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Does anyone have anyone quick healing tips for treating blisters? I had some 1on1s about 10 days ago on a very rough turf floor, and both big toes and balls of the feet blood blistered extensively They've been healing but keep retearing each day, I figure in a month they'll fully callous over, but if theres any way to speed up the process, Im all ears

This reminds me - sometimes my instructor would have the class play shoulder tag. Stand in your fighting stance and try to tap each other's shoulders. The hand should come out the same way a jab or cross would. Eventually, the game would progress to tags to body and legs (using hands only). It gives us a chance to figure out how close we have to be to touch our partner's shoulder, and practice deflecting the other person reaching for your shoulder. And it takes "getting hit" of the table (though, you could get slapped on the shoulder pretty hard, but students don't seem worried). You'd also have to remind ppl to not to poke each other in the eye.

Not an expert, no experience at all but I think helmets protect against cuts and bruises but do nothing to protect the the brain. In my opinion the larger target and increased mass may even make things worse.

I just found out this fight is KO or draw so I can't win on points. The thing is my opponent asked to increase weight to 3kg above my current weight. I agreed. Then she suddenly pulled out (people gossip to me "she ran away"). Which is weird because she is younger, heavier, has more fight experience and expected to be next lethwei female champ. I also know her gym as well, it's a modern gym with focus on technique. Her last fight she won knee KO first round (also smaller fighter). Anyhow I went training anyway after I was told my fight was off. Then I was told she changed her mind again and agreed to fight but at a different event 3 days earlier. Apparently this one is more low key with no videos. So I guess it's a great of losing face or whatever. So if the fight happens. I need to go for KO. But I've been told that if the opponent just runs away and KO is impossible, I should avoid a situation where I'm chasing her and instead just display technique. This will help me get respect even if it ends in a draw. People at my gym don't speak much English. My Ajarn has asked an interpreter to support me to understand. But still, most things I know about this fight is from people writing me giving me bits n pieces of information and I patch them together. Location of the fight is only shared shortly before "to avoid the mil. junta to get hold of the events and start messing around". Which adds another dimension to fighting 55. Anyhow the training for this fight is (exhausting) but super fun. I learnt a new way of blocking body kicks, for example like the diagonal block, but really throw your knee into your opponent's inner thigh.

Golden Rule: When in doubt outside of Thailand go for the KO. hahaha.

Thank you so much @Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu this is incredibly helpful. As this is in a lethwei community (but lethwei fights not allowed now for reasons I don't understand fully) it seems like the lethwei style of blocking kicks with arms and focus on headkicks and punches to the head would help me. In my gym there is limited English knowledge and my Burmese is very limited as well. I have a friend who is part of the organisation of these fights I'll clarify with him. In my pads training now, I am barely asked to do body kicks (rather lethwei style crosskick) and it's almost 100% headkicks and they want me to do jumping knees (which I struggle with). They want me to switch stance a lot, attacking from both stances and move around more. So my thinking is, it will be more traditional kickboxing rules (based on what I understand from your post) rather than Muay Thai. On the advice on forward moving aggression: this helps a lot as well. I actually have no clue about the judges ability to score properly (unfortunately and without being disrespectful) which makes me a bit uncomfortable to use technique and I feel KO might be my best option. Sincere thanks for taking the time to explain!

So I've been training bjj for sometime now and early into my blue belt I had a light bulb moment that took my guard game from a level that felt terrible to a level that got me thinking "I'm not so bad at this." As dumb as this is going to sound, that light bulb moment was when I realized that I didn't have to play guard if I didn't want to. I didn't have to stay stuck under my opponent or try for sweeps and submissions. I could if I wanted to go another route and just disengage, find a way out and get back to my feet. As ridiculous as that sounds I suddenly found myself with a whole other world of options and suddenly my game flourished (at least my bottom game). Well now that I'm venturing into muay thai I'd really like to hear from everyone else about their "light bulb" moments within this sport. I'm not looking to sidestep the hard work involved in getting good at muay thai, but if I can avoid even one pitfall because someone gave me some advice, than the question would have served it's purpose. But yeah, anyway what's your "light bulb" moment, was it a concept? a technique? a tweak in your technique? a change to your training regimen or recovery regimen perhaps? Anything at all, if you felt it helped and could be of use to someone else at any stage of their muay thai development I'd really like to hear about it, even if it seems small and insignificant like in my story. Thanks. Also just wanted to say to sylvie and kevin, really love the content, the muay thai library is awesome and I think I might be addicted to watching your fights with commentary, it's awesome to hear your thoughts about the fights I feel like I gain a whole new level of insight watching those.

I'm finally going to start playing in clinch with one person at my gym (limiting it due to covid), but he is quite a bit bigger than me (and it seems like 70% of the fighters here are heavyweight). I've had every coach at my previous gym, and the coach here tell me that taller fighters are favored in clinch. I think of Sylvie's success in knee fighting and my experience in clinch with taller people before covid, and wonder if this sentiment is true. Being tall in muay thai definitely seems like an advantage, but I'm not sure if it's exaggerated during clinch. What are your thoughts on this? What advantages do taller fighters have in clinch? Are there advantages to being smaller in clinch? Do you have any advice for being the shorter/smaller partner in clinch? I understand the only way to improve is to just get hours in, so I'm very excited to finally have a partner I can responsibly train with. Thank you for your time.

