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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.

Speculatively, it seems likely that the real "warfare roots" of ring Muay Thai goes back to all the downtime during siege encampment, (and peacetime) Ayutthaya's across the river outer quarters. One of the earliest historical accounts of Siamese ring fighting is of the "Tiger King" disguising himself and participating in plebeian ring fighting. This is not "warfare fighting" and goes back several hundred years. One can imagine that such fighting would share some fighting principles with what occurred on the battlefield, but as it was unarmed and likely a gambling driven sport it - at least to me - likely seems like it has had its very own lineage of development. Less was the case that people were bringing battlefield lessons into the ring, and more that gambled on fighting skills developed ring-to-ring. In such cases of course, developing balance and defensive prowess would be important. Incidentally, any such Ayutthaya ring-to-ring developments hold the historical potential for lots of cross-pollination from other fighting arts, as Ayutthaya maintained huge mercenary forces, not only from Malaysia and the cusp of islands, but even an entire Japanese quarter, not to mention a strong commercially minded Chinese presence. These may have been years of truly "mixing" fighting arts in the gambling rings of the city (it is unknown just how separatist each culture was in this melting pot, perhaps each kept to their own in ring fighting).

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.

There is a very strange thing happening. Waves of affluent tourism are being sent to what really is a Low Caste art and sport. Many do not realize that Thailand's society is still somewhat an operational, invisible caste system, itself formed from Siam's own, once widespread slavery and indentured servitude. The ironic thing is that some of Muay Thai's most beautiful, meaningful traditions of meaning - the things that lift it from just being a rationalized combat sport, or entertainment violence, and very likely also what made Thailand's nakmuay so incredibly effective as fighters - themselves are woven into and from that invisible caste system. It is quite extraordinary that this lower caste art and sport is becoming gentrified by both hi-so internationism and government tourism ambitions. That the sport itself is being altered so that the affluent can win, and so that traditions (and aspects of invisible caste) will be eroded. I'm not sure anything like this has ever happened before in history, I can't think of an immediate parallel. When (relatively) affluent adventure tourists attempt to partake directly in "traditional" Muay Thai they are crossing many invisible lines in the culture. A (relatively) high status person is trying to enter a low status position, blind to even the nature of "status".

There is a mode of perception that developing Thais have less of today. Ever notice how your Thai trainer can humorously imitated exactly what you are doing wrong in an exaggerated way? How they can cartoonize the body. This likely comes out of the mode of learning itself back in the day, the way that "ruup" (form) was a mode of education and emulation. Intelligent, affective projection and modeling, in play, was how the art was communicated. With today's attention spans, difference in motivations, and really radically different Gaze Economies in gyms, this channel of development is highly diminished. It's a lost skill of perception. The rationalization of the sport, the mechanization and abstraction of the sport certainly doesn't help in this, because the sense of embodied "aura" has been lost. And Westerners enter the sport largely from this other direction, meeting the new gen of Thais in the middle, far from where the sport and art developed and was passed between persons.

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

I'm creating a separate thread post for the pdf of this article and bookmarking its discussion. The pdf is attached, but you can currently find it here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0966369X.2025.2523893#abstract I beat a Thai performing white masculinity in Thailand s Muay Thai fighting tourism.pdf << There have been a fair amount of ethnographic papers on Muay Thai, often organized around an academic or student's lengthy stay in Thailand, training and sometimes fighting, and honestly this it by far the best I've read. It's kind of two papers in one. There is the philosophical framework of the introduction and the conclusion, that is absolute excellent and a bit conceptually ground breaking, and then there is the "field study" which for those of us who have been around Thailand's Muay Thai for a long time may read less interestingly, even if they make up much the substance of the study. The views of traveling fighters compose the mixed-culture subject matter. But this is my personal sense, and is just the manner of this kind of paper and follows with this kind of field work observation. For me the paper really soars when its at its most philosophical. screen caps like this are great: and and When the author brings together race and gender together with Colonialism it is really driving hard on the right line of inquiry (I would say). An important thing that is missing is that Thailand's Muay Thai is itself a hypermasculinity performance, which you can find in this section of Peter Vail's dissertation, so really what we have is the differential of at least TWO hypermasculinities coming into contact. The author is great at pointing out how emulation is the process of becoming, as well as the process of sought for (racial) domination. A very slippery Colonialist slope indeed. The author's instincts are so strong here I really wish they had teased out their intuited arguments further (maybe there is another paper for this), because this is a much needed discourse in Thailand's tourism Muay Thai, and in fact traditional Muay Thai itself. But I'm dropping this article here because I hope to return to its framing philosophical picture and perhaps write deeper into it.

In this mix of conflicting Bodies of race, class and valorized ideals - literal bodies clashing - is the larger context, aside from what may have been the author's experience, that larger bodied Westerners are pitted against lighter bodied Thais (in the purported scale of fairness), and that since COVID under the imperatives of Soft Power a new ruleset style, "Entertainment" Muay Thai, has pervaded, which is designed for the somewhat explicit purpose for the Westerner to win fights. That is, in the balance of emulation that the author outlines, the way that fights are actually being fought and scored has been skewed against the demands of emulation itself, not without Colonialist overtures, especially in topography of the article. This is to say, changing the rules takes some pressure off of promoters and gyms to arrange "dives" to ensure the positive experience of emulative transformation. Now Muay Thai, larger bodied, can be fought in a more Western style, favoring Western skills. At minimum this further contrasts or perhaps complexifies accounts of danced-off 5th rounds, as signatures of authenticity.

Photos from the more solemn moments of Wai Kru at the legend Namkabuan's funeral ceremony, two of the greatest who fought Dieselnoi and Pudpadnoi. The spar itself can mix the solemn, the spectacle of respect and conflict, and even humor, but the weight of the moment is always there, with everyone. In this way all of Life is embodied in the display of the art and sport.

