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That might be it. If the farang name is Rafael and is from NY that would be him. He does go to Hongthong sometimes and knows the two brothers I was talking about. The other gym I was talking about was Lamnammoon Muay Thai, but it was not him who was there, though he did come once and elbows me in the face while holding pads (I mean by that just slightly touched to make me realize my guard was down, fucking scary but effective). I actually had the privilege to be elbowed by both him and Yodkhunpon which I am kind of happy about ahahah. The trainer taking care of the gym was Nuengtrakan Por Muangubon cause Lamnammoon was mostly in Singapour I think. Anyways, Joe from Hongthong had arranged for me to train there, he told me a bit about growing there and stuff. I think Hongthong is like a neighborhood in Ubon or something like this. I've been wanting to write a review of all the gyms I've trained at in my trips, but I have not yet. Keep doing your great work Kevin. You and Sylvie have had such an impact. I hope one day soon, Thailand offers you honorary citizenship. You guys deserve this.

escriures - etchings, strokes, inscriptions, grooves & sweeps, impressions, trace, arcings, adumbration, articulation. Above is a photo of a fighter from Chatchai's shadowboxing with his hands on the hip bones, the most extensive writing strokes taken out. The body itself becomes a gesture of gestures, the feet and torso moves toward the visual language, developing the sense of the roots of writing.

What many do not realize is that ONE has so thoroughly commandeered the social media ecosystem of Muay Thai in Thailand (quite consciously, as part of its marketing approach, absorbing trad social media accounts, controlling messaging across all platforms through various systematically means...and quite brilliantly I would say), that many, many New Gen Muay Thai fans in Thailand, who speak no English at all, now have bought 100% into the ONE Entertainment full power smash aesthetic. Demographically much of it is somewhat a new fan base for Muay Thai, but its very vocal in SoMe post comments, and has influenced the older online gen as well. What we in the West are drawn to in traditional Muay Thai is now is ardently being pushed against by a segment of Thai fandom now, even in the trad ruleset. There is a kind of tug-of-war now between the traditional values of superior fighting and the new International smash values, and hybrid promotions like RWS are kind of caught right in the middle, but seemingly for now siding with trad values for the most part. It does mean though that some trad fighters are just going to go in there and smash on trad cards, which is kind of amazing because this change has occurred in only a few short years.

A Battle of Affects I've argued that the highly Westernized (Globalized) affect expression in ONE and other Entertainment Muay Thai, typified in the Scream face you'll see in fight posters (which sometimes ironically looks like a yawn) and in post fight celebration, expressing aggro values that work against the traditional affects of Thailand's trad Muay Thai, a fighting art that comes out of Buddhistic culture largely organized around self-control...(that's a mouthful!) is attempting to invert Muay Thai's relationship to violence itself. It is interesting that spreading in the trad circuit is this mindfulness/meditative post-fight victory pose, an example of which is here, the young fighter with his trainer. This is no small thing because arguably culture is made up of prescriptions of "how you should feel", largely expressed in idealized body language and facial expression. When you change that prescription, in fact inverting, you are challenging the main messages of culture itself. One of the gifts of Thailand's traditional Muay Thai, I have discussed, is that it provides a different affectual understanding of violence itself, which then cashes out in simply more effective fighting in the ring. Something of a gift to a world that is more and more oriented toward rage and outrage.

above, festival fight in Pattaya Just some thoughts and observations on the overall state of Thailand's Muay Thai. Not an expert opinion, just an informed perspective. The title of this piece may sound absurd, or maybe for some just an exaggeration, but there is among some long time fans who have watched a lot of Muay Thai in Thailand the sense that the only Muay Thai worth watching in Thailand now, in terms of actual skill, is Muay Dek, the Muay Thai of Thai youth. This piece about why that may be so. There is a sense that Muay Thai has been stretched now in two directions. You have Bangkok stadia, gambling driven traditional Muay Thai, supposedly the acme of the country's traditional talent, and you have Entertainment Muay Thai (with various versions of itself), a Muay Thai that is bent towards - and in many cases just FOR - the foreigner. If I was to really generalize between the two, one line of Muay Thai heads toward more "technical" point fighting and fight management (trad stadium Muay Thai), fights where fighters and corners are always responding to shifting gambling odds, and on the other hand a Muay Thai (in the extreme case of ONE) which is all about combos, aggression and offensive risk taking, emphasizing trades in the pocket and knockouts. The problem is, neither trajectory is very skilled (at least in the historical sense of Thailand's greatly skilled fighters). Muay Thai has become increasingly deskilled, along these two trending branches. And, if you mostly watch one of the two, you might not have noticed the deskilled aspects, because this is just the "new normal", and competition always produces winners who seem in comparison to others, quite skilled. It's only when you take the wider view, not only of the history and greatness of the sport, but also of the present state of Muay Thai itself, importantly including Muay Dek, do you see the drop in skill in adult fighting...as each promotional style squeezes out certain qualities from their fighters, cutting off their full, expressive development. Even with big sidebets on fights (gambling), and seemingly lots of pressure, Muay Dek fighters fight with great freedom. Some of this is a mystery why this is lost, but what follows is a sketch of how Muay Dek fighters change and become limited once they reach a certain age. Why Are the Muay Dek Fighters the Best Muay Thai Fighters in Thailand? If you just watch a few fights, and you have an eye for it, you'll see it. In a word, freedom. In another word, expressiveness. And still an third, sanae (charm, charisma, a key component in Thai traditional scoring). The Muay Thai of the Golden Age (1980s-1997) was filled with highly skilled, very well-rounded, but importantly very expressive fighters, fighters who fought with experimentation who were constantly adjusting to their opponent, drawing on styles and tactics that could in shifts change the outcomes of fights. And in fighting in that way that exuded personality, uniqueness and charm...aura. Much of this quality, and flexibility is gone from Thailand's Muay Thai, but in today's Muay Dek some of it is really still there. Its only when these fighters get to a certain age...maybe 15-16, that it starts to become squeezed out. In the Muay Dek even of today you get fighters who are regulating their energies with great subtitle, not swinging between overt passivity or over-aggression, fighters engage more continuously in the classic style, with fewer ref breaks, less stalling, fighters drawing out extended phrasing and highly technical defensive stretches that endure. A greater variety of weapons, and even transitions between fighting styles or a shifting of tactics, to solve what is happening in the fight, a kind of cerebral aesthetic that older fighters seem to have lost the capacity for. At the highest levels of Muay Dek youth fighting you see dimensionality...and personality. There is much less nibbling at leads. Instead one sees that leads are vied for more or less continually, and expanded when achieved, without devolving into hyper-aggressive mashing. I'm going to leave Entertainment Muay Thai to the side for now, especially ONE which is its own particular excessive exaggeration, mostly because its kind of obvious how promotional hype, booking dynamics, rule-sets and bonuses shape fighters to fight in a certain more limited way. What many may not realize is that trad Muay Thai in the stadia also forces fighters to fight in a certain way, in many cases simplifying or pairing down what they had been capable of when developing as youths. I'm going to say "gambling" here, but gambling is not the boogieman monster that a lot of online commentary makes it out to be. Gambling in Muay Thai is essential to its form, in fact I don't think Thailand's Muay Thai would have reached the complexity of its art without ubiquitous gambling, all the way down to the 1,000s and 1,000s of villages and provincial fight cards, its ecosystem of fighting, which have gone on for maybe centuries. Some of the discussion of the importance of gambling I discuss speculatively here: above, festival fight in Buriram The problem isn't "gambling" per se, but rather that in the larger venues in Bangkok because of the changing (eroding) demographics of Muay Thai the shift of economic power to big gyms, and the dwindling talent pool, the powerful forces of gambling interests have lost proportion, and now have outsized impact. There are not enough counter-balancing forces to keep gambling's historically important role in Muay Thai's creativity, in check. These have worn away, leaving gambling as too prominent. But, I'm not talking about corruption here (which everyone loves to turn to with an infinite finger of blame). I'm actually talking about the way in which Muay Thai is traditionally fought with fighters responding in a live sense to the shifting odds of the audience. Online gambling has complicated this more human, social dimension of the sport, abstracting it to 1,000s or 10,000s of people of varying interests and even knowledge, on their mobile phones. The demographic of "who" gambles has changed, and increasingly people are gambling who have less knowledge about the sport. They'll place a bet on Muay Thai just as they'll place a bet on a football game. Again, let's bracket, let's put the online nature of gambling to the side, and just talk about the traditional relationship between live fighting and live in-person gambling in the stadia. The fighters are fighting TO the odds. The odds are the "score" of the fight, just like in basketball you could look up to a scoreboard and see the score of the game, in Muay Thai you can look to the odds and (roughly!) know the score of the fight. There may be distortion in the odds, whales and their factions of one sort of another may be putting their thumb on the scale, but there is a symbiotic discourse happening between live gambling and the fighters (and their corners). Some of this traditionally has produced great complexity of skills, the ability of fighters to not just "win" the fight in terms of points, but also manage the fight, in stretches, shaping narratives. But today, the exact opposite is happening. Gambling is deskilling traditional Muay Thai, in large part because the small gyms of Thailand - the gyms that actually grow all the fighters, feeding the talent of Bangkok - have been eroding. Not only have they been disappearing (there are far, far fewer of them), those that exist still have no political power in the socio-economics of the sport. When fighters of small gyms enter the gambling rings of Bangkok, not only are they doing so on a very fragile line of income, often losing money to even bring their fighters down, they can no longer bet big on their fighters to supplement fight pay. Betting on your own fighter was once an entire secondary economy which grew small gyms and encouraged them to create superior talents. If you had a top fighter he could be a big earner not only for the gym, but also all the padmen krus in it, aside from fight pay. Because small gyms have lost power overall, political power, they have to live at the margins, which means their fighters have to fight extremely conservatively so as to not be blamed if their fighter loses. They need the backing of the social circles of gamblers. If you lost, it can't be because you took a risk. And because big gyms are going to win (force through political weight) close fights, small gyms have to practically walk on egg-shells in the way that their fighters fight. Generally: get a small lead...and once you have that lead protect it at all costs. Don't do anything risky to expand the lead. And, because small leads are easily lost, fights often turn into a series of nibblings, with both fighters protecting their tiny leads, back and forth. They aren't trying to win, they are trying not to lose. This form of fighting has transmitted itself to big gyms, is the new traditional form of fighting. Don't risk blame. This aspect of "not my fault", "defend a small lead, take it to the end of the fight if you can (5th round), make it close enough and then blame politics or corruption if you lose" has become a normalized style of traditional fighting, across venues among adults. Some of this is because the current state is an out of proportion exaggeration of the truth that traditional Muay Thai fighting always has been expressive of political powers and social capital struggle in hierarchies outside of the ring. Fighters ARE part of and in the ring express social networks. This is part of Muay Thai's social dimension and cultural anchoring. It's just that with the erosion of the powers of small gyms, the dilution of the talent pool, the hoarding of limited talent, has pushed this aspect too hard, and distorted the sport, draining it of skills and its renown complexity. To give a small anecdotal example of how this deskilling works, I remember when a smallish gym was training a fighter, and in padwork the fighter switched to southpaw, just experimentally. No! The answer came back from the kru, and they related a story from the past when one of the gym's fighters had switched to southpaw in a fight and lost. The gamblers who bet on him were furious. He had "blown" the fight. The gym had lost face. From this single event, probably a fight not of much consequence, the gym now forbade switching. It could cost you a fight. An entire branch of Muay Thai (that of switching) was cut off from that gym's fighters...forever. Not only in terms of that technical branch of development, the whole spirit of experimentation and creativity was closed off. The goal was: get a lead...keep it. Don't develop a style that is complex, or varied. Don't do anything in a fight that IF you lose, the gamblers who backed you will blame you and the gym for. This is deskilling. one reason why Thai fighters have been the best in the world isn't just that they have trained and fought young. It's also that they have been at the apron of fights, watched the shape of the traditional aesthetic, socially absorbing a great deal of fight knowledge. At the rope, even as cornermen or impromtu coaches. Its not just the doing, its the participation in the Form of Life that is traditional Muay Thai, bringing a depth of IQ. As small gyms and kaimuay across the country lose power in Bangkok, social power, they have to exist in very narrow economic margins, which means that technique wise their fighters have to fight in very narrow lanes. The spontaneous and the creative is too risky, because gyms don't want to be blamed. Fighters cannot explore or develop new ways of winning fights. There is a secondary dimension in this, as the downfall of the Thai kaimuay is told, which is IF a small gym does produce a particularly strong talent, this talent will not become a resource for the gym, adding honors to the gym (championship belts, etc), growing the gym through his presence. Instead, if you produce a talent this talent will be ostensibly stolen from you. Not outright stolen, but you will be pressured to "sell" their contract to a big Bangkok gym. This pressure will usually come from the fighter's parents, who want success and fame for their son, and the esteem of a bigger name, and it will come from within the hierarchies of the sport. The sale will happen. Instead of a developed talent adding to the richness of a gym's culture and growing their talent own pool of younger fighters who want to share in the glow of gym success, instead you'll be financially compensated with a contract sale. Some money in the pocket, to the gym owner, but not the kind of verdant growth a talent would have brought in the past, something that would shine across all the krus and padmen, and younger fighters in the kaimuay. And, fighters now are being extracted from small gyms younger and younger. The comparison is fruit being picked from trees more and more less ripe. Not only are fighters in general entering the Bangkok stadia with far less experience and development in the past, fighters are also being swept up by big gyms at a much higher rate, at an earlier state of their development. The ecosystem of the small gym, 100,000s of them, is being starved out. And its that ecosystem that historically had produced so much of the foundational complexity that gave Bangkok fighting so much of its renown diversity. Fighters that entered Bangkok stadia used to be much more complex and experienced, and then once they got there the complexity and experience of that scene increased and amplified them, spurred them to greater growth. Now, its the opposite. Arriving in a Bangkok stable may very well nullify your potential. We might add to this that the large big name gym stables of Bangkok today, that have swept up much of Thailand's diminishing promising talent, concentrating it, have become more like holding houses of that talent, and fighter factories for promotions, and less like developmental houses as old Bangkok gyms like Muangsurin, Thanikul, Pinsinchai, Dejrat, Sor Ploenjit had been, promotion favorites which maintained not only a kaimuay developmental creativity, but also more lasting connection with provincial sources. Muay Dek and Facing Power So, the good news is, despite all these forces against creativity, against small gym development, Thailand is still producing very high level Thai fighters from youth. These fighters fight with complexity and freedom, full of sanae, technical excellence, narrative control, quite different than their older counterparts who have learned to strip away their individuality attempting to preserve leads in gambling's stadium Muay Thai. I'm not sure what to account for this other than to believe that Thailand in its heart still maintains the aesthetics and richness that created the acme of the sport in the Golden Age, these qualities haven't been stamped out yet...it is only when fighters get to a certain maturity, when they are fighting for gamblers without a lot of social power themselves, protecting tiny leads, that they lose these qualities. They become deskilled. There is another element to the mystery of why these Muay Dek fighters lose their skills when they age. Kru Gai at Silk tells Sylvie: It's easier to be femeu when everyone is low weight, and nobody has power. Muay Dek fighters develop all this complexity because there is no "power" consequence for their experimentation at low weights. And one can see how this makes a serious amount of intuitional sense. Gamblers today favor more "power" in Muay Thai, so femeu fighters enter contexts where suddenly there are consequences that limit what you can do. But, if you take a moment to think about it, femeu fighting youth of the Golden Age also once they hit a certain age encountered "power" in opponents. But, instead of losing their skill sets at maturity, they actually grew as fighters, became more complex, more creative, more effective...against power. Someone like Karuhat was fighting up two weight classes in the 1990s, a very femeu fighter, against very powerful opponents. It's can't be that encountering the maturation of "power" is the thing that is shutting down the development of the youth, who have already developed so much prior. In fact, there seems a rough parallel between artful youth fighters of the Golden Age and now. Both of them hit this "wall" at a certain age. But in the Golden Age this accelerated their growth, today it stunts it, and even regresses it. I suspect it has to do with the overall conservative form of stadium gambling Muay Thai, the entire incentive and punishment system that produces a lot of tiny-lead chasing...and this goes back to the dis-empowerment and erosion of the small gyms that feed the sport, developing the fighters. The best fighters in all of Thailand are the Muay Dek fighters. It is the closest thing to a natural lineage with the greatness of the past. But right now...there is no way forward for them. No way for them to allow their expressiveness of character and technique to expand and not be disciplined into submission, dulled. They have to face the trad conservative ecosystem, or have to turn to the hyper-aggression of entertainment promotions, each of which robs them of a vocabulary of control and expression.

