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I'm more of a grappler too. It took me about three years to adjust my mind to Muay Thai. It's easier to feel swamped in something unfamiliar, plus large gloves feel all wrong when I parry or trap. I also found that I'd sink my weight when I should go light as an opponent gets close. Initially, I was only happy clinching or going for sweeps and trips. My style is still pretty unconventional but I can go a round with a smaller or less trained opponent and not get hit once now and then. Set up strikes with shovel kicks and low kicks, sweeps, and grabbing their guard. Glove blocks use your grappling skills too. Grabbing someones guard and using your knees is good too.

Welcome to the dark side. Honestly, the "blue belt" equivalent in Muay Thai is when you stop flinching during sparring and actually land a clean teep. If you're training 2-3 times a week, you'll probably reach that "competent" level in about 18 months. Striking is weird because a lucky punch from an untrained giant can still suck, but by then you'll have the footwork to make them look silly.

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.

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

I am 5’8 155 lbs. pk Saenchai seemed like a gym I would go to after years of training which I have not had. By the time I go to Thailand I will have 6 months of solid training. (About 13 hours a week soon to be 18.) I am visiting Thailand first, and then planning on finding where I want to make my home base after about 6 months. I have little experience in the clinch, but I know that I want to be a heavy clinch and elbow fighter, as watching yodkhunpon inspired me. I have never seen a fighter that made me want to copy them before. Thank you for the reply and all you guys do.

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.

There can be no doubt that Thailand's culture is a hybriding culture, a synthesizing culture that has grown from the root weaving diversity from influences around the world, reaching well back to when the Ayuthaya Kingdom was the commercial hub for the entire mercantile region, major influences stretching in trade all the way to China and all the way to Europe, if not further, while - and this is important - still maintaining its own Siamese (then Thai) character, a character that was both in great sympathy towards these integrative powers, but also in tension or contest with them. This being said, I think there is a rather profound misunderstanding of the nature of Thailand's traditional Muay Thai and the meaning and value of its underpinnings in the culture, when seen from the West, and this is the (at times) assumed majority of thinking of fighting as "labor", and the rewards or marking of that labor as some kind of "wage". This is often the conceptual starting place from which Westerners think about the value and possible injustices of Thailand's Muay Thai, often boiled down to the question: Is the fighter getting a "fair wage"? I do think there are strong and important wage oriented justice scales that can be applied, but mostly these are best done in the contemporary circumstances of Thailand's new commodification of Muay Thai itself...that is to say, to turn traditional commitments and performances INTO labor, that is to say, to capitalize it. It is then that the question of labor and wage holds the best ground. But, the question of wage or payment fairness really is doing another operation, often without intent, which is by reframing traditional Muay Thai in terms of labor and wage, along with the strong normative, Capitalist sense that such labor should exist freely in a labor market of some kind, one is already deforming traditional Muay Thai itself, and in a certain sense perhaps...adding to its colonization, or at least its transmutation into a globalized, commodified humanity, something I would suggest the core values of traditional Muay Thai (values that actually draw so many Western adventure-tourists to its homeland), stand in anchored opposition to. To be sure, Capitalism is deeply interwoven into the fabric of Thai culture, and has been for much of the 20th century, but this weave is perhaps best understood terms of how Siam/Thailand's traditional Muay Thai is of the threads of greatest resistance to Capitalism itself (along with its atomizing, individualizing, labor/wage concept of human beings). When we think of the values that not only motivate fighters, but also structure and give meaning to their fighting, at least across the board of the Muay Thai subculture, we really are not in the realm of individualizied workers who sell their labor within a labor market. (This mischaracterization is perhaps most egregious when discussing Child and Youth fighting from a Western perspective, where it is very commonly repictured as "child labor" (ignoring the degree to which such terminology completely recasts the entire question of the meaning and value of fighting itself, within Thai culture). We are instead within a realm of traditional pre-Capitalist values (which themselves have morphed with tension with Capitalizing forces), a world of craft (not "work"), composed of strong social hierarchies that are in constant agonism with each other, where fighting is probably best understood as struggle over Symbolic Capital (with some modification to Bourdieu's concept). The traditional Muay Thai world is primarily not a world of labor and wage - anymore than, to use an even more traditional example, novice monks should be considered to be doing "labor" in wats and monestariess, for the (some would regard as false) "wage" of spiritual merit. Instead, the meaning and value of such commitments and performances are embedded within the traditional frame itself (a frame which can be examined or challenged for ethical failures, to be sure), and to extract them from that embedded value system and its attendant, inculcating motivations, is to subvert the very nature of Thailand's traditional Muay Thai. It doesn't mean that Thai Muay Thai fighters don't fight "for" money, or that money's paid or won do not matter, in fact in a gambling-driven sport - gambling driven at its very first roots, both in terms of history and in terms of apprenticeship - money amounted indeed matter a great deal. It's just that the labor / wage framework is a significantly inadequate, and in fact destructively transformative in its inaccuracy (even when well-motivated). This conceptual misunderstanding from the West is even made more complicated in that today's traditional Muay Thai is fast adapting to new "labor" style economic pressures, in the sense that fighters are increasingly working more - in a hybrid sense - in the tourism economy, both in gyms were they have to train and partner Westerners, and in the ring where they have to fight in a transformed way in Entertainment tourism vs Western tourists (tourist who may be viewed as both customers purchasing Thai services and also as discounted laborers), all with the economic view that the Western visitor holds a certain degree of economic priority. Traditional Thais are pressed now in towards becoming something more like laborers, while still maintaining many if not most of the customary motivations and the embedded values of Muay Thai, kaimuay subculture, leaving analysis perhaps best to a case by case basis.