Never sure about provenance, but below is a photograph marked as a Funeral Fight for Marupongsiripat (1898). This custom reaches back well over 100 years, and to Thai royalty. The establishment of the 3 Schools of Muay Boran (just before the decade when Muay Thai would be modernized on the model of British Boxing) also occurred through funeral matches.

Yodkhunpon visits PK Saenchai every Thursday, so you could be connected to him there, but I suspect the work you could do with him is much more thorough in private sessions in Pattaya, where he lives. Clinch is gyms is very hard to assess, because opportunity can depend on what size you are. If you are large bodied probably clinching with other Westerners would be what you require (but you'll not be training as much against skilled Thais, who know the art at a deeper level, which is important because a lot of clinch learning is through osmosis). We haven't been up to the (new) Lanna yet, but it does seem fighter-centric.

The three legends of Hapalang gym, 3 photos:

This is my wild guess about the possible future of ONE with the rumored loss of both big investors and Amazon Prime: My take...I suspect it will morph into a significantly contracted phase that is something the Thai gov will support as part of its Soft Power commitments which will somewhat balance out the loss of big investors. There may even be rule changes to bend a bit closer to trad elements (maybe glove changes? maybe a touch more clinch?); guessing there will be a significant downgrade of top end pay and bonus rates, and probably significant cuts into the all-important marketing budget too. It will fall more in line with Entertainment offerings like Thai Fight and RWS. The challenge is the struggle over the shrinking Thai talent pool, which is also no longer producing transcendent talents like Superlek and Nong-O, and how it will compete against other Entertainment promotions without big top end pay and bonuses (I believe RWS revenues were reported as much as 6x ONE's in Thailand). It may have difficulty continuing to snipe the high level names produced by other promotions. It still has a well-built-out, massive digital media footprint in a very small info ecosystem and that proven strategy, and has secured a place in the Thai combat sport imagination, two very big assets.

Was thinking about a commenter telling another redittor that they were "elitist" for not liking ONE FC, and preferring trad Muay Thai, the absolute irony of them thinking that a new globalized version of the traditional form of the sport (a sport which has been practiced and fought by the working poor throughout Thailand for at least a century, in some ways MADE by the rural nakmuay), a new commodity version which has been invented by hi-so wealthy, "elite" Thais, wealthy sons who went to school in very expensive schools in the United States, a new sport modeled in the Thai high-brow love of MMA (MMA is a Thai hi-so taste in Thailand, because originally you needed a satellite dish to watch it, so only rich young people watched it back in the day), so completely born of Thai elite taste making, and then funded massively, to the tune of more than a Half a BILLION dollars, by wealthy Arab investment and other very elite Venture Capital investment groups, some of the most powerful investment sources in the world...all of that, absolutely about as elitist as you can get, reinventing the traditional sport, inverting pretty much all of its values, in the image of wealth itself, so that affluent tourists and consumers will buy it...but, if you don't like it...you are elitist. The whole thing is about as posh as you can get.

Heard backstage at a trad promotion in Bangkok, Dieselnoi loudly complaining that Thais don't know how to knee anymore, nobody even knees to hurt. Just kneeing for show and points. *This isn't a question of intensity (how hard), its one of technique, and continuity. The knee techniques of Hapalang gym have just been largely lost.

Thats so upsetting. Whats worse is that its a conscious action for them to have go about fighting like this. While for lots of us in the states or Europe where fighting is just like this anyway its just how you do it, we dont even make the conscious action of how much power you're putting into something, what follows after, and our own composure. It shifts energy away from ones self which is why it seems to muster up so much of the ego in the first place. Self attachment through the reaction of others and the materiality of power is really self degradation.

In the aftermath of the Muangkutpet vs Duangdaonoi belt fight interestingly on a page that feeds a lot of ONE viewership comment, you get a negative comment on Duangdaonoi for continuously retreating back to the rope: This is one of the subtle sadnesses of the ONE influence on trad Muay Thai. Duangdaonoi actually was a pretty high level fast-twitch femeu female trad fighter (Sylvie fought her many years ago and got bloodied quite badly). Her skill set trended towards accurate, fast femeu counters and the management of distance. One of the telling changes in her style is the attempt to visually sell-out on every single strike, to throw it as hard as possible, even with some dramatic "umph" to it. One suspects the reason behind this really is likely the entire aggro affect change that ONE has brought to the sport that has rung out across the rings and promotions of Thailand. You want this kind of aesthetic "violence" being expressed (which is really quite contrary to the trad rhythmed expression of control and SOME punctuated violence or explosion at the right time). She seems to have changed her muay to fit the aesthetic (and in throwing with so much intensity over and over, probably lost a lot of accuracy). But...this is the thing...its not enough for the Thai ONE fandom crowd. They want not only fulltime 120% striking, they want you to continuously coming forward. They want trade, trade, trade. It's actually amazing how much Duangdaonoi has modified her style to fit into the new highlight-driven versions of the sport, and least to my eye. She used to feature a few explosive reverse elbows in a fight, but the majority of her style was distance control and fight management, a careful art of space, coupled with a very difficult to defend lead (openside) kick, which she would double or even triple up on. Now we get a fighter who could possibly throw 20 elbows. She seems to be trying to give the new fans what they want. She was in the lowest weight class so she wasn't going to be a "power" fighter in style, but clearly she's made herself physically much stronger. Big, full-bodied clinch throws. But its never enough for Thai ONE-inspired fans. They want that red meat. Mongkutpet on the other hand had brilliant, old school approach that was distinctly ANTI trade. Don't trade at any cost. She basically fought with the old Dieselnoi approach, in long guard and bouncing, teeping lead leg. Long I've argued that the way that Thais can beat "Entertainment" ONE style fighters, especially foreign ones, is to just refuse to trade. Mongkutpet just marched Duangdaonoi to the ropes...and then ground out a win with her height and some knees. This is the perfect anti-trading approach to opponents. Fight the fight where you have your advantages. But really I'm posting here about how its never enough for the new Muay Thai fan. It wasn't enough that Duangdaonoi threw everything with all her might. She has to march forward and trade. She has to fight "like a foreigner". This is just more combo-itis that is spreading like an invasive species. Duangdaonoi fought with tremendous heart, and to the best of her abilities threw with as much Entertainment style as she could. She put all of it out there. Back To the Ropes Art I should of course also add, retreating back to the rope is the Hallmark of Thai combat sport superiority. The greatest fighters in Thai history did much of their work back at the rope. If you want a prime example, check my notes on Somrak vs Boonlai:

Here is something else I wrote that could help with understanding the notion of authenticity in Thailand: How Traditional Muay Thai is Taught Much Differently Than in the West There is a bit of Philosophy in this, it may not be everyone's cup of tea. Posting these ideas here if only for diversity in the way Thailand's Muay Thai can be discussed and appreciated. Traditional Muay Thai (as practiced in Thai camps, kaimuay) is probably best understood as developed through a horizontal, communal process rather than top-down instruction. Instead of rigidly copying an ideal form, developing fighters sync with the group — a kind of shared rhythm or “group mimesis”— which allows for individual expression within collective coherence. Everyone’s technique (like a kick) is different but still resonates with the camp's shared feeling or aesthetic, a pulling toward a social gravity like synchronizing metronomes (video linked below). This more organic, culturally embedded process contrasts with many Western pedagogies, where fighters often perform near-identical techniques due to top-down coach correction, emphasizing biomechanical uniformity. In contrast, Thai camps foster diverse, but affectively aligned, and culturally embedded technical expression—a development perhaps more akin to inner-city basketball or favela soccer, where skills develop in peer-based, play-oriented ecosystems. To be sure kaimuay are very hierarchized status environments, something visiting Westerners may not notice, but a peer and play based dynamic is essential. The nature of this more organic quality poses resistance to the exportation of traditional techniques into abstracted, idealized biomechanical forms governed by a correcting authority. (In Philosophy this critique is mirrored by Gilles Deleuze's rejection of Platonism—opposing the notion of a perfect form with imperfect copies.) Instead, trad kaimuay Muay Thai preserves a virtual/actual dynamic where technique emerges from shared affects and a communal environment, not a replication of a form. Karuhat’s unique kick that we filmed in slow motion is a good case study—its essence can’t be reproduced by biomechanical mimicry alone, as it developed through years of communal, affective practice, as well as extensive development in rings. Our video documentation may transmit aspects of it, but its soul lies in communal resonance, not biomechanical approximation. So, the only way into this kick is through feeling. you can click through to the notes on this, which includes some of the video reference. These points were made through ongoing conversations I'm having with a biologist/philosopher who studies biology through Deleuze and Simondon.

What many do not appreciate is that much of Thailand's traditional Muay Thai is really a Shield and Sword style of fighting, because of its inherent priority of defense. Offense largely is built off of the dexterous use of "shield". Entertainment Muay Thai is essentially turning to Muay Thai's Shield and Sword and saying: "Hey, fight without a Shield!"...but still make it "Muay Thai". You can't really. It's Shield and Sword.