A lot of these thoughts of several years came together for me in side conversation with Arm of Muay Thai Testament Instagram who is looking to perhaps put together a project around Muay Dek fighters of today. I asked him if he could link some present Muay Dek fighters on the rise. This is what he wrote, posted with permission, posted in a series of replies: Strong Muay Dek Fighters Today 1. I was rewatching one kid this morning, as I do with all the kid fights that gets good reception, and this kid from some gym I've never heard of is so good femue. I think the gym is a new addition to Petchyindee's roster now. His name is Kaona Jor. Nopparat The part about Femue being easier to execute at lower weight is so true. Regarding the examples, I only really know the Petchyindee ones but here goes. In no particular order: 1. I was rewatching one kid this morning, as I do with all the kid fights that gets good reception, and this kid from some gym I've never heard of is so good femue. I think the gym is a new addition to Petchyindee's roster now. His name is Kaona Jor. Nopparat

This perspective is related to our manifesto of values and a priority on provincial fighting in Thailand.

The first fight between Poot Lorlek and Posai Sittiboonlert was recently uploaded to youtube. Posai is one of the earliest great Muay Khao fighters and influential to Dieselnoi, but there's very little footage of him. Poot is one of the GOATs and one of Posai's best wins, it's really cool to see how Posai's style looked against another elite fighter.

The championship fight was such a perfect illustration of "basics make champions." Not fancy, not showy, just incredibly solid foundations.

This was their fight back in August, where Marie pulled out the upset. I believe Marie was a last minute replacement in that fight. Useful to compare the fights.

This was just a really wonderful performance by Barbara, on so many levels, for the RWS Raja belt. You could feel her training in her fight, the way she stays within herself, at surface a very basic approach in terms of weapons/style, but underneath it all is a very important thing that not a lot of Westerns understand. You fight WITH Space. And she persistently denies Marie the space she wants, it ends up blowing up the fight, especially because she brought with her a beautiful very deep, head-sink clinch lock that Marie had no answer at all for (and that Raja let her work from, thank goodness). I have to watch the 2024 fight where Marie upset her in the clinch, but in this one Barbara was loaded for bear. This is the same recipe Sylvie used to beat so many, especially bigger opponents. You fight the Space, not the opponent. And you fight your fight with the belief "If I fight my fight, my way, the right way, you are going to have a very difficult time". I also loved Barbara's 20% - 40% power hands, just using them to touch and semi-pop Marie, to stress the space. No mindless, 100% power combos, actually seeing one's way in the space, and touching the opponent. This is just glorious controlled dern Muay Thai. Barbara's lock was so pure, so good - with a very deep head sink. She also had something that a lot of locking fighters fail to do. Once locked you walk your opponent. Not only do you pivot, or pull, you drag and also literally walk them so that their feet cannot set, so you tangle them, breaking the line of counter control. This is advanced, developed stuff and great to see. A lot of Thai stadium fighters of today don't even do this, its part of the eroding art of clinch. She also was very aware to drag Marie off the ropes so the ref break doesn't come and she could paint longer pictures of her lock dominance. Small touch with big awareness and effect. I don't really understand why Marie decided to fight this fight as a pure femeu fighter, back to the rope. I have to watch their first fight, but this plays exactly into Barbara's closing style. I imagine this is something trainers have been moving her toward? I'm not sure. A very cool, very worthy victory.

You could just pick a high-level gym in a European city, just live and train there for however long you want (a month?). Lots of gyms have morning and evening classes.

Muay Khao in Padwork - note a little bit advanced stuff Talking a little more about Muay Khao training (and padwork), beyond some basic things like the padman doing rounds of "latched on" work where you trailer hitch and continuously knee or work into knees, there is a shape to Muay Khao that involves building up the fatigue in your opponent, which involves continuous pressuring and tempoing early on, nothing rushed, importantly with the mentality of depositing fatigue. Even if you don't have a padman aware of this, you can do this on your own, of your own device. People do not think much of manipulating or effecting your padman, but taking cue from David Goggins trying to mentally break his SEAL Team trainers, you can use your padman's energy managements to become aware of their fatigue, tempoing up or displacing them when they start to manage. This builds up your own sense of perception, becoming acutely aware of its signs, and developing responses, things that will serve you well in fights. This doesn't mean going HARD, like 200%. It means managing your own fatigue while you work that edge and tax your padman. The purpose of this is to slow reaction times and decision quality in later rounds in fights. You don't win fights early in Muay Khao work, you prepare the material so you can work late. A great padman will see and help you train this shape of the rounds, even as they manage their own fatigue. It goes without saying this involves not just "following along" with called strikes, which I believe is detrimental on a deeper level, because what you are training in those cases is "being dictated to". Lots of fighters have this problem, they have spent countless hours of (unconsciously) learning to be steered, so when their opponent looks to dictate timing, space or rhythm they have years of being comfortable being dictated to. This though is a subtle line to walk, and it depends a great deal on the experience of the fighter and the quality of the padman. Ideally, you want padwork to gravitate towards a dialogue, a back and forth, which mirrors the dialogue of fighting, accepting dictated tempos and spacing, modifying them, shaping them in return. Good padmen (who aren't just burning you out with kicks or holding combos over and over, largely ex-experienced fighters) will recognize this dialogue dimension, and you'll bring out more of their "fighter energy" and creativity, which is Golden stuff. Lesser experienced padman, or padmen who are just grinding, may not respond well, but you want to get into that zone of your 5 rounds being shaped like a fight...and for a Muay Khao fighter that means depositing fatigue in your padman early, if you can. Even if you can't, the aim of recognizing stalls, energy management, gatherings, and working on them yourself (not being passive) is a perceptual skill set you want to develop. For Muay Khao fighters though, you want to get to that clinch, or those finishing frames in the later rounds. You have to feel those angles of dominance, the cherry of what you built in previous rounds. Great padman know this, and develop pathways later where your body can sense, can experience those finishing elements. Femeu fighters, other style fighters, have other shapes in their fights. This is specific to Muay Khao.

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

Some thoughts on women fighter's bodies and inevitable changes between childhood and adolescence, as well as a changing landscape for Thai women fighters: this age range where female fighters hit their peak and are more or less forced to slow down due to that success (because it's harder to get fights, the side bet becomes enormous, etc) is right around when male fighters hit a rough spot as well. I can't count the number of times I've remarked on how promising some 11-14 year old boy looks and his trainer will wave his hand and say, "let's see if he can make it through motorbikes and girls," which is at around 15-18 years old, when the majority of male fighters also drop off and either become undisciplined or take on salaried jobs. Romantic relationships, increased importance of friend groups outside of the gym, and changes to the body all account for why both male and female fighters have a steep hill as they hit adolescence. Boys have a better incentive to keep fighting, as they might belong to bigger gyms or have better opportunities; girls might be pressured by family to focus on school, or the consequences of romantic (sexual) heterosexual relationships might take them out of fighting, which it doesn't do for boys in the same way. Dangkongfah and Nong Biew are an interesting pair, both listed in Kevin's write up. Nong Biew was kind of this rising star, getting a lot of notoriety and attention as this relentless Muay Khao teenager who could pull in wins with big side bets. Dangkongfah was that, but without any of the social hype; kind of the mavric version of the prize fighter. She could get backers to put money on her and she could win these big fights, but she wasn't taken seriously in the way that other "dao rung" teenage stars are (Nong Biew, Thanonchanok, Sanaejahn, Pornpan, Sawsing, Chommanee, Duannapa). What was so fantastic is that these two young women kept getting these huge side bets put up for them to face each other, they'd get booked on a show, they'd both weigh in and arrive to the venue and then somehow we'd always read about one of them or the other storming out without fighting because something about the side-bet had changed. We even witnessed this first-hand once. I'm not sure they ever fought. But Dangkongfah vs Allycia for the first ever 1 million baht side bet in history was the culmination of what Dangkongfah's trajectory had been. The change in female bodies is also much trickier than it is for male bodies. Male fighters might go up in weight at a rapid clip - look at 2012 for Sangmanee, who rocketed up in weight, taking belts in multiple weight classes within a single year. You'll see this in the Golden Age as well. So this rapid change in the body and increase in weight is not exclusive to either gender, but because women's bodies are coded against sport and strength in culture, when women's bodies become larger, softer, show hips or breasts, all of these get coded as being reasons or signs that she can no longer be a strong fighter. Couple that with the normal number of fighters who retire and drop off, and it seems like the point is proven (even though boys drop off, too, but girls are blamed for that one, too). Dangkongfah, as the example that Kevin is writing about above, was never a small girl. When we met her at 15 she was already quite heavy for her frame. That's just how her body wants to be. She's crazy strong and fit, never seems to gas out, and knows when to push to turn a fight into a blowout. She lost a lot of weight when she was at Fairtex for that short time, and was at her smallest-looking in the ONE fight aganst Meksen that Kevin posted, but she honestly looks the best she ever has in this recent fight. Her body works at the size it's at. Other fighters that are in Kevin's write up, they gained a lot of weight in a short amount of time and it semed to take a toll on their fighting. But this is coupled with training less, fighting less, and in the case of a few of these women, taking time out to give birth to a baby. Which I think is amazing, because that was definitely the end to a woman's career not that long ago. But Sawsing was really the first example I can think of who came back and fought high-profile after having her first son. There are other women who have had children and kept fighting, but usually on local circuits and, again, written off because of their "not the same" bodies after such intense changes as giving birth to a child. Nong Biew fought again after her first baby was born, and it didn't go well. Allycia came back and defended her title, successfully. Faa Chiangrai came back and became WBC World Champion. These things are incredible. Men who have families (and Thais have families very young, so a lot of high profile stadium fighters are fathers to young children) absolutely have difficulties in their own training and fighting due to the responsibilities, but their bodies don't go through the same inalterable changes as birthing parents do. And men aren't written off for becoming fathers, they're kind of given a little bit of sympathy and considered less competitive as a result. Women are totally dismissed once they have children. These women who come back to fighting are just amazing.

