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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.

Kevin — this is beautifully written and profoundly resonates with what we are trying to protect. At our gym in Pai, Thailand — led by Kru Sittiphong (Eminent Air, Bangkok) — we often find ourselves discussing this exact tension. The split you describe between aggression as war and tradition as festival maps directly onto the current shift happening in Muay Thai today, especially in the growing clash between Muay Farang and traditional Muay Femur. So many Westerners arrive here asking for two sessions a day, intense sparring, and "hard training" to burn through their fire. They believe output equals progress — but they miss that in Thai Muay Thai, form comes before fire. As Kru says, “If no one corrects your technique, you're just burning energy and money.” You can train for years and still lack timing, balance, and control if no one slows you down. He calls this rush-to-power style "Muay Farang." Not in judgment — but as a cultural observation. It’s mechanical. It’s linear. It seeks transformation through depletion, rather than refinement. It forgets the smile in the sparring ring. The mutual game. The moment when two fighters laugh and say, “You got me.” That ease is the solarity. That’s the festival. Lerdsilla, Saenchai — we show students how they move not to win but to shine. Their movement is gift, not dominance. We see this in our students too — that knife’s edge between aggression and release. Some say they want to spar to “let out the fire.” But this isn’t the Thai way. Not really. Not the artful way. Real Thai Muay Thai is not made in war. It’s made in play, in rhythm, in control, in beauty. Muay Thai was born out of community, not conquest. The rings were surrounded by farmers, not fighters. And even now, the countryside promotions like Pai Fight Night are pushing back against the gambling, the scoring controversies, the drift toward aggressive spectacle. They are preserving Muay Thai as cultural heritage — as festival, as you so eloquently say. Even the structure of Thai training reflects this longevity: one thoughtful session a day, not burnout. Recovery built in. Years spent mastering balance before layering in power. It's a slow art. A patient art. It cannot be "hacked." And it cannot be copied in systems that don't understand its roots. So yes — we’re witnessing a shift. And some, like Samart Payakaroon, are trying to protect the tradition. Others, like the Muay Femur stylist who left ONE Championship, are quietly walking away from the pressure to perform brutality over brilliance. We believe this conversation matters deeply — and must continue. Thank you for holding space for it, — Jennifer & Kru Sittiphong Sittiphong Muay Thai - Technical Muay Femur Training Pai, Thailand

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

One of the more slippery aspects of this change is that in its more extreme versions Entertainment Muay Thai was a redesign to actually produce Western (and other non-Thai) winners. It involved de-skilling the Thai sport simply because Thais were just too good at the more complex things. Yes, it was meant to appeal to International eyes, both in the crowd (tourist shows) and on streams, but the satisfying international element was actually Western (often White) winners of fights, and ultimately championship belts. The de-skilling of the sport and art was about tipping the playing field hard (involving also weigh-in changes that would favor larger bodied international fighters). Thais had to learn - and still have to learn - how to fight like the less skilled Westerners (and others). In some sense its a crazy, upside-down presentation of foreign "superiority", yes driven by hyper Capitalism and digital entertainment, but also one which harkens back to Colonialism where the Western power teaches the "native" "how its really done", and is assumed to just be superior in Nature. The point of fact is that Thais have been arguably the best combat sport fighters in the world over the last 50 years, and it is not without irony that the form of their skill degradation is sometimes framed as a return to Siam/Thai warfare roots. It's not. Its a simplification of ring fighting for the purpose of international appeal.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DNJE3xmsiks/ This is how far Entertainment has pervaded. Tapaokaew vs Nuenglanlek. Nuenglanlek losing the fight in the clinch asks Tapaokaew to go toe to toe for the end of the 5th round so fighters can get the bonus. This is basically...let's stop fighting a "real" fight, you know, one fighter out-skilling another, and instead let's "put on a show" for the Entertainment bonus. That RWS itself posts this, selling the action, just is a deeper dive into building a "content" generator sport. This is just the shaping of the sport by commerce and moving to online content and in-person tourism, away from in-person passionate, knowledgeable fandom...which I suspect isn't sustainable as a business model, and certainly won't develop the highest level skills (building the sport long term). It's also an interesting reversal of the supposedly "fake" dance offs in the 5th round, now there is a "show" of action. This likely will become a trend as fighters learn new ways to play the 5th round out. RWS has a tough line to ride, as the nexus space, the limnal space between pure Aggro ONE marketing and gambled traditional stadium Muay Thai. These are nuances and changes in that space.

