Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu

Two more thoughts on this, because it's a complicated issue. 1. Why not show your coach the Yodkhunpon shadowboxing session so he knows what page you are on. It could be that you are doing it earnestly, but maybe missing elements of what could be found in the video. It helps to have an educated eye looking on. If you want to gift him a month of Library access for free, we can do that. Just have him sign up and we'll send a refund for that month. 2. In a very different direction, we have a philosophy of gyms and training opportunities what is the logic of the Cupcake Bakery. If a bakery is really great at making cupcakes, and everything that comes out of it is cupcakes...and you don't want to be a cupcake, you want to be something different, it doesn't mean that you can't "go" to that bakery. It just means that you have to look at what the process (the gym, the coach) produces, and know that at a certain point you have to break off, or include other processes...or, you'll become a cupcake. For someone like Sylvie there just is no gym, trainer, promotion, NOTHING that will produce what she wants to become. None. So it is all cupcake bakeries, croissant factories, ice cream cake showrooms, it's all processes that make things other than what she wants to be. So, it takes a careful combination of processes - processes that make other things - to (possibly) create something new, the thing she wants to be. It means, unfortunately, ALL the processes are "wrong" in some way. But taking elements from many of them, changing those processes over time, could combine some of their strengths into a virgin ground territory. It also takes great patience and perspective for any particular process. It just isn't going to be baby bear. All are going to be mis-fitting.

Here it is, looked it up. I thought there was a public vid on this:

This is not true, at least for Thailand's Muay Thai. You can hit the back of the head in Thailand's Muay Thai. It isn't done a lot, because it can be read as unsportsmanlike, or dirty boxing, but it's legal. It's one reason why there is a very big "don't turn your back on the action" priority in Thailand. You MUST protect yourself. You'll also see refs run in and break positions where the back is exposed, just as a matter of protection.

This is Sylvie's article written way back in 2016, talking about necessarily training against the grain: https://8limbsus.com/muay-thai-thailand/mosaic-of-knowledge-multi-gym-approach

I think from your description, no matter the facts or possible agreements, you FEEL like there isn't support, and isn't a path there. This is really, really important. So many fighters just stay locked into training environments and relationships that just are not good for them, emotionally, spiritually, when they themselves feel deeply about their art, their progress. I say, when in doubt, when your instincts tell you that things are not right, move. A move tells YOU that your passion is right - even if you are making mistakes along the way. Gyms, by their nature, can be very closed-minded spaces. With the Library you are being exposed to a huge Universe of striking wisdom and techniques, much of it lost or on the way to being lost. It is going to cause some friction. What we try to do to alleviate these problems is to expand training beyond a single gym. Train in multiple spaces, under different people, so it isn't always you vs the coach. But, if it gets to the point where you feel that the coach is protecting "his way" so hardcore and does not fundamentally have your growth at heart, just move. This is a feeling. It's important to own those feelings.

From your description, my personal advice would be to just use your hands to stress your opponent. Just keep on them, keep touching them, bring the power down, get them holding their breath...and then go for finishes later in the fight with hard weapons (kicks, knees or a power shot). If you are that superior to your opponent. Hands are great stressors. This kind of crescendoing tempo is very "Thai". Touch, touch, touch, touch...damage. Touch, touch, touch, touch...finish.

I should add to the above, in case it isn't obvious: You cannot trade landed punches for landed kicks, all other things being equal, in Thailand's traditional Muay Thai. Punching fighters have an additional burden of evidence. I'll also add this. As a female fighter, while the traditional Muay Thai scoring system does not favor you as a punching fighter, you are favored in another way, at least when fighting Thai female fighters. Because they grew into the sport organized around the high scores of kicks (and to a lessor extent knees), they are much more adept at defending them, and much less adept at defending punches (to be very general about it). What you are throwing has an additional burden for scoring, but maybe has a higher chance of landing. You see this play out in the very different 3 round entertainment Muay Thai fights where Thai female fighters are asked to fight well out of their element. They are punch-heavy, no-retreat allowed promotions.

