Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu

One of the more interesting plays between the article on boxing striking (above, JSSM.pdf <<< How Boxers Decide to Punch a Target: Emergent behavior in nonlinear dynamical movement system) and overall phase transition thinking is the idea that "Reachability" could be something of a control parameter in boxing behavior, very loosely the same as temperature in water behavior. One of the things that really frustrates fighters is that they often find themselves unable to do many the things they trained, or even display in sparring, when in fights. From the article two paragraphs: Range is a vital difference in strike (and defense) behavior. This is one reason why training defense is so very important, so that you can have control and choice over range. When you can defend yourself, confidently, you can then place yourself at the range needed for the best properties you have as a fighter come out. In fights, because of the emotional surge, and because defensive skills often lag behind offensive skills in much of the west's Muay Thai training, a fighter will defend themselves with distance. If Reachability/Range is a control parameter, then you would be like water in a liquid state, wondering why you don't have the properties of ice (to extend the analogy). This is also why Muay Khao fighters have an understated weapon. They can impose a range on their opponent, they can control a control parameter. They can turn ice into water...or water into steam, depending on how you want to read it.

for more on Simulated Annealing, you can Google about, but these two quotes are good: I wrote about the deeper roots of the annealing conception 13 years ago here: The Production of Constraints: Work and Annealing as “Freedom” What is interesting in bringing together each of these ideas of temperature change, at least in terms of learning or optimizing capacity, is that annealing takes advantage of phase transitions, traditionally using a rule-of-thumb process of creating a heating and cooling schedule to bring out the relation between phases, where as criticality focuses more on the straddling of the line of phase transition itself. Not to say that these are mutually exclusive of each other. Rather, they may even imply each other.

Interestingly, operative analogies of temperature not only play a big role in the thinking about critical systems (see below, from the article: Why Brain Criticality Is Clinically Relevant: A Scoping Review), temperature has also played an important role in concepts of Simulated Annealing (producing heating and cooling periods in machine learning approaches, much like how steel is annealed in metallurgy: see further below)

More follow up reading on criticality as it may relate to learning, and sport performance. First, an overview article: Why Brain Criticality Is Clinically Relevant: A Scoping Review read it above. It starts with this overview of criticality, and the concepts of phase transition: Someone on Reddit also recommended this article (PDF attached), which tries to map out non-linear dynamics in the study of boxers: JSSM.pdf <<< How Boxers Decide to Punch a Target: Emergent behavior in nonlinear dynamical movement system A few screenshots setting up the concept space. I personally didn't find the mathematical drive to description too interesting, but the idea of emergent behavior is right where we are going with this, and the importance of "reachability" I discuss in a comment further below:

Sylvie and I talk about mechanization in the West, which is essential to this model question, the video is Time Stamped:

This was Sylvie's improvised At Home Workouts that she did when COVID first hit. They were live streamed (Playlist):

The surest way to speak to someone who might help is through the WMA website: https://www.wmathailand.com/

I know that Kru Ten in the Muay Thai Library offered a solid counter to the Face Smush in clinch: #42 Boraphet Pinsinchai - Muay Khao Fighting Techniques (50 min) https://www.patreon.com/posts/19768793 #23 Boraphet Pinsinchai - Muay Khao Mastery (64 min) https://www.patreon.com/posts/14262395 I'm pretty sure it's in the first one we filmed #23, but above are links to both. You basically just reach across and over their outstretched arms, with your back hand, and pull the arms toward you and down, past the face. It's a pretty effective counter, as long as your own lead arm isn't too deep in, and over-turned. You want to also stand up straight with good Ruup when you do this. Also in training you can get really good at feeling the face smush coming, recognizing it, and driving your head in, through it, before it gets a good leverage point on your jaw.

Honestly, I would ask Paul Banasiak - https://web.facebook.com/MuayThaiTechnicianOfficial/ I forget his weight, but he's a pretty big guy by Thai standards. He's lived and fought out of Koh Phangan, then in Chiang Mai and I think he's now in Phuket. Several years of trying to find fights at his weight, and also a life-style in a city that is enjoyable and sustainable. At the larger weight classes he probably has the most experience on the variety of opportunities that are available.

