Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu

This is very beautiful, listen with the sound on. I'm not sure she understood what he meant in the beginning, "take me for a walk", but just watching him teach and talk. So much beauty.

Wow, Dangkongfah "moo deng" (as they call her) won again. It fits a beautiful way. Always enjoy watching her fight. Such an interesting fighter, we know her so well. Her opponent fought valiantly, trying to solve Dangkongfah's frustratingly minimalist style, but it wasn't enough. Dangkongfah won an important, decisive exchange in the 4th that locked up the narrative win, and then coasted to close femeu in the 5th, what she's so good at, retreating and nullifying. It's very nice to see Patong stadium reffing and judging in the traditional style, holding the line against Entertainment Muay Thai. A very well reffed fight. The promotion looks so solid, right in the middle of Phuket's Muay Thai scene. Very cool. This was a great test-case fight for those kinds of differences. Two fights in a row (at least) down in Pkuket, I wonder if Dangkongfah has moved down there to live and train. If so, she'll have a substantive trad promotion to fight on regularly.

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

In some sense this is like asking MCU or DC Universe films, and thinking Marvel is good "cinema" just because it's not DC. RWS is better, in fact much better, but its still the same kind of thing, both of them trying to cast as many "traditional" fighters (actors) as possible, to give that authentic cinema feel.

The Chinese Middle Man to Provincial Siam, and the Muay Thai of the Provinces from A History of the Thai-Chinese One of the most interesting (mostly hidden from Westerners) aspects of Thailand's Muay Thai is the headhunter for Muay Thai talent in the provinces. Many Sino-Thai Bangkok promoters and big gym owners constantly have their feelers out in the provinces, seeking fighters for the Bangkok Stadia. This pattern exists today, even for female fighters. The attached pages tell the story of how the Rice Boom in Siam, wherein it became the rice-basket for the labor markets of Southeast Asia and beyond, helped create this pattern of isolated provincial production and the Sino-Thai middleman manager who traveled the country, collecting product. In the case of rice, to be transported and milled in the Capital. If you read the pages you'll find the same insularity of village culture whose imprint you can still experience today, and the liberty with which the cosmopolitan Sino-Thai businessman flowed across Siam, creating a symbiotic relationship, which actually helped preserve village life and culture (for better or worse, depending on your politics). In Thailand today there still is a firm, almost world barrier between major city centers and the countryside, the capital and the provinces, with cosmopolitan agents cross-crossing the territories.

This was just an incredible slice of Muay Thai that Sylvie and I experienced, just talking to her about it now. For an entire year Sylvie training like this ending up at night at Jeejaa's gym, mostly just her and her brother and father, training with an absolute unicorn of a female fighter when she was arguably the p4p best female fighter in the world, at the age of 12-14, traveling around to fights with her in the provinces. This is a reality nobody else could have experienced, as she wasn't part of a gym with other fighters, she was made through her family, and a side-bet fighter. I think at this age she probably was the best Thai female Muay Thai fighter who has ever fought, though Loma has a case. Some of what we filmed of Phetjee Jaa fighting then:

some of the above is in reflection of years of this kind of intense training below. Sylvie really did train like few others in Thailand, full sessions at multiple gyms for many years...the Muay Thai Library was actually born out of this tendency of looking for the best training possible, but greatest influences, piecing it together. Part of this was coming to realize that the full kaimuay training quality of the Golden Age, what made great fighters of the past, no longer really really existed in Thailand, especially in terms of availability for a female fighter. Thailand's Muay Thai was fragmented so optimal training had to be fragmented and assembled. Sylvie and Phetjee Jaa training Sylvie training with Jee Jaa's family, probably an entire year of this, about 10 years ago. She would go over for a full session after her full session at Phetrungruang, her 3rd of the day. Sylvie's film about 9 years ago capturing the full day of training back then: and the article that went with it: short film – A Day of My Training – Love the Grind

The Anchors of Muay Thai Training We actually heard this years ago, at Phetjee Jaa's family gym, where Sylvie trained for a year. The anchor of training - once you know the language of Muay Thai, from most important to least: To anchor Clinch Run In stretches, all other things can be skipped, this is your foundation. Everyday. In the West everyone is obsessed about "techniques" (learning them, perfecting them, drilling them, making them "muscle memory"), its how the West perceives Muay Thai, (aesthetic) biomechanically. In Thailand, its clinch and run. There are real, efficacious reasons for this. I'll write about this later, but they involve the DNA of Thai fighting, drawing out energy management in long-wave patterns that breakdown short exchange or burst fighting, in both the Muay Khao and the Muay Femeu fighter. To Improve Spar Shadowbox These are just so important, because properly done they produce longevity play and creativity, the heartbeat of true fighting. It depends on your sparring partner, and you should have a few of course, but these two aspects of training are the primary paths to improvement. To maintain and build Bagwork Padwork Outside of Thailand there is a lot of emphasis on padwork, mostly because Thailand does padwork like nowhere else, and a lot of the signatures of "authenticity" by non-Thai coaches come from imitating or approximating Thai padwork. In all my time I've only seen two Westerners who actually "get" what's happening in high level Thai padwork, and they both hold pads in an idiosyncratic way, not "like a Thai". They digested the qualities through years in Thailand, and came up with their own expression of it. Kaensak told us, padwork is just to "charge the battery" before a fight, its traditionally not really used as a teaching mechanism, and certainly not a drilling combos mechanism, though lots of padholders have taken it in that direction. Largely though, padwork, once you know the language of Muay Thai, is in the bottom rung of importance, in my opinion. There is an exception to this, in that if you find an extraordinary padman who can develop rhythms and distance shaping, through a very high level of feel (padwork is about these things, not about strikes), this can be very significant and make big differences in fighters over time...but, on the other hand, if you have padmen who have little sensitivity toward these things, or push into styles that are not conductive to your own, padwork can be even detrimental, giving you space and rhythm that will not help you much in fights and probably will be counterproductive.