A couple of things here. 1. In Thailand's Muay Thai you can't just "appear unphased" by kicks and knees, and nullify points. Kicks and knees to the body hold the additional "score" of showing control over the body center, just by landing. This is different than punches, which require the physical and psychological effect for score. Yes, by bluffing no impact from kicks and knees you minimize the score, but these are still points against you. 2. It really depends on what you mean by "passive". You need to know what the score is to read the behaviors of both fighters. Thais, traditionally, once they have the lead, retreat and "protect" the lead. This can be read as lacking in aggression by westerners, when in fact this is often pulling away in the fight. If a fighter who is behind in the fight starts marching forward, and throwing a lot...but not having a lot of impact, this fighter would be seen as actually falling further and further behind. They are "chasing". Sharpness in technique does really matter though. It shows self-control, control over the fight space, balance, timing. If you are truly displaying dominance over the fight space, then this will score. I can't quite picture the fight engagement you have in your mind here, but if you are checking kicks and avoiding knees, and landing impactful shots, you should be winning the fight...though that also has to be put in the context of who is advancing, who is retreating, and what the score of the fight is.

To the question at the end - I seem to remember that you are experienced in Thailand's Muay Thai - the Golden Rule regarding punches in Thailand is "there has to be effect". In other words, you don't just get credit for throwing them (ie not for "being active" or "being aggressive"). In fact, if you are being active or aggressive and missing all the while, it actually can score against you. You are exerting effort, but it is wasted, inefficient, non-potent effort. This goes to the question of whether you should go for knockouts, or for "dominating" your opponent with punch combinations. The answer is: which one would you more likely show effect (physical or psychological) on your opponents? That's the approach you should use. This really changes though if you fight on the new 3 round Entertainment Muay Thai shows (Superchamp, Hardcore, even Thai Fight or ONE). These shows seem to favor aggression for its own sake. Throwing 10 hard punches that miss can very well earn you a round, especially if you are coming forward. In those shows generally the more you throw the better, as long as you aren't being caught on the counter.

One of the challenges of building a female fight history is actually compiling the records and events of female fighting in such a way that pictures of the sports emerge and tell significant stories. Female professional fighting has been so fragmented and silo'd, driven by imitations of much more prevalent and organized male versions of combat sports, the bench marks of excellence become isolated and often just largely untold. It really was this landscape of female fighting - and for Sylvie pro female Muay Thai fighting - that gave her to take much more hardcoded benchmarks of excellence. Instead of belts accumulated by this org or that, it became immutable things like fighting itself, in a creative process of self-improvement and pursuit of excellence. And also for this reason, she has documented each and everyone of her fights, with as much detail as possible: complete Fight Record. The net result of this extremely committed devotion to fighting itself, match up after match up, taking never heard of before weight differences, has placed her achievement at the top of all pro female fight history, in terms of number of documented fights fought. Below are graphics positioning her fight achievement in the context of other milestone female pro fighters in their respective sports. All of these women deserve to be celebrated, because all of them pushed past limits that defined them, and their opportunities. Each fighter was in a different historical context. The asterisks above reflect the account that Masako Yoshida had 44 MMA fights but also 2 other fights (boxing & shootbox), and that Sakoto Shinashi had among her Tapeology 44 MMA fights a shootbox fight included. source Reddit NOTE: The graphic above has something of an error. Iman Barlow's wikipedia page only has 60 of her reported 93 pro MT fights documented. There may be documentation, she certainly is a historic female fighter, but at least by wikipedia she isn't available. The tildes above reflect the ambiguities in the Wikipedia records of these fighters. Iman Barlow counts 103 fights, but it is unclear how many of these are amateur. The amateur records of Valentina and Joanna also seem incomplete. Sylvie's current fight total is 268 fights (including 9 amateur Muay Thai fights). As noted, female Thai Muay Thai fighters have careers that sometimes stretch into the 100s. For instance prodigious Loma in this interview in 2018 said she probably had over 200 professional fights. Phettae in this 2021 interview said she likely had near 400, each fighting for purses since childhood. Sadly, the documentation on these careers is largely lost to oral history. It's very hard to tell what these guessed-at numbers reflect, but it is very likely that fighting well over 100 times is more that reachable for the most prolific Thai female fighters of Thailand, and for some may rarely stretch into the multiples of 100. It's one reason why Thai female fighters are many of the very best fighters in the history of the world. I'm looking into older female fighter combat sport histories, which I hope to a pull into the picture prolific female fighters. In this end these kinds of fight total histories add to the other storied histories in female combat sports. Belts won, big fights and showdowns witnessed. In the very end just getting into the ring an enormous number of times holds its own measure that says something about a fighter. For those less familiar with Sylvie and do not know the context of her record, she's fought (at the time of this writing) 1,1008 rounds and only been knocked to the canvas 1 time, despite accumulating 91 KO/TKOs, and has faced Internationally ranked, world champions, or local stadium champions 131 times. And over the last 100 fights averaged opponents 3 weight classes above her proper weight class. She has fought in the absolute degree-of-difficulty echelon of her opportunity as a pro female fighter. If there are details that are incorrect, or fight histories that can be more thoroughly filled in please let me know. The true goal is building an accurate and dynamic female history of combat sports.

