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I've recently been contacted by the head of a small gym in Samut Prakan (below Bangkok). The gym is small, mostly kids, but he's inviting westerners (both female/male) to come train with him and fight out of his gym. If you are in Thailand and wanting an experience of a local, small gym that isn't geared toward commercial training, maybe give this a try. No English, so just use a translator on your phone. Contact on FB: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61571372517312&mibextid=ZbWKwL https://maps.app.goo.gl/ELoJohV8qcGSSydd6

This thread relatedly expands on the cultural aspects and difficulties of shooting in Black and White in Thailand, and reflects on the history of Muay Thai photography in the country:

That looks like a good list. A very toured gym for clinch is FA Group in Bangkok, but you might just be clinching a lot with Westerners? There is a very heavy Western presence, lots of Westerners trying to learn clinch. Kru Diesel is the kru who made FA Group (before it became a destination gym), so if you are looking for the deeper theory of the clinch fighting style kru Diesel is the source. Kem is very good teaching clinch, maybe take a few privates with him for that focus? A lot of clinch is like surfing, you need to spend time in the waves...but (who are you clinching with) the waves also matter.

From Yodnaksu magazine 1985...

The Living Real. Goddess of warfare and wisdom. The goddess Pallas Athena was a divinity of both warfare and wisdom. Sylvie in her 285th fight, embodying both in the material world. The Greeks held ideas to float above us as inconcrete things...toward which we strive. I am inspired by my wife, as I would be by the ideas of Athena. She walks where no one else has and invites us to see. We learn from ideals. We learn from their examples. We learn as we all strive. I see this bloody photo in the corner between rounds, and I see the ideals of Athena, pressed through the mess of the human, the contorting real of bodies and wills clashing, in their techniques and arts (for we are all made of habits). Every Muay Thai fight opens with the embodiment of gods and divinities in the Ram Muay, some might say, quite literally. When fighters enter the ring they take on a role that is beyond the merely human. Athena always has been an anathema. She dictates the priorities of justice, rationality and even democracy, yet she wears the cult-like aegis which puts pure terror into enemies on the battle field. She was reportedly born virgin, from her father's thigh, is a maiden but stays the hand of Achilles with the scales of wisdom.