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The above is the fight from ringside, without commentary, just a great clear feed of the action. This is just a special fight. A lot was going into this, not the least of which that Sylvie would be facing a Western fighter, something she'd had the occasion to do very infrequently in her voluminous fighting career which has been focused on Thailand, and a very skilled Westerner at that. And, adding to the challenge is the fact that the WBC World Title is probably the most present day prestigious belt, given how rigorously they attempt to adhere to Thailand's scoring principles, and the effort and care that they take to keep their female Muay Thai rankings up to date (something that is incredibly difficult to do); this put added pressure on the fight. Sylvie had come off a very significant back injury in August, something at the time really put a scare into us, immobilizing her for weeks - horse, fence - and though had fought well in her return, once, had not been training rigorously in clinch - her meat, bread and butter - for honestly, a couple of years. Much of the conditions of training that had made her so unbeatable had been wrecked by COVID in the Pattaya local Muay Thai scene, and we just didn't know how that would show in a fight this demanding. In video we had seen that Elisabetta Solinas had some clinch strengths, some of which would show in this fight. The real challenge, I imagined, would be that of rhythm and pattern. Many fights are decided at the level of rhythm and pattern, and much less so at the level of tactics and techniques (where many place their analysis). This is just my personal belief, I'm sure others would disagree. If you imagine a fighter's strengths as a wave pattern, with troughs and valleys, how that wave pattern intersects with their opponents wave pattern really can be unpredictable, when fighters are unfamiliar with each other, especially when fighting out of genre. above, wave interference (but in this imperfect analogy fighting opponent peaks would be expressed as toughs, etc). The idea is that strength points, whether they be offensive or defensive, have their rhythm and patterns, and strength points interfere with strength points, weaknesss moments can amplify opponent strength moments. This creates fight rhythm. The pattern is the tempo & amplitude of a fighter's style. And in this poor analogy, a fighter's wave is not a symmetrical series of peaks & toughs. It is shaped with varying oscillations like the EEG of a heart beat, or brain waves. Sylvie's Muay Khao fighting style, its wave pattern, had been developed fighting against the (mostly) Muay Femeu Thai female fighting style, mostly against physically much larger opponents, within the traditional, narrative scoring aesthetic. WBC rules would weight all rounds evenly - though the traditional, Thai stadium judges may score early rounds with a tendency toward the draw, one doesn't know - so there was an imperative in this fight that the shape of the fight, and interactions with Solina's wave pattern was largely unknown. How were these waves going to interact? Would peaks cancel each other out? What valleys would amplify the other's peaks? Until you get in the ring you just won't know. And the fight was a beautiful fight. What the fight became was actually a classic Muay Femeu vs Muay Khao battle. And it's a beautiful thing that the WBC rule set, and the promotion itself which involved high-level Thai judges, and not the least of which, Elisabetta's very skilled femeu style, all made happen (read the WBC Muay Thai rule set; its the best English language rule set I've ever come across). You can feel the work that was put into it). Solinas fought with a great, super balanced (important), retreating, countering, teeping, scoring, pivoting, and also very high-tempo style, which set the stage perfectly for the Muay Khao question mark. Can the Muay Khao fighter catch her? This is the traditional, persistence hunting fight arc was in play. The equation was even further complicated by Solinas's very strong trip game in the clinch. Sylvie has a sailor's balance, developed through the years, which saved her several times, and even allowed her to reverse important positions, but that high level tripping was going to complicate the Muay Khao story. It wasn't necessarily so that when Sylvie caught her that she'd be able to become dominant. Several times in the fight she had clinch positions which stalled, or were slow to develop for the simple fact that she had to stabilize and read possible trips. And, this was even further complicated by the clinch breaks by the ref. Early clinch breaks are sometimes to be expected, as it can be part of trying to create the narrative challenge for later rounds...but there were also clinch breaks when Sylvie achieved very dominant positions, with the head quite down. Perhaps these were for the protection of the opponent, as a female fighter. It happens. But it was not possible to know how these breaks were being scored by judges. These were moments when fight ending, or fight changing strikes could land. This had the remarkable effect of making the fight incredibly exciting at ringside, because Sylvie just could not pull away, and in a way showed that the ref had expertly sculpted a perfect fight. He kept asking Sylvie to do more...and she did more. The result was a near perfect fight of slowly