This story is about mastering energy, and focus on the few techniques that will bring it forward. The Unexpected. Sylvie put together her commentary on Fight 285. The fight is a beautiful example of two huge things that determine a fair number of fights: Energy and technique. One of the things that had a shaping impact on this fight was that when we travel like this, Ronin style, just quite far into rings that are on the outer edge of Thailand, far from the tourism Muay Thai, there is a wonderful kind of freedom from the politics of expectation, and by that I mean the sort of self-judgement that a fighter can bring in fear of disappointing others. In this fight it felt like we were traveling all the way to the Moon, ready to fight all renegade style (Sylvie in fact was booked to fight a Boxing fight back in Bangkok the next day, we would have to get in the car and drive all night to just make the Boxing fight with a few hours to spare, so just a tremendous old style adventure). But Yodkhunpon, who had never been to any of Sylvie's fights before, but had sparred with her pretty much daily for 5+ years, just shows up at the venue as we are ready to lay our mat down, unannounced. He's perfect and wonderful, but it was a huge deflation in that fight freedom and mission, with almost a depressive effect, at least as much as I could feel. It's like you went and climbed a far off mountain nobody climbs, and your best buddy is sitting there at the summit "Hey!" - totally unexpected, and even though great, completely antithetical to what you had mentally prepared for. We were ready for a marathon run of two fights, the greatest challenge of which wasn't the fights themselves - it was the tons and tons of driving, and lots of exhaustion - but suddenly it was a Pop Quiz on a single fight late in the night - Yodkhunpon had no idea Sylvie was fighting back in Bangkok the next afternoon. She wasn't running a 10K, she was running an Ultra that nobody knew about. The mission was: drive 8 hours into the night, sit several of hours on a mat, fight, drive 8 hours through the night back to Bangkok and get to a hotel maybe around 10 am, fight the Boxing fight around 2 pm, two fights in 26 hours 1000+ km of driving (it was an off coincidence that she had been double booked, and decided to honor it). She can fight like that back to back because she carries very little mental baggage with her when she does. It's just like a machine, a runner that gets into her cadence. She just puts her head down and fights free. So, it was a very difficult mental test record scratch. Suddenly the mind is not on the fight, or really more the long term mission, its on this unexpected change, a new focus. I could feel her deflation. I'm very sure that Yodkhunpon was just offering huge support, because fighting without entourage is a definite cultural no-no in Thailand, nobody does it, and it signals only weakness. But, this is the beauty of fighting so much. You discover these mental challenges that arise out of nothing. (Yodkhunpon also showed up unexpected on the mat laydown 2 fights later in Buriram at Fight 287, to every different effect, as Sylvie was already fighting under Therdkiat and was geared for that kind of relation.) Secondly, Sylvie's outside grabs just killed any momentum and intensity should could muster (fighting that unexpected deflation). Outside position means that you have to work immediately to try and get to a positive position, so you are never imposing yourself upon entry. This means running up hill to start every engagement in the clinch, a serious energy/momentum drain. The combination of the two of these, the emotional energy, the weaker technical entries (and the skill of the opponent) just made this a very steep grade to climb. Add in the cuts (which swung the score) and its an near impossible elevation. And in fact Sylvie's grit and experience gave her a great performance under those conditions. She pulled enough together that if there wasn't the cuts and the score swing she still was right there. On the other hand the cuts of course were a technical focus and achievement by her opponent, lifting her out of a battle into a open lane. So props. I do think that a different mindset, without the unexpected reversal of the mental landscape, would have made the difference here. Sylvie's an extremely experienced fighter who can ride through pretty much anything unexpected, and she rode through this, but it was an incredibly unusual event, two very rare things coming together. Your long time legend sparring partner shows up to corner you 500 km from where you expect he is, no word that's he's coming, for the first time ever appearing at a fight of yours...just as you are attempting a fight ultra that needs to be extremely streamlined emotionally. She did kind of fantastic in this equation, but took 7 stitches for it. But, the main focus of my commentary here more is the way that individual techniques and broad scale "energy" shapes connect up together to determine fights. The energy and tempo of a fighter can be undermined or amplified by small technical things. Inside grabs can become accelerants just when you need them to lift you. I also thought that Sylvie fought great in the 5th round. She minimized it because of fight context and that she had refused to chase the win, but she actually was out timing a timing fighter, and seemed to find some special internal rhythms that got her clicking...not for this fight, but for layers of future fights, something to tap into. Sometimes in a fight - especially in a career of hundreds of fights - where you have to explore a space, even if it doesn't serve victory just then and there. There is no replicating the ring, even in sparring.

Here is some private discussion traditional Muay Thai description which helped develop this parable of the Guitar. The challenge, from a philosphical sense, but also from an ethnographic sense, is to explain the diversity and sophistication of technique and style that arises in the Thai kaimuay, without much Top Down instruction. Here appealing to Simondon's theory of Individuation. But...in the Muay Thai (traditional) example, you actually are learning through a communal resonance with your peers, everyone else in the camp. Through a group memesis. It's not a direct relationship to the "music" per se, between you as an individual and an "experience" It's horizontal... how the person next to you is experiencing/expressing the music and relating to the authority and the work. I've compared it to syncing metronomes. youtu.be/Aaxw4zbULMs?... the communal form of the kaimuay (camp) brings together a communication of aesthetic, technical excellence, in which there is very little or NO top down direct control or shaping. young fighters sync up with the communal form, which actually also involves an incredible amount of diversity. Everyone kicking on a bag in a traditional setting has a DIFFERENT kick, because they haven't been "corrected" from the top down... But all the kicks in the gym have a kind of sync'd up quality, something that goes beyond a biomechanical consistency. There is a tremendous Virtual / Actual individuation dynamic that I think you would vibe on. This is what gives trad Muay Thai so much of its diversity. So much of its expression. It's because of its horizontal, communal learning through mimesis and a kind of perspective-ism If you go into a Western Muay Thai gym all the kicks on the bag, from all the students/fighters will be the SAME kick. With some doing it better or worse, with more "error" or less than others. In a trad Thai gym all the kicks are different. ...but, its hard to describe...because they all express some "inner" thing that holds them together. Maybe the same thing can be seen in other sports, like inner city basketball or favela football/soccer, things that have a kind of "organic" lineage. They hold together because they are a cultural form that is developed in horizontal context and comparisons with peers (not Top Down), but everyone has their own "game". It is very diverse. When people try to "export" knowledge from these, let's call them "organic", contexts, processes, not only are things "abstracted" (often biomechanically, traced into fixed patterns), but they are also exported with Top Down authority which channels and exacts "faithfullness" to some isolate quality. I think this is Deleuze's main issue with Platonism. The idea that there is a "form" and then "copies" which are more or less faithful. This, I'd argue, is actually something that prevails in "export" (outside of a developmental milieu), under conditions of abstraction (and perhaps exploitation). This is the "cut". 6:29 PM Here is a video where we slow motion filmed the kick of Karuhat, one of the greatest kickers in Thai history. We not only filmed him, but also Sylvie trying to learn through imitation. He is the only person who has this kick, in all its individuation. You cannot get this kick by just imitating it...(in person, Sylvie) or as a user practicing it from the video. It was developed in a virtuality of the kaimuay, by him. But, in documenting it...some (SOME!) aspects of it are transmitted forward. ...its a kick that is very different than many Western versions of the "Thai Kick" The keys to it are about a feeling, an affect array perhaps, and its uniqueness came out of the shared "metronome" of the traditional gym, the horizontal community of training, which also produced other kicks of the same "family of resemblance" (as Wittgenstein would say) Ultimately, its preservation is about returning to the instruction of a "feeling"...but also highlighting that the kick itself came out of a mutuality of feeling, and not a Top Down instruction. It's much closer to something like all the diversity of qualities of different pro surfers, who learned to surf not only one-to-one on individual waves, but in communities of surfers who would all go to one spot, and kind of cross-pollinate, compete in a mutuality (non-formally), steal and borrow from each other, a milieu. Not because there was some kind of Top Down authority of "how to surf" or "what exact techniques to use", or because there was an ideal "form" and a lot of error'd versions of it copying it. Almost everything that Sylvie produces is Sylvie learning through imitation and FAILING before the living example, because what we are actually documenting is not the Ideal vs the bad copy...but rather the actual, embodied, lived relationship that integrates oneself with another, converging in communication. She is "copying", but that's not really it. It's about syncing up, and the material/psychological relationship between two people, which smooths over the biomechanical "copy", and fills in some of the affects. But...this mutuality is really also artificial, because its one-to-one, and this isn't how Muay Thai technique is transmitted. It's developed in community. One-to-many. Many-to-one.

