Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu

This is the art of Muay Thai.

Yodpetch, a FOTY worthy run in 1994. Impressive opponent list:

This is somewhat far afield, but also somewhat interesting under the notion that there are fundamentally two kinds of economies working in tension, perhaps even underpinning the logic of Western cultural development as well. It occurs that this wage vs prize difference is found in the analyzing logic of Christianity itself, in particular in Romans 6:23 "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." ( τὰ γὰρ ὀψώνια τῆς ἁμαρτίας θάνατος, τὸ δὲ χάρισμα τοῦ θεοῦ ζωὴ αἰώνιος ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ τῷ κυρίῳ ἡμῶν.) I've never really thought about just how much this theological picture is a contrast between "wages" and "gift" (the in-surplus-of-earned prize). Opsonia is literally the payment of wages, a fee, a monetary payment. Transcending this horizon of labor and its wage, long before our modernities of capitalism, is the "gift", which is bestowed in this logic, by the Master, in a hierarchy relation. Key to the Christian logic is that one cannot "earn" heaven/salvation/eternal Life. It is only with the hierarchy proper of putting oneself beneath the authority of the "lord" can the gift/prize be bestowed. It perhaps explains how Christianity conceptions developed in parallel with rising Capitalist wage/labor identities, forming a strong enough tension with the material realities of labor markets and wages.

Sylvie's trained a lot with Namsaknoi over the last few months at Singmawin, and even sparred and clinched with Jongangdam a bit. It was very cool to watch Jongangdam's style in the fight, never having seen him fight. He fought with great timing, and managed distance in ways that Namsaknoi (who instructs at Singmawin) teaches, with rhythm and off-beats and lowish power accuracy, adding in teeps and jabs. It's a great fight because he's forced to adjust when Kom (red) smartly decided to refuse to fight in space where he's at a disadvantage. I love how Jongangdam does not trade bite-down combo for combo, against the Muay Maat attack, but is constantly using his eyes. I also kinda love his slurvy left hook in the first few rounds which looks like it has both quickness and hidden weight. link timestamped to 36:21

What was happening between America and Thailand, specifically in the Northeast (Isaan) while Adul was at the World's Fair and fighting an Indian wrestler at Lumpinee...

In 1962 Muay Thai star Adul Srisothorn represented Thailand at the Seattle World Fair AND fought an enormous Indian wrestler at Lumpinee stadium, marking a Thai cultural outreach through Muay Thai. It stands to reason that this internationalism grew out of the United States military and economic interest in Thailand stemming from the Korean War (1950-1953) and the subsequent collaboration with Thailand in countering Communism in the region, which would culminate in the Vietnam War. more on that strategy here: In terms of Muay Thai itself, it seems likely that the biggest "fighting" influence that would develop out of this was the increased presence of Western Boxing in the country over the next several decades, part of the Soft Power of the United States.

from a summation of Richard Sennett's The Craftsman 1. Errors are crucial to the making process. Without error correcting the craftsman never receives any feedback as to his technique. 2. It is important to release tension and pressure. Skilled craftsman are relaxed craftsman. Don’t strain. 3. When using a tool, seek to use the minimum force in order to get the job done. Be delicate. 4. Many skills are transferable across domains but we tend to tunnel vision on the specific application. What looks like great leaps in one domain can often be recast as the application of a technique from a second domain to the first. 5. When seeking to improve our technique we will often need to unlearn bad habits. What works well at one skill level may not necessarily work well at another. 6. All practice isn’t created equally, there is good practice and bad practice. Repetition tends to reinforce what is being repeated. 7. It is better to work with a material than against it. Don’t fight battles you don’t need to and don’t try to force something to be what it isn’t. 8. Advances come from difficulties and frustrations. The worst thing for the craftsman is to have no constraints placed upon them. You must be willing to work through the frustration to solve a problem, this will spur creativity. 9. But, too much resistance and frustration will cause you to shut down. There exists an “optimal” level of frustration. I see this as analogous to flow states. 10. It is important to focus on quality for it’s own sake. In many domains no-one will know except the master that they have cut corners. As such, it’s important for the master to have their own standards of the work they’re prepared to put out into the world. 11. Repair is just as important as making. Being able to repair something implies a much fuller understanding than just making itself. There are two types of repair, static and dynamic. Static repair returns an item to its original state. Dynamic repair takes and item and turns it into something new. all perfectly in line with Muay Thai development, especially as seen from the West, under the concept of craft. I've read the book and it became a point of inspiration, but then it was around my study of Spinoza and his philosophy. Considering reading it again.

Worked on this brainstorm concept sketch today, typing out a readable graphic, explaining why Muay Thai isn't best seen as Capitalist and defined by waged labor.

The first post of this stands as maybe a short essay, the subsequent posts more like footnotes or commentary. I post here a graphic I sketched out a little while ago posing two different "economies", the wage or labor economy and the prestige economy. You can see some of the outline of my distinguishing thoughts. The contention though is that Muay Thai work/making is largely of the Prestige Economy.

Reading now on the religious and rite history of Isaan, from Buddhism and the Spirit Cults. This passage marks 1850 and then 1935 Railroad as the eruption of change. The evolution of Muay Thai to be seen in this timescale.

Another use of the Contax 645 35mm wideview, shots up into the ceiling generate tremendous aura of movement.

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".

The question of a pursuit of authenticity in Muay Thai by adventure tourists is different than other pursuits of cultural authenticity by tourism, I believe, in the sense that the coming demand for "authentic" experiences from MT tourism isn't the same for instance as tourist seeking "authentic" Thai cuisine. There may be some overlap, but due to the nature of fighting and the deeper motivations to travel to train and fight, there is more at stake than a sort of connoisseurship, or exploratory, learning experiences of "the foreign". Fighting involves another layer of personal identity and challenges core affects which lie beyond other legitimate travel transformations.

On another level this kind of foreign influence on Thai culture is itself woven into Thai culture. A prime example is that the gendered particles that end sentences, "ka" and "crop" are a modern invention and not "traditionally" Thai, despite feeling VERY Thai. They were part of the gender edicts of the Thai dictator Plaek Phibunsongkhram who was attempting to pull Thai culture into line with Western gender values, edicts which also included legislating clothing differences between men and women. So, the very idea of "Thainess" itself is quite interwoven.

Here is a very small example of altered Muay Thai culture in Thailand that I sometimes think about...some gyms have "classes", in fact a LOT of gyms are starting to have "classes" and this just isn't a thing in Thailand's trad Muay Thai, and after the class participants all get in a line and "wai" to each other in different ways, sometimes like a soccer line. This is something I'd never seen or even heard about in a gym pre-COVID (I had seen it in Western gyms, if I recall). What is interesting is that if you've traveled thousands of miles and encountered this ritual you would really feel like you've come upon an authentic, perhaps old and common Thai gym custom...and would even perhaps bring it back to your home country. I'm not even completely sure of the recent origin of this. It seems to have come out of the new idea of "classes" in a gym. There may be antecedents of import from Westerners in gyms who have helped shape those classes, or perhaps this is something that happens in Thai schools with kids (?), or it may come from Thais increasingly going to China as trainers, training lots of non-fighters, and then returning to Thailand. There does seem to be a lot of cross-pollination going on.