timestamped, Kristen Stewart says an interesting here on what would happen if the entire Hollywood machine of movies came crashing down, small film culture would still persist in pockets, people making small films. In a flash I repositioned on what would happen if Bangkok Muay Thai just broke down and was no more. This isn't to say that there isn't important advocacy, or that globalizing, commodifying, tourism-izing trends can't destroy something...but it is to say that there is resilience.

Two experiments in images from the other day. Exploring lines of force inside movement and position.

Red Sonja, Female Badassery and Liberty Just finished Red Sonja: Consumed by Gail Simone and was pretty blown away by it, much of it probably because I didn't know the character and was just looking for some light adventure reading somewhere near "pulp". I need to relax my mind, and have had a hard time finding the right language for it all, so I thought this would be a vacation and a chance to just enjoy a hardcover book after all the pdfs I plough through. And well, it surprised me a great deal, and in fact it seriously impacted me. Some of this is likely because I have a warrior wife who in real life overcame some pretty serious childhood trauma and violence, and just became an insanely voracious fighter, fighting more pro fights than any woman on documented record, so already I have lived as an intimate witness of the very subject that is being taken on fictitiously, mythographically...and for that reason it cut to the core of many things I feel and even sense from all these years with Sylvie. And, I happened also to be reading Simone Weil's essay on the Iliad in overlap at one point, you can read that here "Poem of Force". The Iliad is one of my favorite works of all literature and Simone Weil cuts the core of what makes it like no other work. Reading the two at the same time, Red Sonja and Simone Weil's essay, actually allowed me to see a great deal of parallel between the novel and the ancient poem of war, and it just took the novel to another level for me. You can see some of my thought on Red Sonja as novel in this Reddit post and in comments. But now I'm reading back into her character (following the line of fan complaints that rejected Gail Simone's Red Sonja which had removed her chastity vow and her rape origin), and find myself thinking again about the Badass Female Fighter archetype, as it plays within (patriarchial, commercialized) society, something the female professional fighter is always dialogue with. I ran into these feminist objections to the Classic Red Sonja, who was rape and vow defined, in a very good counter argument essay on female Badassery: What is also interesting is that Gail Simone's Red Sonja: Consumed addresses and resolves each of the feminist objections to the Class Sonja, placing her within a different (likely feminist?) response to patriarchial desire. Classic Sonja seems born of First Wave feminism with at Paladin like knightly quality of fighting capacity and the renouncing, at some level, sexual desire - the supernatural key to her martial power. Simone's Sonja, at least in the novel, seems more a 3rd wave resolution where liberty consists of being able to follow desire without judgement. The novel also critiques social "masking", and in its materiality seems to lean into a liberty of action close to what Simone Weil describes of the Iliadic world, a world of dehumanizing forces.