The question definitely remains: What is it that Thais fight for if they don't fight for wages? As far as I can tell, and speculatively suggest, what Thai's fight for, and also what they train for is better understood under the idea of a Prestige Economy, which is to say, the social capital of respect and attention in hierarchy which governs a lot of traditional social systems. I've argued before that Muay Thai is governed by an underwritten Spirituality of power relations (see below), and despite deep Capitalist veins within the country, the business of Muay Thai is probably itself best understood within these older frameworks of overlapping mandalas of power. Within such power relations money indeed plays a very serious role, as even might greed, as it becomes signature of power and social place. The kadua that one receives, the winning bonuses and injections, these are signatures of social standing, on a ladder against which one checks oneself. These are closely related to one's identity and esteem. Within the Prestige Economy motivation, in Thailand's traditional Muay Thai, is what I have experimentally called the Gaze Economy. I discuss some of this in this comment here: Far more than wages for labor, it is within the Gaze Economy that the fighter works, under the cultural and customary form of the kaimuay. And not simply the fighter, but the padmen and krus of the gym. This is not a Capitalist, labor/wage agonism. It is a performed social struggle for standing, within which money plays a signature role. *Some of this is quite Thai, but I also believe that these traditional "prize & gaze" dynamics underpin a lot of Western Capitalist behavior as well, and may even be particular to prize fighting in general. The "prize" in its very notion is always in surplus of the value of the work put in achieving it, carrying an aura beyond any axiomatic, which makes an interesting tension with Capitalist labor/wage structuring dynamics. What Thailand's traditional Muay Thai poses, in how it struggles within Capitalist, commodifying pressures, is a sort of critique of labor and wage itself. Attempting to reframe traditional fighting as labor and wage undercuts and hides this critique. In a certain, perhaps even ideal, primordeal sense, one should never be paid wages for fighting, turning fighting into "labor".

Choosing a gym in Thailand is definitely overwhelming—there are so many world-class spots! I love that you’re focusing on the clinch and elbows; it’s such a technical part of the sport. I’ve heard great things about FA Group specifically for their 'clinch marathons.' For someone looking for that old-school feel, Lanna Muay Thai in Chiang Mai has such a great reputation too.

When I've come out to Thailand to train (and holiday!), I've always trained just once a week for the first one. It takes a while for the body to adjust, especially with the heat and/ or humidity, and gives me a chance to recover and explore. After that, it depends on how I feel/ what my goals are. Sometimes I've switched to twice a day, other times I haven't. If you're coming out to fight, you might want to. If it's just to train, improve and enjoy your stay, sometimes twice a day is a slog. Your decision... Chok dee.

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.

Wow, just had an amazing conversation with Karuhat, him telling us about a Saturday Boxing show put on by OneSongChai which featured lots of Thai Muay Thai stars, in which he fought twice, losing to Nungubon and to a Muangsurin fighter whose name escapes me. Most amazing is that he said that he had no special boxing training, in terms of kru, just mixing up boxing imitation training in his small Sor. Supawan gym, and Thai principles (he's not a bad boxer even today). He lost both fights, but he also said he WANTED to lose, because if you showed promise you would be drafted onto the Thai National team at the time (he even DID get drafted onto the team, it seems, fighting on am boxing fight on the King's Birthday vs a Cuban who was incredibly fast). Amateur boxing meant lots of hard training, but not a lot of fighting, and the pay was horrible. It was the last thing he wanted. He was a star in Muay Thai, had great kaduas, fought every month, honed his femeu style. Even pro boxing wasn't that lucrative because fighters only kept 30% of the purse (in Muay Thai it was 50%), and usually didn't fight that much. He said in one of his boxing fights he even stuck his head out of the ropes, he wanted so not to do this. I asked him who was on the Thai National team the brief time he was there and he said Sittichai, Jongsanan and Coban came to mind. I also asked why it was that fighters like him could just kind of develop boxing skills without specific boxing instruction, but Thai fighters today can have all kinds of boxing instruction, even from legends, and not develop the same level of boxing skills. He said "electronics"...all the distractions. The phones, etc. He said that you used to really pay attention, go to fights and emulate fighters, really absorb their powers and ways, imitate them in the gym, steal from everywhere, now Thai fighters are just doing what they are told and going to their phones. There is no attentiveness. I asked about Namkabuan (who is in one of these SongChai boxing fights below vs Chatchai), and his "nongki bounce" footwork which seemed unusual for Muay Thai, if that came from boxing. And he said that this is just normal Muay Thai to him. You can see some of that in this clip (really, look to the Muay Thai Library session to see so much more). When asked about where Namkabuan got his boxing (in the video below) he said Nongkipahayuth probably (Karuhat spent time up there because he was friends with Namphon). Maybe some from Muangsurin (a big boxing gym the brothers sometimes trained at), but he really didn't think knowing boxing as Namkabuan did was the result of special training.