Angles and leverage definitely favor the tall in clinch. That said, as a shorter fighter if you can get a taller fighter down to your angles and height - breaking theor posture and destroying their leverage - the advantage is huge. Tall fighters are also more susceptible to trips, as the center of gravity is higher. The lower base of short fighters makes us harder to off-balance.

For me it was when someone told me the best advice he ever got was to simply stay on your feet when your partner tries to trip or sweep you in the clinch. I realized there's this moment of giving up like "damn he got me" before tripping/falling and you can actually choose not to give up and stay upright. It was a complete game-changer for me. Suddenly the boys had to work hard when trying to sweep me because I wasn't "helping" them.

This is something that keeps popping up for me. Why do you do muay thai? Whether you are just training for fun or fitness or if you are career fighter, i wanna understand why muay thai? I find myself asking if its "right" or of "net benefit" training and fighting, I'm coaching and i see loads of positives. Fitness, friendships, motivation to eat well and take care of your body. Challenging mental and physical to another level. I also see negatives from severe weight cutting, to deaths in the sport, head trauma, long term injuries. I wonder if influencing kids in the west to train or compete in muay thai is a net benefit, as well as adults. Hearing your experiences is what I'm hoping for. Good or bad. This is what i do for a living, and Ive been doing some soul searching lately.

because I have to - to live. it’s the only thing that works to keep my brain happy. I’ll be a 90 year old lady and I’ll still be kicking things

Everyone in my life always viewed me as a very peaceful person, until I went through some very trying times in my early teen years followed by a couple more in my early twenties. They revealed a rage inside me I didn't remember since I was an angry little kid. I guess I rediscovered an organic nature in me that I constantly hold back. I still struggle with being too "nice" during my fights. I don't even really care if I win, I just want to find that organic emotion and let it out freely in an accepted way.

For that question, I love to use some adapted quote from an english author: “I fell in love with Muay Thai as I was later to fall in love with people: suddenly, inexplicably, uncritically, giving no thought to the pain or disruption it would bring with it.” Meanwhile I'm training or furthermore studying it for some 1,5 years. Only! But it feels like ages! Honestly I don't see that violence point but what I see is pure art and beauty in the movements. When I talk about Muay Thai people tell me my eyes are shining! I'm fascinated and attracted by its precision, the necessity to stay concentrated in every single moment, the complexity of each move. I love getting deep and deeper into it, analyzing techniques, trying this and that, soaking up everything like a sponge. Regarding the fitness aspects I can say I started at >85kg and meanwhile (after 18 months) reached some 63-64kg, I enjoy to watch my body develop, to experience getting stronger, see muscles becoming apparent. Sure that might happen as well with other sports but I was always an active person before but nothing attracted me like Muay Thai did meanwhile. I'm just happy I "met" Muay Thai and enjoy every single training session!

Because Muay Thai is breathing to me. Everything else is just drowning. There's a quote from Rosa Luxemburg that goes: "Those who do not move, do not notice their chains". In a similar fashion I wasn't aware I wasn't breathing before starting Muay Thai. The oxygen it gave me is my life-changing discovery - that and kitties.

I do it because I really enjoy it. I really regret not starting when I was younger, but nothing I can do about that. It keeps me fit, my flexibility is getting better, but mostly I think its learning new skills and seeing myself slowly improve. It also provides me with a connection to Thailand (I love it there, see). I’ve also really enjoyed learning about the history of it - reading up about all the golden age legends, then looking up their fights on youtube, studying them in Sylvie’s library. I’ve been able to get over to Thailand a couple of times this past year and train with some of them, which was amazing. I think another thing that fascinates me about Muay Thai is how the sweetest, most softly spoken people you could ever meet have developed such an explosive and brutally effective martial art. It’s all about causing the maximum amount of damage in the most efficient way possible. No fancy unifroms, no grading system, they just put on a pair of shorts, train real hard and fight!