increasing escalation. I think it's pretty clear that the first two rounds went to Solinas (although you might imagine a 10-10 round from a Thai judge?). Going into the third the assumption had to be "You can't lose another round". Solinas had brought out her trips and her gorgeous retreating counter fighting, had cut Sylvie behind the ear, and seemed to be hitting on all cylinders. And that is what you want, in a way. You want fighters being able to express who they are. As the wave patterns had come to meet it didn't seem that Sylvie's wave was interfering much with Solinas's. Yes, in clinch Sylvie showed promise. And Sylvie secret (because people don't pay much attention to it) teep game may have put some snags into the overall freedom of Solinas, but she had plenty to overcome it, it appeared. But this is where the fight gets interesting. In wave patterns there is not only the shape of the wave (where the peaks and valleys fall, like notes in music), there is also amplitude and tempo (frequency). And the Muay Khao fighting style relies on amplitude (& tempo)...a gentle and yet relentless increase in amplitude & tempo started in rounds 3, and the 4. Its the same wave, but with rising amplitude & tempo. Now, this is dangerous under international WBC rules, because Thai style narrative scoring puts scoring emphasis on rounds 3 and 4, and emphasis on who is increasing in effectiveness as the fight goes on. In a more natural Thai setting the fight would have been more or less tied, or slightly in Solina's favor going into round 3. Yes there was a cut, but it was behind the ear and early in the fight. It would be a score that would fade. Under international WBC rules Sylvie could very well be one round away from losing, a kind of sudden death. These are very different states in a fight. What is interesting is that the traditional Muay Khao fighting style which focuses its increase on the scoring rounds 3, 4 and then 5 is best prepared for this position in a fight. That's what its for. Everything you've done up to this point is to prepare the ground for the upped intensity, the rising amplitude of your wave pattern. And its just remarkable to see it unfold in this fight, against a high quality fighter fighting under a different aesthetic. You see the purpose of Muay Khao, what its meant to do and how it does it. And it is really something that this kind of fight can happen in International Muay Thai contexts. We are getting narrative Muay Thai. In terms of the fight itself, at that point, you just see Sylvie become more and more effective, especially in the clinch...(but also in stalking). She's absorbed much of the danger of the trips, having learned the first two rounds, and as fatigue and instincts take over she's more and more able to scramble to dominant positions. And though Solinas admirably commits to the teep as almost a pure signature of femeu muay, with incredible and skilled insistence, the teep itself became less and less effective, as Sylvie teeped through it, interfered, disrupted and muddied it (clashing wave patterns again). The teep is an interesting classic weapon. In some regard it doesn't even actually score, or score much, but the patterns you make with it, and the increasing ways it can disrupt, can make it one of the great weapons of Muay Thai (maybe how the jab in boxing should be regarded). The story of the teep in this fight, both Solinas's and Sylvie's is a very interesting one, and helps explain the dynamics of Sylvie's stalking in the latter rounds. Basically the defensive teep is the perfect counter weapon to the dern fighter, and Solinas pulled out the best weapon...but the teep has to show an increase of effectiveness. And the stalking teep is a, less flashy, secret disruptor. The battle of the teep is actually a hidden inner battle within this fight, aside from the more obvious clinch dominance Sylvie was able to attain. When I came home I honestly watched the last 3 rounds over and over...perhaps 25 times. I wasn't looking for good or bad techniques, mistakes or advantages. The more I watched them they just read like music to me. They were these beautiful, rising tempos and amplitudes created by BOTH fighters. Both fighters made this fight. And the way the WBC promotion presented the fight also made this fight. There is music in those 3 rounds, Muay Khao music, but really the music of Golden Age Muay Thai, the Muay Thai of clashing styles and skill sets, the music of narrative scoring arcs, orchestra of two fighters climbing up over peaks and valleys of increasing amplitude. Yes, Sylvie came out on top. Yes the fight was precipitous to start the 3rd. But Muay Thai is about these kinds of soul to soul evolutions within the fight, where the art of each fighter gets to show itself. That's what fighting is about. That's what makes it more than just entertainment.

Sometimes. When I really want to look at video I scrub through it back and forth, using a playback cursor, feeling the rhythm that way. Karuhat Sor. Supawan. In my mind the GOAT, an absolute legend of the sport. Watch his fights, they are amazing. It's an overstatement to put this on gambling. It goes much, much deeper. It's a narrative concept of performance. I go into the nature of this in my piece on the 6 core aspects of Muay Thai: https://8limbsus.com/muay-thai-thailand/essence-muay-thai-6-core-aspects-make Gambling practices reflect and grow on this narrative picture.