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.

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.

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

Updated graphic for the above, some corrections. It was enjoyable digging around in the records, creating a new nice of achievement and talent. Jongrak Lukprabaht is the one figure up there with Kongtoranee and Chamuekpet with 12, a Golden Age fighter who fought on the Rajadamnern side of promotions. Notable perhaps that the elite Golden Age legends of Lumpinee and OneSongChai are largely absent. Either the belts were just to competitive on that side, or not fought frequently enough in that time frame (I assume). Probably a few names missing. Edit in, a new record found by Lev, Songkram Porpaoin with 5+8. He's just fighting for the same low-weight Rajadamnern title over and over, but it is still historic.

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 cover is above, you can download the full magazine in hi-res pdf: Muay Magazine - Nov. 8, 1968 ? - pdf download here Not sure about the year, inside there are cards posted from the year 1968 it seems. These magazines were sent to us by a supporting collector so we can share with others. Any informative comment or translation below is much appreciated.

The full hi-res PDF download here: Muay Magazine - Sept 9th, 1977 pdf download A supporter collector sent these pdfs so that we can share them with others, thank you

Lev brought to my attention Lankrung Kiatkriangkrai, who happens to be on the Holy Grail card, Christmas Eve of 1982, when Dieselnoi beat Samart. He's fighting Boonam Sor.Jarunee for the vacant 112 lb Rajadamnern title, and displays just a beautiful increasingly tempo'd style showing how boxing and the weapons of Muay Thai went together in early Golden Age. You can watch the fight below. He was a 1984 Olympic Boxer under the name Teeraporn Saengano. The good people of Muay Thai wikipedia, including Lev, have filled out his wikipedia page to give more anchorage of his fighting in history, a hugely important step in preserving the legacy of Muay Thai in Thailand. Without records we just have stories. You can find his wikipedia page here. This is some of his record context for the fight: Klaew Tanakul the promoter was a very big supporter of amateur Thai boxing, often financially lifting fighters up out of his own pocket, so its of no surprised that one of the best amateur boxers who was also a top Muay Thai fighter was featured on his promoted card. Video timestamped to about 25 minutes in if anything goes wrong. The fight starts very slow, but watch for his gradual uptempoing, his use of the jab, as he closes the distance round by round.

The three legends of Hapalang gym, 3 photos:

[someone posting that students shouldn't be allowed to spar without 6 months in Foundations Class] Not to respond too directly to the above statement, more to just this kind of advisement which is maybe common, but it just shows how far trad Muay Thai development was from today's class centric, out of Thailand (but probably in some parts of Thailand too) is. They are just two very different worlds and practices. Sparring, especially as it seems it was in the Golden Age...was part of foundations. Yes, there was a lot of grueling bag work or shadow boxing, but sparring playfully in space was part of young fighter development. It's not this extreme, but its a bit like saying you shouldn't get on a surf board until you have the fundamentals down for many months. The point was to assemble fundamentals in relationship to others. And, I certainly understand there are huge differences between these worlds, Westerners spar with different intents. It's only to point out that what Thais traditionally achieved was through very different sensibilities over what Muay Thai even was. It much more than this, I hope to finish an article on how trad Muay Thai is developed as social rite of passage way-of-life development, but at minimum there is a huge difference in concept in how skills should be acquired.

Hi, i have a general question concerning Muay-Thai training camps, are there any serious ones in Europe at all? I know there are some for kickboxing in the Netherlands, but that's not interesting to me or what i aim for. I have found some regarding Muay-Thai in google searches, but what iv'e found seem to be only "retreats" with Muay-Thai on a level compareable to fitness-boxing, yoga or mindfullness.. So what i look for, but can't seem to find anywhere, are camps similar to those in Thailand. Grueling, high-intensity workouts with trainers who have actually fought and don't just do this as a hobby/fitness regime. A place where you can actually grow, improve technique and build strength and gas-tank with high intensity, not a vacation... No hate whatsoever to those who do fitness-boxing and attend retreats like these, i just find it VERY ODD that there ain't any training camps like those in Thailand out there, or perhaps i haven't looked good enough?.. Appericiate all responses, thank you!

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.

One of the effects of deteriorating defense in Muay Thai is that sub-optimal offenses will become more effective. Which is to say, they will no longer appear sub-optimal (based on flawed principles). The lack of eyes, or distance control, or sound principles on defense will elevate certain offensive trends which would never fly in the past...one of the subtle ways deskilling is happening. Basic combo-ing sudden is proven effective. Blind pocket trading, effective. Spamming elbows, effective. And with that effectiveness the loss of skill.