What a Fight. One of Most Personally Enjoyable Female Fights I've Seen in a Long Time I may not expect others to thrill at this fight as much as Sylvie and I did, but Dangkongfah vs Karolina Lisowska of Poland was just quite an experience for us to watch. A big part of that joy was being so familiar with Thai female fighters in Thailand (Sylvie has fought nearly 150 Thais, easily the most any Westerner has fought), so in explaining what made this fight so awesome for us I get to tell the story of Thai female fighters in general, over the past 10 years or so, so I can point out just how good Dangkongfah's performance was. As a sidenote, none of what I write is significant commentary on Karonlina, a fighter I do not know. Appreciating That Female Fighters, Understanding Their Development The best Thai female fighters, historically, but also still, develop their skills in the side bet circuits where local fight scenes in the provinces produce top fighters in a gambling milieu. The female fighters fight a lot, and the fights are very traditional in style (which is to say, narratively driven, balance, control and dominance being major scoring factors, purity of technique rewarded, and with clinch a significant part of all cards). Local top fighters travel around to other local top fighters in festivals, and the bet sizes go up. This prize-fighting scene produces highly skilled, complex fighters...but they tend to hit their apex around 14-15. That's when they are fighting the most frequently, training hard, and are actively being sharpened by the gambling. Once they get around that age they stop fighting so much (often because it is harder to find opponents, but also in terms of just the changing social status of young women). They can still be very, very good fighters, but they usually flatten out. In the past great fighters like Chomanee, Lomannee, Sawsing, Loma, and Phetjee Jaa came out like this. These are the yodmuay of Thai female fighting. In their later teens they might fight on the Thai National Team (amateur), but really in terms of development by 16 the peak of sidebet skill driving is missing (this side bet process is what traditionally drives the skills of male Thai fighters, well into their late 20s or even 30s, in the National Stadia. The next gen after the one mentioned above, because the side bet scenes have been eroding, haven't really produced the classic female "yodmuay", the one who takes on all comers, and has reached the apex level in the traditional way. Potential side bet yodmuay came through like Nongbiew and Pornphan, pretty strong fighters at 15 or so, but nobody reaching those past levels (Sylvie fought both of these fighters when they were at their apex, giving up significant weight). What ended up happening in this gen is that with the rise of Entertainment Muay Thai mid-level Thai female fighters, and some top level, from the side bet circuit were brought into Entertainment oriented training. A lot of these fighters who had developed a timing and narrative prize fighting game were newly taught bite-down and combo fighting (which is pretty foreign to them). Entertainment Muay Thai wanted clashing, so female Thai fighters (who were timing fighters) learned instead how to just come in with memorized strikes. Some, got good at this, and did well in Entertainment Muay Thai, but most floundered a bit. They were fighting out of their element, away from their skill set. Always the Underdog The interesting thing about Dangkongfah is that she rode this wave of opportunity in Entertainment Muay Thai, she began using combos and clashing, becoming recognized on (televised) Super Champ, which was somewhat promoting her as a Thai story, but she really wasn't pretty with it at all. She in fact had been in the Fairtex stable around with Stamp was taken in and began being fashioned into an Entertainment star, but Dangkongfah was not taken seriously, perhaps viewed somewhat as a backwardish Isaan fighter, from the countryside. What people didn't appreciate, and what Entertainment Muay Thai didn't really care about, about Dangkongfah is that she's a highly developed prize-fighter, she is really, really, REALLY good at managing a fight, in the traditional sense. She doesn't usually LOOK like she's doing much, but she is really good. So Dangkongfah was something of the Cinderella step-sister to Stamp at Fairtex. She left Fairtex, had some recognition on Hard Core (an Entertainment, small-glove show), and then got some revenge on Entertainment Muay Thai. The excellent Allycia Rodrigues beat Stamp for the ONE World Muay Thai title in August of 2020, and then one month later Dangkongfah faced Allycia for the Thailand belt (trad Muay Thai). She beat the ONE World Champion for the belt, not looking pretty at all in her combo-ish strking, but managing the fight with the brilliance of a fighter who had been fighting for prizes since a kid. It must have been a tremendously satisfying win. Allycia would then defend her ONE belt vs Janet Todd 6 months later. Around this time Dangkongfah also took the 112 lb WBC World title vs Souris Manfredi, in a fight set up basically with the aim of giving Souris the opportunity for the much desired title shot - there had been many roadblocks. Again, in a way that was probably frustrating to her opponent, Dangkongfah controlled time and distance, walking away with the belt. She's just such an interesting fighter, but to see it, to feel it, you have to have her in the traditional ruleset. When she fought Meksen in ONE Entertainment Muay Thai, fish out of water trying to trade wonky combos in that style with an experienced fighter, with some visible size, who will just combo cleaning up the middle. It was a blowout. Dangkongfah had gone up to Buakaw's Banchamek gym, which had worked with talented trad female fighters trying to help them fight in the Entertainment, Kickboxing style. Sylvie's long time opponent Nanghong Liangprasert (now using the fighter name: Nong Faasai PK Saenchai) was up there. Again, this seems to largely be trad teaching timing, narrative Muay Thai fighters how to throw Entertainment combos, so they can get fight opportunities in the growing Entertainment versions of the sport. There is another element to this story, and the appreciation of this beautiful fight (on Patong Fight Night) which is that some young Thai side bet fighters end up on commercialized gyms like Banchamek or Fairtex and start weight training and drilling combinations, but many others move out of their teen situations and stop training hard at all. They will be adding combos so they can fight and clash in Entertainment Muay Thai vs Westerners, but they will gain weight pretty quickly. By the time they are 18 or so a 51 kg fighter can easily be a 60+ kg fighter, facing Westerners. They will have added a bite-down style for Entertainment, but many are outside of the rigorous training that made them quite good when they were 14-15. This is enough to say, when we see a Thai female fighter on television, who was once pretty skilled and sharp, often someone Sylvie has fought when they were apex, and they have gained a lot of weight, the first thought is: Are they training hard? Are they running? Will they gas? And, will they just be throwing combos (which really isn't their deeper skill set)? The expectation is that they no longer are peak. This is what made Dangkongfah's performance so stunning, and so enjoyable...so admirable. She has gained a substantial amount of weight. She's only 22, but the guess would be that she was quite far from her peak as a fighter. She was NOT far from her peak...in fact this is probably the best I've ever seen her fight. We've seen maybe 5 fights of hers, including when she was maybe 13 in Isaan, we know her arc really well. She was so good. I feel bad for her opponent Karonlina because there is no way she could know how good Dangkongfah is. And looking at her she might have thought she'd have it easy. This was a late replacement fight. It was NOT easy. This is what I LOVED about Dangkongfah's performance. First, she was able to fight in the traditional style, which is HER art. So much praise for Num Noi (the promoter) for creating a REAL traditional show, right in the heart of Phuket tourism. You need a properly reffed, full-rules setting to see what Dangkongfah is, since a kid. But, what is even more cool is that wherever Dangkongfah is training they gave her a wicked jab. In fact she worked almost the entire fight through one of my favorite inner games for a fighter, Jap-Teep in combination. But these are not memorized combinations, this is using them in a creative game of timing, changing levels, intensity, feints. Entire fights can be fought through just these two strikes, and Dangkongfah is doing it at a very high level. She actually isn't teeping much, but her teep-fake is so hard (with the knee bounce) it makes the opponent bite. The form of that feignt is almost as good as a teep itself, changing levels. Just watching these two lead attacks, and the sharp quality of her jab was a thing of beauty. She had practically given up all together the wild combos she had taken up for Entertainment Muay Thai, she had returned to her timing art. This was very moving for me. By the 3rd round her jab and teep had subtly managed to change Karolina's fight distance, putting her "on the porch" as Sylvie and I like to say, exactly where Dangkongfah wanted her, so she could control, negate and counter. In the 4th Karolina figured it out, her distance was wrong, and she tried to walk through the porch, but it was too late. Dangkonfah is very experienced with this. She just muddied up the 4th with clashes and more jabs and teeps, (a big teep to the ground to establish stylistic dominance) denying any change in the fight. She is expert at spoiling the clinch, and it served her very well, draining away any chance for a change. It had already been decided in the 3rd, in terms of style and narrative, and she just used the 4th to lock it away. Then in the 5th it was a walk home with the lead in the trad style. This is how I like to watch fights. I don't really watch strikes. I see them like anything else, but I like to watch distance control and timing, the way the fighter manages these things. Also, even though she had put on significant weight, she looked FANTASTIC. She wasn't winded at all (maybe a little in the 4th round some of the edge came off?), she was incredibly light on her feet (lighter than in many of her past fights), she moved like an optical illusion, subtly shifting, driving, changing angles. As a basketball fan I have a certain weakness for very light-footed, super skilled big boys like Charles Barkley or Big Baby Davis (above). When athletes are big bodied, but display finesses, touch, speed and agility, its just plain stunning. And looking at her, it even seem possible that even though she's much bigger than even a year ago, she may be power lifting? She just looked fantastic, like even though this isn't a normie body, this is HER body, and she looked totally at home in it, even maybe apex in it. All these things together just made the fight unbelievably joyous to watch (nothing against Karolina who fought admirably). Dankongfah as the continual underdog, from Fairtex dropout to wild Entertainment combo-ist, here getting to do HER art, and with these beautiful new tools, tools of real Muay Thai, in a promotion that favors the trad art. And that she's found a place in her body where she just is being her, being free in the ring, in a non-trad body, using all her skills and instinct. Seeing this wonderful fighter having a place, a trajectory. It meant a lot.

I wonder if that is Nungubon's gym. Nungubon does have transfer over to Hongtong (the Hongtong boys are from Ubon), in fact I believe that farang who handles Nungubon's IG trains at Hongtong at times, if I'm not mistaken. More broadly though, thanks for such an informative, and personally grounded post to help others out Joseph, good stuff!

Hey Alex, the other big dude here. I've been 3 times in Thailand and to a dozen gyms, so I think I might be able to help a bit. Silk Muay Thai, in Pattaya, is a great suggestion by Kevin. A friend of mine trained there for a while and fought a bunch of time at Max Muay Thai. The level is pretty high and quite a few westerners there. But I never been there. I would say, you need a gym with primarily Westerners or where a few westerners regularly train. I found that training with Thais was a "problem" only when sparring, but not training and clinching. By problem I mean that I find that size difference matter more in sparring. Thai are so strong and technical in the clinch, they can "overcome" size more easily than when sparring. The reach is a killer. For training, with pad holders, most gym will have a pad holder that is bigger for the big guys to whom you'll be assigned. For clinching, they always paired me with the strongest Thai and even if they were never taller than maybe 5'9", 5'10" and usually at least 60lbs lighter, they always, always dominated me. Some made me cry by dominating and raggdolling me around, which they enjoy quite a bit, the tossing around not making me crying lol.. (luckily, I sweat like no one, so who sees tears in sweat). Personally, Hong Thong Muay Thai in Chiang Mai, is my favorite gym, the owner Joe and the team there are just the best. They have very good connections if you want to fight and Chiang Mai is the best city in Thailand for my taste. There are a bunch of westerners there. Big turnaround, but you'll usually find some pretty big guys. The only thing is you'd be arriving in Jan. and the Smoky season starts like end of Feb. I did not have any problem with it, but I was lucky, there was basically none of it that year. Some say it's really bad, others don't. Sitjaopho in Hua Hin is another one with a lot of westerners and a Sweden or Norvegian connection (because one of the twins live there) so there are usually big(ish) guys. I personally did not like this gym, I had a very weird experience and would never go back, but so many people love it. If you want a very traditional setting, there are two brits brothers in Ubon who are like 6'7" and 6'6", significantly taller than me as I am 6'3". They are skinny, around 85kg if I remember well, but at that height, it's was a very good fit for me as I am not a lean 120kg, so not that strong. They were training alone in a gym that closed, they moved to a very traditional gym. I don't know the name but I could find out. They also often go to Hong Thong to train and fight in Chiang Mai. If you want I could put you in contact. Another option is Emerald in Krabi (and Phuket, they now have two gyms). The owner is a former European champion. He's very involved in the training and is there everyday. He's not a small guy and "destroyed' me in the clinch and sparring. But it's a French heavy gym. Which personally I like cause it's my first language and I am half french, but the personal connection might not be as good if you're not. French are... well French. Finally, I you're in Bangkok a few days, I would suggest going to pk saenchai gym. It's one of these gyms who "buys" fighters like Tawanchai and it's quite a treat to train besides a bunch of champions. There are a few westerners, but just to see how hard they train and the level. It's worth it. You have to impose yourself a bit if you want to spare and clinch and all, but once they see you train hard, it's all respect. I would say that's a golden rule for "overweight" people like me, leave it all there. Try not to look tired and try to be among the people who train the hardest. Thai are quite into fat shaming; they have no problem grabbing your belly and shaking it saying "why you so fat". A bit hard on the ego, but.... it is what it is. I found the first few days, they kind of automatically think I am a tourist who knows fuck all about Muay Thai and that I am absolutely out of shape (I think maybe that was the issue at Sitjaphaopho). But once they see your technique is decent and that you train hard and you have heart, then it's all good and I would say, they actually enjoy very much sparring and clinching with giants. They LOVE clinching with big dude and throwing them on the ground. They really enjoy it. So that's my 23 cents. Hope it helps. Please don't hesitate to reach out. I've been to other gyms, but these are the one I stayed for longer.

The Enjoyment of Festival Fights https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?ref=watch_permalink&v=942850751079497 So enjoying this Udon festival fight stream, found via Egokind (https://x.com/Egokind1) This is the real of Muay Thai. Hell, the last fight with kids was pulling 6K viewers in the stream, while RWS was pulling 2K. There was a Japanese fighter earlier (guessing from appearances), maybe big-for-his-age 12, or maybe 14, who gave it his all as the Thai illegal tripped him endlessly, such a very real experience for him. Just hearing the crowd of gamblers and community shout on every strike, even the local commercials, this is just beautiful stuff. Hard to explain how satisfying it is when it its not just a "show" for tourists. I say this, as two...maybe "influencers"?? (who don't have much Muay Thai, or once had Muay Thai, but now seem to have have quite a bit of animosity), go hard at each other in the ring, right now. There is a difference between a "show" that is a commercial product, and what I would call Thai spectacle. Spectacle is understood as unreal (thus, "does not count", un-significant). Thailand's Muay Thai, in its cultural fabric, can weave the spectacle and the real, together...which is why Entertainment Muay Thai, as a tv phenomena in Thailand, was so hard to read. It was completely unreal...spectacle (Thai Fight & MAX in those days)...but then it started making claims of the real, even the "most real". In festival fights like these you can get an entire spectrum of Muay Thai, in all its shades and colors, from spectacle to the very real. Kids on the come up, Old Men, rising stars, big side-bet fights. It's like a fair of Muay Thai. The most wonderful is that you get the full ruleset in the provinces, including repeated and continuous clinch fighting, and very strong aesthetic sense of narrative in scoring. Everyone understands stories are being told, and they are being told at all distances, in a full range of skills, even among the less skilled. It is the spoken story of bodies.