I realized something watching Chatchai with Sylvie yesterday, that the order of action is quite important to unlocking Thai style. The foot moves, the weight transfers, and then the strike comes. The mind, the watching eyes, are only there to stop the strike from coming. It is like the archer who just draws the bow and lets it fly. String, arrow, string, arrow. But then the mind could hold the string and deny the shot if the timing isn't right. This is how Thais develop incredible speed in their retreating counting kicks for instance. The mind is only there to hold or delay the release, but the release comes from the feet, from that very moment the feet feel the weight. In this way, one is actually thinking with one's feet because every time your feet move and there is weight transfer the thought, a sort of itch, comes. The mind, decision-making, in this dynamic only acts as a retardant. The difficulty is that many, especially Westerners to the sport, have a different cycle of action. They instead look with their eyes, and use their Mind as trigger man. The Mind begins the propelling action, which then goes to the feet which are not properly ordered (and very often not all the way down to the feet at all, at the shoulder, or thigh, and then starts the strike. It is too late. The thought cannot begin there. Not only is it slow and behind the action, but duress from using the Mind in this way, as the trigger finger, produces tenseness in the body, and squeezes all the channels. The strike cannot come, and then its slowness produces further mental stress. And more, the Mind itself, that is the decisioning, trigger-mind, is not fast enough to follow action and threat. It can be pressured by an opponent and the unexpected. It can be overwhelmed. This Westernized problem of the mind is sort of "hacked" by the combination, which is a memorized pattern of strikes which take the Mind as decisioning trigger out of their execution...but, they are in their relationship to each other "mindless" in that they are committed-to in their series, and they do not come from thinking feet. Combinations of this sort suffer from many of the same weaknesses, because the are triggered by the decisioning Mind. Not only are they late, they are easily overwhelmed, because their cycle is slow, and the feet are often unorganized. Key, instead, is thinking with the feet, and if thoughts arise from the feet they can also operate in combinations, with the mind delaying timing or shifting strike choice. But the thought, the itch, comes from the feet...which is why moving feet, the shifting of weight, even subtly, is essential for the flow of thoughts. This is likely one of the purposes of the Thai rock, the rhythm. This is a basic tindering of thoughts. There is another lay of this, which any soccer/football player knows. If you are thinking with your feet and weight transfer springs forth thoughts, then the timing of foot movement becomes central. Steps or shifts or thoughts. In this way for instance a Thai will time the backstep in a retreat and counter such that the foot falls precisely at the opportune time of interception of an advancing fighter. This means the Mind as decision-maker has almost no role at all. The foot retreats, with dance-like sensitivity, and the strike comes. The fighter is tantalizingly close, but yet too far for the opponent, and the strike is almost unseeable. But the same is the case for weight transfers in the pocket, the art of boxing is made of this. The speed of this is mimicked in "combos", but memorizing combos are not thinking with the feet. They are just trying to cut the Mind out in their succession. Because thinking with the feet is so important, things like constant shadowboxing such that the feet develop the capacity to think, create and improvise, and light, equipmentless sparring, which is like shadboxing, both are central to building the classic Thai style which is marked by ease of movement and its speed of perception. Below, Yodkhunpon on shadowboxing: These are related thoughts on stress and delay producing "Precision" training Precision – A Basic Motivation Mistake in Some Western Training - In that article the decision cycle is talked about in different terms, tracing the rise of tension in the cycle, which is really linked to the decision-making Mind.

In the introduction this is just a great set up. It frames so many dyads and polarities that it really captures just how (potentially) transformative the training and fight performance is, litoral to these so many binaries. This idealization of the Thai nakmuay body, which in Thai culture is (generally) socially low, but idealized by Western masculinity (which is socially high - in many registers), is a very complex tension, as often the Western body is seeking its own idealization (the Hard Body). And then that these two bodies come in actual contact, in physical conflict, after a period of where the Thai Body is emulated. This is a very important kernel in sought-for authenticity, at least in traveling fighter tourism.

The Holy Grail Quest of the Classic Thai Style Three of the hardest characteristics of Thai style to achieve in a unity. ruup - posture, form, impression, the line you cut sanae - charm, aura, charisma, almost with magical properties ning - being at ease, unaffected, unmoved, undisturbed, relaxed *also, not without irony or comment that this is a Crusades related image

Download the hi-res pdf here: Muay Magazine - November 8th, 1976? pdf download We're not sure about the year, but it looks like 1976. These files sent to us by a supporter collector to share with others. Any comment or translation below is much appreciated.