Source Interlude: I'm still working on developing the arguments and descriptions in this essay series, but first a bench mark source post. These excerpts come from Selfhood and Sacrifice Ren Girard and Charles Taylor on the Crisis of Modernity by Andrew O'Shea.pdf This isn't an entry in the argumentation, but just a placeholder. What is important is Girard's theory of the doubling of the other (in the case of combat sports the opponent) and the equalization that such a doubling brings forth...and, according to his thinking, the (potential) crisis in unexpressed violence that any equalization produces. Equalizations produce destabilizations, which traditionally have been resolved through rite and sacrifice. The quotes jump around a bit, but you'll get the idea. You can always go to chapter 3 and read through. I have in mind the next entry which will enter into a descriptive resolution of the first two axes of traditional, (rural) Thai fighting as rite and celebration. With then to move onto the (possible) ritualistic logic of sacrifice that grounds combat sports in Thai culture, bending back to Clifford Geertz's ethographic captures of Balinese cockfighting in the 1960s. I set these quotes as a post in the ground, so I can find my way back to the conclusion I know I can reach. A bit of cave diving.

Nice!

Short Essay 2 The entry point to this series of thoughts was this small paragraph in the introductory pages of Boxing A Cultural History (2012, Kasia Boddy): It's a very tantalizing if elliptic string of thought, broad-ranging in its possible application to combat sports. It opens up an ethical vista which could suggest that combat sports - and by extension most other sports, in a more diluted way - perform a rite, a ritual what works to cleanse or protect the social group, psychically. Sport is too varied to be reduced to this, but perhaps there is a very dark root to combat sports, and in particular much more traditional fighting sport/arts like Thailand's Muay Thai, which is imbued with magical observances and is tightly woven into community patterns and ritual which likely go back centuries, if not thousands of years. In any case, it was this small paragraph above, that put me to a deep dive, out of which this series of short essays has arisen. I wanted to give you the impetus of these thoughts so it would be easier to follow along what may feel like a circuitous argument and description. What I'm pointing to is the perhaps likely possibility that the purpose of fighting arts rites is the actual production of the loser as the (sacred) sacrificial victim. While attention is inordinately paid to the winners, and the point of fighting sports feels as if it is to produce winners, the true, deeper aim is the production of losers...and we lose sight of this because of the very Nature of what the loser takes on, the shamefulness that brings them out of sight, and causes them to be forgotten. With that put to the side, in this short essay I'd like to take up the second vector of Thailand's Muay Thai, what I am calling "divinity". The first short essay outlined "animality" as a force and a value judgement, but animality only gains it's full relevance in tension with the second vector: the "y axis" of divinity. There is a certain sense in which it is very easy to see how this dichotomy fits perfectly within Thai Buddhism. In this polarity that force of the fight, the dramatic import is ideally that of the hero (victor) playing the role of Vishnu, and overcoming the demonic, which in larger extrapolation would be the desires and weaknesses that Buddhism itself seeks to overcome. This explains all the parallels that are drawn between the endeavors of the Nak Muay and that of monks (written about some here), all the ways in the fighter seeks equinimity of mind, and even more importantly, the techniques and intelligence that one is trained in to overcome mere animalistic "chon". Animals have "chon", men have "art". The "femeu" fighter is the artistic one, the one who controls the animalistic within, overcoming himself/herself, and the animalistic without...the opponent, through art. Hence, this is a vertical vector. The artful fighter rises above the chon of the fight. There is a great deal that has been layered into this dichotomy, which places one fighter on the side of the animal, and one on the side of the human/divine. We have the prototypical Matador vs the Bull (a historical dramatic performance very likely derived from animal sacrifice, reaching back to Mesopotamia), wherein human art triumphs symbolically over the animal. And in Thailand's Muay Thai one can see the heritage of "Muay Femeu" (evasive, artful, tactical fighters) vs "Muay Khao" (forward advancing, relentless, exhaustable knee fighters). The Muay Femeu vs Muay Khao tension is also played out in Thailand along sociological lines, wherein the femeu ideotype is anchored in the ideology of Bangkok, and Royal patronage, and the Muay Khao ideotype is seen as that of the agrarian provincial (less educated) "worker". The divinity/animality, art vs chon tension maps well onto this sociological divide. But we are getting ahead of ourselves. I bring up these larger sociological pictures - which are the lens through which so much of Thailand's Muay Thai is thought about and enjoyed - so we can look back into the original sources of this dichotomy, likely rooted in provincial, ritualistic, festival fighting stretching back perhaps centuries. From the beginning the values of animality (its energies, force and weaknesses) have been likely tempered by the values of divinity, in the ring, in every fight, reaching back into the origins of sacrifice itself, wherein sacrifice becomes sport. If femeu fighting is the human (as it relates to, and even embodies the divine) enacts Buddhism's project of overcoming the passions of what is animal in all of us, this is done through specific arts and training. Techniques. Just as there are meditative (and magical) techniques, there are fighting techniques. Glorified fighters like Samart - who may rest at the acme of the femeu ideotype - at times feel like they are not even fighting. It is as if they float above the conflict, are never drawn in, but, they express their superiority over animality through the theatrics of techniques. At the time of conflict the technique (the blow, the slip, the physical freedom in a specific execution) stands out. It shines. While the criticism of Muay Khao fighters almost invariabily falls to the idea "no IQ" (and this is said of very great fighters, as well as by great Muay Khao fighters leveling critique on other great Muay Khao fighters), "just a bull" (an iconic animal of agrarian provincial culture), femeu fighters are celebrated for their "eyes" and for the way in which technique is able to just stand out. You can see the art suddenly there, in moments of great drama, just as you can see the matador's sword go in, or the executioner's weapon fall. This is important. It points to the highly ritualistic dimension of the roots of Thailand's Muay Thai. That Ladder of Being is scaled by human art and technique. The passions are overcome, no less than how a monk in meditation in a cave, through techniques of breathing and mind, overcomes the passions within himself. But, what is different is that supremacy of technique, the moment of the sword, is dramatically displayed and re-enacted, again and again and again, in this particular version (interpretation) of events. Leaving aside the difficult ideological dimensions of this (the urban vs the village, the royal vs the worker, it feels as if if we travel back to the rites themselves we will come upon a profound truth as to what fighting is, and what it does. What it enacts. If we can particularize the Ur-act of dramatic fighting around the mechanism of sacrifice, we can then untangle, productively, much of what has been built up upon that originary core, a core which likely operates, psychically, today.

