Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu

Sagat in the Muay Thai Library was the first one to really push hard at getting rid of this in Sylvie. It was a major point of his. Everything from within the frame. Sylvie would stand with her side against a wall to get the feeling right. Sagat was a pro boxer as well, and came from a boxing gym. Gyms with connections to boxing are much better at getting this right. Lots and lots of Muay Thai gyms get into bad habits with their winging punching, holding pads wide. Not only does it make punches less accurate, less consistent, I think the chicken wing also helps the opponent see the punch a hair sooner. When it come straight out of the body its very hard to see, track or gauge the speed of. I think this is a huge problem in Thailand's Muay Thai, to be honest.

I have trained very little actually, but rather have become - kind of like - Sylvie's antennae, watching as she is shaped by literally 100 krus plus. I weigh all the input and see how it impacts her, and try to find the way she can go forward. I also watch carefully the methodology of others around her, seeing where it succeeds and falls short. Maybe I'm a kind of ethnologist of Muay Thai, the (largely silent) eye who has been watching the entire time.

I think there is a lot to that. Yes, you can pick up bad habits like "dropping your hands" etc, but a little correction, and a continuous emphasis on ruup and defense, goes a long way. The Thais talk a lot about "tamachat" (be natural). When tired lots of the path of least resistance movements come out, I believe.

I've heard his theories, the one you mention, and his "you should never get sore in working out" idea. I think he, though praised endlessly in western internet media, is (intelligently) full of it. He's all about making the "coach" the fulcrum of training, and also in building up a gym's clientele. In my mind his business model has seriously shaped his "theory". It certainly is quite opposed to many things in Thailand's traditional Muay Thai.

One of the things we think about is the idea that when you train something when you are fatigued, you wear a deeper groove than if you trained it over and over again when relaxed and fresh. This is only an intuition, and could be totally wrong (Science!), but the sense is that when you are fatigued it's like heating up a metal that is to be re-worked. All the constituent parts are floating more freely, subject to change. The things you do in fatigue seem to get locked in more, more associated with stuff you'll do when stressed in a fight or in life. Some of these thinking comes from an analogy of annealing, and simulated annealing, for me. But, there is definitely a sense of deeper grooves being hard to change. When you begin creating habits you have to respect that you ALREADY have habits, even if they are just instinctual responses.

One of the best inexpensive options would be Rambaa's gym in Pattaya. He runs his gym on a tight budget, full of kids, so any western monthly payment surely would help. He has incredible spirit, teaching a beautiful, dynamic Muay Thai, he gives great pad work, and you feel like you are part of a real gym. But, there isn't a lot of western fighter focus. The last day we visited there were a few French fighters who were training with each other, and seemed to be living across from the gym in cheap rooms. It's kind of wild, wild west. I suggest taking the bus out to Pattaya and visiting the set up, and seeing if it suits you. Westerners have come and gone through the gym. Some staying for a long while, some just find it isn't their cup of tea. But during the downturn it might be a great thing to try. There are lots of smaller gyms in Pattaya you could turn to if it didn't work out. You could also try Petchrungruang which is kind of a 50/50 gym, friendly to westerners while still being part of the family style aesthetic.

Here is Sylvie's vlog on 3.0:

This isn't ridiculous at all, in fact it's something I'm trying to get Sylvie to realize to get her clinch to the next level. It's not the exact same realization, but related. One of Sylvie's biggest opponents is the ref. If in clinch you get to a stagnant position, especially for her, the ref will come and break. Upon break her actual opponent, who's game is to simply nullify the clinch, wins a very small style point...because she has reached a point of no progress for her. If Sylvie, who is usually relentlessly pursuing clinch and lock would push off, and disengage, attack, and then reengage, she would be triply hard to handle. She would be the one in control over when clinch is happening. On her terms. I write this in some sympathy because I think there are lots of habits like this, like the one you describe. If you are a clinch fighter you are supposed to be pursuing clinch at all (most) times. It feels counter intuitive to build in disengagements. But, disengagements will make you all the more exhausting as a fighter. Your opponent loses the chance to call on the ref to signal a moment of control. I don't know much about BJJ, but it sounds like a similar realization.

Just as the "art" of cinema can be said to consist of the edit, the art of fighting consists of tempo shit. Playing with Time.