The three legends of Hapalang gym, 3 photos:

Sylvie politely and obliquely pointing out how insane the brutal knockout bonus is, with illustration of one of the great fighters of Thailand's past:

Because I've mostly studied the Golden Age of Muay Thai and after I'm often of the opinion that "Muay Thai doesn't have combinations"...and this is often true. The use of punches are much more vision driven and creative, and at times very good boxers like Somrak won't even be throwing punches, but will be using boxing's footwork or angle taking. But...if you go back to the 1970s many Muay Thai fighters did use boxing combinations to great effect, perhaps no fighter more than the great Wichannoi who punches with speed and power along a grammar of combination fighting. In fact after watching all his fights last night I think one could say that his entire style is organized around his close range combination Muay Maat attack. It's very clear how important they are to him. Last night I also put this brief edit of a 2-5-2 knockout combination that Saensak used to knockout Wichannoi, which is just electric. It really works because Saensak has a thunderous left that Wichannoi is very wary of and has to commit to shut down. But, in the story of boxing's influence on Thailand's Muay Thai that goes back to at least the 1920s, it does seem that there was a qualitative change between the 1970s, then the 1980s, then the 1990s. It's almost as if Western Boxing was digested by Muay Thai, and its influence became more and more diffused, affecting more and more elements, but also less standing out stylistically through combinations. Golden Age punching styles took on their own unique character, through a widespread integration. One of the interesting things is that because Thailand is becoming combination oriented in its training, with the influence of Westerners and the rise of Entertainment Muay Thai, the Silver Age with its much more distinct combination fighting may be a better touchstone than Golden Age excellence. And Wichannoi in particular perhaps.

It's pretty amazing that ONE has under contract the woman who at least as an argument for being the greatest female Muay Thai fighter of all time -- but hasn't fought a "real" full rules Muay Thai fight for maybe 7 years now -- and they don't even have her fighting their version of "Muay Thai", or have her face their own very qualified female Muay Thai champion...who is having trouble finding opponents. Phetjee Jaa was a VERY good, multi-skilled, every distance Muay Thai fighter before she became an amateur boxer, and then an Entertainment Thai Fight fighter...now in the service of Kickboxing. Properly, Phetjee Jaa should be representing female Muay Thai to the world. It was her true art, that which she was raised in...until she ran out of opponents. Female Muay Thai has historically missed out through her absence. She's not really a Kickboxer, though she can handle the sport and ruleset. She's a Muay Thai fighter.

I think people don't even understand what it was that ONE did. It had almost nothing to do with small gloves, or rulesets or aggression or any of that. It bought up the most developed Thai talent (which was quite cheap, and many past prime) and then poured massive amounts of marketing dollars into taking over comms, and absolutely controlling messaging in very small information ecosystems, squeezing out almost all other content...and used this to create a constant "commercial" of how massive a success it was. They could have done comm control with a totally different combat sport product and have had the very same, if not even better success. It was about manufactured digital footprint. So when Entertainment Muay Thai tries to model itself on ONE promotional rulesets and styles its actually copying the wrong thing. There is some benefit to mirroring the style and ethos that ONE already seeded the ecosystems with, because all that groundwork has been done, and it changed consumption...but it actually wasn't all the aggression, or the scoring kind or even the knockouts. It was much much more about the sizzle and not much to do about the steak. Its actually the systematic control over messaging, from SEO link farming and story planting, to buying up social media sharing circles and influencers, all the narrative shaping. Traditional Muay Thai as a product is probably even MORE amenable as a product than the made up sport that ONE created. It has massive valuation in terms of depth of complexity (deeper retention investment), historical material (narratives to be driven), and overall skill level. Trad Muay Thai as it bent toward Entertainment versions has copied the wrong thing.

Well that was quite a noble effort from Mongkutpet, defending her Raja belt with extreme vigor. I love how amped she was by the entire fight, no "performance". And forcing the clinch in a low-clinch promotion. Just force the break over and over and over. Steer the fight. Very nice stuff.

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.

2. The star boy right now for Petchyindee's Muay Dek is Petch25 T.N.DiamondHome. Khunsueklek is his idol, as he's Khon Kaen as well

I'm not sure where Fani Peloumpi trains nowadays - might be that she still gives privates at MTA academy which is quite central. I would contact her on facebook, as we did. We enjoyed our privates with her. Luckily, in my experience in Thailand, the pads are held by Thai trainers who have control and no need to use strength to show off, so my main worry would be rather to avoid touristy gyms near where half the people training there are mainly concerned with getting the right shots for their social media. If you stay for one month, i would try out different gyms and see which fits best. Getting different experiences and approaches would be a plus, in my opinion, and Bangkok is like a candy store in that regard. Add to that a few privates e.g. with Namsaknoi, or any trainers at established gyms such as Sasiprapa, Petchyindee, Kaewsamrit, Eminent Air, Luktupfah.