Short Essay 1 This short essay series has been several weeks in coming. It will take being written in parts. It all began when I read the seminal article "Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight" by the influential anthropologist, Clifford Geertz [read it here: Deep Play Notes on the Balinese Cockfight, Geertz PDF.pdf] . As someone who has lived in Thailand for 9 years, very closely to the fabric of Thailand's Muay Thai, a documenting husband of a wife who has fought more here than any other westerner, from festival fights in fields in the provinces, to National television broadcasts, and as someone who has read pretty much every academic article in English examining the sport, historically, sociologically, I was stunned when reading Geertz's view of Balinese Cockfighting, much of it researched in the 1960s. I felt, instinctively, that in his descriptions he was pointing the reader to something that lay behind and beneath not only Balinese cockfighting, but traditional Muay Thai in Thailand as it has developed and thrived in the social fabric of 1,000s of villages, over hundreds of years, all the way through to high profile National Stadia celebrations and promotions of the sport. In reading the essay I felt someone was describing Muay Thai through a spyglass, capturing its structure and its truth, its reason for being. Why in combat sports does losing feel so, irrationally bad? That is one of the lasting questions that floats behind the article shorts that follow. There is to losing some extra stain that goes beyond normal aspects of social loss. No matter how much consoling, or arguments about fairness to a decision, there is a powerful debilitation that comes with losing in a fight. The arguments behind these article shorts seem to go towards a possible explanation, uncovering parts of "the human" that sometimes have been lost to the modern conversation. I read Geertz essay and I was swept up with associations, and avenues of interpretation for Thailand's Muay Thai, especially the Muay Thai that makes up its root system, the networks of festival fights all throughout the provinces in temporary rings on festivals and in seasons. This vast array of informal fights, which westerners seldom see or participate in, is organized around many of the social principles brought forth by Geertz. It's almost as if he's speaking about the Muay Thai of the villages which has fed the Tree of Thailand's Muay Thai for decades if not centuries, but in code. The masculinities, the representative symbolism of the fighter/cock, the bonds and dynamics of betting (making up the very fabric of provincial Muay Thai), all of it felt like "Muay Thai"...but expressed in a different culture, in a different rite or practice, witnessed and described more than 50 years ago. I of course am no expert in the provincial Muay Thai of Thailand. Sylvie's fought in maybe 30 of these kinds of fights, so we have a lived experience as a participant, and we have the advantage of having taken an ethnographic approach to the legendary Muay Thai of Thailand, documenting the men and the muay of that bygone era, so we are able to create cross-associations and perhaps identify important themes that hold the diversities of Muay Thai together. And, Geertz's descriptions ring resonant with some of my own thinking about the nature of Thailand's provincial and traditional Muay Thai, dovetailing perhaps with the narrative (agrarian) nature of Time (traditional Time discussed here: "The Essence of Muay Thai – 6 Core Aspects That Make it What It Is" and more philosophically, in a cultural criticism sense, here: How Duration Creates Meaning Through Narration with further thoughts found linked here: The god of Muay Thai - Phra Pirap: Where the Real and the Unreal Come Together), all this comes nicely against the kinds of arguments that Geertz is making. I've read the Geertz essay carefully in 4 passes so far, each time uncovering more, but it kept defying me, not giving me a natural way into the unlocking mechanism it presents. Geertz as an anthropologist tried to steer clear of "systems" thinking about cultures, and advocated for what he called "thick description", trying to sink into the rich complexity of what is happening in a scene. He wants it to remain "wild" in some sense, not boiled down to a few academic principles. And this is part of what makes pulling the threads I sense are so illuminating towards Thailand's Muay Thai, difficult. You want to bridge, but not extract. The first thing that comes to mind though is the