This is just a very detailed collection that gives overview of the scene of Muay Dek, something very few non-Thais even know much about. If anyone finds other Muay Dek fights to share we'd love to have them in the thread.

This one way kid got screwed over a bit

7. One from Kiatpetch, my kid got destroyed by this one once and I never forgot the name. Probably the best Muay Dek Kiatpetch got right now. Vellfire Rotsuayjajetsaipriw

I'd add to the list The TDet99 gym in Bangkok which we recently film in for the Muay Thai Library (Kru Hem), watch that here: It's a Bangkok kaimuay, a gambling stadium trad gym, with not a lot of Westerners (last we checked), and a top kru. A Walk Through of the Gym: Map link to their location

As Thailand's Muay Thai more and more turns its face toward the World and the West increasingly those coming to Thailand to seek out, experience, train in, fight in, even commit to and honor authentic Muay Thai will have a hard time finding it. In this brief article I want to point out the two biggest areas of difficulty. Keep in mind, I'm writing this from the perspective of having witnessed my wife who has fought more times in Thailand than any non-Thai in history, coming up on 300 times, as a fighter who has steered as clear as possible from aspects of the sport which are arranged or made for you, and become perhaps the foremost documentarian of the sport and art. Everything I describe is from often repeated things we've encountered, found ourselves in, worked through, and what we've learned from the experiences of others. Importantly, pretty much everyone who has been in the country a long time has their own experience and understanding of authenticity, and this is just ours. Thai culture, and Muay Thai culture is also a very complex and woven thing, it is not homogeneous or made in one way, so these are benchmark ideas and there are many exceptions. Authenticity, that which is not made for us. 1. Increasingly Thailand's Muay Thai is made FOR you One of the first challenges is honestly that of recognition. Because Thailand is so culturally different, and Thailand gym training not that of than Western and international gyms, whatever you are experiencing is going to feel authentic. Its authenticity will come through in everything that is different. It must be authentic because I'm not used to this. And because we can only judge from our own experiences, and from what we see and read, this is difficult to overcome. After 3 months in the country you are going to feel like you have really penetrated to the heart of something really new. After a year, you really will feel like you know what's going on, and if you have gravitated toward "authenticity" you'll probably feel like you are in a pretty "real" place. My caution is: Nope. You probably don't realize how much of Muay Thai has been turned toward YOU. And if it wasn't turned towards you, you wouldn't be participating in it. This is going to sound harsh, but pretty much ALL Western/International Muay Thai experiences are something like an elephant ride. The elephant (Muay Thai) is very real, and there is great privilege and beauty in being on an elephant. You're touching a living, breathing, REAL elephant...but you are on an elephant ride, made FOR you. Now, there are all sorts of elephant rides. There is the one where they walk in a circle and you get off, and another where you bathe and then bareback like a "real mahout" would, and then maybe all the way up to 10 day safaris, trekking on elephant back (is there such a thing?). But it's still an elephant ride. You get in the ring, its real...even if its arranged for you, its intense and real. You hit the bag, you burn the kilometers in road work, its real. This isn't to say anything is inauthentic. All of Muay Thai in Thailand will change you. This is about reaching, as passionate people will, those aspects of the sport and art that are unique to Thailand itself, that may fall from view as Thailand turns its face toward you. The Rules, For You How do I mean this? The rules of the sport have been changed so that you (in a less skilled way) will win fights, or perform well in fights you might not otherwise in the traditional Thai version of the sport (there is a full spectrum of this, stretching from RWS entertainment Muay Thai to ONE smash and clash). This is a fairly recent transformation, covering perhaps the last 10 years. The sport itself has been altered for you...and, as it has been altered for you, this also has washed back onto trad Bangkok stadium Muay Thai, which has absorbed many of the entertainment qualities which are pervading social media and gambling sites. In some sense the "authentic" traditional Muay Thai of Thailand doesn't really exist in promotional fight form anywhere in the halo that tourist and adventure tourist has reached. It's just a question of degree. The issues and influences behind this in trad stadium Muay Thai are more complex than this, but it too has turned its face towards "the foreigner". Some of this is just what people like to call "progress" or "the force of the market place" or others might call the "deskilling of Capitalism", but just know that in the fights themselves, they are by degrees turned towards YOU. It really might only be in the festival fight circuits of the provinces where you will still will find the culture and aesthetics of the sport and art FOR Thais. To be sure in festival fights there can be matchups that favor a larger foreign student of a local gym, which has relationship ties with the local promoter, especially if there is no sidebet. But the EVENT isn't for you, designed around you, catering to you or people like you. You're the oddity, and the rulesets and aesthetics have been less altered if at all. The Training, For You On a deeper level, the training in gyms is also made FOR you. The traditional pedagogy of Muay Thai, the manner in which it was developed through youthful circuit sidebet fighting, the kaimuay culture of non-correction and group dynamic sharing of a grown aesthetic, has been seriously eroded, supplemented and sometimes just outright replaced. You are (likely) not learning in the manner of the Thais that produced such acute excellence so many decades ago. Yes, there will be obvious things like farang krus and padmen in some gyms (many of them quite devoted to Muay Thai, but not produced by the subculture), something that is increasing in the sport, but, subtly, even if your padman is Thai, he may not even be an experienced ex-fighter, as mid-so Thais are holding pads now in the growing commercialization. Muay Thai is experiencing a gentrification and an internationalization at the gym level. Beyond padmen, the very manner of instruction and fighter development will have been changed in some sense for you. For one, increasingly you'll notice "combo" training, memorized strike patterns, which is both a deskilling of the sport (making it easier to teach, replicate and export), but also is training that is geared towards the new Entertainment trade-in-the-pocket patterns and aesthetics, made for tourists and online fandom. The change in the rules of the sport over the last 7 years or so, also is reflected in a change in how the sport is actually taught...even in spaces that feel VERY Thai. The sport is bending to the "combo" because it is signature to Western and international fighting aesthetics, and it can be taught by less skilled/experienced coaches. Fighters did not train like that, nor did they fight like that. As the sport has become deskilled the combo has taken an increasingly important role. Added to this, gyms have had to accommodate the expectations of Westerners and other non-Thais, as the weakening of the sport economically has turned almost every gym in the tourism halo towards at least a hybrid relationship to tourism...it needs to give the Westerner something they recognize and expect...and, because tourists and adventure tourist come with all sorts of investments and motivations, on different timescales, a lower common denominator works itself into the equation. Group "classes", organized drilling of groups, increased conceptualization and rationalization of techniques involving verbal correction and demonstration, even foreign coaching, these are FOR YOU changes in the sport. Sometimes these trends and aspects will only be subtly present, sometimes they will characterize the entire process. This is an elephant ride. And often it is difficult to distinguish where the elephant ends and the ride begins. Even "Fighter Training" Isn't The Process Along these lines of hunting the "authentic" training in gyms you'll run into this difficulty. You may be in a gym full of Thai fighters, even very active Thai fighters. There aren't many combos being held for. No real "group classes". A lot of Thai culture is going on, or seems to be. You are doing the work of fighters, real fighters, right there next to you. It's by Thais its for Thais and its pretty authentic...but