from my reddit share of the above graphic: This map provides a speculative zoomed-out view of how provincial village Muay Thai gambling markets, which were something like a Galapagos of localized market selections, connected up to some very large global trade influences in Siam and then Thailand. The great cultures of India and China (and others) were intimately connected to Siam through cosmopolitan centers (like Ayutthaya), and rural populations regularly (seasonally so) cycled through these city and town centers. You can read about the logic of local gambling markets and their (possible) creation of the Muay Thai aesthetics here. The idea in this graphic is to position those "islanded", somewhat isolated processes to the churn of population movement, and wider international trade. This is to say, Thailand's Muay Thai likely has long been at the shoreline of internationalism, but also has retained an isolated, generative rural "reserve" that anchored its identity and insulated it from change. This is leaving aside (due to space on the graphic, but also to emphasize what is often missed) the more common explanations of source and influence, the Khmer Empire (which was an Indianized culture), and the Burmese, Lao, etc. This is represented instead by the "permeable" boundaries arrows.

Zooming out my kind of rough-sketch evolutionary dynamics of Siam/Thai Muay Thai, over the last maybe 500 years. One of the factors of Siam/Thailand is that land worked something like "sea". There was a LOT of it (much more than population which was sparse) and it was hard to traverse (other than waterways). This set up Galapagos-like islandings of local market dynamics, around festival fight rings. But, through seasonal population capture and relocation, and then corvee labor cycles, these festival islands were continually churned back toward city (trade) centers, and martial service (structuring)...which in turn was exposed to quite vast international influence/cross-pollination. You had flows of trade from across the civilized world, cosmopolitanism, martial service, and then constant cyclical return to village micro market ring dynamics, a return to Galapagos variability and selection creation.

I've been exploring ultrawides for a while, though basically drawn to them since I started shooting Muay Thai though I didn't know how to use them. There was always the sense that I wanted to weave together very different focal lengths. Since shooting with the Contax which I really love, on a bigger sensor format I've been drawn further in. So here is an experiment, using keyframes, big contrast video and telephoto images, to capture the mood and energy of a training session with Chatchai. This is was just a sketch from a single very quick shoot (I think 3 very short videos, maybe 100 still frames shot), maybe 5 minutes of photography altogether. I wanted it to be very bare bones to see if I could whip up an energy and feeling that I could maybe use on a larger project. The short is much aided by the music by Anand who I'm working with on a big, experimental writing project. wh

There is a compelling line of development in my thought, a new/different way to relate to the past which is not reactionary. More in the piece on Bergson. This joins together the psychodynamics of our personal history to even thoughts about Muay Thai's past, the relevance of the Golden Age and it's own past, a fundament of how we perceive the value and resource of the past. When we have championed the Golden Age of Muay Thai for instance a few have pushed strongly back seeing this as "nostalgic" (refusing "growth" or "modernization"), even some intelligent ones pointing out that we don't want to return to a time of repressive social structures, power-abuse, deep income disparities across the nation. All worthy ideas of critique. But what fails to come across is that the past has deposits of tremendous knowledge which was born out of the distress, just as experiences of personal trauma produce lessons and guidance, capacities. It does not mean that one should live in constant distress. It is rather that the richness of experience, the attainment of new capacities (in the past), may powerfully inform the present.

If you wanted to avoid tourist areas in the south then you could look at Nakhon Si Thammarat or Phatthalung. I haven't visited either, so can't recommend any gyms, but Nakhon Si Thammarat city is supposed to be nice and there's meant to be nice beaches up the coast

