deal with distressing workplace physical violence and am currently watching helplessly as my parent dies. I used to smoke. Now Muay Thai saves me. Every day. Even when I have a shit day at training, I know it'll be okay and I just push through. I absolutely know, without a doubt, that my mental health has been maintained and improved by Muay Thai.