This is an English translation of a Facebook post written in Thai by a prominent figure of Southern Muay Thai, protesting the new government and stadium changes brought to make Muay Thai more amenable to foreigners. A lot of truth here in how the knowledge of the sport actually lays within the villages and at the festival level...some of this language is quite strong though, far beyond Thai etiquette. Just posting it here because many don't realize that there are Thais that firmly resist these changes, and see them as undermining the sport and art itself: "I have been in Muay Thai my whole life. I've been in it before it became corporate. I've stayed in it with love for the sport. Muay Thai is a poor people's sport. Only children of poor families will fight. In the past, this was a "mafia" sport. Hence, no organization wants to get involved. However, this sport still does things the countryside way. Fights relies on temple fairs and annual events. Rules and regulations that are used were made by the people who of Muay Thai who truly understands it. For example; the 5 rounds, 3 minutes per round and 2 minutes break, weigh-in in the morning. It's all made for fairness, even if the bigger fighter will gain an advantage if the fight is at night time, because morning weigh-ins will impact a fighter's management. In the current day, rules are about to change, because the organizations responsible for Muay Thai do not understand the life of the people of Muay Thai. They don't understand fighting in the Muay Thai way. They attempt to compare Muay Thai with the foreigner's martial arts. They try to shove foreigner's rules on to the roots of our sport and tell us it is universal. They are trying to change our way of life by washing away our Thai identity with their papers and regulations. They bring specialists who've never made any contact with the sport to write the rules without asking of what the people who will be following these rules and bequest the national arts think about the rules. This is borderline of selling the country, selling it's traditions, selling your own roots, just to impress foreigners. The spirits of the ancestors will call you damned children."

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.

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.

Some of my thoughts on the weigh-in change, and how it reflects back onto deeper aspects of how Thailand's Muay Thai is fought, in this Reddit thread: Recently announced. This should produce much bigger weight differences in the ring, move towards even more power and forward aggression combination fighting, and the diminishment of skilled (femeu) fighting (the longtime hallmark of Thailand's art and sport), and should favor farang who are larger bodied and often more versed in Western style day-before, deeper cut weight drops. It also seems like it will put a greater burden on small kaimuay and provincial fighters, as they would have to come to Bangkok the day before a fight, increasing fight expenses when often its hard to even break even on fights (perhaps there will be some support?). For the longest time day-of weigh-ins were the standard of legit matchup Thai trad fighting. Silently this change could have long lasting effects. and As I mention above (here) there are some aspects about Thai traditional scoring that also keep deep weight cutting in check (these are things people are also trying to change to a more Western style). Thais can cut the way that they do, same day, in part because of how the sport is fought and judged. You just can't cut too deep and still win. Also, Thai trad weight cutting is very different. It's not about making huge plunges close to the fight. It's incrementally getting closer to the weight, with its own science and knowledge. and It's a National PAT (SAT) rule change. It's supposed to cover all Muay Thai, part of a "Grassroots to International" effort. Entertainment Muay Thai was already headed there, or there, so this most dramatically effects traditional stadium Muay Thai in Bangkok I imagine, and major trad promotions. Enforcement of rules in Thailand is quite varied, so I imagine it pragmatically has little to do with trad fighting in the provinces (?) unless a part of the new gov outreach there. (just guessing). Have no idea what it means for fighting in tourist centers like Phuket or Chiang Mai. and Some of deep weight cutting was constrained by two things in trad day-of fighting. The first was because you were fighting later that day you were really limited in how far you could effectively go...but the second hidden aspect is that because trad scoring aesthetics have of a lot of subtle by important aspects to them (ie, they aren't entirely about "points" or "damage" but involve things like "ruup" [posture] and balance), you couldn't really go into the ring very depleted...your ruup and just your substance as a fighter would be down-scored. This was even more reinforced by Thai narrative scoring aesthetics (which a lot of Westerners get upset about). If you FADE in a fight you are penalized, because the fight has an arc to it. You have to be strong in round 4 or you just won't win. This, combined with the same day weigh-in, created a natural barrier for how low you could go. You have to have stamina. You can't artificially pad your lead with early rounds point wins, and coast in the 4th. One of things people don't realize is that if you chop away at the narrative scoring structure (the new rules start heading in this direction), and at trad scoring aesthetics AND add deeper weight cuts, this produces a huge swing which could be dangerous. They are mixing Thai and Western protocols and also Thai and Western fighting aesthetics in ways that I think haven't been completely thought about. Thai practices developed over many decades within their own sport. and Longtime Thais have a very precise understanding of how to cut weight in the trad scene, day-of weigh-in, trad scoring aesthetics. Western weight cutting, and weight cutting competition trends will start to seep in. This is pretty dangerous in my view, because knowledge of how to do the deeper cuts will communicate itself very unevenly. Already there is a lot of pseudo "Sports Science" stuff floating around Thailand, often via lightly qualified farang who offer themselves as advisors or coaches. Lots of Thais will end up having partial or just plain mis- information about how to cut in a Western fashion. Add in the common use of diuretics which amplifies issues. The Western cut is very different than the Thai cut. And mixing the two, or moving back and forth between them could be dangerous. Doing a Thai cut with a Water loading cut or a sodium loading cut, or deep Albolene sweat, who knows what can happen. At least IVs (which are very popular in Thailand) are plentiful, but still, there is danger here. Once pieces of information start entering the culture they can become a game of telephone. Spread this out over an entire sport and its asking for risks. and I suspect that one of the main reasons for this is actually economic...that is as Thailand's labor pool for fighters shrinks its harder to fill the many cards. This rule change means that a wider group of fighters are available for any particular match. Matchmakers are less constrained. Also, it happens to serve folding larger-bodied Westerners into the trad market...ie, they can fight much smaller Thais. This helps with the labor market some (more fighters to choose from), and also helps with Soft Power (selling the sport abroad). More Westerners fighting, and more Western winners (probably more Westerner belt holders as well). It really addresses in the short term several pragmatic issues, and it seems like its a government ambition to kind of codify all of Muay Thai, so that it can export the sport more readily, which is unfortunate because much of the sport's uniqueness and ultimate marketability in a deeper sense, relies on its uncodified, un-rationalized nature. I also am not sure if it just leads to everyone then using the same weight cutting practices, as for instance happens in Internationalized sports, because as I have mentioned in other comments, Thai cuts are very different than Western cuts, and the way that knowledge and practices disseminate in Thailand really is uneven. It's much more likely that Westerners will just hold a significant advantage, as will big Westernized or Western-informed Thai gyms (who already have large political advantages in the sport), and the smaller gyms and provincial fighters will not be able to play the same weight cutting game, and may even be led into dangerous hybrid or misinformed practices.