Lessons in Narrative I love this fight from January New Power soooo much. It explains why in trad scoring you can't just add up "points" or count "damage". It's almost entirely symbolic control. Dodo starts telling his "story" right away, and its the same story the whole fight: "Your strikes don't matter, they have no effect on me, I'm coming". He doesn't rush, he only ups the metronome in a few decisive points in the fight, he is entirely dictating, and it doesn't stop. And the fight is very easy to follow in terms of dramatic narrative: Will he break through? Will he do "enough"? When he reversed direction (after getting his head snapped back by a punch in the 5th and giving a bit of a humorous head shake), after so much stalking...and Blue follows giving chase, his few moments of femeu slipperiness swing the scoring hard. After landing endless strikes Blue is suddenly out of it. There's no "KO", there's no highlight reel moment. He's taking head kicks glancing off the dome and high scoring mid-kicks. It's all tempo and imposition. Dodo Kor. Sakpairin (red) vs Liam Petch Captain Ken Boxing Gym (blue) watch it here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/muaythaiphotolifeideas/posts/3432943350176138/

Watching yet another very skilled Japanese Muay Thai fighter on Phetyindee the other day, I remain convinced - very broadly - that though Japanese fighters definitely hold the Thais, in fact Thailand's Muay Thai, in allure, they principally train in the aesthetic of Anime. This is to say, they are guided by a visual aesthetic that almost entirely forgets the art of Time, which is where almost all the art of Muay Thai is. They honestly, at some very deep level, "doing" Anime, which isn't Muay Thai at all.

You get some of this in the somewhat wide shot of Ali's famous "What's My Name?" photo vs Ernie Terrell (1967). You need the rest of the "world" to feel the meaning of this moment. You need the composition including the white faces of photographers, you need the darkness of the crowd. The eye does go immediately to his asserting face, but it also swims around, settling on the prone opponent. It's hard to get these kinds of shots (and this one is once in a 100 years). But cameras in the day forced a development of compositional focus. Thinking and seeing in wide requires using wide.

Can anyone reccomend best privates in Bangkok ?

Here the isolation and luminosity of the figures. Giving a psychology of study.

And here dramatic action, Chatchai instructing with his inimitable simplicity of directional force, a Socrates of movement...

If... you are not your thoughts a fighter is not their strikes.

The Top 10 Greatest Muay Thai Fighters Updated Saenchai and Samson tied for 10th...

I was legit sad to see Rajadamnern do away with the lighting they had, with the checkerboard, because it allowed me to take some of my best photos ever. I just loved this photoshoot. It gave such a sculptural light. But, this informal shot (sorry I don't know who took it) from the new lighting shows that there can be some very dramatic photography in the stadium. I hope I get to shoot there again with the new lighting. Props to whomever made the bold move, from something that was already a strength of the stadium, pushing for something that might be better.

What farang authoritative convo was like in 2006-7, training Muay Thai in Thailand, interesting to read through. As a sidenote, apparently Fairtex has been "reconditioning" older Thai fighters with "modern" training (including being trained by an "ex Mr. Universe, being given "scientific nutrition such as post workout protien/carb drink etc"), moving some of them up weight classes so they can fight Westerners for over two decades at least. The Entertainment recipe has had legs there. some of the back and forth, the whole thing interesting. the link is here, I got a minor virus warning on it when I posted it so click over on your own caution. It wasn't a problem for me: www.defend.net/deluxeforums/forum/martial-arts/thaiboxing-and-kickboxing/21237-training-camps

Hello Kevin, thanks for your response. I appreciate it. I didn't know all fights were considered "pro" in Thailand. I am 6'0" 185lb with athletic build. I'm not sure if the average Thai is that big, so I guess if I were to have any match, it would be against another foreigner? I'm glad to hear that a month would be a suitable period of time. I work full time as a CNA in a hospital, so it's hard to get long stretches of vacation time off. Agree with your advice on developing mental and physical toughness to make the first fight more manageable. So many great gyms in Thailand--hard to pick which one to train at!

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.

Hi, this might be out of the normal topic, but I thought you all might be interested in a book-- Children of the Neon Bamboo-- that has a really cool Martial Arts instructor character who set up an early Muy Thai gym south of Miami in the 1980s. He's a really cool character who drives the plot, and there historically accurate allusions to 1980s martial arts culture. However, the main thrust is more about nostalgia and friendships. Can we do links? Childrenoftheneonbamboo.com Children of the Neon Bamboo: B. Glynn Kimmey: 9798988054115: Amazon.com: Movies & TV