Kevin- Do you ever watch fights in slow-motion (half-speed) to analyze the rhythm at a different tempo? I've found this helpful in my own training... in watching videos of myself and others. Your video "The Art of Shadow Boxing" is a good example where Kru is slowly dancing around the ring for many minutes. It's easier for the beginner mind to follow along. The smoother your body/motions look in slow-motion, the more effective you will be at full speed, I believe. I watched the fight, at normal speed, before reading your commentary above. My notes were as follows: 1. Wow Solinas has only 15 fights compared to Sylvies 274... I wonder what is going through the mind of Solinas having to go to battle against such an experienced fighter in a high-stakes match. Surely Sylvie has been in her shoes before and can visualize the emotions opponent may be feeling. To what degree does Sylvies prolific fight experience get inside an opponents head. 2. "let's go team USA" before Wai Kru brought smile to Sylvie's face and added jolt of energy to the corner. That was nice. 3. A lot of take downs by Sylvie... a few timestamps to note10:45, 11:55, 13:40 4. Sylvie is putting on strong pressure, continually pesssing forward. Solinas countering and trying to make space / room to breathe with teeps. 5. Timestamp 16:00 Sylive delivers strong body kick then instantly engages clinch where she holds opponent for ~30 seconds while delivering a series of knee blows. Her Muay Khao style on full display for the crows enjoyment. She exits the clinch with an elegant spinning elbow at 16:16 that appears to land on the right ear of Solinas. I watched this at 0.25 speed and it's still hard to tell how hard it landed. 6. Who is Sylvies corner man? Sorry if this is detailed in other writings/posts. Yes it was! I can see why you rewatched rounds 3,4,5 continuously. Well said. Liam Harrison referred to rounds 4+5 as the 'Money Rounds". I also heard this in that video I can't find right now that explains the difference between 'entertainment' and 'gambling' fighting. EDIT: Adding the video I referenced above. The gambling often dictates the tempo/rhythm of the fight. To what degree is that the case in WBC matches? Less so given it's more prestigious title? Congratulations Sylvie!!

Thank you for this beautifully written, thoughtful review of this fight, Kevin. I look forward to going back and watching it again with your view in mind. I felt the music in your words as I would of someone recounting a symphony they had heard; now I am eager to hear it for myself.

In my opinion, an under appreciated and under considered factor in how well you handle the heat is... air pollution. You didn't mention where you've been training, so not sure if the experience you're speaking to is from Chiang Mai during burning season, or Phuket during peak heat etc.. I've found that my tolerance to the heat is greatly effected by the humidity and 'heaviness' of the air. I've noticed the air pollution exacerbates my ability to suffer through the heat as my respiratory system is put on over drive. Some folks are more sensitive than others. I've had a few moments in each place I've trained Pai, Chiang Mai, Udon Thani, where I'm training hard on a particularly hot&humid day and start to get the spins from what feels like beginning stages of heat stroke. When I feel that I take my foot off the gas and try to drink one of those yellow glasses bottled sponsor electrolyte beverages or royal-d powder in 1-liter waterbottle. Sip all of that down while standing in front of a fan after pouring cool water over body. Every week your body gets a bit more used to it and more resilient. When I'm not training, I wear long sleave clothing when out and about... pants and long sleeve shirt or sweat shirt in 32c+ weather. I'm fair skinned and need to protect my skin from the sun.