Well, the PAT announced 24-30 hr weigh-in, a huge change the sport. Get ready for tons of weight bullying (including bigger farang fighting small Thais in trad stadium fights). Basically for all practical reasons all weight classes have been expanded. This is in part in relationship to the labor crisis mentioned above, the capacity to draw from a wider range of fighters to fill cards. Trad Muay Thai will likely have greater skill disparities (shrinking talent pools) and now more massive size differences, as well as drawing in more farang who will become part of this solution. This will also likely mean more farang stadium/promotion belts in trad fighting. Of course laws in Thailand are unevenly forced, so there could be major hiccups in implementation, including a significant problem that fighters now have to come to Bangkok the day before, which means even greater costs to fight...which could ALSO shrink the fighter pool. Already many gyms, small kaimuay, have difficulty even breaking even in Bangkok fighting expenses. Will outlying fighters be able to regularly afford to come to fight in Bangkok, especially in a scene that favors the political power of major Bangkok gyms (they can't dependably recoup their expense by betting on their fighters). These changes could have a massive stylistic impact on Thailand's trad Muay Thai over time, as it gives even more advantage to size and power. Saenchai was famous for his criticism of the loss of femeu fighting after he left the trad stadium scene, because large-bodied power clinch fighters (who he had some trouble with) had become the gambler's favorite. With the even greater increase in size differential now, and the influence of more smashing and clashing fighting styles of Entertainment Muay Thai, it stands to reason that power will become even more effective over femeu skill than ever before. In the Golden Age there were fairly substantial size differences, but the technical skill level of fighters was such - and the trad artful scoring bias in favor of - that small fighters like Karuhat and many others could handle 2 or more weight class (in the ring) differences. This high level of the art just really is missing in this era, and scoring biases are shifting toward the power aesthetic. Trad Muay Thai may become much more combo-heavy smashy with the big man coming out on top.

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.

I put together this compilation of little notes Sylvie has taken in a stretch of training and sharing Muay Thai, and was surprised that there is a full 30 minutes of these. I'm just struck and really almost shocked at how much knowledge she drops and the nature of it. These are not "demos" of techniques, but looking beneath or within techniques, something that comes from being closely connected to techniques for many many years, and her self-transformation. I can't think of another person in the world who could drop notes like this, of this much variety, because this just comes out of her path. These are like reading notes of Muay Thai. It's a very interesting, and kind of inspiring level of knowledge. She's a walking encyclopedia of experience and knowledge. That foot-drop taught by Manop is just this kind of thing. It's not "technique", its a piece of a technique, but its related to a generative principle that informs all sorts of other techniques, and even can touch all of your Muay Thai. There are so many of those.

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.

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 kid was on like a 17 fight winning streak after winning this fight from behind. Lost the streak now though

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

4. Some kid who they didn't even have a proper photo for. He knew he was fighting on the day and he just pulls up as a big betting underdog who no one knows and won easily. His name is Petchyindee Sor. Roongaroon. His dad fought under Sia Nao's show, now his kid's under Sia Boat's show, that's why hid name is Petchyindee

3. Yodteepop Tongsaipriw only started Muay Thai because he was fat and his dad's a former fighter. They say he had like 15 fights (I don't buy it) but because he's so talented at it it became a full career

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

Wayfinding vs transportation or navigation. https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/tp9wr_v4

There are so many variabilities it is really hard to say. The best comparison is to Western Boxing which doesn't have a belt system. But one would imagine that within 2 years in a good gym you'd be fairly proficient.

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.

Think of the highest level of Muay Thai fighting 30 years ago, in the Golden Age, in terms of Dynamic Range, as its applied to photography or sound recording. Fighters were able to perform skillfully at an intense range of distances. It wasn't just a matter of styles, it was that every distance was within the spectrum of competence or even excellence. With the advent of Entertainment Muay Thai, as Thailand seeks to fashion its sport towards the less skillful foreigner, the real aim is to reduce the dynamic range of fighting to only "the pocket" as much as possible, to generate clashes, because that's where memorized combinations favored by Western and other nationalities are the most effective, and that is where large bodied fighters will win exchanges. The entire spectrum, the Dynamic Range of fighting is to be shrunk. And the ranges were Thais especially held court, too-far (counter kicking defense) and too-close (clinch dominance) have been clipped out.

