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What goes on unstated in this examination is actually one of its most important points. When indeed we are looking for respite from the endless simulations and representations of Life, the chains of images of what our lives should be, when we innately feel that we are surrounded by what seems a culture of false coin, or at least a certain malnourishment, or substancelessness, caught in Baudrillard's hyperreal, fighting itself, the clash of bodies and intentions, feels like one of the most deflationary acts, an anchor point of rock stability, for what is Real. So while there may be innumerable spaces and practices which might provide relieve, cloistered reals cut off from the endless duplication of image, the Thai kaimuay and Muay Thai gym is practicing an art, a craft of the body, meant to be tested body-to-body. There is something inherently truth-telling about fighting. Bodies can only move in so many ways. The clashing of wills that spark in bodies speaks to an order of that which cannot be faked, cannot be duplicated. There is a near-spiritual dimension to the art of fighting which cuts across the very domain of Capitalism, everything that speaks to Spinoza's hopeful sobriety: "We do not even know all the things a body can do." When fighters enter the ring, or even spar, there is a sense in which we have left behind representation altogether, and there are only bodies, only intent. It collapses the image-machine. Of course Capitalism works hard to reappropriate this Real, and put it under its auspice. Belts are manufactured, manipulated as signatures of "what is real". Matches and promotions chain together images to simulate authenticity, greatness and achievement, commodifying the sanctified banality of what a fight is. Fighters get caught up in representations, and use them to stake out places on the mountain of authority. Gyms, promotions, fans, scramble up upon the heap of images and commodity claims. But all of that is because there is a kernel of Real, of the physical, emotional and actually spiritual clash of the fight itself. Even in manipulated fights, in over-hyped belts, even in bad matchups or weakened rulesets, or decisions, even in the worst of Capitalism's falsity, there is the shining sense that something very Real and grounded has happened in a fight, something that defies the promotion, the decision, the belt. This is the gem of the practice of the fighting arts, and the anchor of its rite. The body is the shore of the Spirit. Clashing bodies produces the Real of the Spirit.

Amulets can go anywhere on the rim of the Mongkol, the only place I don't see them is on the tail. The hair can be put inside fabric and tied on to the Mongkol, or put in a fabric that gets integrated into the wrapping. My mom's skirt was cut into long strips and twosted very tightly, then wrapped around the tube that's the shape of the Mongkol and glued into place.