Thai gambler's perspective on animality. I say the "gambler", because I want to take the position of someone who is invested in a village Muay Thai fight, and a participant. The gambler's perspective really holds the fabric strings, more than even a referee's perspective might. The Animal: Chon The first challenge of seeing how or why Thailand's Muay Thai and Balinese Cockfighting of Geertz's description share an underlying structure is being able to move from the social rites of animal fighting (in Bali - yes, I know Thailand has a long culture of cockfighting, and that some of drawn parallels, but it's the Balinese description we are working from) can map onto fights organized between human fighters. How is an animal like a person? To understand this you need to understand "Chon". In 2015 Sylvie and I had a tremendous night in Chiang Mai being taken to underground beetle fighting. Not only was it a pure revelation that such a thing happens (seasonally), we immediately started drawing parallels with the local festival fights and small stadia Muay Thai we were experiencing. We could see across the animal/human divide, into Muay Thai itself. You can read about our experiences in these two articles Underground Gambling, Beetle Fights, Heart and the Clinch of Muay Thai (2015) and ;more importantly Muay Thai Clinch is Not Boring – Gwang Chon – Battle Beetles of Thailand (2015). Some photographs from those articles are missing due to website problems, but the video below captures just what Beetle Fighting is. If you read the Geerz essay and watch the video just below, you'll immediately see themes and parallels. Beetle Fighting is called "Gwang Chon", which literally translates to something like "Beetle Clash". To "Chon" is to clash together, a collision, a crash. It's used in "car crash" for instance. You search for a beetle with heart, desire, a beetle that will compete. A female beetle is placed under the wrestling log for inspiration and passion. You want a beetle that will chon. This is a very important vector of Muay Thai judgement and celebration, what I'm calling animality. As someone said to us "Animals chon, men have muay". In the article linked above Sylvie touches on the very real ways the animality of chon directly is expressed in a fighter's "heart", one of the most prized aspects of a fighter. Legends of the sport like Samson Isaan, Namphon, Sangtiennoi, Samransak were fighters of tremendous heart. What is important here, for my perspective, is to understand that "heart" is expressed along a vector of animality. This is seen as an expression of a person's animality, something that presents them on a single chain of being which allows beetle fights, chicken fights, child fights, female fights, festival fights between beginners and National stadia fights all to be expressions of the same thing: a fundamental agonistic expression of heart, organized perhaps across animal kingdoms. This vector of animality creates the anchor of the fighting sports. It embodies the life force, the desire, the affective intensity of something fighting. It makes it "real". The further you go along this vector, the more real a fight is. But, importantly: animals chon, men have muay. There is another axis on which a human fighter is judged. The muay, its art. The fighter's technique. The tension between muay and chon is a really important one, and in the next short essay installment I'll take that up, but quickly enough, Muay Thai can be read across these two axes. The "x" axis though is that of animality, the things that bind us together in the great chain of Being. And it is that animality that helps us see how present day Muay Thai fights in Thailand (their rites, their subculture) traditionally can be closely connected to something as far off as Balinese cockfighting in the 1960s. It is the underpinnings of that striving, the chon between beings. It should be noted that even in the Beetle Fights we watched, the appreciation of their battles were not exclusively on the axis of animality. It was not pure chon. Beetles themselves are assessed, anatomically, by many physical factors including the length of their pinchers, which are related to their ability to do certain high scoring lifts. You can see this mentioned in this brief interview: This is only to say that even in the "lower" animal kingdoms, thinking about techniques and their relationship to anatomy (as one does with fighters) enters into the appraisal. Even beetle fights are operating on more than one axis. I'll take on that second axis next.