You might also want to look into the Golden Kick, an older school version of the Thai Kick. Sylvie's article on it, with lots of video, is here: https://8limbsus.com/muay-thai-thailand/golden-kick-how-to-improve-your-thai-kick The reason I mention this is because the Golden Kick has two movements in it (they become one, once you are super proficient, but two in the beginning), it might help you, as you mention that this happens when you are tired. You might feel more control and awareness of your distance, after the rising of the leg, just as you turn over your hip. An idea anyways. Best of luck!

In almost all cases it really honestly takes about 5 fights or so before you can even get a sense of what is going on. Your first fight is usually a complete blur. The most important things in first fights are usually to relax your breathing (unconsciously holding your breath for strikes, or when attacked will gas you, even when in good condition), and to protect yourself. The whole reason for first fights is to get to your second fight, and so on. Sounds like you did great.

I will also say that often when we talk about "Thai" perspectives of sport, which we read as Asian, or uniquely Thai - things such as Narrative Scoring Structure, emphasizing dominance over aggression in scoring, the importance of how you "wear a strike" - these things are not uniquely Thai. We have lots of corresponding aspects in Western culture as well. When talking about the aura of greatness in Thailand, which does have Buddhistic roots, we can find elements of the same in the West. Mayweather is a great example. Yes, there persist all kinds of criticism of him and his perfect record, how he protected himself, dodged Pacquiao until both were old men, etc. But...along with Mayweather comes an aura that goes beyond his fighting in the ring, he's a man who set his own destiny, was able to build an empire, rolling in cash, dodge who he wanted to dodge. There is this larger sense that HE was the Man. It doesn't play out in the exact same way it does in Thailand, but similar things are operating. You get the same with Jordan, who beyond his stats, his game winning shots, was also a very manufactured persona. People may criticize him via this manufactured nature, how the NBA changed the rules for his sake, giving him advantages that past greats did not have...but ironically enough these kinds of critiques (though true), can actually work to further intensify his greatness, giving everyone the sense that he bent history around himself, almost gravitationally. This is only to say, when we think across cultures it is important to isolate themes that do not correspond to our own, especially our dominant theme, but, often it is a second move of insight-fullness to then recognize that these seemingly unique or differing themes do have correspondence within our own culture, often in a minor but still vital way.

Sylvie has a recommended gym thread you can check out here: Gyms run around 9,000-10,000 baht per month.

We haven't published Arjan Pramod's list yet, but I do think in this specific case he was thinking of his own fighter's greatness, how Namkabuan not only dominated his weight class, but also was an international ambassador, fighting in Australia, etc. And this led him to think of Buakaw. But even the bare inclusion of Buakaw in the list (no other person we have polled would have put him anywhere near there), points to elements of Thai thinking that often are lost to the West.

You can also interact on this thought stream on Twitter, here is the thread:

There is an element of That conception of "Greatness" that produces lots of misunderstanding in westerners. We in the west see "great" as a kind of technical thing, like you could extract a fighter out of their circumstances, out of history & download him as a "player". Thais instead do not divorce the fighter from the big purses they make, the powerful promoters or gyms that back them, the influences they have over others. "Famous" & "popular" are the same word in Thai. It means that there is an "aura". I say this because when we asked one of the greatest Golden Age Krus, Arjan Pramod, who his 5 greatest fighters of all Time were, he listed Buakaw as 4th. This is a joke between Muay Thai nerds. The surest sign that you don't know Muay Thai at all is putting Buakaw on a list. But he put him there because of his impact, his ambassadorship to Japan & the West. It wasn't about skill, it's about history. I'm still shaking my head about it, but its because I don't understand - fully - just how Thais see greatness. I think this comes from a deeper concept of "power" (Amnat) & charisma "ittiphon" that ultimately lies within spiritual karma. Those who have favorable circumstances have aura, and are in a way blessed. Samart had a powerful gym & connections & fought down at times forcing more advantageous matchups. For us it might be a critique of his Greatness. But for many Thais these advantages actually add to the substance of a fighter, and are not a detraction. His aura is composed not only of his fighting skills, his character, but everything drawn around it. His situation. Sure, people will quietly detract, make complaints or criticisms. But there is still a strong current of admiration. It is something like being *blessed*. Yodkhunpon once was talking to Sylvie about her drive to one day fight at Lumpinee Stadium. He didn't understand. The reason to fight at Lumpinee was so you could become *famous* (which includes idea of popularity & respect), to have an aura. He told her: You are already famous. It made no sense to him to do the work to have the aura, if you already have it. It's just his perception, but here was a guy who was a devastating fighter during his time, so many battles, but he never got the *aura*, the shine. He didn't have the power behind him to be made into something. I think this was what was behind Arjan Pramod putting Buakaw on his list, and part of why Thais see the substance of greatness quite differently than we do. It's why Dieselnoi will always be the lessor fighter than Samart, despite beating him. Yes, there are counter thoughts & arguments, ideas about who is a *real* fighter, but this stream of authentic admiration remains.

Middle kicks are very likely rewarded in Muay Thai because they are all about demonstrating control of space. They penetrate the central zone and demonstrate balance. If you control the central zone of the fighting space, theoretically, you then should be able to control the fight, which also means being better able to set up for knockouts, if that's what you are looking for. You see this principle in all kinds of sports and strategic games. Defense up the middle in Baseball. Control the center of the board in Chess, etc. But knockouts stemming from that control are generally not the aim in Thailand's Muay Thai.... You get legends of the sport with over 200 fights and only a handful of KOs. It's not about trying to finish the fight as fast as you can. There are lots of reasons for this, but one of the is that Muay Thai in Thailand is about becoming truly dominant over the fighting space - not flashing a (perhaps) lucky shot that is going to look great in highlight reels. It means - at least to me - that it's about building a deeper skill set, and a much more sophisticated approach to fighting.

Great cinematographer Roger Deakins (he has a brilliant podcast which covers so many aspects of filmmaking) say one of the things he does when he shoots digital, which is all the time now, is that is turns his monitors to black and white while shooting. So interesting, for a cinematographer who is known for his color use. Once he sets his color/lighting, he just wants B&W.

I agree with this. It isolates the form, the mechanics/dynamics beautifully, but it also does something else as well - or at least has the potential to. Photographer Harry Gruyaert noted, in his move from black and white to color, that black & white tends to put the person at the center, their psychology, cut out away from the ground, because color ceases to become an organizing principle. This makes black & white even stronger for Muay Thai because it cuts with both blades of the scissor (form/dynamic and personhood), which can bring out a lot of what Muay Thai is ultimately valuable for. Those kinds of stories. I say this about without adding the layers of historical genre styles in B&W, those for instance in boxing (classic photos), and in cinema, which also can provide a commentary and a grammar woven into what is depicted, perhaps more readily than color.

What an interesting artistic coincidence, I just put up my own film short sharing very similar aesthetics a few weeks after you. I was inspired by watching the film Blancanieves I think, wanting those very inky blacks. Very cool that you were thinking along the same vibe: Our podcast on the film: If Interested, for a while now I've been pretty obsessed with bringing the deep blacks of Film Noir to Muay Thai, writing about that here:

I do doubt that the King was referencing Muay Thai in any way, from what you describe. But there is a long tradition of Thai Royalty being the protector and developer of Muay Thai. Muay Thai is a very important part of Thai National identity. You can read up on the history of Thai Nationalism in this excellent article: https://8limbsus.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Muay-Thai-Inventing-Tradition-for-a-National-Symbol-Peter-Vail.pdf

Thank you for recognizing this. It's one of the hardest parts, especially for someone who has been inherently shy much of her life. We've felt from the very beginning an obligation to put it out there, to share the knowledge and the perspective, but it's been a balancing act, because at the same time Sylvie is developing to become a fighter, a great fighter, so the social web of relations isn't always helpful in that. We've just tried to be very nose-to-the-grindstone on this, and keep putting out more high quality thought, documentation, art. Everything...