I get caught with the jab pretty often, usually when someone is anticipating to my own. If I see the jab coming, it’s either parry 1-2 or throw a lead hook over the jab if I’m taller, which is usually the case. The two counters I said really only work if I can parry or move my feet in time. If I ret really hit solid, I lose my momentum, shelling and back stepping to circle or jab back in. Is there a simple one shot counter that I can use while my opponents glove is still pressed on my face? Something that I don’t have to think much to land that will stop my opponents rhythm for a combo. If it helps with suggestions, I’m usually the taller man. I don’t often see technique videos on how to take advantage of height in a reactive way after getting hit. Usually it’s all “be first, be far, feint” type stuff which is all well and good I’m trying to figure out how best to respond after I eat the jab. I’m not good enough to block every jab and start every exchange on offense. Thanks

You asked simple, so the answer is simple, but can be very effective. Just kick under it to the open side. You can even be late on this kick. There are probably a few reasons why there isn't a lot of jabbing in Thailand's Muay Thai, but this is one of them. A kick to the open side is a very significant score, one of the few strikes that doesn't even have to have effect. The jab is almost a non-score. So trading these is pure win. But, in same stance this would require you learning a quick, lead-side kick. It's a very good kick to have, so no loss there. Key though is to not rely on point-fighting. If you can develop this to have some pace (preferably with no "step" in the kick) it can become a serious deterrent, not only to the jab, but also to the straight. And, because you are tall, if you turned this also into a long knee, this could be a significant problem for opponents. These are very simple, high scoring, maybe a bit difficult to develop power in, (but you can do it), answers.

Also I think, aside from even the ideas (and values) inside of all our heads is that what must be respected is just how authentically people experience Thailand in differing ways. It is a transportive country, and Muay Thai, no matter how you encounter it, has a way of opening foreigners up and showing themselves a possibility that is extremely meaningful...to them.

Yes, Lamnammoon is a perfect example (too bad he kind of has left go of his ambitions to restart his gym). He has that aura, that presence, that vision, that ethic.

Thanks for the good words. I used to write a Philosophy blog some years ago, so you could get a sense of my interests and influences from there. Most of it was research around Spinoza, with influences like Deleuze & Guattari, Wittgenstein, Davidson, Autopoesis, Bourdieu, minor influences like Agamben, Negri, Campanella, Vico. Most of the blog was organized around research into Spinoza's lens-grinding and optics. I'm not sure though how to recommend books, as some of the stuff I read feels very, narrow of field? This was my list of 10 greatest philosophers: 1. Spinoza (parallel postulate under a register of power) 2. Plato (formulating the Orphic) 3. Augustine (Immanent Semiotics of truth) 4. Plotinus (Degree of Being transformation of Plato) 5. Davidson (Triangulation and Objectivity) 6. Guattari and Deleuze (Ontology of Affects) 7. Wittgenstein (Language Game) 8. Nietzsche (Ascent of Metaphor) 9. Sophocles (The Surpass of Tragedy) 10. Maturana and Varela (Operational Closure)

I have a little more time, let me offer a more complete response. Some of the difficulty in pursuing "authenticity" in Thai gyms is that non-Thai can tend to have pretty romantic visions of what an authentic gym is like. Or, at the very least incomplete pictures. And, there are versions of imagined authenticity. A great deal of Thailand's Muay Thai of the past came out of the kaimuay (camp) teaching or development method, but there were very different kinds of kaimuay, in some way depending on how close you are to Bangkok's National Stadia, or large city centers where there were scenes of weight class fighting, and thus more money put into the sport. In the outer provinces kaimuay could be just a collection of local boys, in Bangkok a gym that had bought up the contracts of successful provincial fighters, combined with other training/trainer interests. But in these settings there was very little one-on-one instruction, as far as we can tell. Instead, fighters were basically workers, laborers, much as ranch-hands were laborers in the Cattle Ranching of the American West. Fighters were very low status, socially, pad men also usually low status, and the development of fighters was a process, come from mixing all the fighters together, in the work of the kaimuay. There's really no Master & Student dynamic going on, as for instance in Asian Martial Arts, or even like coach-centric Western Boxing traditions. It was largely the churn. Fighters would fall out, or they would rise. There were likely exceptions and unique dynamics in gyms, but this was the "authentic" profile of what was happening. So, if you wanted to be part of a kaimuay, as it was, you would just be in the churn. You wouldn't be getting special instruction. You'd be learning by imitation and repetition, and through lots of sparring and clinch. You would have no authority as a customer (in this fantasy), you wouldn't be allowed to leave the camp and go to another gym if things weren't working out (this problem STILL happens for Westerners in Thailand, believe it or not, because Muay Thai gym are very political). You'd be in a state more or less like indentured work. That kaimuay, as it was, largely doesn't exist anymore. Which is to say Thai camps have vestigial aspects of the kaimuay, and some still train with a focus on the churn (which is the true way), but this is very far from going to a camp and taking private lessons, as a paying customer. Now lots of Muay Thai gyms offer privates, and also have adapted training to Western expectations, involving more correction and attention, and some of those still try to maintain something of the kaimuay ethic. But, we are already outside of "authentic" as it historically was. So when Westerners really long for the authentic experience, they are often caught between kinds of gyms, gyms that maintain SOME dimensions of authenticity (just some of that: train in a kaimuay way, focus on Thai techniques and principles, produce Thai stadium fighters themselves, carry a culture of traditional respect and power), but none of them will have all of that (at least as I've seen). Worse, many (even with some authentic qualities, will have started training in more Western ways, holding for combos, focused on Entertainment Muay Thai (which is basically Muay Thai made for tourists and tourism). So its very hard to pick out WHICH authentic elements you are going to get. You could go to a "traditional style" gym known for Muay Khao and just end up clinching endlessly with Westerners who also came there because its known for clinch training. You could go where a true legend of the sport like Arjan Surat still works fighters for the stadia, but there may be nobody your size to train against and with. You could go up to a REAL provincial kaimuay like Santi Gym in Ubon, and just train in the churn of fighters reaching for the stadia, but they probably wouldn't be giving privates (?), and you might find the work boring or isolating. You could go to a "technique" gym like Sitjaopho, where you'll (probably) be pressed together with lots of other Westerners very interested in technique, but in a hybrid way that has approximated the kaimuay churn, while offering lots of correction and teaching, but you won't likely be training with Thai fighters. You could go to Sit Thailand in Chiang Mai, which seems to have a small kaimuay structure, organized around developing his son and a few other good Thais, and take privates from him (a very good teacher), but are there people to train with (this changes a lot in gyms)? Or, you could go the Samart's gym, and be trained by legends like Kongtoranee or Karuhat, and be near (mixed in? I don't know) the Thai kaimuay like processes of their handful of stadium fighters, in a kind of hybrid space? These are just very broad pictures (every gym changes, we don't really spend time in gyms much). Every gym is going to be missing something, probably a lot of things. This is the fundamental problem for Westerners. Muay Thai has more and more become FOR the Westerner. In fact they've now invented a new version of Muay Thai which is FOR the Westerner, and its becoming dominant. But, if Muay Thai wasn't turning its face to the Westerner there would be little room for the Westerner in traditional spaces...because traditional spaces are not only hierarchical (not commercial for customers), they were also businesses in the way that Cattle Ranches were businesses. You wouldn't come from another country and go to a ranch in 1950 in Texas to "learn how to be a cowboy". Part of the problem is that Muay Thai itself, in its authentic strain, is dying, so you can only capture pieces of it, fragments, at best chunks. I'm not an expert in this, only someone with my own experience, but this perspective comes from documenting the Golden Age of the sport, getting to know the great teachers of the art and sport as they are now, but also continually hunting for the kaimuay qualities of "authenticity" for Sylvie herself, as she trains and fights. It's very difficult to find.

I recently got a concussion from my last fight. It was a really rough fight and I didn’t perform as well as I could have. It’s been a few weeks and I’m still dealing with some emotional and cognitive symptoms from the concussion (memory issues, irritability etc). I am having a tough time getting back into training… it just all feels “off” and I’m not enjoying it the way I used to. Any tips with recovering from a concussion, and how to get my passion for the sport back?

There is really no proven way - that I know of - to rush recovery from concussion, other than getting good sleep, chilling out on secondary jarrings, staying hydrated, eating well. You simply will not fully know how much you are being physically (or even mentally) affected, and you may be feeling the blues because of the vulnerability you experienced in being knocked out. These are not small things. My own thoughts from a distance would be to maybe start building up your training through shadowboxing. Have a whole hour in the Library on shadowboxing as taught by Yodkhunpon. This way you might develop a different feeling for your muay and development, something that isn't jarring you. Everyone is different, and you might still be affected by the concussion, symptoms which can include depression. Here is a long preview of the full MTL session, you can find the whole thing here.

The below is a beautiful op-ed style article, written in a free-wheeling, sometimes sarcastic style in 1991. We are accustomed to thinking of the great yodmuay of the Golden Age (Hippy, Karuhat, Langsuan, Samson, etc), as the cream of the crop of Thailand's historical Muay Thai, fighters who embodied speed, technique, timing and power. This piece which we've had translated shows us that at the time this was not universally thought the case. Some older fans of the sport felt that he had been overrun by smaller bodied fighters, a fighter who never was embraced before, and yearned for the return of the bigger yodmuay of the 1960s and 70s. It's a marvelous window into the changing historical perspectives on the sport within Thailand, and invites study of how smaller bodied fighters like the greats came to take center stage in the Golden Age, and why in the decades before these much more plentiful fighters were pushed to the margins in the Capital. The Future of the “Hi-Tech” Yodmuay Since 1967, never has a Thai fighter who weighs below the Bantamweight or Junior Bantamweight division (115-118 lbs) been hailed as a “Yodmuay” before. No matter if it was “The Young Bull” Pon Prapadang, “The Fog Colored Horse” Prayut Udomsak, “Diamond Crowned Champion” Adul Srisothorn, “The Bang Nok Khwaek Kicker” Apidej Sithirun, “The Immortal Yodmuay” Winchannoi , “The Southern Kid” Poot Lorlek up until the days of “The Sky Piercing Knee Fighter” Dieselnoi Chor. Thanasukarn and “The Jade-faced Tiger” Samart Payakaroon. The age of Apidej Sithirun – Kongdej Lookbangplasoi – Dejrit Ittianuchit – Payup Sakulsuek – Huasai Singmuangnakorn etc., those days were when the art of Muay Thai flourished the most and then was the transitional phase between the old age (old-tech) and the new age (hi-tech). I would like to speak of the old days of Muay Thai when the people who made fighters or the gym owners did it for the serious love in the martial art. They did it for the honor and fame of their gym. The fighters fought with aptitude, talent, ability, skills, class and competed to see who is better and the one who knows Muay (Thai) more would get the win. This is different than the “hi-tech” generation where the leaders (of everything) lead towards “nics” [abbreviated from electronics, as in how things are more computed]. Were you to look at it in terms of percentages, 95% only have raw power and strength mostly to just clinch and throw each other. The fighter who is more conditioned and with a better diet will more likely win as we all can see from fighters these days that the “withered” [looks less strong and fresh] fighter will most definitely lose in the eyes of the judges. Therefore, fighters today know how to hide the signs of hurt well. Actually, if there was a Golden Doll Award [famous award for actors in Thailand] in Muay Thai nearly every fighter would win it… ha. The age of Muay Thai that will lead us to the “nics” we all know is a “business” that rides on the “art”. Promoters and gym owners mostly have a Chinese surname [Chinese people are stigmatized as businessmen in Thai culture]. They make business their career so the art is not needed! The Chinese executives can only teach fighters to know the words “Keep your hands high!” “Long right kicks!” “Walk forward and knee!” “Probe, right kick, left teep, then circle away!”, etc. Just a few phrases qualifies them to be able to boldly say that they are Muay Thai krus… sigh! Even in the music industry they preserve old song lyrics of the old musicians to sing as “classic songs” [as in it’s still sort of a genre people enjoy] that are catchy with Thai people today. Then why does no one dig through the old treatises of the arts of Muay Thai to teach their students? We all know that the fight purse of fighters is getting higher and higher with no limits due to the economy and living costs that are going through the roof. If the olds fans that have stopped following the sport for many years hear that some of the fighters today are earning almost 350k Baht I believe they’d be shocked. On the contrary, as fight purses rise the skill and enjoyment in fighting diminishes. Even though there’s a movement and improvements for preserving the arts for an extensive amount of time. The important factor as to why fighters are all from the same mold is that as stated before, all the gym owners mostly aren’t krus with real knowledge in Muay Thai. Mostly they instruct in the form of gambling that has taken hold on the circuit until it became a big business that we can’t abandon. Running away, teep and step back, lean on the ropes and do nothing in the first two rounds. It’s no surprise that some fights end with the referee banishing both fighters from the ring such as the fight between Nuengthoranee Petchyindee and Deenueng Tor. Patanakit or the fight between Pone Naluepai and Ngern Sasiprapa Gym or the fight between Rernglit Sor. Rachen and Kaopong Pinsinchai. May I close my eyes and think of “The Bang Nok Khwaek Kicker” Apidej Sithirun again when back in his day, the 135-145 lbs divisions were the most popular amongst the fans. We would see multiple Yodmuays at the same time around same weight no matter if it was Adul Srisothon, Thongbai Jaroenmuang, Payup Sakulsuek, Rawee Dechachai, Khieowan Yonkit and many others. These fighters got 20,000-40,000 Baht per fight which was a lot back then, leading the young promoter “Kru Tao” Chana Supkaew the promoter of Suek TaharnEk to begin making fights between smaller fighters, the ones others don’t care about, for only 5,000-6,000 thousand Baht per fighter. When we think about it, Suek TaharnEk gained popularity to the level of Suek Onesongchai of today. The level where no matter what fights you make people will watch. When big fighters are expensive then Kru Tao knew better to not touch them, he’d rather work with the ones no one cared about. Small young fighters then emerged no matter if it was Denthoraneenoi Lueadtaksin, Seri Looknhongjok, Kotchasarnnoi Poncharoen, Poot Lorlek, Inseenoi Looknhonggaikun, Saknarongnoi Chor. Chootirat, etc. The fighters themselves, once they can get fights regularly have a willingness to train which leads to the fights being enjoyable. The fans are able to bet [the fights are tight enough for good gambling] and the fights are back-and-forth all the time. The popularity of smaller fighters then increases and multiplies. The fighter’s purses followed the popularity like a shadow. From 5,000-6,000 Baht, it move to the 10,000s, Like “Bukmiang” Orachunnoi Or. Mahachai, the first fighter under 110 lbs in Muay Thai to receive over a 10,000 Baht for his fight purse [a Lumpinee 108 lb champion 1974, 76]. I remember when he fought “The Little Giant” [lit: Dwarf Giant] Glairoong Lookjaomaesaithong. “Bukmiang” moving up in weight which resulted in him succumbing to the punches of “The Little Giant” striking his solar plexis and knocking him out in just the second round. As the Middle Age has ended [Silver Age]: Wichannoi Porntawee, Pudpadnoi Worawut, Poot Lorlek, Saensak Muangsurin, Padejsuek Pitsanurachun, Narongnoi Kiatbandit, Dieselnoi Chor. Tanasukan etc, there are barely any 135 lbs Yodmuays. With the likes of Payup Premchai, Samart Pasarnmit, Sagat Petchyindee, Krongsak Sitkasem, Nokweed Devy even if they are great they are too late because in the big divisions there are no opponents for them. We can say they are so good they have to retire or find other opportunities abroad. As we all know, every promoter today turns to host only fighters in the small weight classes. The big fighters are all ignored. Only the 100-120 lbs fighters get to fight. Some fighters are only 90-95 lbs so the showrunners would send them to eat in the morning of fight day so their weight reaches 100 lbs, reaching the limits that the Bangkok stadiums allow. Fighters who are below 100 lbs like the top and famous 80-90-95 lbs fighters that are renowned throughout the country, they would never get the opportunity to fight in the Bangkok stadiums a decade ago. They’d have to fight in the suburbs. Like the top small fighters that were famous back then such as Dekwat Lookprabat, Mawaenoi Sitmahamad, Srichol Sityongyut, Noppachai Lookmingkwan, Pichitsuek Sakudom, Banluesak Wor.Tangjitjaroen, Koingo Sitsao, Yokkieow Lertmongkol, Paryinya Sitmahamat, Tik Lookprabat etc. There small fighters didn’t have a shot to fight in the Bangkok stadiums 10 years ago [1981]. Or we can say, if they are below 100 lbs on the morning of fight day they would never be allowed to fight. The officials were very strict back then. Like Pichisuek Sakudom (Nokweed Devy) was below 100 lbs. Once he was booked to fight in Bangkok the staff and police had to come check, not to cheer for him, but to see if he really fought they would arrest him immediately (and arrest the promoters alongside with him) as the age and weight of the fighter wasn’t allowed by the rules of the Ministry of Interior. It was famous news at the time (some fighters back then would put coins in their mouth or put metal into the edge of their shorts during the weigh in). Today, promoters are hosting only small fighters, causing fight purses for small fighters to grow rapidly. The yodmuays that everyone fabricated in the last 3-4 years are all below 122 lbs no matter if it’s Langsuan, Kaensak, Oley, Karuhat, Hippy, Nopadej, Suwitlek, Santos etc. All of those who were mentioned were all fabricated as yodmuays. Furthermore, people make nicknames for them referring to past fighters such as “The All-timer [Thongbai’s nickname] 2”, “Samart 2”, “Pudpadnoi 2”, “Apidej 2”, “Poot 2” etc. As a matter of fact the number 2 is correct, but they just need to add the number 0 after it to make it 20. Ha, I am not looking down on the fighters mentioned but they are not that better than Orachunnoi, Denthoranee, Poot (compared pound-for-pound). They’d all have had 6-figure purses but 2 decades ago fighters at this level of skill would at most get to fight before the show starts [like a prelim] or they’d be the last fight to get rid of the crowd. Their fight purse would be 7,000-8000 thousand Baht at most. If we let fighters and gym owners of small weight fighters’ bargain for expensive fight purses and the promoters like to book them to fight so much as today, then one day I hope the bigger fighters will come back to being popular with the fans of the “Hi-tech era”, truly so. Now the promoters who are the main actors need to take action, turning the tables and bring popularity back to the bigger fighters just as “Kro Taoh” Chanasapkaew brought popularity to the smaller fighters. Hope that the future of yodmuay is not the Hi-Tech era, becoming "nic", as there probably won't be any yodmuay at 100 lbs! wonderfully translated by @muaythaitestament on Instagram, with the support of our patrons. Some of the translation has been augmented. from Fighter magazine, March 15 1991:

This. Another form of writing.

Violence and Muay Thai "violence does not participate in any order of reasons, nor any set of forces oriented towards results. It denatures, wrecks, and massacres that which it assaults. Violence does not transform what it assaults; rather, it takes away its form and meaning’" Think about this in terms of Thailand's Muay Thai and fighting. The purpose of the rite and practice is not to denature the other.

A form of life that keeps itself in relation to a poetic practice, however that might be, is always in the studio, always in its studio. Its—but in what way do that place and practice belong to it? Isn’t the opposite true—that this form of life is at the mercy of its studio? *** In the mess of papers and books, open or piled upon one another, in the disordered scene of brushes and paints, canvases leaning against the wall, the studio preserves the rough drafts of creation; it records the traces of the arduous process leading from potentiality to act, from the hand that writes to the written page, from the palette to the painting. The studio is the image of potentiality—of the writer’s potentiality to write, of the painter’s or sculptor’s potentiality to paint or sculpt. Attempting to describe one’s own studio thus means attempting to describe the modes and forms of one’s own potentiality—a task that is, at least on first glance, impossible. *** How does one have a potentiality? One cannot have a potentiality; one can only inhabit it. Habito is a frequentative of habeo: to inhabit is a special mode of having, a having so intense that it is no longer possession at all. By dint of having something, we inhabit it, we belong to it. *** from an excerpt from the coming Self-Portrait in the Studio, Agamben Agamben is a compelling philosopher, in that he reads like a worm, chewing through dusty pages, hunting for words. And he chews down into their etymologies, their occasions, their reasons-for-being. He does not present the Grand View. Especially dear, and perhaps not so apparent, is how much he makes from Wittgenstein's concept of a Form of Life, something he alternately traces down to Franciscan Forms of Life (The Highest Poverty), small, local circles of practices that form their own island States, whether they be 13th century monks or players of chess. He is interested in these privacies that are profoundly social. The above passage is from an autobiography - which he approaches as an autoheterogeny - a looking back on his life through the imprint of its having been lived, through the studios of his writing. Like a fossil that leaves the veins of a plant matter, the minute details of a vital living thing, he imagines the studio to be a certain kind of impression, where all the practices of the writer (the painter, the sculptor) have recorded themselves, as lived, inhabited things. He is in this 80s, and he is looking back through this impression, this studio/s, like a photographic negative. He wants us to see, to have lived, is to habituated it. One never possesses life or a life. One can only carve the grooves that remain over time. And he wants to look at his life, by examining its grooves. As a writer of history, as that book worm chewing through words, wriggling back through time, he is just following the runnels and rivulets in the wood. He sees it like this. We film a lot in these kinds of studio spaces in Thailand, gyms that once were heart-beats throbbing with kicked bags, dripping with briney body water, but now are covered with photographs burned by even decades of sunlight, their reputations and their ways of life baked in, and even no longer function, only testifying...an immortal, vital testament, but still only testifying. above, Dejrat home gym, Bangkok And then many of these houses of Muay still are beating out the rhythms, driven by the ardor of the man that leads them, even into old age. Furnaces of agonism and Buddhistic peace, hierarchies of selves stacked in simple geometries, like that of Dejat gym, but upon what-already-has-been, with that eternal sense of the Past holding much more than a Future. This is an illusion. This is something Westerners face when they first come to Thailand, open-eyed. Everything - every surface - is brimming with the new, the unexpected, one cannot see the what-already-has-been which sinks down into sedimented layers of granite & limestone selves. Yes, the age of things is seen, but not the already-has-been completed, the lost-to-the-past, just yet. Instead the present moment seems to be breaking like the bow of a boat, cresting the waters. This is where you are becoming. Agamben invites us to understand - to see - that where we have entered is already a studio of what-already-has-been, we are working within a fossil. Lives have already passed through, lives have already been. You are standing in the bones of memory. You are in an architecture of things that have past, crystalized intentions and aches pressed through an art and a way of Life. So much of what you are standing in is what-already-has-been. It's done. It's over. We are reading an article written in a Thai boxing magazine in the early 1990s - having it translated, will post it - that bemoans the present era then (1990s), the time of Karuhats, Hippys and Oleys, the Age we now call "Golden". It stands on the ruins of the true Muay Thai of the 1960s and 1970s, the Age of Men...it says. As we age and mature we come to feel more and more of what has past, of things having-been, but what truly is widening is our gaze. We have always been standing in those bones, what Agamben wants us to see as our habits, the repetitions of having lived, the carved-out. Even in our most pristinely new moment, we were in those bones of it all, with blinders on. All that has happened in that our vision has widened to see it. Instead what this vision should call us to see is not the widening gaze of what-has-been, but rather the consumate gaze back down into what we are creating now, what carvings, what habituations of Selves that we are inhabiting. Inhabiting - Agamben likes this word, this Heideggerian word, I do not. It makes too much of us a Spirit, a ghosting thing, like we are haunting our lives. It is not like that. I'm writing about the ambitions of those that come to Thailand to beat out a new and authentic self, to expose themselves to new condition, to habituate in a new way, to manifest differently, and what it means to stand in the bones of an art, and a history. And even more readily, to stand in the bones of a house, a gym, a studio, which has made many men, and is always brimming with the what's already-has-been, almost cluttered with it. The hunt of the foreigner in the country: Where do I find the "authentic"? Where do I find that which isn't the already-has-been? Where do I find the "studio"? Again and again the more experienced foreigner, the one who has gained eyes to see beyond the initial innocence of the projected exotic - will be disappointed. They will travel from gym to gym and find the already-has-been. Because this is the natural state. This is the life and state of the artist. Nothing has changed. Only your eyes. Let them change again. A page from Nicola Chiaromonte’s notebooks contains an extraordinary meditation on what remains of a life. For him the essential issue is not what we have or have not had—the true question is, rather, “what remains? . . . what remains of all the days and years that we lived as we could, that is, lived according to a necessity whose law we cannot even now decipher, but at the same time lived as it happened, which is to say, by chance?” The answer is that what remains, if it remains, is “that which one is, that which one was: the memory of having been ‘beautiful,’ as Plotinus would say, and the ability to keep it alive even now. Love remains, if one felt it, the enthusiasm for noble actions, for the traces of nobility and valor found in the dross of life. What remains, if it remains, is the ability to hold that what was good was good, what was bad was bad, and that nothing one might do can change that. What remains is what was, what deserves to continue and last, what stays.” The answer seems so clear and forthright that the words that conclude the brief meditation pass unobserved: “And of us, of that Ego from which we can never detach ourselves and which we can never abjure, nothing remains.” And yet, I believe that these final, quiet words lend sense to the answer that precedes them. The good—even if Chiaromonte insists on its “staying” and “lasting”—is not a substance with no relation to our witnessing of it—rather, only this “of us nothing remains” guarantees that something good remains. The good is somehow indiscernible from our cancelling ourselves in it; it lives only by the seal and arabesque that our disappearance marks upon it. This is why we cannot detach ourselves from ourselves or abjure ourselves. Who is “I”? Who are “we”? Only this vanishing, this holding our breath for something higher that, nevertheless, draws life and inspiration from our bated breath. And nothing says more, nothing is more unmistakably unique than that tacit vanishing, nothing more moving than that adventurous disappearance. - Agamben I think of foreign fighters and ardent students that travel to Nungubon's gym in Ubon. A small studio of a space that is made from his home. It is in the model of a home kaimuay that has made so many fighters of Thailand's Muay Thai. And it is a museum of a space, filled with the pieces of his life and career, just as kaimuay have always been. You are in the bones of it, but still it is what already-has-been. We are standing with a man who has lived the art, in the ring, in the gym. The carved man, but you will also know that it already has passed. This is not an error. This is not flawed. This is the natural state of things. All things already-have-been. Put down the chalice of The Authentic. Everything is already heavily allowed with the past, with the done. It is only you who pulls the thread forward. You and those you metronome with. The above section from Agamben (bolded) is quite beautiful. It is a subtle drawing out of a Spinoza maxim, like a silken thread from the side of an Idea that is usually taken in a very different way. Spinoza held that there is some portion of the Mind that is Eternal. The Truth within the Mind - not our ego, not our feelings or personal ideas or intents - remains for all eternity. As Agamben draws it out he evokes the ephemera of The Ego in Buddhism, that illusive dimension of ourselves organized around everything that is supposed to matter. Of that, nothing will remain. Why? Because only the Good will remain. Agamben's invocation of the studio, the physical space of the practice, all the materiality of that practice, a sum of those real repetitions that reflect our burning fires, our furnaces, but also the Form of Life that is the art into which we are pressed, suggest that this is more of what is the Good, more of what remains. He wants us to see that all the while when our heart has been beating, we've been carving. What is it that you are carving? What of it will remain? What is the Good. As fighters this comes into deeper question, for the fight is among the most thin and veiled of performances, best witnessed in person by the ropes. It can be photographed, it can be written about, but what it truly is vanishes like the midnight bloom of a cragged flower, for only the few. And, the endless poundings of the bag, the light-footed shadowboxings? What is to be of that Good, washing into inarticulate neutrality by the Sea? We meet these incredible men, these spiritual athletes, and what has been made by them? Where does it reside? Where is the studio of their permanence? above, Nungubon's home gym, Ubon above, Takrowlek's home gym garden, Bangkok One knows something only if one loves it—or as Elsa would say, “only one who loves knows.” The Indo-European root that means “to know” is a homonym for the one that means “to be born.” To know [conoscere] means to be born together, to be generated or regenerated by the thing known. This, and nothing but this, is the meaning of loving. And yet, it is precisely this type of love that is so difficult to find among those who believe they know. In fact, the opposite often occurs—that those who dedicate themselves to the study of a writer or an object end up developing a feeling of superiority towards them, almost a sort of contempt. This is why it is best to expunge from the verb “to know” all merely cognitive claims (cognitio in Latin is originally a legal term meaning the procedures for a judge’s inquiry). For my own part, I do not think we can pick up a book we love without feeling our heart racing, or truly know a creature or thing without being reborn in them and with them. - Agamben As we come to study we violate ourselves, our boundaries. We break apart what has been. A new concresence. In this falls the onus on the artist, on the fighter, in this it is all of us. In many ways we are all nomads without a studio, in that we are ever stepping into the ruins of what already-has-been. The bones of it are already stacked around us, even when in youth you do not see them in your tunneling desire. We travel about like a potter who may find a kiln here or there, and we are made hybrid, cyborg to the matter of which it is made. We throw our clay as we might, and at many times we have to build the kiln ourselves, through an art of kiln-making which we have divined from lore & other practices we intuit. We inhabit houses of the art's keeping at times, but again and again The Good must only be the habits we keep as we build, and the respect we pay to what others have etched and thrown, in their kilns, in the kilns that have been. The Ego will not remain, it will vanish. Instead as we bend ourselves toward a Form of Life, and our respect for it. This is a form of cooking. We are cooked by our knowing. By our doing. A medieval legend about Virgil, whom popular tradition had turned into a magician, relates that upon realizing he was old he employed his arts to regain his youth. After having given the necessary instructions to a faithful servant, he had himself cut up into pieces, salted, and cooked in a pot, warning that no one should look inside the pot before it was time. But the servant—or, according to another version, the emperor—opened the pot too soon. “At the point,” the legend recounts, “there was seen an entirely naked child who circled three times around the tub containing the meat of Virgil and then vanished and of the poet nothing remained.” Recalling this legend in the Diaspalmata, Kierkegaard bitterly comments, “I dare say that I also peered too soon into the cauldron, into the cauldron of life and the historical process, and most likely will never manage to become more than a child.” Maturing is letting oneself be cooked by life, letting oneself blindly fall—like a fruit—wherever. Remaining an infant is wanting to open the pot, wanting to see immediately even what you are not supposed to look at. But how can one not feel sympathy for those people in the fables who recklessly open the forbidden door. We are all as it cooks tempting to look in the pot, we think it is over. The process close to being done. The practices, our inhabitations surely have done the cooking they are supposed to have done. There's been enough heat, enough time, one senses. Maybe its not completely done, but a little peek won't hurt. But its exactly that. You cannot look. It's not for you to see. above, Jaroensap's home gym, Bangkok The above is Baramajanmuay Ket Sriyapai, ปรมาจารย์มวย เขตร์ ศรียาภัย, the Muay Chaiya master of Arjan Surat, a portrait photo that hangs on the wall of the Dejrat gym in Bangkok. In some material sense this is all that remains of him. Arjan Surat, who still runs this hallowed personal space where hanging bags drape in a garage where he literally parks his car, talks about other Muay Boran manifestations in Thailand, lineages that purports ancient knowledge or ways of fighting. He laughs in his gruff and dismissive gravel voice pointing at the portrait "How can they know, if he didn't know?" But the habits, the inhabitance as Agamben would have it, of Baramajanmuay Ket Sriyapai also live remaining in Arjan Surat himself. The carvings of life, his studio, his life, made by the beating heart of Baramajanmuay Ket Sriyapai have also carved upon Arjan Surat who is now in his 70s, bent on holding daily pads for stadium fighters until 80. "Eeeevery-day" he says in English, drawing out the words to indicate time, the length of it. You do this eeeevery-day. You carve. You are standing in the bones of it, no matter where you are. It all, it all has already past. It's over. It's done. And you pull out this silken thread, weaving it forward, in the very thing you are carving. It looks like it is all finished, but it is barely there.