It's Friday morning and my lower body feels worn out. Getting out of bed and flexing my legs to rise up was more challenging than usual. My eyes are now opening naturally every morning at 06:45, I'd like for it to become 06:00 soon. The high impact activity this week has my knees and right ankle feeling cranky. Because it's so hot and humid here at 15:30 when afternoon training begins, Kru has been starting each session with agility training inside the gym; cone/footwork drills, jumping on, in, and around rubber tires, stationary pedaling, free-weight shadowing boxing, rope swinging and hanging, pullups, explosive bodyweight squats.. All of this has been tough on my knees and right ankle as I have previous sports injuries to those parts and I've discovered they're not nearly as strong as they were pre-injury. Yesterday was my birthday and I'm officially 32, so age creeping up. Certainly don't have the same recovery speed as in my 20's when I was also very active. When I think about it, I've been active in sports my whole life. Professionally I worked for a railroad, so that was active too with many miles per day being walked in steel toe boots. It feels like i'm teetering on the law of diminishing returns. It doesn't feel practical or necessary for me to train 12 sessions/week. The 7-9 sessions range feels more appropriate and better for my mind and body. Eventually I think I can kick it up another gear to 10-12 sessions, but I'm just not there yet. Since I didn't train this morning, I was able to catch up on birthday messages from friends and family back home in the states. It felt good to re-connect with them. I like having the morning free from training to focus my attention on writing, video editing, and listening to music. And then train from 15:30 to 19:30 for four hours every evening. I'm going to experiment with this routine plus daily solo morning running in the Wat complex near my apartment. I acknowledge the importance of pushing yourself, but where's the line? Injuring yourself then scaling back? I guess I'm still working on upping the limit of physical pain I'm willing to subject myself to before taking a breather. I really don't want to have any injury set backs. That would/will suck. I'm neither complaining nor moaning about the workload, I'm simply saying it's too much for me right now. But... one of the surprising benefits of training in Thailand at a gym where english is sparsely used, is that you can't make verbal excuses to anyone because they won't understand what you're saying. I've now realized that in playing sports in the past at times (especially when a beginner) I'd make excuses or try to explain my performance when I make mistakes. You can't really do that here. There's nothing to be said, you just try to do better. Show don't tell. The gym is a place to be other than your home that's not a park, bar or restaurant. So often as a new person in town you don't have any place were you can just hangout and commune with friends. The gym becomes that place where you feel welcome to come as you are. I also had this with my old job in Northern California... it was work, but it was a good place for you to be; an extension of your lifestyle. Lately Kru Gig has taken to beating everyone with whatever object is near him. It's usually pretty funny to me, and clearly is to him as he laughs hysterically while beating you with a selfie stick or sandal, but it also hurts haha. At other gyms the old timers walk around with their correction sticks and will give you a nice whack, but here, any object is fair game to come your way. Sometimes I need to stop what I'm doing because I can't hold my laughter from the pranks he pulls on the fighters. He's also very strong in the clinch from I can see.. someone mentioned that was his specialty during his fighting days. Watching him teach clinch technique to others, the fighters would try to push him but could not. He's like a tree rooted in the ground, impossible to budge from the base. I'm about to leave the house for afternoon training and will probably go for a massage tonight with 'Joy' from the shop down the road. She has given me 6-7 thai-sport-massages and knows my body now so I keep going back to her. My flexibility is improving from routine visits with her. She's like 4'11", all forearms and strong! 500 Baht / $15 USD for two-hours... money well spent!

All I know is he used to be instructor for Evolve MMA out of Singapore and most people recognize him from this series of videos Evolve University Fight Breakdown. From what I understand, he will be in Udon instructing at Siriluck for 2-months then move on to teach in China. Unlike the other gyms I've been too (except Boon Lanna), Siriluck does not rely or even advertise training foreigners on a pure fitness plan. It's a fighters gym. I'm the only one not scheduled to fight right now. Therefore I don't think it would be a great place to train for a short vacation. It would be best to have a few months available for a place like this. That's just my feeling, I could be wrong. Kru is laser focused on preparing the fighters for upcoming matches. Muay Thai tourists are more of a distraction than anything I think.