Sorry, these articles were not directed toward your comment, but were more toward the general subject matter of the thread. Just reference points.

Some articles that might help on this topic, especially this one. Many people can't even tell how hard they are going: Brain Science: Why Sparring Gets Out of Control – Neurology and Muay Thai https://8limbsus.com/blog/brain-science-sparring-gets-control-neurology-muay-thai Also this: The Challenge of Non-Ideal Sparring Partners and Avoiding Bad Habits https://8limbsus.com/muay-thai-thailand/challenge-non-ideal-sparring-partners-bad-habits and this: Fear of Escalation in Sparring and Training Aggression as a Skill https://8limbsus.com/muay-thai-thailand/fear-escalation-sparring-training-aggression-skill

In further, thought to be disconnected reading I came upon this passage discussing the importance of timing, and how it is relates to protective magical practices - in this case, those used by a very famously harsh Thai policeman of the South, who used magical practices to protect himself. The timing (the jangwa, a word used repeated in Muay Thai developmental training) is a focus of magical prognostication. Also in this passage is the mention of "mongkol" (auspicious), which protects the head of the Muay Thai fighter: from "Power, Protection and Magic in Thailand: The Cosmos of a Southern Policeman" (2019) CRAIG J. REYNOLDS

Yes, this is Peter Vail's dissertation. I can't remember how I got a copy of it. I think I may have contacted, or had someone contact the university? I no longer have a copy though. I did read it, it may have been there that I read the original in translation.

