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Phornthip Khamthongphanaw is a 19-year-old fighter who trains at the Khlong Toei Youth Center in Bangkok. UNDP Thailand did a video on her recently, which you can watch here. There's also a Vice article by the same journalist on her story: https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7en4d/women-muay-thai-rising-star-thailand

This topic is near and dear to my heart (and lungs). Professionally, I used to work alongside the California Air Resources Board to help reduce industrial pollution by retiring old combustion engine machines and replacing them with zero-emissions electric equivalents. And now having been in Thailand for 7-months, I feel qualified to share my opinion on this subject. I read your question a few days ago and was thinking about it while gasping for air during my afternoon run in Northeast Thailand. Your post is inquiring about the "Macro" pollution problem, but doesn't consider the "Micro" pollution you'll experience in Thailand. I'll explain... Macro Pollution: Yes, the overall air quality in Northern Thailand (Chiang Mai, etc.) is poor in the early months of the year before rainy season. In fact it's ranked top-5 worst in the world day-in-day-out. Looking toward the south, the air quality naturally improves near the ocean as there's less agricultural activity/burning, and an ocean jet-stream to help circulate fresh air. No matter where you are in the world, the air is usually fresher near the water. An island destination would be the best option for you this time of year. Micro Pollution: Here's a situation from the other day... I was running through the same alley that I always do when I hear a truck coming up from behind me. As I move over to give the truck room to pass, the driver accelerates quickly causing a large plomb of black smoke to belch out of the tailpipe directly at my feet and proceeds to crop dust the whole path in front of me. Now I'm having to hold my breathe as I proceed forward searching for a pocket of fresh air. When you're in Thailand, you'll be breathing brake dust and other grime from the roadways, and occasionally trucks, tuktuks, and motorbikes from 1970 will surprise you with a shower of black soot. This can happen anywhere, anytime. You'll find yourself unable to escape a pocket of heavy engine fumes. But it's not just vehicles... maybe there's a pop-up market on your run and there's 10 bbq pits roaring with smoke, or the guy nextdoor to your apartment felt compelled to burn all the brush in his yard at 07:00a on a sunday morning and the wind is blowing all the smoke into your room even with the windows and doors closed. While I gripe about these annoying micro pollution events, they are part of what gives Thailand its vibrant charm and richness of character. Sometimes you just have to laugh at the hilarity of it. Furthermore, the air pollution combined with 100+/40+ degree weather and 50% humidity can make it challenging to breathe when sitting around doing nothing. It's hard to explain just how heavy the air feels on and in your body... especially when you're gasping for air after a long run or intense round. Some people are able to blissfully ignore the air pollution problem, while others like myself (and you) will dwell on it and worry about potential long-term health consequences. When I first came to Thailand it bothered me quite a bit... physically and mentally. My throat hurt from it and I felt sluggish. But now I've adapted to it and don't really suffer except when the intense micro pollution events like the example above occur. Earlier this year a friend of mine completed her PHD with a thesis on rates of disease in Thai population attributed to air pollution. The facts and figures she showed me were alarming. Long story short... yes, the air pollution sucks in most of Thailand for some of the year, with each region having different weather patterns. If you're that worried about it, use a historical AQindex to choose the best location for the dates you'll be here based on years past. Then once you're here, don't obsess over it, just embrace it.

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.