Muay Roid, the New Art People starting to question the weight bullying, and roids in Muay Thai. Weight bullying has been pretty endemic in Thailand's Muay Thai, in part because Westerners are just bigger physically (and have to be accommodated in the tourist commerce of the sport), in part because those size differences reflect real economic powers. What isn't talked about too much is that Thailand has also long been a roid holiday center, a place where people come to cycle on. Put the two together and you end up producing serious power differentials, especially if you restructure the rules and aesthetics to favor clash fighting. This also comes with the glorification of the "alpha" body, which also drives the internet versions of the sport. It should also be noted that some Thais themselves likely have caught onto some of this weight bullying, and have also started to try to go up in size as much as possible, not only to keep from being so weight bullied, but also to reach into higher weight classes.

Almost all fights in Thailand are technically "pro" under full trad, or entertainment rules. You likely are already skilled enough for your first fight (all things being equal), if your gym is adept at finding matches (it depends on your size too). But, you'd probably want to train a month to acclimate yourself, develop training calluses (not actual calluses, but mental and physical toughness) to make your first fight more digestible. First fights are mental whirlwinds, and the more acclimated your are, the more enjoyable they'll be.

A Test of Meksen Usually I could care less about ONE cards, but this Meksen vs Kana fight is very interesting, as Meksen has risked so much in joining ONE. She kind of have a somewhat protected kickboxing career in Europe (with some big wins), simply because the sport is fairly small, and made what seemed like a bid for what she felt was a highly coveted belt. She got involved in contract quicksand, the kind of which forced Iman Barlow into retirement, then was forced into the buzz saw of Phetjee Jaa...and then fighting UP in weight (which top fighters don't really like to do if they can avoid it) vs Buntan, a much less experienced by very capable, disciplined fighter. Meksen has a storied career of wins and in it not much experience with loss. If she loses to Kana that would make 3 losses in a row, which I imagine would be extremely difficult. Kana is a tough fighter who has some attacks off the pivot that could pose problems for Meksen's direct attacks. This is certainly a very meaningful fight for a fighter of Meksen's renown. I'm interested in how she handles it. The fight itself, I don't know. I'm not a fan of watching even the faux Muay Thai ruleset much (it takes a special fighter to make it interesting), and the kickboxing version even less, its just not made for me as an audience member. But, as a fan of female fighters there is very strong story here, bigger than even vs Phetjee Jaa I believe.

The Chinese Impact on Modern Siamese/Thai Culture Read this incredible description from 1855, and see just how "Chinese" Bangkok was well before the turn of the century. The rivers and canals were the life's blood of the city, and every liquid's edge was Chinese, pulsing with their culture, shops in Chinese. 200,000 in Bangkok alone then, most of them lining the waterfronts and tributaries. To understand Bangkok's Muay Thai one has to appreciate the intensity of the braiding of Siamese culture with Chinese commerce and culture, going back hundreds of years. This is not just an isolated China "town", the Capital was in many respects Chinese-driven economically. The history of the Chinese Bangkok Muay Thai promoter goes back to this anchorage. I've written about before how much the railroad changed Siam/Thailand, connecting hard to reach provinces to the capital 1900-1930, in terms of Muay Thai bringing provincial fighters in proximity to Capital fighting, mixing those styles, but before the railroad pulled the provinces closer to Bangkok, the arrival of the steamship in the mid-1850-60s, brought 100,000s of Chinese (and others) as emigrants to Siam, the flow of a huge workforce and commercial investment from abroad, burgeoning in the city and throughout its waterways and ports to the South.

Martial Influences from China One can make very broad assumptions about the likely cross pollination of mercenary martial influences upon Muay Thai (Boran), but seldom is there a specific example of possible influence. This is not direct evidence, but you have a grandson of a renown Fujian swordsman making his way to Songkla in Siam's South, doing battle against the Malay, to one day become a powerful Siamese figure. This is one account of literally 100,000s of Chinese who came to Siam in the 19th century, many of them settling into the South and becoming prominent in the culture. from A History of the Thai-Chinese, Pimpraphai Bisalputra

Said to be the reinforced corner of a 19th century sail. This seems fitting for certain kinds of long term Muay Thai training. Building in layers, spheres of reinforcement where the sheering and torquing will come from.

Thai Push Back Against Entertainment Muay Thai This Facebook posting, which reposts something written by a famous gym head in Thailand (and presumably deleted), after I believe a ONE Friday Night Fights where 5 Thais were KO'd. This is a growing sentiment, albeit a minority sentiment, regarding Entertainment Muay Thai which is basically designed for Western wins, in a Western aesthetic.