Xestaro

My favourite piece of gear are my Thaismai Cobra shorts As soon as I saw them in an online shop I knew I wanted them! They feel great and additionally they are this kind of motivational piece of equipment if you know what I mean Other than that I have a pair of neon colored Venum shinguards that I got because they were on sale at 50% price. I don't have experience with very many different pairs but they feel nice and lightweight and seem to protect well so that's great. Gloves are a pair of white leather Fightlab gloves I bought from my gym. They seem fine from my limited experience.

Thank you! It will be easier to find in here Watching again. Those fights were really cool! Well done ladies!

Are there any good resources you would recommend in English for research? I also tried to look a little deeper but didn't really find all that much material. Basically what info I found was just what we already learned from what you talked about in your videos.

the thought just occurred to me that it would be awesome if you (if the fighters are fine with it) posted the fights at the end of the Muay Khao Summit here. Would that be possible?

I loved the Samson session! :) He was so much fun to watch! Experimented a bit yesterday and I think I might be able to make things work if I keep at it and get back into good habits with body mechanics.

Thank you! I THINK it might have to do with being to stiff in my hips. When I get on the bag later today I will try and do some exercises I learned in Kali-training years ago and see if I can't get this going some more and maybe transfer the basics to punching. There I got to a point where I felt like I could drive every single attack out of my hips with spring and power. Those were more "round" moves though like stick/sword-strikes or open hand slaps or hammer-fists. I feel like the "spring loading" of the hips on every strike should be transferable to punching pretty well if you get it down. lol I was watching some more of the Sagat sessions and somehow I felt like more power was slowly but steadily flowing into my fists just by watching hahaha

So I'm trying to work on my punching as I feel it's one of the weaker parts of my repertoire (not that there is any part in there that is great haha). I was watching Sylvies sessions with Chatchai and Sagat especially. Actually I was watching part of the just newly uploaded Sagat session when I though I could try posting here. I'm tall with a good reach but so far I didn't learn to really make use of my reach so I'm trying to punch at greater distances with limited results. I tried the basic weight transfer Chatchai style and while it somewhat works and makes sense I kind of don't realize yet how to get the range I seem to need. Actually one thing I always notice is how my cross actually always seems longer than my jab.... wouldn't logic dictate it's the other way round? Maybe it's just because I'm right handed and my right side (cross) is more well trained than my left? I realize leaning in is a bad habit but I seem to often end up doing that to get the range I need. It's weird... I know I should be able to reach a target at a certain distance, so I think "loooong!" and it doesn't seem too far away either but at that range my punches seem to arrive without any power. Top acceleration and speed should be at the end of the punch says Sagat (and I'm sure many other people) and I try to go for that but somehow I can't get it to work so far... Any tips on what the best approach to training this is? On the bag (or some other "solid" target)? In shadow? some other way I didn't think about yet? Some form of combination of all that? On the plus side I feel like I get Sagat style "tiger"-uppercuts quite nicely as long as I have my footwork and weight transfer under control. I'm sure there is room for improvement but still it's pretty cool :)

Ooooh well I can understand that. I can only judge from what video material I see online and that looked great and interesting, so... No worries, I can totally understand being careful after reading stuff like that. Didn't look into any reviews myself since I wont be in Thailand anytime soon.

To clarify a bit, I was talking about this man: http://www.ajarngae.com/ Somehow he got pretty well known when some pretty hardcore pad-sessions with him went viral online. He seems to be a man who deeply mourned the loss of his ability to fight in the ring and now tries to help other people do that. Pushes his students very hard but because he really wants them to improve and be well prepared and at least to my eyes he also has a lot to offer. He seems to somehow have managed to take the spirit of a fighter he still has into being a trainer. I would be very interested to learn more about him and his style and see what he and Sylvie can do together.