I know it may be hard to believe because of the way people in the west treat film and video, but its actually a very small part of what is going on. Looking at her fights again, at the very best, might give her confidence that certain work she is putting in is paying off a bit, but 99% of what she is doing with her fight commentary is just reliving the event for the benefit of others. She's really just trying to relay everything that mattered. Any kind of advice from video from others is pretty minor, and very often advice from the outside can be misplaced, because they just don't understand (often) how Sylvie has to fight to win, given the circumstances of how her opponents fight her. Female Thai fighters don't fight like male stadium fighters, so much of the outside advice, if from a particular fight video, is based on classic fighting tendencies which are much harder to apply in the female fight scene. I would say the fight video experiences are way less than .1% of a benefit. On the other hand, her commentary done on all her Muay Thai Library film sessions is very helpful. It allows her to isolate more objectively, the lessons and important bits, and incorporate them in her training. For instance just looking at her bag work with Wangchannoi, objectively, got her to really radically change how she did bagwork recently. This is actually changing in real time in Thai culture, but there is a very long stigma of the living scene of Muay Thai in Thailand as low-class, dirty, wrong-side-of-the-tracks. Middle class families would enroll their kids in TKD classes, because it isn't shirtless, and they have nice clean white uniforms, for instance. But in the last 5 years or so gyms, and Muay Thai gyms, have been branding themselves much more to the upper classes in cities, as a way to stay fit for women, so the classic stigma is shifting. It also has to be said that while Muay Thai has had a class stigma, it also, ideologically, has been very important for Thai Nationalism and identity. So Thai victories, especially vs foreigners, is much esteemed and glorified. Perhaps the same thing could be seen, in parallel, with western boxing, which had a history of lower-class and disreputable participation, but boxing victories were celebrated at a very high level. There is a very strong moralistic slant against gamblers and gambling. Gambling is largely illegal throughout the country, for moral reasons. And in Thailand it is only lawful at specific stadia. That being said, the country is quite superstitious and the government lottery (and various black market lotteries) is a huge phenomena. But Muay Thai does suffer socially from its gambling stigma. We've covered this in detail in the Muay Thai Bones podcasts, I think. Clinch has recovered in the sport, but it's place in the sport is less secure than what might be widely thought. I'm not really sure how much COVID will effect Muay Thai, a large part of that is how many surges of infection take place, and how effective the vaccine is. Muay Thai in Thailand finds itself in a difficult position. Because it is socially disreputable to some degree, and the first COVID cluster in Thailand came around Lumpinee (the 2nd one now, notably, has oriented now around an illegal casino), Muay Thai has to be super conservative in relation to COVID. It has an uphill PR problem. The reason why this is so complex is that Thailand's economy is heavily dependent on tourism, so while Thailand has had an amazingly good COVID safety record, one of the best in the world, there is great pressure to open up to tourists soon, faster than say a tourism competitor like Vietnam. Muay Thai in Bangkok and elsewhere is linked to tourism, so there is some risk in how and when the country will open up, which could cause long term problems with Muay Thai if things go wrong.

I'm uncovering for myself, just tracing the line of contrast in Noir back through time, that German Expressionism in film (this I knew about), but also silent film whites play role in a Muay Noir aesthetic for me. This was really brought to bare in the film Blancanieves (Snow White), which is a 2012 homage to the silent films of Europe. It's just a beautiful film, and for me tickles so much of what Noir also carries. Here are a series of still caps I took from the film to give you an idea of what I see: A Muay Noir aesthetic can draw on the morality tale tradition of German Expressionism, which you find in this film, and which the Noir Universe also absorbed.