Consider not turnover over the kick, and instead working on the classic more upright Golden Kick: You can read more about it here: https://8limbsus.com/muay-thai-thailand/golden-kick-how-to-improve-your-thai-kick The turn over aspect of the kick is often over emphasized by non-Thai krus who don't really see all the connective tissue in the Thai Kick (generally). Most of the classic kicks turn very late in the arc, because they want to keep the opponent centered, and they don't want to be out of position for more continuous offensive flow. You can see more about Karuhat's kick here: #111 The Karuhat Rosetta Stone 7 - The Secrets of the Matador (83 min) watch it here Karuhat is the most documented Golden Age legend in history, thanks to the sum of all the filming and commentary we've been able to do with him. This session though provide the key to understanding all the other sessions. And there is a very special focus on his particular Golden Kick. An alternate kicking style: #143 Takrowlek Dejrat - Master of the Low Kick (90 min) watch it here One of the great low kicking fighters of the Golden Age teaches his squared up, pressuring, Muay Beuk fight philosophy which uses an extremely fast, vertical low kicking technique that keeps the opponent exactly where you want them. This punishing style, built on defense and ring control is extremely effective, using techniques that are not often taught. Study the low kick in a way you haven't seen before.

You may look into Takrowlek's close quarters kicking style. A lot of Japanese Kickboxing seems to have adopted this Thai style of fighting. Takrowlek was a very short fighter: https://www.patreon.com/posts/96897418?pr=true In the above link its is taught for an hour or so. In the video below you can see a segment of this:

After a little bit of research, and contemplation, I figured the kyokushin close quarters kicking is the best approach to study.

Karuhat is not a tall fighter, and usually fought opponents much bigger, taller than him. He's a difficult fighter to emulate because his eyes were so good, and his timing impeccable, but his muay is full of great qualities.

It feels like after 10 months of doing Muay Thai, these regular classes aren't really doing much help for me. We are doing 5 punch, 3 kick combos, that they are hard to apply in real sparring. Or we are hitting bags. It feels like Sparring with mouthguard has dramatically improved my ability by 10x fold. I literally get 10 practices in 1. It forces me to jab correctly, slip, kick with good rotation. Does anyone feel the same way? I still go to practice, but sparring is much more powerful in technique improvement.

Hey, I just saw this now, I'm surprised nobody replied before. When I was in Thailand in 2021/22, I also did several privates with Yodkhunpon and enjoyed it very much! I paid and did the sessions at Petchrungruang gym in Pattaya and the initial contact was made by Sylvie, whom I wrote on facebook (thanks again!). The sessions after that, I arranged directly with Yodkhunpon. Unfortunately I havent been back to Thailand since, so I like to read about other people's experiences, so keep writing people! Has anyone been at Singha Mawyn in Bkk? Superbon used to train there, but more importantly the trainers are legends themselves e.g. Namsaknoi and Khaolan Kaovichit. Would also be interested in reading about Kiatphontip just outside of Bkk, and other semi-rural settings.

I’ve heard a lot about Hong Thong, and it’s cool you got to train there for a month. The air quality during that time sounds rough, so thanks for the heads-up—I'll definitely keep that in mind if I plan a trip in March. The gym’s focus on fighting sounds perfect if you’re looking to compete. I’ve had similar experiences where the training quality depends on your partners, so I get that. Private sessions with Joe seem like a solid idea, especially for clinch work since Muay Khao fighters really know their stuff.

above, the cut back stem of our Adenium obesum "Desert Rose" and the bloom that came from the cutting, photo taken this morning Karuhat's Flower September 24th, 2024 - In the development of skills in Muay Thai everyone is trying to "add" things. New techniques, new training, new moves, new tricks. This is a desert Rose we bought when traveling with Karuhat in Isaan. We saw the unusual plant at a rest stop, it reminded me of the bulbous, massive trees in The Little Prince, so we bought one. He told us that in Thai it's called "The Show Stopper", or some rough equivalent to that, because its flowers were so stunning people walking by just have to stop and look. If you know Karuhat's Muay Thai, perhaps the most beautiful that's ever been, it seemed very fitting that we bought this plant with him. We're not gardeners, we keep a yard somewhat inexpertly. And we read up on the plant, how it has growing seasons, its general needs. But no matter what it did the flowers wouldn't come. Little proto-buds would show, and then die and drop off, even when the branches were verdant. He knows how to care for them, and would visit us and help steer us the right way. Here is an early visit when the plant was quite bare. It wouldn't flower for a year. He visited again and told us "You have to cut it back", and then told us about something you paint onto the cutting end to seal it, to force the lift energies into a bloom. Before Sylvie left to travel a week ago she cut it back here. A week later this bloom at photo top. This is the thing about Thailand's Muay Thai. It seems like when you come here its just this incredibly verdant fight culture. There are techniques and beautiful fighters, and gyms and krus everywhere. It feels like all this is quite natural, like it just spontaneously grew here, and as a fighter a lot of the times it feels like you are just walking around and picking wonderful fruits that you put in your fighter basket. You want this elbow here, and this guard over here. And this "combo" (there really aren't combos in Thailand's Muay Thai, but we turn it into combos so they can be exported). And, if you are Instagram and watching demos, you are collecting these techniques, some of them quite far removed from their source. The Secret of Restraint, of Cutting Away This is the secret about Thailand's Muay Thai. Once you have the plant well soiled, watered and fertilized, all those "flowers" that are loved come from pruning, from "cutting back". You cut back on the branch to produce the bloom. It's not an additive process. And this is the part of the art that simply isn't known much at all throughout the rest of the world...how to garden the muay of a fighter. Everyone is copying flowers, picking them off branches, mixing them with aggression, trying to change the rules of the sport to force more and more flowers (knockouts, etc)...but the actual gardening of the art is dying. Which branches need to be cut back and when? This is one of the concerns with the new commercialized much more aggressive versions of Entertainment Muay Thai. Some of most important cutting backs and prunings of Muay Thai occur at the emotional level, almost a spiritual level. It grows at the root of many of our impulses toward violence. Feelings of anger, even rage, are intentionally prune back. They are not the emotions of action (like they are often in the West). The pruning back of these feelings and their display is one of the most important aspects of Thailand's Muay Thai, and is probably quite close to the reason why it produces such beautiful blooms, blooms that are the envy of the world. It's because, even though being one of the most violent combat sports (at times), it is traditionally powerfully cut back at the emotional level. The Technical and Psychological An example of the unpruned emotion can be seen in Namkabuan's fights vs Matee. There is this highlight below where he somewhat spectacularly falls out of the ring and just jumps back in attacking, not even waiting for the ref to reset the fight. There is another when he unleashes wild elbows that make highlight reels, falling off balance but it all feeling like an onslaught. As mentioned below, for Namkabuan the whole thing felt very unpruned and wasn't something to be praised for. These are events that in Entertainment versions would be cheered on by shouting announcers and bounced all over IG streams...these moments of loss of control are almost the purpose of the new versions of Muay Thai, quietly undermining the life force art that gives Muay Thai its technical brilliance and even more so the sublime fights of the past. Namkabuan is now past, Rest in Power glorious legend. It is the control, but even more so, the pruning back of the plant that is the soul, if you want the bloom. When I see foreign fighters, who clearly train very, very hard in their techniques, unleashing high volume strikes, one after the other after the other after the other, often in memorized combinations they've learned on the pads and on the bag, their is a very real sense that this is a plant that is incredibly overgrown. There are leaves and leaves, but no blooms. They were like our plant, before Karuhat told us that it needs to be cut back. Unfortunately though, this is an art, and an aesthetic that isn't easily passed onto others, especially to non-Thais. That's because it comes from the Form of Life that is Thailand's Muay Thai, grown in its small kaimuay across the whole country, in its festivals and local stadia. In its urban gyms, its traditional stadia, within the gambers and their aesthetics. It's a cultural expression, but it is founded upon a sense of pruning back. Of gardening. When I saw this flower today I took a picture of it and sent it to Sylvie who as I mentioned is in Italy. I was just astounded at how fast and strong the bloom had come after we had been waiting for it for a year or more, simply by cutting it back (and knowing to paint the cutting over with a special mixture). The parallels to Muay Thai seemed so plentiful, for fighters very often try to develop certain techniques or qualities, often for years, but that "bloom" never comes, or only comes palely. I wanted to know how she saw process of pruning in Muay Thai, as she is a fighter who has engaged in the sport in Thailand like no other, just massive amounts of fights, the most prolific Western Muay Thai fighter in history, an unparalleled study with legends, and endless hours in the training ring. Here is he secret for blooms that are slow to come. Prune back. This is some of our conversation: vocabulary: Jangwah (จังหวะ) = rhythm, timing, Tammachat (ธรรมชาติ) = natural, indicated by being smooth & at ease, Ning (นิ่ง) = being at ease & unaffected, Mua (มัว) = obscure, clouded, confused Perspectives on Growth and Pruning There at least two very distinct but related levels to thinking about this. As a fighter, struggling to improve in the art, best is not to think primarily of additive processes. The pruning back of oneself, both at the level of techniques, tactics and strategy, but also at the emotional level very well may be the path to much strained for growth. To cut back isn't to "do less", its actually cutting off a living branch, sealing it off, so that its vital force will force itself out into bloom, further down, closer to the main stem. Technically, the main stems are the foundational principles and movements of the sport...which is why some of the most spectacular Muay Thai fighters of Thailand actually are fighting from place of basics. The second level of thinking about this is about the sport itself. We are told "Muay Thai has to grow!" or, "It's great that the sport is growing!" in its various new hybrid incarnations, many of them adopting Western or Internalized emotional pictures of fighting. Additive growth does not necessarily produce the flowers. And the tourism of Muay Thai is founded on the fact that it produces so many show stopping blooms, unparalleled skills and a form of fighting that exists nowhere else in the world. Right now, in this generation, we still have men who know how to prune in the art. They were raised in the kaimuay of traditional Muay Thai, they fought in its rings, and they understand the process of cutting back, the aesthetics of control. But this generation of knowledge is vulnerable. They are at an age already when maybe 10 more years and they'll no longer be shaping fighters. The processes of Muay Thai's creation lies withing their knowledge of its creation. It isn't in the "techniques". It isn't bio-mechanical. It's a spirit of understanding the flower of violence, and what it means for the human being...distilled into a craft, a craft of pruned-back fighting. btw, as a note, this is Arjan Surat who we mention in our texts. He is perhaps among the oldest of this last gen, holding pads every day in his 70s.

I don’t see how you can go wrong at any of the gyms you mention , sit Thailand has a great gym and is technically brilliant. My son 13 was there last year and they treated him so well , we are back now and they seem to be growing with more trainers than before . They fight regularly and have Thais and farangs fighting . They seem to have a connection with Spain as both times there have been decent Spanish fighters there . They have girls training and fighting . It’s 75bht in a bolt from the old town and takes 15 mins Hongthong is a similar distance from our hotel . Ultimately people will tell you their preference but that might not suit you

I've been to Watchara gym a few times for PT but haven't tried their group classes. Its more of a "casual" gym (its air conditioned (which is not a bad thing!), clientele are (mainly) non-fighters) but the trainers are knowledgeable/experienced. Honestly i've hopped around in BKK for a bit and i haven't come across objectively bad trainers - its more about finding one that has a personality/teaching style that fits you. The gym is used to foreigners (you book classes through Klook). If you do go for PTs I would recommend Em - he does focus on technique and speaks very good English. You can do privates with them on Sundays (most gyms close on Sundays). If you go gym hopping in BKK and want more training on Sunday, you could try them out for a Sunday PT session.