for these things. For one, this gym if it's not a kaimuay in the more grassroots sense, all these fighters were made somewhere else. They were bought and brought into the gym, to be part of a stable. So what you likely are seeing, and doing, isn't actually how they became what they are. They are in the polishing, or add-a-level stage. The heartbeat of what made them is elsewhere. Even if you are a developed, accomplished fighter, and you too are in the "polishing" stage, you don't have what they have, which is a very different history of training, fighting and development. They are made of a different material, so to speak, and in truth that "material" is the actual "stuff" that everyone comes to Thailand looking for, that is where the "authenticity" is in their movements, vision, rhythms, stylistics. You can do all the padwork, all the clinch rounds, all the runs, all the bagwork, all the sparring, and you'll get better, in fact a LOT better...but, you'll be missing that "authentic" piece, the thing they got before they came to this gym. To add to this, if you did seek out the kaimuay that grows fighters in the principles of the sport, and their fighting circuits, these are not economically robust spaces, they are no longer teeming with fighters, and they're not focused on the tourist. They are part of a fragmenting economy of largely provincial fighting, and in which is difficult to find one's place, especially as an adult, as they are made for youth. The best you might find are hybrid spaces, kaimuay on the low ebb, which also are run by a great kru, making room for non-Thais, but even these spaces are a kind of bricolage of culture, knowledge and practice. There is no pristine location for the "authentic". "Treated Like a Thai" A layer even further down in terms of authenticity, it's not uncommon to feel that if you've stayed a lot, trained a lot, fought a lot, that you are being (more or less) "treated like a Thai". This is a big desire in the reach for "authenticity", and that experience of being "treated like a Thai" is therefore quite meaningful. But you aren't. You are still likely on an elephant ride, in a certain regard. And that's become Thailand's traditional Muay Thai is culturally founded on intense social power disparity. It is strongly hierarchized, and hierarchies vie against other hierarchies constantly in a political struggle that the Westerner, even the Thai-speaking Westerner, largely cannot see...and if they see them, they cannot care about them in the same way a Thai does and would. This is a continuous struggle for social "position" in which the Thai fighter has almost always has almost zero power. They are bound not only by contract obligation (contract), but more significantly by strong mores of social debt and shame, and the networks of hierarchy which make up gyms, community and promotion. They are in a web with constant top-down and lateral pressures, with very limited choice, you are not. You do NOT want to be treated "just like a Thai"...and honestly, you probably can't be, even if you want to be brought into the same workouts or expectations of a fighter. The reason this is important is the almost all of the motivations you have as a fighter, to become better, to win, to be acknowledged are very, very VERY different than the Thai fighter kicking the bag right next to you...and their motivations are actually the "authentic" part of Thailand's Muay Thai. Stadium Muay Thai is not the free agent professionalism that non-Thais aspire to. It is intense social stigma straining under a culture of obligation. You can do all the work, mirror it beat for beat, but you are not in the affective position of Thai fighters, and so in some sense cannot fight like them, for their alliances and values, the things which bring the strikes out, are largely invisible to the Westerner. All these things: that they've changed the rules so Westerners can win or perform well, and will enjoy watching, that they've changed the way Muay Thai is trained, that you aren't likely exposed to the actual processes that made stadium fighters who they are today, and even that you cannot experience the disempowerment, position and dignity of Thai fighters themselves, all cut off aspects of "authenticity", much sought by those that travel in earnest. This is leaving behind all those more common internet concerns like fake fights, dives, bad match making. It's in the actual fabric of the sport itself, as Westerners reach for it, and as it has turned its face toward the Westerner, making itself for the Westerner...and others. 2. The Fighters Aren't the Same The second difficulty in reaching for "authenticity" is that even if you get through all those layers. If you shun the rehearsed combo, you identify living threads of kaimuay culture and its values and ways of life as much as possible, if you fight five round trad Muay Thai fights, don't take weight advantages when you can, if you emotionally connect with the low social position of the Thai fighter, all the things, and then make it to the ring where "authentic" Muay Thai is "happening"...it's not even happening there. I mean this in this sense. Aside from the erosion and deskilling of the sport due to new promotional motivations, tourism and market pressures, Muay Thai itself has been eroding on its own within the country. The rising economic standard out of the classes of people who traditionally fought it have changed many of the motivations and commitments of the fighters themselves, and the talent pool of fighters has dramatically decreased. I'm going to throw a wild number out, but I'm just guessing in an educated way...maybe the talent pool is 10x smaller. Leaving aside that combos and entertainment aesthetics are now working their way into more or less "Thai" gym spaces, the fighters themselves just are not that good, not as developed, complex or accomplished by the time they are in Bangkok rings. Big name gyms grab up local kaimuay talent earlier and earlier (green fruit off the tree before ripe), the developmental fighter classes (informal groups within gyms) that grow the skills are seriously on the decline. A kaimuay may have had 20 fighting boys, now may have 3? Traditionally there was a stirring of the pot that was cooking a very deep stew of skills, more and more its a process just a few ingredients heated over a short time. This is to say, even if you can get all the way to the "authentic" rings, the quality and sophistication of the Muay Thai you will be facing will lack something that "authentic" dimension that characterized the freedom and expressiveness of skill of past generations. You may in fact fight a Thai who will fight quite like a farang (as far as it goes). They may end combos with a body shot, or throw endless elbows, be unable to defend well in retreat, have a muay of one or two weapons, or be limited and simplistic in the clinch. Not only is the skillset diminished, but in new generation fighters the rhythms and shapes of fighting that are "authentic" may not be there in full force. In some ways the Westerner may encounter a dim mirror of themselves. I'm writing this because this quest for authenticity is seriously meaningful. It's meaningful to us, those of the West who love Thailand's Muay Thai, and it's also meaningful to Thais as well, who have great esteem for its legacy. The only way to significantly engage in the question of authenticity is to acknowledge that it is already substantively hybridized. You and everyone else may be on elephant rides. It's only by identifying the aspects of Muay Thai that are not made for the tourist and adventure tourist, the threads of culture and practice that developed without your presence, or others like you, and nurturing with respect those aspects, that will the authentic journey begin. You may be in a very commercial gym, full of combos and group classes, but your padman probably grew up in kaimuay culture. It's in him. It's what made him. Find ways to connect to that. There are also at times "Thai gyms" (mini-kaimuay) inside commercial gyms, which operates under a different code than the gym for customers. You may be in an Entertainment fight promotion, fight in the traditional style, try to win in the traditional style, even if the ruleset doesn't favor it. Push back against what has been made for you. Learn and identity the lineages of cultural practice that have defined Muay Thai, and connect to those purposely. In a sense, if we all realize we are on elephant rides, at a certain point you have have to love and care for the elephant itself, which is the beautiful, mysterious, almost-like-us, powerful, magical creature. This is the art of Muay Thai. And even if you aren't on the best ride, you are on a mother-effin elephant. Find the culture of the elephant. Find the elephant's history among the people. Find what the elephant needs. Find what is natural to the elephant. Protect and honor the elephant. we wrote a manifest of our values here