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

New Film Evidence on Early Modern Muay Thai History The above video edit study of the best fighter in Thailand, Samarn Dilokvilas, is taken from one of the most remarkable film records of early modern Muay Thai. This post contains various treatments & edits of the archive footage, highlighting its aspects. Previously of the early modern period we've primarily had short very clips produced for newsreel, with opponents of unknown skill, edited to present to the foreign eye something exotic and unusual (a playlist of early modern Muay Thai footage here). With newsreels we never really know how much the action has been chosen and constructed, or how distortive that may be. The colonial British regarded Siam as comparatively "uncivilized" and the few glimpses of fight footage feel like they were chosen with that view in mind. They are brief, clashing keyholes into the art, but now read almost like puppet shows for theater goers, from a far away land. There was also a Thai filmed dramatic reenactment of a fight, which for some time was taken as genuine fight footage, the earliest on record. It suffices to say that before this film, our visual evidence for how Thailand's Muay Thai (Muay Boran) in its early modern period was fought was deeply fragmented and full of artifice. You can watch the full archive footage of the Samarn vs Somphong fight for the unofficial title of Best in Thailand, from which my edits are cut (the story of this fight and who the fighters were is further below): this footage originally was published in this longer Thai Film Archive. In this case we have lengthy, if significantly edited, fight footage purporting to cover all the rounds of a fight, as well as the showcase of some bagwork, sparring fight preparation and coverage of the historical context of the fight. And, the two fighters are thought to be two of the very best in Thailand, a showdown of great magnitude. It is far more than a keyhole. We get the sense that we are watching an actual, continuous fight from 1936. It gives us insight into the relationship between Thailand's Muay Thai and Western Boxing. You can see Samarn's Western Boxing influenced bagwork in this short edit, as well as an excerpt from General Tunwakom teaching the "Buffalo Punch" of Muay Khorat, which Samarn includes in his light work: The State of Early Modern Muay Thai and British Boxing Beginning with the first decade of the 1900s Bangkok itself was undergoing powerful modernizing influences, much of which embodied by its relationship with the British Empire. Bangkok was a deeply cosmopolitan, thriving Southeast Asian city. It has been estimated that there were as many 3,000 British serving with the Siam police in 1907. The future King of Siam, HM King Vajiravudh, who would modernize the sport would spend near a decade coming of age in Britain in college and military school (he would be given the honorary rank of General in the British army in 1915 and even thought to fight for the British in WW1). Regular Boran Kard Chuek fights were held at the city pillar (and likely in many other undocumented city locations), but there was no stadium or fixed ring in the city until King Vajiravudh came to the throne and implemented Western Boxing's influence. It was a gambling sport of the people whose gloveless, violent nature would ruffle British sensibilities. At a time when colonial powers were using the excuse of beneficently civilizing peoples of Siam's bordering countries as their governance was taken control of, British sensibilities did matter. When prince Vajiravudh's father, the famed King Chulalongkorn, formalized the three regional Schools of Muay Boran (Lopburi, Khorat and Chaiya, bestowing teaching authority to tournament winners) in 1910, he was not founding these styles, but rather consolidating them up (and to some degree secularizing) them as the sport itself was likely beginning to experience change in the face of Bangkok's modernity. This was an act of preservation and commandeering. Through the religious reforms of 1902 outlawing non-Thammayut Buddhism mahanikai practices the National government had begun discouraging customary Muay Thai pedagogies within the wat, moving it away from their magical practices. Fight wicha & magical wicha were likely seen both seen as fighting techniques. The aim was to put more martially trained men under royal auspices and in rationalized contexts. By 1919 British Boxing was taught along side Muay to police and all civil servants at Sulan Kulap Collage. The modernizing, internationalizing art of Judo was also offered. King Vajiravudh, returning to Siam to eventual ascent to the throne saw British sport as key to a society's modernization and Nationalization, and Muay Boran ring fighting was to be shaped to reflect the more rationalized (rule governed, safety concerned) character of British Boxing. The first fixed roped rings in Bangkok (1921, 1923) held both British Boxing fights and Muay Thai fights. you can see a Modernization of Thailand's Muay Thai timeline here It is enough to say that in the Muay Thai of the 1920s a modernization movement was significantly modeled on and inspired by British Boxing, and much of how Muay Thai is today comes from this modernization effort a century ago. But...did this influence change how fighters actually fought in these new rings? And if so, how much? Did Muay Thai/Boran on the one hand adhere to their own characteristics which were purposely counter to Western Boxing, pushing back to maintain its own identity resisting its influence? Or were fighters synthesizing Western Boxing with Muay Boran fighting styles? Was what was happening in the ring a combination, or an uneven example of both? We have so little visual evidence its really hard to say, but this one film (which actually seems to present two fights, more on that further down) is our deepest, most substantive look into the early history of modern Muay Thai as it actually was. My own feeling has been - and I should get that in front - is that while we may prefer to think of Thailand's Muay Thai has possessing its own pure lineage, tracing lines of of styles back even hundreds of years, the true nature of Thailand's Muay Thai is that it is, and has perhaps always been an absorbing art, a synthesizing art, which has taken numerous threads of influence and experience (including international influence) and woven itself into something absolutely unique: an at least 100 year old highly optimized, deeply tested ring fighting art. And substantive to modern Muay Thai has been its dialogue with Western Boxing from its inception in the early 1900s. Not only did British Boxing and Thailand's ring Muay Thai exist side by side in Bangkok, and not only was Muay Boran remodeled on the rules and engagements of British Boxing, but the fighters themselves fought in both sports. The cross-pollination was unavoidable, and probably in some ways quite effectively pursued. The 1936 Fight For Who Was the Best in Thailand: Samarn vs Somphong The fight in question in fact is purported to be for who was the best Muay Thai fighter in Thailand. I think the record is probably a little thin on this, but Alex Tsui provides a very powerful picture of the build up to this fight. Please read his original write up which contains many more details on it here. an excerpt: It was Samarn vs. Somphong III, fought at the Pattani Municipal Government Hall, on 29 April, 1936. Samarn Dilokvilas (career 1926-52), was the grand champion of Siam, from 1933 to 1939, and in those years, he was truly invincible and widely revered as a national hero. His rival, Somphong Vejasidh (career 1930-51) was the most dangerous puncher during the same period, being unbeaten all the way until he captured the 128-pound title at Suan Sanuk arena. A showdown with Samarn was inevitable. Samarn versus Somphong, the most fabulous arch-rivalry in muaythai (then called Siamese boxing in the western media) before the Second World War, enacted a total of six encounters stretching from 1933 to 1939, each a classic in its own right, that captured nation-wide interest and media coverage, in pre-war days of Thailand. Samarn had won the first showdown, an unprecedented ten-round muaythai match at