I've doubled down on my commitment to continue training in Thailand by getting a fresh 45-day visa this past sunday, which takes me through April 11 with option for 30-day extension through May 11, 2023. I've also renewed my apartment and motorbike for one-month, all of March 2023. Previously I've been paying for everything on a weekly basis, as I like to keep a certain degree of flexibility, but now I'm confident I want to continue doing what I'm doing here in Udon for at least another 4-weeks, maybe longer. I spent the weekend in Vientiene, Laos and Bangkok to get new visa and see a friend. Returning to Udon late last night, I got started training again today after 2.5-days off. I asked the head kru if I can get one hour of one-on-one private training everyday in March (except Sundays) and we worked out a deal for 9k baht/month which includes 2 sessions per day, and the one hour private training every afternoon session. Today before afternoon session head kru messaged me on facebook to say my trainer today wouldn't be him, but instead someone named Orono. He sent me a picture of the guy holding 7 belts so I knew he had been a successful fighter, but didn't know much else about him. I met with him at 16:30 and was happy to hear he spoke good english. He asked me a lot of training related questions I haven't been asked before, probably because of the language barrier. Veryyy little english is spoken at Siriluck Gym, so most of my learning is done through observation and expression of body language. Communicating and receiving verbal advice from Orono was refreshing to say the least. We focused on the absolute basics; breathing, footwork, stance, rhythm, jabs, cross, elbows, l/r kicks, etc.. he closely observed all of my movements like a scientist doing an experiment and gave me helpful tips. My mechanics are not so good, but by the end of the 1.5 hours together (we went 30-minutes longer), my kicks and punches felt more fluid and powerful. I'm trying my best to lock-in the muscle memory, but it's challenging as any reader here knows. So far I'm really liking Orono's teaching style and his overall personality- cool guy. There were 7 fighters training tonight and we all went for a 3km run to the lake and back, with head kru trailing behind on a motorbike. A few months ago, completing this run after 2+ hours of hard training would have been very tough for me. But tonight, I felt great and kept up with the fast pace the guys were moving at. The three 6k runs I did last week are already paying off. When I got home from training/dinner, I began reading about Orono Wor Petchpun and watching his fight tapes. He's fought and defeated big names like Buakaw, Saenchai, Yodsanklai, Lerdsila, and many others. I'm feeling very excited and grateful for the opportunity to start learning from this legend everyday. I don't know why he is training out of this gym now, or what his relationship to the owner is, as he has previously been living in Singapore with Evolve MMA. There's a lot of high level talent drifting in and out of Siriluck Gym and I'm happy to be around it. All of the fighters have matches this month: 3 in Udon, 1 at BKK Raj Stadium, 1 at BKK Lumpinee Stadium, 1 at Yokkao Stadium. I'm planning to attend all of the fights, so I will continue to travel a lot this coming month. In fact, I've been in Bangkok for each of the past 3 weekends, 2 of which were for matches. Hated Bangkok first time I visited, but I fall in love with the city a bit more everytime I go.

Awesome, thank you for the google map spotlight Kevin! I've never posted much on open forums so still learning about publishing tools. I will include that information next time I post about a new gym visit. What size are the fighters out there? Age range appears to be 12-28, 45-68kg fighting weight, ~6-8 fighters rotating in/out of the gym, 4-6 kru rotating in/out. I'm at the top end of size/weight and want to add another 5-7kg's. I feel like I'll benefit from a bit more size at~184cm. 77kg was a healthy weight for me in the past. Do you feel like your training with them is productive for you at 70 kg? I think so. Then again I'm still a ~3-4month beginner with experience limited to training at 4 gyms in Thailand, so I don't know much. For the most part, all training has felt like good training to me, as I've consistently had a good workout every time I show up. I've learned that it's really up to me to ensure a good workout, kru can only guide you so much in a session. My goals are more general fitness based than fighting camp based, so that colors my experience a bit differently too... more recreational than business/work as it is for the Thai fighters. I'm slowly adopting this mindset of treating it like a job. The 68kg fighter walks around at 70-72kgs at 186cm, so he's big. In fact that's his nickname. Training with him has been great, I just try to mimic what he does. He is very good fighter, taking the victory at Lumpinee last weekend at LWC Super Champ event, where he fought an Algerian in the Co-Main Event. Although the fight was quick with not much action... it seemed like big's opponent didn't really want to fight. Here is The Fight - LWC Super Champ February 18, 2023 - Big is in the thumbnail far left. I see you mentioned 15 minutes of clinch, what is the clinch training like for you? Honestly, clinching intimidates me and I'm still trying to get comfortable with being tightly intimate with others in this way. I've had to overcome quite a bit psychologically with my aversion to close human contact (mainly with strangers). Muay Thai has helped me greatly with this, as I have loosened up a lot. The fighters clinch most days for 1-2 hours. If I join them, I usually only go for 15-20 minutes. Just like my goal to run more (have run 6k both today and yesterday), I have a goal to clinch more. My plan is to clinch with Big as he has another LWC fight next month that he'll be training for. He's relaxing this week, but will be back in the gym next week and I fully plan to clinch with him most days for long sessions. His neck and clinch is insanely powerful so I'm looking forward to learning from him. My immediate goal is to become a strong clinching partner to help the fighters prepare for the bouts. In the mean time, I've been doing neck exercises at the end of every training sessions, preparing for the work ahead.