This is a line of reasoning I'd like to pursue, that global Capitalism is deskilling Muay Thai fighters, but changing the rules and aesthetics to breakdown complex fighting knowledge to repetitive tasks, like throwing memorized combos, in order to increase the labor force, making individual fighters less unique and more replaceable, and transfer the knowledge core to promotional and media oriented marketing. the chat gpt summary of deskilling: The argument that capitalism induces deskilling comes primarily from Marxist and critical labor theorists, particularly Harry Braverman, who expanded on this in his influential 1974 book Labor and Monopoly Capital. Here's a breakdown of the argument: What is Deskilling? Deskilling is the process by which skilled labor is replaced with less skilled or unskilled labor—often through: Technology or automation Standardization of work tasks Fragmentation of complex jobs into simpler, repetitive tasks Why Would Capitalism Encourage Deskilling? 1. Profit Maximization Capitalist firms aim to maximize profits. One way to do this is to: Replace skilled workers (who are more expensive) with less skilled workers or machines Simplify tasks so they require minimal training, which reduces labor costs 2. Managerial Control Simplifying jobs increases management’s control over the labor process: Skilled workers often have more autonomy and bargaining power Deskilling reduces workers' independence and makes them easier to supervise, replace, and discipline 3. Increased Productivity Deskilled labor allows for: Mass production techniques (think Ford’s assembly line) Faster and more consistent output Easily interchangeable workers, which supports scalability Theoretical Roots Karl Marx: Believed capitalism alienates workers from the labor process, reducing their work to mere repetitive actions Harry Braverman: Argued that capitalist development deliberately strips away workers’ skill and knowledge to concentrate power and expertise in management

Really enjoyed the Mongkutpetch slow rolling control and domination of the Payahong Raja belt fight. Especially in the first 3 rounds it was methodical, and her size, knee threats and the joining of the hands in the clinch just gradually swallowed Payahong up. Payahong was never really a plus clinch fighter, her strength is timing and kicking, and composure, so one that space was consistently invaded there was little she could do to change the tide. It was great how unrushed Mongkutpetch was.