the constitution celebrations, 1933, in what was always remembered by critics as one terrific epical battle. The rematch, in early 1934, was likewise very close, and Somphong managed to clinch a draw, at Suan Sanuk. Thereafter, both went separate ways abroad to campaign in pro boxing, which was a premier spectator sport on the international scene. Samarn fought in Penang and Burma, raking up a record of 9-1, having lost once to Young Tarley, but won the rematch. His last oversea outing was a knockout victory, in four rounds, against George Goudie, lightweight champion of Burma, on 14 October, 1935. Samarn’s ring savvy was so tantalizing that the media in Penang had given him the rather adorable title “Gentleman of Siam”. Somphong’s overseas campaign was just as enviable. A 10-1 record in Singapore (Asia’s most popular boxing hub right up to the 50’s), all against proven pugilists on the international circuit speaks for itself. His last outing was a kayo over Japanese champion Yoshio Natori in four. So, when the two top fighters of the kingdom were set to meet again, for the third time, it was national news, for the question after the two bitter battles had remained to be decided – Which of the two was the best fighter in Siam? So we have two of the best Muay Thai fighters in Thailand, arch rivals, facing off after each has also been a dominant professional boxer in the Southeast Asian boxing circuit. The two fighters embody, one could say, the acme of the sport as it was in relation to its modern inception in dialogue with Western Boxing. They are Muay Thai fighters and boxers. How would they fight? The fight is a remarkable document of the relationship between Western Boxing and Muay Thai in early modern Thailand. It's boxing influence is visibly pronounced. And, there is telltale Muay Boran presence as well. In my film-study edit of the style of Sarman Dilokvilas you can see the boxing footwork, the slips, the jabs, the angle taking, but also the reverse elbows, the throws, the spins, stance switching. It is an amalgam. There are some problems with the footage that I discovered in frame by frame study. The first of course is that it isn't' continuous. It has been edited to capture the "action". And, given the rest of the archive film, and its purpose, this seems likely done by someone who wasn't particularly knowledgeable about fighting (at least by class). This to me means the cut of the film itself probably left out a great deal of the art of fighting, the distance taking, the manipulation of tempo, moments of defense or delay. It presents a very clashy fight. It may have been like that, but editing is a powerful aesthetic tool, and to properly edit a fight take a knowledgeable eye. This is to say, this footage in my view likely suffers some from the same interpretative problems as Newsreel footage. Compounding this problem, the edit itself reuses action sequences, repeating them at different times in the fight, sometimes cutting them into different rounds. I started documenting these by timestamp, but as their number grew I just left it to another day. This just adds to the artificially constructed, and perhaps mis-representational nature of the film, not something that would be immediately apparent. above an example of many repeated action sequences This being said, there is still a lot left on the bone. Lots of techniques and exchange moments. Editing these clash-like exchanges into quick repetitions and a slow motion copy (the video at the top of this post) is to help reveal both their technical nature and to capture their rhythms (removing them from the master, original film edit, whatever it's intention). It seeks to catalogue the fighting techniques of Samarn Dilokvilas, who purportedly was the best Muay Thai fighter in Thailand. How much of a window into the state of 1930's Muay Thai does this fight between Samarn Dilokvilas and Somphong Vejasidh give us? These are both fighters who moved to the professional, international boxing circuit after dominating Thailand's Muay Thai, to great acclaim (mirroring the career patterns of later World Boxing Champions Saensak in the 1970s, Samart, Samson, Weerapol in the 1980s and 90s). They fight with a boxing influence. Sarman on the bag looks like a boxer, again: Did much of Thailand's Muay Thai reflect this? Or was this pocketed knowledge. A small piece of evidence toward understanding this is also found in the archive film. There is another fight in the footage, also edited for action (also with duplicated sequence cuts). It looks like it was a pre-fight show the day before the big fight. You can see that the rope configuration is different, with only two ropes instead of three. So these fighters may very well be important Muay Thai fighters in the Pattani (southern Thailand) scene. While the Sarman vs Somphong fight edit features very little clinch or grappling, this fight as it was edited is almost completely clinch and grappling, peppered with clashing entry strikes. Clinch breaks are still very quick, there is little fighting for position, but we really don't know how much this presentation has been manipulated by the editor of the footage. He might very well have liked to produce a contrast between the two fights, aesthetically, and may have cut out a lot of the art of the fight as boring to non-fight fans. Early Modern Muay Thai and Grappling How much clinch or even grappling (with a possible Judo influence?) was in Thailand's Early Modern Muay Thai is an interesting question. A 1922 Australian news report says that while throws are permitted, clinching is not, while it is unclear how clinch. This possible prelim fight which is filled with grappling-type action is perhaps the best evidence for the role grappling played in some Muay Thai contests in this era. Here is a slow motion edit of those clash entry grappling exchanges, as well as the complete archive footage of the fight: Conclusion What we are left with are two Muay Thai fights, one that features two of the best in Thailand which is quite boxing heavy in style, and the the other a possible prelim fight that is predominately grappling and clash entries. Two very different "Muay Thais". My own suspicion is that Muay Thai in the 1920s-1940s was very eclectic. When the railroads were built in the first decades of the 1900s the diverse knowledge of provincial Muay Thai and its fighting styles were suddenly becoming more connected. Chiang Mai and Lampang fighters could much more readily fight fighters of Pattani and Nakhon si Thammart in the South, or Khorat in Issan. The melting pot of the railroads, nexus'd in Bangkok, but actually in various hubs (this significant fight was in Pattani) must have produced a great influx of new fight knowledge, with styles interacting with styles. It is notable that the symbol of modernization, the train, features prominently in the film, and there are no Thai "wais" in that footage. Everyone is shaking hands proudly in a Western manner. Modernization. If we add in that Bangkok itself, the heart of Thailand's modernization and growing Nationalism, Boxing in part a symbol this internationalizing standard, at first by the King himself and other royal elites, but then systematically within the Thai government, police and civil service. Thailand was encircled by a Southeast Asian professional boxing circuit, born of regional colonialism, in Burma, Singapore, the Philippines, and international boxing surely represented the world standard of fighting within Thailand. It was honorific for Thailand's Muay Thai fighters to succeed in the Southeast Asian circuit, and Thai fighters likely successfully boxed abroad before even the turn of the century. In thinking about the state of Thailand's Muay Thai in the 1930s we must consider these flows of people, from the provinces into Bangkok via railroad, the outward international interaction with the Southeast Asian boxing circuit, and place that Boxing held in the royal and government concept of modernization itself. At this time Muay Thai was rich, eclectic and evolving, full of cross-influences, but also likely held areas of strong resistance, local knowledge bases which preserved and hardened themselves in terms of identity. It was as true mixed martial art ecology of fighting.