hmmm, why do I do it.... First off: I'm a beginner, started at 35 (36 now) and right now I don't plan to actually fight. There is this fantasy about fighting in the back of my head though so well, we'll see if it ever gets to that point. I have been fascinated by martial arts since I was a kid really. Wanted to start Karate which was pretty much the only martial art I knew back in the day haha but there was a minimum age for Karate so my parent's put me into Judo. Did that for a year or so but it wasn't for me so... Took me some more years until in my twenties I finally started practicing an art seriously which was Pekiti Tirsia Kali after looking around what was available in my area and finding it interesting. My reasoning for starting was that I absolutely needed more exercise and taking up a martial art seemed to be a good way to connect that with a childhood love. Later I noticed that training and sparring also helped my psychologically as well as physically. I felt better, was more confident, felt more confident to deal with opposition or obstacles. I guess this is when I realized that a big point of training was for me to fight myself more than others, to get out of my comfort zone and prove to myself what I can do. Work interfered a few years later and I stopped doing Kali altogether a while later. another few years went by until I decided I wanted to get back into this kind of thing. I had gotten interested in stuff like MMA a bit and kind of felt I wanted to try a different art that was more in the sports-realm though I still love Kali. Muay Thai had seemed interesting for a long time and still had this traditional element interwoven with the sport-aspect. So I tried it out at 2 different gyms and started. I would like to get back to a level where I can do meaningful sparring again as one of my main points still is to work on myself and dealing with psychological problems I see in myself, learning to deal with direct opposition and difficult obstacles better and be more aware of my strengths as well as bring my body into better shape again. Also it is a great way of "getting out of my head" as LengLeng put it. When dealing with heavy everyday problems it was just super-relaxing to go to training in the evening where our coach had us smashing pads or whatever and I had a totally different set of things to think (or NOT think) about. I am much more of a beginner though as the time since I started in Muay Thai may suggest as I have hardly trained the last few months. Lots of important "real live" stuff getting in the way. I keep talking about wanting to get into it and at least I still get at least some training in but I know I will get back into being more serious with it when I have a few things off my back finally. Also have to say that I have quite a few other passions, too and their relative importance to me slowly fluctuates over the time of months or years. So far at least I haven't found just one thing that I can throw myself fully into without missing something else some day.

Hmmm kind of difficult to answer but I'll think about it some more and maybe come back with another answer. As to men training with women: I like to train with some of them if I like them but training with other men, especially of around equal or higher skill level (as long as they're not assholes about it) usually feels more "free". Especially as a tall and heavy guy (I'm not exactly well trained but have a certain natural level of strength from my bodytype) it kind of feels like you always have to low-key take care about your training-partner more. Of course you should always take care about your partners, but it's different here. Then for me there is the added problem that most women are quite substantially smaller than me which distorts some stuff for both of us. And yes, having to be more careful is a thing too of course. I've trained with women who were much more on the tough side and when you find out about that and the right level of intensity has clicked into place that's cool. There is still that bit of risk remaining that you have to be careful not to overdo it anyways. Then of course you sometimes get other women who are or act much less tough which brings it's own set of problems. Me being naturally introvert and shy doesn't help either of course but that's also the case (though to a slightly lesser extend I think) with other guys. It's not that I don't like interacting with people and of course training needs partners but I sometimes find it more difficult anyways. Then or course there is this male dominance thing. Comparing yourself to others, not appearing weak, also the thing Sylvie talks about in the text Kevin posted about being more careful about how much you tire yourself out. I'm not one of the guys who have been doing some form of training all their live. I'm actually pretty damn untrained right now and it pisses me off when I see that I'm holding a partner back because I'm gasping for air all the time and also that it keeps me from concentrating more on the technical aspects of what I'm doing. Also it's a showing of weakness that doesn't feel great of course. I remember doing a bit of boxing-sparring with someone at the gym (I've never trained much in boxing so far. We did a bit of it in Kali as our trainer was a firm believer in that you should at least know the basics of what you might be up against though) and it kind of felt embarrassing. Objectively I know I had no business looking great against someone much more experienced but I wasn't really used to the contact and feel of punches against my own body and I couldn't even use my legs which I seem to rely on quite a bit so that made it worse. I got a short video of the session taken and I actually look kinda scared from the outside which is what I was feeling, too. It felt somewhat embarrassing because, as someone else mentioned, as a guy you are kind of expected to know how to fight to at least some degree and somehow you end up believing this to some extend as being a natural thing. Then in a situation like this you kind of get this image shattered to a degree. It's not like the guy was going hard or beat me up or anything. It's just that the ego get's kicked down a little when something like this happens. It's this kind of thought that you HAVE to be strong. You can't appear to be weak because being strong is supposedly the standard for a man.

Chok dee! :)

ACTUALLY.... have a look at this video I just found: Lethwei again, but right in the beginning at around 0:38 there is a young fighter training on what seems to be a Makiwara. Later in the video you can catch glimpses of fighters using similar things with an added bigger padding at around stomach-height to train kicks and knees on. It says that this teacher set up his first gym in an alleyway with what scrap-material he could muster.