Long has been my thesis that Thailand's Muay Thai developed principally through its vast array of provincial fight networks and the communal wisdom of those gambling markets, which makes of it not so much a sport as a cultural expression of the Thai people, self-organized through the centuries (with some evidence going back to as early as the 17th c), and less a codified, rule-governed artifact of centralized power. Below are some thoughts on the "wisdom of markets" dynamic which presents a much more complex picture of fighting aesthetics and the adjudication of fights. In Thailand's Muay Thai bets are taken throughout the fight, and the shifting of odds operates as a kind of scorecard reflecting the collective opinion of its audience (much of which is gambling). This telling explores the aspect of spontaneous order creation argued to be possessed by markets, understanding ring-side gambling as exactly that kind of spontaneous creation and social steering, summarized most broadly: Gambling And The Development of Thailand's Muay Thai Thailand's provincial Muay Thai may, in brief, display a basic logic of the self-organizing market creation of aesthetic judgements, as communal gambling shaped the form of Thailand's Muay Thai as an art and as a sport. One of the most interesting theoretical potentials of Thailand's provincial ring fighting is that fights by definition are events of adjudication. And, that they possess not one, but (at least) two different processes of adjudication. There is the formal one (conducted by officials) and the implied adjudication of a localized market, the odds (price) which shift throughout the fight, which may or may not agree with the formal judgement. What is compelling - and there are a few things - is that there is an element of the adjudicating nature of markets here, a fundamental aspect of Capitalist ideology (but not reducible to Capitalism itself, for markets have functioned and co-organized culture for a long portion of human history). Sidenote: My thesis is that Thailand's Muay Thai developed out of Southeast Asian rites of sacrifice, as understood thru the theories of Rene Girard (an argument which may be extended into other forms of ring fighting), tentatively outlined here (if you want to go through a theoretical side path, click this here, or just skip below): The Judgement of Markets The adjudicating nature of ring sport, and its tractioned, symbolic meaning, may stem from the notion of the sacrificial act, a judgement passed on an innocent (sometimes "perfect") animal. What distinguishes Thailand's Muay Thai (& perhaps other forms of Southeast Asian ring sport combat) is the degree to which it developed along side, co-evolving with a local market of forces (a gambling audience), whose price shifts over time not only reflected communal understanding of the art/sport (a collective wisdom), they also exerted judgement pressures upon the formal judgements of the public event, creating a dialectic of judgements, and forming the custom of the aesthetics of the art/sport. If communal gambling can be seen as collective market judgement, the locus of the wisdom of the sport falls in part within a "democracy" that self-organized the aesthetics of the art, simply through the shifting anticipation of wins or losses, according to how fighters were performing. The prescriptive force of the price of prescience within a group, over time, quantitatively exchanged. *note, Westerners have a hard time thinking about the sport of Muay Thai because it is not governed by explicit "rules" to be found in a rulebook. The expectation is that the sport have officials who basically execute a written law through judgements. The rule & custom of Thailand's Muay Thai - and therefore its somewhat unique historical creation - is far more complex, and therefore gives insight into the possible productive, generative relationships between local market dynamics, communal wisdom & formal adjudication. This complexity of judgements, the communal nature of its co-determination, is what makes it - in essence - a cultural product, woven of the values & the aesthetics of the Thai people (however regionally distinct), in 100,000s of adjudicated, public events. It is "Thai". To appreciate the shaping of market dynamics in village Muay Thai, the communal aesthetic judgements (the shifting price throughout the fight) are in communication with the performance throughout, thru the corners but also as if a Greek Chorus, in atmospheric commentary. Fighters are not just fighting to a rule set or even an aesthetic picture of the art, they are fighting to the live aesthetic judgements of the crowd...as they (their team) too are gamblers. This is a living feedback loop of pricing, which composes the fight. The agonistic market dynamics of the crowd are the quantitative "scoreboard" of who is winning the fight at any particular time. The *functional* score is not hidden on the scorecards of judges...and the fighters are fighting TO the shifting-price market dynamic scorecard. This is one reason why narrative structure is so integral in traditional Muay Thai, and develops even higher levels of skill. In a Western fight the fighter is just trying to control his opponent and influence the judgement of judges, the Thai fighter is seeking to be ABOVE even the fight itself, and control the tide of odds, the shifting market of prices, because the fighter is a gambler (his team). This means its not about winning every round, but telling a story which may involve purposive the fluctuation of price. When we traveled provincially with Phetjeejaa when she was a girl, she was expert at this. She sandbagged early rounds because her reputation was so large. She'd also take weight disadvantages, so some of the market would bet against her. She was "above" the fight, shaping it. This tidal control is part of what makes the fight so compelling to audience...not sure of how to read the performances early in the fight, which clues were being put out there. The fighter ideally controls the opponent, the judges, but mostly the audience. It's a very complex art, learned from a young age. It isn't just beating another fighter who is in front of you, as difficult as that might be. Further complexifying the fight is that audience members (gamblers) are themselves in an agonism of social hierarchies, each is trying to display their prescience (knowledge) over others, indicating prowess, some actually also directing the fighters themselves. The fighters are thus mirroring the social capital battles that are occurring in the audience, (quantifiably) expressed in the shifting of price. Gamblers are displaying & proving their prowess thru bets...but also (problematically) may prove their prowess through illicit manipulation (of fighters or refs). The shifting price is not only reflecting the relative powers of the fighters, but it also reflects beliefs in the ability of gamblers themselves to put a thumb on the scale in the decision. This could be thru anything between having deep knowledge (that is an imparting connection to the fighter, from the corner), to injecting financial incentive to the fighter mid-fight, to having social status that influences a close decision, all the way to suspected subterfuge (real or imagined). There is a degree of detective work in gambling itself, which also the fighters performances reflects as prices change. It is not simply a local free market that is shaping the aesthetics of performance, but also a market full of suspicion & postured powers, everyone reading the direction of the wind. In this way the official are the keepers of the accumulation of 1,000s of past local market adjudications, the aesthetic...and ideally act as a corrective to specific market manipulation (within the collective creation of the sport/art). But, they are also within the social fabric themselves, hold their own place within the social capital, so individual fight adjudications can be highly contested. Is the local market (price) being distorted by undue influence (deviating from the aesthetic), or are officials being manipulated or socially coaxed? But between these two aspects of adjudication, shuttling like on a loom, is the weaving of the aesthetics of the sport and art, conditioned specifically by market forces of shifting price. It is only when individual influence grows too large (distorts the market, or official adjudication) that the creative process of the aesthetic begins to collapse. Importantly, it is not all a question of aesthetics, throughout the 100,000s of 100,000s of fights (if we count the centuries) there is a Reality Principle of bodies applying force on other bodies, in the framework of prices. These are real full contact fights, with real forces and limitations at work. In this sense Muay Thai over the eras is a composite of THREE adjudications, that of the crowd (the wisdom of markets), that of officials (who keep and reflect the history of market adjudications) and that of the bodies of fighters. While much has been made of the difficulties of the influence of gambling on fight decisions in Bangkok, especially as crowds and commercial fortunes have shrunk, this is likely more the case of particular factions becoming too strong in the matrix of judgements that makes up Thailand's Muay Thai. It is likely less that the gamblers (the markets that adjudicate) broadly have grown too strong - for it is my argument that Muay Thai has been born from self-organizing market decision-making, fashioning a true product of a culture over centuries - but more that in smaller crowds individuals have gained too much power, too much of a thumb on the scales, uncorrected by other factors which have historically help steer the sport and art. But the complexity of the sport and of its fighting remains of the same fabric that generated it, and that still generates it in the provinces and stadia. It's very unlike Western sport. One can't just fabricate new rules, specify enforcement, and employ fighters like actors or laborers in a commercial product and still have Thailand's Muay Thai...a Muay Thai that is full of subtleties and very high skill levels, the skills to control tides. The skills of Muay Thai come from its social fabric, the woven way that a knowledgeable and invested audience generates the Muay itself, and the dialogue fighters have with that audience through the symbolic language of their bodies, amid the real limits of physical force.

Some of my comments in reply to The Pretzel clinch position that is increasingly common in Muay Thai. You can see this discussion the comment section of Yodkhunpon's Fast, Trapping Anti-Clinch Reversal from Outside Position - (8 min, public) The proliferation of inside elbows in today's Muay Thai is part of the erosion of soundness. Against skilled opponents you really don't want to be approaching them and grabbing double wide as a habit. You are cleanly open. It's much more sound to regularly control the middle in principle if you are worried about inside attacks. Once you have the elbow from the inside part of that technique is leveraging it so doesn't get high (you can see that in the photo with Karuhat), and using your weight to steer. Additionally, if that elbow does get high this opens them up very easily to a quick pass under the arm to the edge and a very strong side control position if not just taking their back. A lot of the time you actually WANT that elbow high, and you even force it high (Sylvie does this pass a lot). But hey, I'm sure that people teach the pretzel now, its extremely common in Thailand among Thais. It just my view is that clinch is highly degraded in Thailand, among Thais, and not really as complex or technically sound as it once was in the Golden Age. Even fighters like Karuhat, who seldom clinched in his fights today are pretty profound clinchers, even decades removed from their fighting days. They just understood the grappling element at a higher level. A lot of the Muay Thai Library is about documenting the disappearing Golden Age techniques and principles, and this is one of those. and... (Kevin commenting) Yes, if I'm reading you right, I think the theory is in agreement with what you are saying. The point being, when you see habitually double outside position...this is born out of a gym with poor clinch training habits...it starts with poor inside control by one partner (high up on the bicep, near the shoulder, and not down by the elbow). This is just a weak inside position. Given that position in a partner it is perfectly reasonable to fold your arm(s) down over that over that arm to control the intside elbow, but the deeper point is that this produces in real terms bad habits between BOTH training partners, especially when two partners train together a lot as they often do in Thailand. The first partner shouldn't be automatically slapping their hands down at the shoulder, they should be controlling the frame on first move (generally), and the second partner shouldn't really just take an inferior position as a default response...the receving fighter honestly shouldn't be just giving up inside position on a default either. What happens in real life, is that two partners end up just "taking" these relatively poor positions, neither of which are fighting for inside control, for long periods of time, just to waste away chunks of training time, just so they can look like they are clinching - these are teen to young teen boys. Neither fighter is actually trying to control and dominate the frame in these instances, because it's tiring. In the Rambaa video too, he is not at the elbow, and honestly this isn't ideal (small inches or angles can made a big difference), but it is part of a swim he is teaching and constant fighting for inside position. This struggle over position and the frame is the essential part of clinch dominance. You take the outside position in order to GET back to the inside. What I'm speaking to is a kind of weakness in Thai clinch training over all, which involves kids learning how to burn hours NOT fighting for inside position. I'm not saying you should never braid your arm over, I'm speaking particularly to the lasting double outside pretzel, as a "default" start position. When I see Thai fighters in the ring default to this double outside position in fights the first thing I think is "This person doesn't really know how to clinch", and even some by reputation high level Thai clinch fighters do this a lot. The reason why I say this to myself isn't because they are making a technical mistake. It's that taking this position somewhat by habit tells me that when they clinch in the gym this is a common default between partners. It means that regularly BOTH partners are taking weaker positions repeatedly (there is no correction). It means that the training itself is not about the struggle over positional dominance. It's the signature of a lack of rigor, and kind of a baked in laziness. Clinch is actually a very fragile art, and bad habits can creep in quickly even in experienced fighters, and lack of clinch in training can erode even spectacular clinch fighters over a very short period of time. Honestly though, gyms now are no longer kaimuay in the general sense, and Thais have changing motivations for training. And the authority or rigor of a gym has shifted in how it is exercized. Some of the study of traditional Muay Thai is about tracing these changes in training (and even socio-economics) and how it is altering, or even eroding, techniques. I do also think that there is a tendency to just feel that if Thais are doing something a lot this is automatically high level, especially in something like clinch which has been their specialty, but often there is degradation in technique as training changes, and with clinch being less and less emphasized in Thailand rings there is likely to be even further erosion of Thai clinch habits and techniques. --- I was really struck when I watch Karuhat (one of the least clinch oriented fighters of the Golden Age) clinch up with Samson (one of the great clinch fighters of the Golden Age)...I believe its in the most recent Karuhat MTL session. Karuhat completely neutralized Samson in the clinch...through inside control. It was kind of amazing to see. He just was technically superior. Small things matter. Samson's relentless swims and Muay Khao assault maybe wins the day given enough time, Samson said as much, but on grab or just after Karuhat won the position, because he is VERY sound. Maybe he had to be sound like that because he was small and fought up against strong clinch fighters, I don't know, but it was and is a little startling. It opened my eyes even more to these kinds of principles that are buried in training habits. A lot of Thai fighters on entry do not take dominant, or fight for dominant position these days. They often take weak positions...and THEN fight for dominance...or not, sometimes they just take neutral positions and wait for trips, or attempt knees. (That's where Yodkhunpon's reversal is helpful, its a move like that from a weak position.) --- sorry to on about this, but your comments allowed me room to go at length on something I find really intersting, and in terms of clinch success really imporant. To share a little about our process and thinking: Sylvie is an amazing clinch fighter, perhaps the best clinch female clinch fighter in Muay Thai history, if only in terms of the size of fighters she's been able to beat almost entirely through Muay Khao clinch styles, but we are constantly aware that training conditions (wrong sized partners, lack of correction) can produce serious degradation of techniques, and honestly bad habits. And one of those bad habits can be just flopping down over in a pretzel. As a smaller, physically weaker training partner (Sylvie for years has trained against partners with 10 kg or more on her) this becomes really easy to become accustom to doing, because you are just trying to neutralize greater strength and size, like you say, control that elbow from the outside, but this leads to some serious problems in actual fights. It develops a habit of taking outside control and resting in it, or kind of "losing" the initial grab because you are used to giving up inside position vs bigger training partners. This has consequences in fights where refs are making quick clinch breaks (sometimes because of the promotion, sometimes because of the ref). If you are taking outside, weaker positions on entry, this means you spend the first movements just trying to improve your position. By the time you have struggled to swim inside and frame up the ref is breaking the clinch. This is a huge problem in todays Muay Thai if you are Muay Khao fighter. You have to get to the dominant position quickly because they won't give you time to work the position and develop it. In clinch training you have long stretches, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 45 minutes...but in a fight you have 3-7 seconds to get to a dominant position before the ref comes. If you aren't used to taking a dominant position quickly, and you rely on clinch as a major part of your game, you lose. You simply will lose the fight. Clinch training for you has to be about fighting for the inside more or less continually, and winning inside position on entry, so you can keep the ref off of you, and part of that is making sure that you take the right angles on grab, you get at and dig in at that elbow.