There have been several Thai renderings of the tale, but the tale's origin, is from (only 8 [not 12]) lines of a Burmese Chronicle. I think this is the essay: https://8limbsus.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Modern-Muay-Thai-Mythology-Peter-Vail-first-pages.pdf If it isn't that essay, it's another by Peter Vail in the original link I gave. I followed the citations in my reading and did read the 8 lines (in translation) at some point. That it is the origin seems to be on pretty firm footing.

I returned to these older thoughts on thinking about Sylvie's recent work with Karuhat. She's trained with him for years - the most comprehensive time of that are these 30 days of commentary. Their training has gone slowly away from technical instruction and has become more and more just what you see below. It's "sparring", but it isn't even sparring. Everything for him, in these sessions, I believe is about tempo change...and tempo regularity. You lie or feignt with regularity, you stiffen others with suddenness or the unanticipated. He isn't really creating openings is Space (a visual hole that is undefended) as much as he's creating openings in Time, incisions which will then produce openings in Space, the undefended. What these sessions are, though, are invitations to ride along the changing train of rhythms. To learn to feel the changes in rhythm, the feel for the kairos. Of all the fighters we've studied and been around there is not one more definingly blessed by Phra Pirap than Karuhat. The short recent video above is just some of that play, the transference of rhythm sensitivity, that makes the art of Muay Thai. It's a very short video, maybe 90 seconds. Just watch him. Look at what matters to him. See what he is watching and how he creates.

For a side path deeper dive into a Philosophy of Kairos, "the perfect moment", read my 2009 thoughts: The Unrare, Assemblage and Implicate Power: Kairos, Complexity and Ethical Greatness which tensions Nietzsche and Spinoza. The concluding paragraphs in that essay, thinking about assemblages and moments that make the difference: Tyrany of Combination: the Higher Man It should be noted that Nietzsche, after he proposes his new rare thing – that of the five-hundred hands – he maintains is rhetoric of violence, closing the window of sheer complexity and confluence. Such a creature is said to be one that can “tyranize” the kairos, and seize the time. The image is necessarily for Nietzsche, one of domination. The Typheus he raises is one of transmutation, much as the kairos of Christ, an entrance into a linear history that forces a radical change. But perhaps Nietzsche’s conception of transmutation is too dominated by his necessary values of high and low, rare and common, master and slave, for him to think outside of such binaries for long, like a cosmonaut leaving his space capsule. He may have too much a faith in opposite values, and lack the variability of a calculus of affection, which may be able to track the more sinewous lines of power which operate more along fissure of body compositions, parts put in ratio and assemblage, and less in terms of lower and higher, that nostalgia for power proper. Unlike Spinoza who sees such hands everywhere, transmutation everywhere, avenues for power, pleasure and increase, everywhere, bodies assembling in an infinity of expressions, all of which our nature calls us to become, like Lessing’s Conti, more aware, Nietzsche’s higher man, even if he is forced to let go of for a moment his solitary conception in order to embrace the necessary involution of inside complexity towards outside complexity, can only envision a greater and more monstrous form of himself, ascending. What is in question, afterall, is not whether Nietzsche was wrong, or right in any strict sense; but rather, in his glimpse of the nature of genius as a complexity of relations, and not a rare quality of a person, Is his conception of tyranny and domination are afterall the most potent, the most delinating way to see. For all his rhetoric and examination of power, is Nietzsche’s view of complexity necessarily the most powerful possible? Outside this Typhean wave of hands, voices and heads, grasping at and holding down the fleet-footed god by the hair, what seems most absent is the living communication between parts, taken in their own affect. There is something amiss when one only sees movement in “greatness,” and does not see change in continual proximity, the awareness that one is always amid five-hundred hands, and that the forelock is always agrasp. Lessing’s bürgerliches Trauerspiel informs us not only of the affective capacities of the rising bourgeois, that they too are capable of suffering enough to bring forth the tragic, but also warns of the nature of tyranny itself, as it seeks to seize the moment. When the Prince, enthralled with love for Emile, grants his chamberlain the right to do anything to prevent her marriage, all is deemed rightful to be done. It is of course a granting that will lead to her own death: Marinelli: …Will you allow me free reign, Prince? Will you agree to anything I do? The Prince: Anything, Marinelli, anything that can avert this blow. Marinelli: Then let us lose no time (17, Act One, Scene VI). The capacity to tryannize, to assemble forces, is but the first of the kind of knowing that brings about power and capacity to act. The painter does not only tyrannize his canvas. It is rather the affective knowing of not only the “what” but the “how” and the “why” that composes that assemblage creating true liberty. The artful moment is one that always lies at hand, and never slips from view. The tyranny of it is grasped rather with the softest of hands, which means not of hands less sure. What Spinoza’s view of bodies grants to Nietzsche’s conception of kairos is that there is a living, affective line of desire that traces itself out between what we often conceieve of an discontinuous parts. By understanding that bodies are formed ephemerally, by perspective, constituent of all the ratios of speed and communication involved, the world itself becomes animated with force and play. Each of us is understood to be in loop and satellite with others: not only other persons, all other things, the ratio of things becoming real cognitive centers of perception and action. What it does is place the finality of act everywhere, the kairos of a Christological incision everywhere, within an immanent field, and our direction of action always on a line of desire. Our stake fundamentally is in what surrounds us, so that knowing is assemblage.