Just throwing this out there: an interesting thing would be to build a criteria list for judging/recommending gyms, maybe something like: Active Young Thai Fighters - young, developing Thai fighters are a sign that the gym is a living Thai-focused gym that does not only prioritize western tourist, commercial interests Active of Top Stadia Thai Fighters - some people find this to be important. It's great to have high level examples to look at and imitate. Convenience of Location - how hard is it to get to? Surrounding Location - what is the surrounding location like? Is it hospitable? Enjoyable to live around? Gym Atmosphere - what does the gym feel like, it's tone? Food - If food is served (or local food options) what is it like? Fight Opportunities - how easily can you get fights, and what kinds of fights? And how invested is the gym in finding you fights, and why? Female Safety and Respect - is there is history of respecting female fighters and students? are there reports of unwanted advances? are females given top training and enough fight opportunities? Ownership - Management - sometimes management/ownership can be a big positive for a gym. It speaks to the gym's motivations. It can also help smooth difficulties. Language - How much Thai do you need to know? Is English spoken? Are there other western language connections? (Some gyms have specific ties to other countries...Sweden, Italy, etc) Trainer Stability/Turnover - this can go two ways. Sometimes trainers never turnover, and become really entrenched in negatives or lack of caring. too much turnover can suggest unstable management. Quality of Equipment/Facility - some people find new equipment important. Cleanliness - gym cleanliness can reflect the quality of care invested by owners/management. Some people also find this to be very important. Clinch Training - does the gym provide substantial clinch training, practice? Pad Work Training - what is padwork like? Is it consistent? Between different trainers? Technical Instruction - is there much technical instruction or correction? some people really value and look for this. Privates - Are privates offered worth the cost? And do you have to pay for privates in order to get good instruction/training? Training Partners - Are there training partners for your size? Are they Thai? Affordability - How does the gym compare in price to others of its kind and location, short term, long term. Long Term Stay Opportunities - If you want to stay longer term, are there benefits? Discounts, sponsorship? Living Quarters/Options - Is there onsite lodging, if so what is it like? What are nearby apartment options like, cost and quality? Farang Gym Culture - Is there a long term western gym culture? If so, what is it like? Off-Time Entertainment Options - What are the things to do on off-days? Maybe add any aspects you find important if I missed any?