Just some notes from today's casual shoot. I don't always photograph at Chatchai's (we go 2x a month), but it is a great opportunity to just experiment with aesthetics, or to change the way I see. Ultrawide & Wide for Muay Thai Photography I've always been very drawn to wide lenses for Muay Thai photography, if only to get away from all the focus on "the action" and the proverbial sweat-spray shot. Mostly I've shot with longer lenses to get away from this moving in the opposite direction, to explore more the psychological aspects of fighting, and to locate what might be called sculptural body forms, but honestly, I've wanted much more to shoot in wider lenses, because I think the sense of space, of emptiness, is really what the art of fighting is about, like scuba diving is about what you do IN the ocean. Its harder to do in fights themselves because you don't have control over your setting and are locked more or less into one or only a few vantage points. I've been lately interested in the Contax 645 35mm lens (27mm full frame), (above), adapted for the GFX system, in part because it seems to give that "what the eye sees" kind of field of view, something that I find in many of the beautiful films of the 1960s, and some early documentary photography. You can see a short article on the lens that attracted me. I want a little more of that tableau feeling, with some beautiful sample shots. I love this sort of photography, and I'd like to bring that nobility to Muay Thai. What I'm interested in with this Contax lens is that many times I encounter situational muay, often with older fighters, scenes that are full of details and composition, that it just feels like it has to all be captured, rendered, brought forward. With that in mind I went back to my Fujifilm 8-16mm (12-24mm ff), above, which I really forget how much I love, a wide angle zoom on the X-series cameras that is underrated in the images it can pull. I have shot some very memorable photos with it. Today I shot Sylvie training with Chatchai at his Thai Payak gym in Bangkok just to get reacquainted with the wider view. I want to get used to seeing-in-wide again. You can maybe see what I see even in these somewhat casual shots, the way that the space envelopes the figures, and the figures almost arise from it. Note. I'm not a super technical photographer, and not really a gear person. I see things I like in my mind, my hands, and then look for ways to achieve it. I do like the 8-16mm, and its zoom is really very helpful in muay settings where you cannot change your position easily to alter the composition. With ultrawide this is really important especially regarding the distortion, not only how much distortion there is, but what it is that is distorted. The zoom is super valuable. photos on this thread are unfortunately compressed and lose sharpness. I'm hoping to see more wide angle and even ultra wide treatment of the sport, because the art is really all about the spaces that hold it. And I've ordered the Contax lens and the adapter, the first time I'll have shot with a vintage lens. I'm very excited to see what will show up on the very large and detailed GFX files.

Contact Sylvie in private message on Instagram. She can arrange a session for Dieselnoi, she communicates with him regularly. https://www.instagram.com/sylviemuay/

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

You can't train yourself, anymore than you can tickle yourself. Yet, on the other hand...you are always training yourself.

Sometimes I muse that Muay Thai, Thailand's Muay Thai is like the elephant. One time integrated within the society, at the village shore at the forest for instance in Surin (a folding of the human & the elephant culture), and then become the tank of the military empire, then the diesel truck of the lumber and other industry, now almost entirely existing within the country for the tourist, a bend of fate I do not want for Muay Thai...but today, visiting this one who lives near our house, I feel the depression, the majestic depression of her. Today I feel her. A short film study I made.

There a beautiful story here, back in 2016. Sylvie was given a chance to win the Northern 105 Muay Siam belt, but she would have to beat Faa Chiang Rai, one of the best female fighters in Thailand for the 3rd time in a row in a month...and do it in her home province of Chiang Rai. We really thought that there was no way that they would give Sylvie the win on points, just because of circumstances, but Sylvie somehow pulled it out. She was awarded the belt, but then within the week (I believe) that she was stripped of it because farang could not hold the belt. It was given back to Faa. Sylvie wrote about the fight here. It was just such an incredible moment, being able to fight for a prestigious belt, a belt hermetic to Thailand itself, and even winning it, and then having it stripped, that in-between time before Thai name belts were starting to be made for Westerners, both in terms of audience and victory, the changing of rules, the opening up of the stadia. This was another time. But the beautiful part of it all is that even though Sylvie took Faa's belt in her home province, one way or another, 8 years later Sylvie arranged for Faa to fight for (and win for herself), the WBC World Title (I think at 105 lbs), I believe a title she still holds. This is the curious, beautiful gift of Sylvie, she weaves together Muay. Faa went from a Northern Muay Siam title to a WBC World Title, through Sylvie.

Thank you Kevin for your response. It's interesting to hear Kaensak saidthat training on the pads was like charging batteries...as I remember it as the complete opposite finishing the 3rd round of 6 minutes with no strength at all, ie dead battery. hahaha...of course I never got to be in a physical state like these historical fighters. Maybe that's the big difference Hey thanks for continuing to watch and analyze the world of muay thai in thailand. Your and Sylvie's analysis of the fights have been very revealing, almost like deciphering a language or something like that. Great job! I wish you all the best!

There are two schools of thought on this. Padholding is now used, often, to teach techniques, but in Thailand's past it was much more of conditioning, rhythm-making training mechanism. Kaensak said it was used to "charge the battery". One reason why it could work in that way was because the kaimuay was full of training many other aspects of fighting, including lots of play-sparring, and timing building training. A better approach, given that kaimuay training has been somewhat lost to the sport, is to use padwork to build your own sense of control and rhythm taking, turning padwork much more into a dialogue. But...this takes an advanced, experienced padholder, usually a former experienced stadium fighter, who can work in that way. You want to build and change intensities, work at different distances, etc. One of the most important (and neglected) things in fighting is control over distance, and varying tempo/intensity. When you have a good padman, these things can be work with.

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.

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.