hmmm, why do I do it.... First off: I'm a beginner, started at 35 (36 now) and right now I don't plan to actually fight. There is this fantasy about fighting in the back of my head though so well, we'll see if it ever gets to that point. I have been fascinated by martial arts since I was a kid really. Wanted to start Karate which was pretty much the only martial art I knew back in the day haha but there was a minimum age for Karate so my parent's put me into Judo. Did that for a year or so but it wasn't for me so... Took me some more years until in my twenties I finally started practicing an art seriously which was Pekiti Tirsia Kali after looking around what was available in my area and finding it interesting. My reasoning for starting was that I absolutely needed more exercise and taking up a martial art seemed to be a good way to connect that with a childhood love. Later I noticed that training and sparring also helped my psychologically as well as physically. I felt better, was more confident, felt more confident to deal with opposition or obstacles. I guess this is when I realized that a big point of training was for me to fight myself more than others, to get out of my comfort zone and prove to myself what I can do. Work interfered a few years later and I stopped doing Kali altogether a while later. another few years went by until I decided I wanted to get back into this kind of thing. I had gotten interested in stuff like MMA a bit and kind of felt I wanted to try a different art that was more in the sports-realm though I still love Kali. Muay Thai had seemed interesting for a long time and still had this traditional element interwoven with the sport-aspect. So I tried it out at 2 different gyms and started. I would like to get back to a level where I can do meaningful sparring again as one of my main points still is to work on myself and dealing with psychological problems I see in myself, learning to deal with direct opposition and difficult obstacles better and be more aware of my strengths as well as bring my body into better shape again. Also it is a great way of "getting out of my head" as LengLeng put it. When dealing with heavy everyday problems it was just super-relaxing to go to training in the evening where our coach had us smashing pads or whatever and I had a totally different set of things to think (or NOT think) about. I am much more of a beginner though as the time since I started in Muay Thai may suggest as I have hardly trained the last few months. Lots of important "real live" stuff getting in the way. I keep talking about wanting to get into it and at least I still get at least some training in but I know I will get back into being more serious with it when I have a few things off my back finally. Also have to say that I have quite a few other passions, too and their relative importance to me slowly fluctuates over the time of months or years. So far at least I haven't found just one thing that I can throw myself fully into without missing something else some day.

I discovered Muay Thai about 4 years ago (I'm 29 now) but only really put myself into it 2 months ago, because I was scared of the risks, of the "Why da hell should I suffer so much if I can be in my sofa?". But now I am addicted to it. For me, every 2 hour Muay Thai training session is a way to rediscover my body, my sensations, feel pain so I can feel good afterwards. It might sound very "spiritual" and bullshitty, but that's what it is. When I practice Muay thai, do Sparring, I feel like I'm ressucitating. I've always been looking for my "passion", after reading "The Monk who sold his Ferrari", and Muay Thai just might be it.

I totally feel that destructive, super-passionate relationship thing. The way the very same thing that builds you up and makes you feel AMAZING, also tears you apart and makes you question everything you are. But the good times are sooo good, it makes you think the bad times are worth it. Basically, find something you love and let it destroy you. But not in the abusive relationship way, in the "you cannot possibly remain the same person through this process" kind of way. Destroyed and rebuilt, all the time. All the time. I've never thrown myself into anything the way I've been consumed by Muay Thai. Not only is it my whole life, it's Kevin's whole life, too. Maybe it's not possible to answer "why" you're obsessed by something, because the answer is always the same, that you're just fascinated and enamored and it never dries up. I can't picture myself doing anything else. The frequently asked question of "what are you going to do when you stop fighting?" is fucking heart-breaking. It would be like meeting someone's dog or husband and asking them what they're going to do when the thing they love the most dies. I don't know... feels like the end of the world.

I just got absorbed by it. It's like this destructive super-passionate relationship I keep coming back to even though I keep getting hurt and the guy is a dick but all other sports I ever loved are friendzoned forever. Mainly I love being in the gym. Or having a gym to go to. It gives me a purpose and feeling of improvement even though work might suck or other stuff in life might suck. Muay thai allows me to get out of my head and into my body. I like the feeling of being sweaty. The sounds of someone kicking pads. I love the feeling of pushing through exhaustion. Of always hurting a little bit. The constant presence of pain makes me feel alive. I like the physical closeness in the gym, with other students, with the trainer. To discover movements and skills I practiced suddenly becoming available to me. I learn so much and I discover so many things about me and others that I could never have understood in any other way than physically experience it. I learn patience. I learn how good things and beautiful things are parallel to pain and frustration. I get the physical experience of hard work pays off. I learn about violence and I discover my own violence. And I really like gym when people don't talk much. When bodies do the talking.

For me it's simply relaxing. It's healthy (from a fitness perspective), and it just makes me happy. In a weird way its like a physical form of painting. I get to express myself through my movement and style. I also love the challenge of trying to perfect different movements and make things fluid.

Hmmmm....... I love it because of the freedom it allows. You don't get that freedom from Karate, etc. That's my opinion. The freedom one gets from expressing their muay. It becomes integral to your state of being, of who you are. Once someone discovers the difference of feeling of training, teaching muay thai as opposed to kickboxing, I believe their lives change. I might be rambling, as this is just coming straight from the heart. I enjoyed my Karate, Kickboxing etc, but I love muay thai. At least as I understand muay thai. My understanding is my own, and will be totally different to anyone else's. They say this feeling can be achieved in other martial arts, but I never experienced that feeling. That's why I gave away karate. When I go to sleep I dream muay thai, I think continually about muay thai and how it can benefit everyone. If I was the all,powerful emperor Ming, I would decree that it should be in every school's phys. ed. programme.

At least part of what keeps me coming back is the way that the fear/adrenaline/exertion of training do wonders to stave off anxiety and depression. It also give my life a certain continuity in that I have something that I can feel like I've improved at every day.