FYI I’m now a $10/month Patreon member. In my search for different bits of Muay Thai information/advice online, I realized there probably isn’t a better archive to learn from than what Sylvie and Kevin have compiled. No need for me to reinvent the wheel or bounce around from site to site when there’s a enough information inside the Patreon to chew on for a lifetime. Kevin- Thank you for the nice words and for continuing to follow along. I'm having a lot of fun as the line between work and play becomes blurred and the environment pulls me in more and more. I really like everyone at the gym. There's nothing negative I can say about the cast of characters there. They're warm, humble, passionate, hilarious, and playful. I read about Isaan people being friendly, but you don't really get it until you're on the IRL receiving end of it. The system they have for scheduling and training for fights is really neat. Each fighter appears to average one fight per month. They will fight, take 5-10 days away from the gym to recover, come back to gym for three-weeks of training, fight again, repeat. Right now, the gym is in full swing with the energy feeling very positive. As I mentioned in previous post, 6-7 fighters have matches in March, so they are training hard. Depending on weigh-in date/time before fight, head kru and fighter will either take an 8-hour overnight train from Udon to Bangkok Don Mueng or fly one-hour, hangout, fight, then return to Udon to repeat process. All of them are fighting to support their families in different capacities. It is not recreation for them, this is a job. After they fight and money is received, their family is taken care of for at least one more month. Take a breathe Nak Muay. There's a few teenage fighers boys and girls who go to school full-time along side their full-time training. Watching him pull up to the gym (where he also lives) in his school uniform, then quickly do homework by himself on the table off to the side before dressing down to get to his real work. This sort of stuff really inspires me. It shows me I have the capacity to do more, like document this experience. I found my apartment on book.com, after staying at a different place during my first week in town while I was getting my bearings. I've been at my current place for one month, having booked it on book.com for a few days at first, I then arranged a weekly/monthly deal with the hotel directely. It's a good fit for me. I don't feel comfortable sharing my specific location on the forum, but if anyone wants to private message me here or on instagram: 'audio.visual' i will happily share that info. I can say that monthly rent is ~$350usd all-in. My cost of living/training here is quite cheap while still comfortable. I will post pictures of my unit and motorbike tomorrow when sun is back in the sky. Today's training was a bit frustrating for me as my kicks are not improving. kru ornono says i'm too stiff; my hips and shoulders too rigid during roundhouse. He's being patient with me, but also stern. Hitting me with pad, grunting, and looking disapprovingly when i do something wrong right after he showed me how to do the move properly. But he gets it, he's trained a lot of people. i'm not the first to have these technique problems, won't be the last. Being whacked in the head by a guy who has defeated Buakaw and Saenchai is now off my bucket list. To be training with such a legend is a real treat and I'm extremely grateful; trying not to waste the opportunity. However, the 7 of us did a lot of cardio today. Begining the session with tire jumping while 1 person pedaled on the stationary bike. Kru Gig was in one of his not uncommon funny moods and was sitting in the seat with his timer whacking the back of the person on the bike. Kind of like they were a horse. It was funny, but also painful. The whipping effect from slight flick of his wrist stung the back. I prefer to believe there's a practical reason to this punishment beyond his personal enjoyment haha. After 25 minutes of that we wrapped hands, shadowboxed, hit pads, heavy bags, sparred (I didn't), Clinch (I didn't); while they were doing the latter two I was working on punch/kick technique. Drilling on the basics. This sessions started at 16:00 and ended 19:15, so 3.25 hours as we ran 3km to the lake and back again tonight. My running continues to feel strong. Lastly, this morning I listed to #42 Mental Training: How I Prepared For My Championship Fight - Sylvie's Technique Vlog (45 min) on the Patreon page. I picked this one as the first to dive into as I feel like my mental game needs ALOT of work. My main takeaways were: Mental Training is a Technique! Have mental training be part of your training all of the time, not just when you have a fight scheduled. Mental Training is not fun, it’s like doing cardio, it sucks but the more you do it, the further you can push yourself before gassing or psyching yourself out. It’s a vague concept, assign colors, tools, mental association- Grab a crayon with your mind and draw a tree with the green, draw a bench with the brown..etc. Perfection robs you of flexibility and is not a good thing. When you become tired brain becomes lazy, over generalizes, negativity appears. Confidence: It’s cultivated, it’s an act before it’s a feeling. Act confident first, then you’ll feel it. It’s something you can do without thinking much about it. Visualization is key. Walk through a familiar place like childhood home and visualize the sights, sounds, smells, feelings of the environment… put yourself there. Can do anywhere anytime, the closest thing to teleportation. Most visualizations don’t come true and that’s okay. Make personal Affirmations, ex: “I am Confident Under Pressure”, “I win Tough Exchanges”, “I always Bring Intensity to Every Training Session and Every Fight”. Act like you’ve been here before, you are always performing. Pressure and Stress are not the same thing. Nervous is good, flow it out, don’t bottle it in, keep it circulating. If this, then that… the world moves on. If the pressure is too big, make it small. No questions, only statements. Under pressure you will never do as good as you do in training. An Octopus can see good enough for what they need to sustain life... and so much more! Thank you Sylvie, the $10 has already paid off after one video haha. There's a lot to thin about here, and I actually cried a bit when you suggested visualizing your grandmothers house... well I grew up in my grandmothers house and she jut died a few months ago while I was in Thailand just beginning my Muay Thai journey in Pai. In a way I feel like I'm training for here. With all of my senses I can visualize and experience my grandmothers house and my youth. I know I'm not one of the rare few that doesn't have the ability to create images in my mind, so I will begin applying this to boxing.