Found the old footage of Sylvie's 2nd fight (Fight 12) vs Angela Hill, accidentally, waking up my very old YouTube account the other day. We thought the video of both those fights were lost, taken down by their team to keep opponents from scouting her, as it was, back in the amateur NY days. Sylvie tells the story on her blog, taking the fight vs the best female fighter on the East coast on 24 hrs notice (wrecked on fertility hormones because she was donating her eggs very soon to afford to come back to Thailand. Not training, giving up big weight, out of shape driving straight from work to the fight), it was quite a thing. Perhaps her most "raw" fight, never to win such a fight in a 100 years. Angela all crisp in her technique, she was a bit of a situational weight-bully back in the day as that was the ethic you took every advantage you could get, and she was properly feared as big, aggressive, skilled fighter, sometimes finding herself fighting the proper 100-102 lb girls who didn't even have a weight class at 105 lb; not a criticism, nothing unfairly done as there were so few girls, but few wanted to face her in that small scene where fighters really valued victories. She had big dreams as a fighter and later ended up having to fight up a ton in the big girls of the UFC, something that probably deprived her of the dominance that would have made her a big star, giving up all that weight in the ring. If she had been fighting down in the UFC it would have likely played out quite differently. In fighting if you fight enough it goes and comes around, you go through every permutation. Cool stuff. But, Sylvie didn't get knocked out, which was a big aim, and got to just be raw in there one more time. That's what it was about that time, that's what coming to Thailand was about then, just to find opportunities to fight...at all. Sylvie took every fight possible because you might not fight again. Each fight chance felt like it might be the last, and you just could not grow without fighting, a principle she would embody in the many years to come. In some ways its my favorite fight of Sylvie's, its not even close...but close to the beating heart of it all. After the fight Angela was on the mic before the crowd, this was about when she herself was running out of opportunities in Muay Thai, and she announced to the crowd something like "I bet Sylvie will fight again", like...this isn't Sylvie's last fight, even though I whopped her...two-hundred-and-74 fights ago. That was the beating heart then. I love this fight. You see the raw, the "what was about to happen" that's beneath all those hundreds of fights to come...if you have eyes for it, and all the documentation of the sport and its art, all the expertise she would seek and learn, because she had none of it then. In some ways, its proper for this fight to be private (and we'll keep it so). Because its the hidden crucible, just before we came to Thailand. Sylvie almost died on the donation table (at least I thought she was going to die as doctors came rushing in), so at least her heart probably stopped, they never told us. And we were landing in a plane in Thailand to actually LEARN Muay Thai properly and fight it properly 2 months later. She was in the ring a month after that. 2012. Fight 13.

I train out in Thailand and tend to do 5-7 rounds on the pads. Even though I'm now too old to fight, I kind of treat it as such. The first couple of rounds are lighter, to warm up, get my technique and rhythm going. Then I'll blast a few in the middle, full power. Later ones, I may mix it up- focusing on technique and correcting what I did just before, speeding up to test them at 100%. The final one will be full-on, to push my cardio again- drain the battery before it charges overnight..!

I've felt some pretty strong disillusionment as a photographer, which pretty much comes in line with the overall dilution of meaningfulness in digital communications, as everything gets stretched out into endless (truly endless) digital series, consumed in scrolls, catching affect-torquing algorithm effects (or not), much of it aligned to dopamine hits, which stresses us out into over-stimmed depression beasts. We take photos because this little fragment of reality...matters. And the art of the camera, its alchemy, is applying rites, practices and crafts to that image to bring that meaningfulness forth. To just dump that carved piece of the REAL into a knowledge mill, into a vast encryption pulverization is just fundamentally wrong, and deprives the photograph of the very sort of sacred (yes, sacred) life it was given. This is a fundamental crisis...and deeply affects even how I relate to my own images, or even the desire to take them. I've always felt that this problem is one of occasional aesthetics, that there must be forms out there, waiting to be created, which deny some aspects of this digital pulverization. (This I suppose are what galleries are for, or printed prints on walls in homes...to forestall the profanation.) This problem is absolutely unresolved, but... This morning I began editing my photographs of Kru Hem at TDet99 from yesterday and the first two photographs really spoke to me. They spoke to me as a pair. Together, they held a symbolic form, I might say. So I asked myself, how in this digital time (I refuse Instagram...actually since my Instagram account suddenly vanished several years ago, for no reason at all, but also because its form for photographs is dead wrong), could I even present them as a Symbolic Form, as a Two? What would be in some sense homological to how it might be if they hung on a wall, framed, side by side? The question was a very simple one, one that instinctively felt had an answer...at least a partial answer. I imagined, just place them in relationship to themselves in video (video holding its own very serious, de-aestheticizing problems in the scroll), but do so using a feature that I believe is what made large screen cinema different. The secret to cinema's magic was that the size of the screen cannot be taken in in a single glance. The action may occur here or there, but there are always areas of the screen to explore, at any given moment in the flow of time. The viewing eye sculpts, as it selects attention, in the narrative. (This is something, a magic, that no longer operates within our world of small screens.) I just entered one of these photos and selected out frames within the frame, and placed them in tempo with the overall frame, mimicking in part some of the nature of cinematic magic. I have no idea how or if this changes how the images may be received and experienced in various digital flows and scroll/refreshes, within the pulverization mill which grinds our attention, packaged for exchange in markets, but it DID change how I related to my photographs themselves. The process pulled me into them, and brought the pleasure of the large files I'm able to shoot with. I love exploring the worlds and pieces of worlds within a single frame, so it made me happy with my art, it changed the possible within it, rather than de-spiriting it.

Almost all fights in Thailand are technically "pro" under full trad, or entertainment rules. You likely are already skilled enough for your first fight (all things being equal), if your gym is adept at finding matches (it depends on your size too). But, you'd probably want to train a month to acclimate yourself, develop training calluses (not actual calluses, but mental and physical toughness) to make your first fight more digestible. First fights are mental whirlwinds, and the more acclimated your are, the more enjoyable they'll be.

above is Sylvie's most recently published commentary video, sharing her fight in Buriram earlier this year. Her 282nd fight, her 272nd in the country. In editing the piece together, which for me just involves syncing her voiced video, inserting some titling, some music, I was just struck by how beautiful the event and experience was...and how much comes through in the film. It came back to me, as I lived it, and photographed it, but also it came anew, in the incredible uniqueness of this kind of fighting as it is, for an experienced Westerner like Sylvie. Away from the tourist venues, most of them now swamped with Entertainment rulesets and fights designed for Western consumption, and to produce Western winners, at a Buriram festival where the Muay still holds cultural meanings, much of that involving local gambling passion, social sharing and the proxy struggle over social hierarchies foreigners can little follow. Therdkiat, a Golden Age legend who has taken a liking to Sylvie in the last year or more, has brought Sylvie up to his home province to fight in festival fights. We cannot really know the ultimate meaning of her victories, her performances, as he finds passion in them, but we can know that this kind of fighting is very close to the fabric of Muay Thai which is not bent toward the Westerner...not made for the Westerner. We - well, Sylvie - have fought more times in Thailand than any other foreign fighter, 17 times on broadcast television, she's fought World Title fights and won them, and I can say without hesitation, this, festival fights, are the best fight experiences in all of Thailand. It's not even close. If you love Muay Thai, this is the real Muay Thai. In this fight the size mis-match is enormous. Probably 10 kgs. Sylvie like no other female fighter in history can handle size disparities, her Muay Khao style is made for it. I believe her record giving up 10 kgs or more in something crazy like 12-2. She has this opponent because she can handle it, and because a rematch was requested. Her opponent trained to counter what beat her in the first fight (you can see that fight here), but it just wasn't enough. She's clinch has even improved, as she's changed her training in it. Her Muay Khao game is tighter than even a few months before. But the point is, this contest really could never happen in any other situation now, in the current state of the sport in the country. It's a beautiful thing, a challenge worthy of the art. Central to the entire fight is that the clinch still lives in provincial fighting, it's an essential part of the sport, and refs shape it wonderfully with experience in the provinces. In tourist stadia, even under 5 round rulesets, the clinch has been gradually eroded. For years in those stadia refs have broken Sylvie quicker and quicker. Opponents literally drag Sylvie back to the ropes, so the ref will break the clinch the moment the ropes are touched. It changes the entire shape of a fight. If you watch this fight, with its enormous size difference, just look at the clinch. You have a very big fighter who has trained up to counter Sylvie's clinch. She is gripping and at times swallowing Sylvie, attempting to force stagnation. She wants clinch breaks. The ref is just artful in how much he allows to develop in each engagement. He sees what is going on. He sees where the battle is. Even though there is very little "action" in the clinch, it is developing, engagement after engagement. He lets it go. And then finally Sylvie gets to a dominant inside position, and breaks the fight open, almost out of nowhere. But it isn't out of nowhere. 15 fast clinch breaks, and none of that happens. There is no evolution. There isn't even much of a fight. It's a 57 kg girl throwing combos, and a 47 kg girl defending against them, nothing else. Instead, its a chess match of distances. This is to say, this is the actual Muay Thai of Thailand, one not made for the Westerner. And Sylvie has devoted years now, learning how to fight in this manner. Size and Fighting There is a question as to how old this style of fighting is, in the provinces. I stumbled upon this account in 1975, where men in the 70s and 80s were already complaining about the degradation of the sport, something they traced even back to the imposition of weight classes and timed rounds. The muay before was known for its endurance, and the capacity of fighters to face very big weight differences: source There is in the root of Thailand's Muay Thai a dimension of gambling and the freedom of the art, wherein the art contains the possibility of beating much larger fighters. And if bets are taken, its because the possibility has meaning. That is something that is beautiful about this fight, and really festival fighting in general. It is the occasion of pure contest in the active interest of the audience, an audience that gives the fight its meaning. It isn't created by a promoter or Instagram posts. It's generated by the actual audience, who is part of the rite of fighting itself. I've seen a lot of fights in Thailand, and I've seen Sylvie fight so numerously - this fight, and this kind of fight is just something different than what is more broadly encountered by most Westerners, and even by ourselves well over 100 times. It's not a technical marvel. It's not an explosive highlight reel. Its a struggle, a struggle that the audience is involved in to some degree. The ref calls it - some would imagine prematurely - but it is because he and her opponent saw what happened. The fight was cracked open. Clinch was allowed to do its eroding work. The one shot, her opponent's path to victory, was closed. Clinch positions were only going to get much worse. Her head was going to be forced down. The rematch was no longer necessary...at least on this occasion. This is knowledgeable Muay Thai. I remember sitting at a table of old timers, including reporters from Muay Siam. They all pretty much agreed, there was no more Muay Thai as it was classically known, in Thailand. But then the Muay Siam reporter said: No, in the provinces there is still Muay Thai. And they nodded their heads. Yes it was true. It's about the culture and shape of the fight. The fight's relationship to the audience. It's about small things, the way even non-ideal matchups like this can still be expressive of the principals and values of a very old sport and art. This is the living Muay Thai of Thailand, where the heart still beats.

This Gila Muay documents Dieselnoi's victory over "The Immortal Yodmuay" Wichannoi, the fighter Dieselnoi called his "kru in the ring". When we came to interview Wichannoi (who has since passed), Dieselnoi went to his feet in a sign of deep respect. Our interview linked below. Dieselnoi considers beating the powerful, ageless Wichannoi - who he had lost to twice, losses which ended the longest stadium winning streak in history - to have been his greatest victory. quality jpegs of the edition from Sylvie's beginning collection, if anyone can translate (machine or otherwise - you can upload jpegs to Google translate and it will give you English text translation), comments welcome on content. Insight into the era. You can follow this sub-forum and get email alerts for any new postings. If you share images from these captures please credit the Muay Thai Library Preserve The Legacy project and this forum. Any support for the project by subscription is seriously appreciated.

There's maybe a few reasons I don't put it on the list. The first is that the things that make Petchrungruang so good for me really don't apply to most other people. I'm a small woman (47 kg) who specializes in clinch, and I'm a fighter who fights a lot and books my own fights. What is great about Petchrungruang is really my relationship with the family, and how much clinching I can get as a small female. And of course the padholding and guidance of Pi Nu. But Petchrungruang is a slow cook method gym. There usually isn't a lot of technical instruction or correction, instead there is lots of doing, and lots of self-directed training (I plan and do my own bag rounds, my own side drills, etc). Its teaching method is designed to turn kids into fighters over years. This isn't what a lot of western students or fighters are looking for. Also, I don't really like "selling" my gym. I've written a lot about it so if people have read me over the years they know what it is about. And in some ways I'd like to keep the gym my little secret. I don't want it to change with the arrival of students and fighters who expect things different than it is. And I really don't recommend it for most people because I feel that they would be happier somewhere else. It's just a small family gym that does things in a quiet way, focused on raising Thai boys to be stadium fighters and I like that. Update 2024: Petchrungruang no longer has Thai boys or fighters. The head of the gym decided to stop building fighters and no longer deals with professional fighting, so his focus and the gym's focus is beginner and intermediate non-Thais, but you can get local 3 round fights at the two stadia in Pattaya for experience.