I don't know much about the bathrooms, maybe someone can add to that. But this hour long video shows the gym and training, filmed since this thread was started:

Damn! I was thinking of Dengue. But the same anti-mosquito concern is maybe there with COVID. Rainy season, avoiding unnecessary mosquito exposure, taking that extra step vs mosquitos could be important. These are things people should think about. Anywhere you might get malaria (forested areas, border areas Google tells me) you could also get Dengue. In fact, you can get Dengue even more readily than Malaria. Urban Dengue is a thing.

This was a huge problem for Sylvie. She's a 100 lb fighter and years ago as an amateur there were maybe 5 people in the whole country she could even fight around her weight, even giving up weight some. Also, a big problem, is that coaches like to manage their fighters, a lot of it coming from the example of boxing (which often has a much larger, more organized fighting pool). Coaches definitely try to massage the matchups to help you improve. They want you to win, or at least have a really good chance of winning, to improve your confidence which is important. They also, for commercial and brand reasons want to have winning fighters. Winning fighters bring more clients. For us it was a big no-go. Every time a coach would try to slow Sylvie down, or manage her, we'd distance ourselves. There was no path to become the fighter she wanted to be following any of those "managed" routes. And it has led to a spectacular career of over 260 fights, the most in history. But...it has lead to enormous social costs, a constant shifting, and facing a lot of opponents with huge advantages on her, which also has lead to big breaks of confidence at times. This is all to say that you are describing a huge thing, especially in female Muay Thai, and that we took a very radical path in response to it, paid big consequences, and even to this day we are fighting this battle of control over opponents. Ten years in it still happens. For us, fighting is precious. Even bad matchups. There is a cost, but it is worth it. There is nothing that can teach you more than a fight, and fighting a lot gives you perspective. But...the social web of support is super important to a fighter, and coaches can be very sensitive to this stuff. In this case all you can do is give a double message. "Coach, I really want to fight, I'll take a mismatch" AND "Coach I respect your opinion" and see how it shakes out.

I don't know anyone taking malaria pills, though I'm not saying its something you shouldn't do. It's just not something I've seen...but, something that I've seen nobody talk about is that IF you contract COVID and malaria at the same time that might be some very bad news. I would imagine that malaria would complicate everything that COVID could possibly do to you. But that is just a bro science take. Malaria lowers white blood cell count, COVID sometimes raises it. But, malaria can be life threatening at times, so at the very least it would complicate diagnosis. All that is to say, in areas of malaria anti-malaria steps might be more prudent than in the past. Also, some areas of Thailand are much more malaria prone than others.