A bit to add about Hongthong: as far as I'm aware, Gen (Hongthonglek) is still training/fighting/teaching in Australia these days

Hmmm I didn't see any livestream...

The only somewhat similar thing I've seen with something more closely related to Muay Thai was in videos about Burmese Lethwei. In rural Burma people and also Lethwei schools are very poor and so there is not a lot of money for equipment. I've seen students practice on wooden poles with some padding on them (bareknuckle nonetheless) but not actual Makiwara I think.

Would love that in whatever form seems most appropriate!

That's actually an expression I have used myself as well, "too American". I'm not saying "American" is a bad thing in and off itself, its just this kind of.... totally overdone, over the top "Americanism" that I hate. I do actually sometimes watch MMA on different promotions where for me it feels more like ... I don't know... more like a martial arts event instead of a circus show. This "style" of presentation seems to be wanted by the powers that be in the UFC, people like Connor play into this kinda thing very well of course and Dana White seems to totally be in support of stuff like that so I don't see it changing anytime soon. Like in this press conference I mentioned, Dana wasn't even TRYING to look unbiased or serious but instead totally played into and supported Connor's clowning around. I mean it's ok to still be a funny guy even if you're in charge of some kind of event. Like my boss ( a few levels up, not direct boss) at work who will sometimes crack a joke when asked something during a presentation before he gets back to serious and actually answers but that kinda stuff happening in the UFC I just can't stand and can't take seriously.

For me, it's especially all the show act surrounding the actual fighting that really pisses me off by now. I didn't ever closely follow the UFC but nowadays I hardly ever watch anything UFC. I remember someone posting this press conference that happened before the Mc Greggor vs Nurmagomedov fight on a martial arts forum I sometimes visit and I just couldn't take it.... then I found a video of 3 hours of circus music on youtube and tried again with that playing in the background. Finally I was able to watch it... I think that kind of sums up my opinion on this topic and I didn't really say anything about the actual fights. Watching Muay Thai (and also Kickboxing) has actually become much more interesting to me. That might have to do with actually having more insight from personal practice of course.

I haven't seen a lot of drilling without shinguards in my gym here in Germany but my experience is certainly limited. We never used shinguards when training Kali though. Of course we also kicked less than you do in Muay Thai. It does help with control though. I think a good way to go might be a rule our Kali-trainer gave us for drills that involved taking direct hits that could potentially be damaging or cause long time bruising. An example was front kicks to the stomach-area where one partner would practice the kick and the other would just take it on the stomach to practice breathing and flexing the stomach muscles with good timing. The rule was: start low intensity and the one on the receiving end gives the commands. The only two commands allowed are "good" if intensity is fine or "harder" if intensity is too low. The idea is that this way it should be possible to train well and increase intensity without it ever getting TOO hard. Remember: you'll do this taking turns so the next kick will be yours to take!

haha, love the last one! It's from Onyx MMA. those guys make quite a few memes and a lot of them are Muay Thai related. They have even more videos though which are at least as funny :)

As another option (surely this won't work EVERY time but its another thing to probably practice and add to the arsenal) I've seen my trainer advise to just take a step back on a low kick (bringing your left leg back if you're in orthodox stance) since they can't kick what isn't there anymore of course. Also a "counter-offensive" option like the lowkick destroyer seems to work well when you use the large bony part of your upper shin right below the knee. Gives you some more surface to work with.

Archery is a hobby of mine and without looking into the deeper thoughts behind it I find it interesting that it wouldn't really be necessary to remove a breast for precision in archery, especially not with the "horsebows" typical of the general area which are relatively short reflex bows which means when you draw them, the string forms a relatively sharp angle and doesn't take up a lot of room around the archer's chest area. Of course there are countless different styles of archery and I bet there are some where female breasts COULD be in the way but I'd think you'd rather adopt your style in such a case. Just for the fun of it as you were bringing up comic art, here is a SciFi interpretation of Penthesilea in the form of a 28mm-scale miniature for the tabletop wargame Infinity (yet another hobby of mine):

As for a drill (I'm only a beginner myself, so take that as you will), I tried letting the heavybag swing (with a teep for example) and then evade by taking a step back into southpaw (I'm orthodox), directly followed by a left kick. The idea was to keep a distance on an incoming opponent and counterattack. Seemed a good thing to practice since most of my sparring partners are much better punchers than I am.