Sometimes I stroll well outside of my usual study of the things I love, into realms I know not a lot about, but in them I see patterns and principles that I love in Philosophy, and in the higher tradition of Muay Thai. This last few days when I was feeling under an unusual amount of distress, so much so that I couldn't keep up with my common strains of thought, I stumbled onto this video of dancer MARQUESE SCOTT. Judging from the comments it was an extremely famous dance video from eight years ago, something that introduced Dubstep music to many of the viewers back then, so I am very clearly coming to it quite late. But it just struck me...HARD. I want to talk about what I saw in it, that I also see in the best Muay Thai that I absolutely love, and that Sylvie and I work to document and preserve. Watch it though with earphones on. There's a lot of things that go into this. I've since watched maybe 25 of his videos which have mixed levels of quality, only a few reaching the level of this "most viewed" one. First of all, as an amateur film maker the composition and color grades are just beautiful. The rigidity of the lines, the stone "box" that he moves in just amplifies his blue liquidity and movement. He leaps out. But...really spoke to me was his choreography, how it expressed so thoroughly his years, and years, and years of work on his body. The pauses, the slowdowns, the sensations, the illusions of the music moving directly through him. It is alchemical, how so much work on the body, so much error, then produces weighlessness. This is the true transcendent art of the fighter. That there is so much real work, that the sword is beaten and melted so many times, that it eventually produces a very sharp and flexibly blade that cuts air. There is so much more to this performance to speak of - the narrative, the facializations, the way he is himself, and not himself - but I don't want this to be a critique. It's just that in seeing this I see what I see in a Karuhat fight or highlight. The same transmutations. Maybe you'll see them too? The next two are also pretty incredible, and for me kind of open up elements that are complexly contained in the first: This one is performed in Mumbai, and kind of blew my mind. We know of Muay Thai in Thailand, traditionally, it is a performance of Masculinity. In fact hyper-masculinity (you can read more about that here). In this incredible video we see the dancer's incredible masculinity (the sharpened sword of his dance, his liberty) performed in a street of uncomprehending group masculinity. His flight along the music, in arduous the pathways of practice as a dancer, is just incredibly, beautifully, really almost painfully juxtaposed. It is in a way that the artist/fighter is always alone in his/her performance, to some degree, on his/her own flight. And, how the social group is almost challenged, befuddled and stiffened by the performance. The imitation of the one breakdancing local becomes a bookend that opens up what the performance meant. And, because we can hear the music (and they likely cannot), the dancer is closer to us than them. This last one, earphones are important, ascends with the aesthetic development within the first video. The freedom, affect & narrative elements in Pumped Up Kicks is just deepened through the confines within he is expressing himself. Not unlike the liberty expressed by Ali in the confines of space, or Samart in his famous head movement clip (below). It's more than this. It's the way that he can narratively express the emotions of the song in such a confined real, the strictures of the walls being the strictures of society and life's demands. Time Dilatations One of the more beautiful aspects of his dance style are his time dilations, when he suddenly drops down into a different slow space, that is somehow truer than the common one taken by the music. This is so much like elite fighters who surely are also feeling Time slow down. Looking at Karuhat's highlights you'll see these time dilations: These shifts in tempo and slowdowns are what you see in absolutely masterful fighters. They are performing the transcendence of combat itself, the opponent, and ultimately the ropes of the ring. It is the precious under-element of great fighters, how they slow down fighting, are outside of its tempo. While dancers do this with music and the physical constraints of their body, and the dance space, fighters do this with the same, and within the affect space of fear, anger, pain and shame Samart: https://web.facebook.com/watch/?v=1703216029712520 Ultimately for me, what Marquese Scott's filmed dance performances do is they unfold beautiful elements within fighting, that are often occluded by the flash/bang of how it is often conducted, and certainly how it is promoted and digested/consumed by fan bases. Sometimes when you turn to another artform, you can look into one's own art form, as if through a lens. Peering into it. I see, when he moves and chooses just endless training, training done through the personal joy of his for music, for dance. Slow motion capture of fighters is something like this as well, below examples: The full slow motion playlist

informative essay relevant to Muay Thai Beyond Syncretism: Hybridization of Popular Religion in Contemporary Thailand, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 36 (3), pp 461–487 October 2005 b76ff9d4178f5e8359834b085fd95763dd43.pdf

Three more vlogged entries in the experiment:

Is that the same for the Hotel? All of the property there?

Thank you for the awesome update on your adventure with Sagat. So cool that you are zoning in on his beautiful principles and technique. After training with him (Sylvie) I can just shake my head and see how often people just don't know how to punch. You don't have to punch exactly like him, but the principles he teaches are probably sewn into almost all good hands.

As others have mentioned, sak yant aren't really "for" Muay Thai. In fact they are seldom prominent in most prominent Thai Muay Thai fighters. They are kind of from the under-class of Thailand, much as perhaps tattoos in general were in western countries for a very long time. And, some of that under class become fighters. But...mostly they are just symbolic representations of protection, or power, believed in an an animistic level. A sak yant of a tiger may just be summoning up "tiger energy", the ability to command, stalking forcefulness, etc. It could apply to anything in life. So...sak yant could just tap into or express the underfeelings of what Muay Thai has brought to you, without being some sort of "bro" appropriation. Your own attempt to get in touch with that thing, that meaningfulness. Or, maybe not. In either case, I would say to just get in touch with that thing that Muay Thai has done for you, brought to you, and then find some representation that speaks to that for you. Maybe its nothing that looks like its related to Muay Thai at all...but YOU know it's about Muay Thai. Or, perhaps, if there is a particular heroic fighter who inspires you, then perhaps something related to their image. As for words, Sylvie's discussed a series of Thai words that embody the spirit of Muay Thai, I'm sure she would double check the graphic for you before you got it tattoo'd. This was one: Ning: https://web.facebook.com/sylviemuaythai/photos/a.134623809905091/2636651226368991

Something to add to the topic. Sylvie got head kicked (accidentally) in sparring by a big partner and definitely was concussed, not too long ago. We've become very serious about putting in much more sparring, now 10 rounds a day, which means also sparring with people who just are not ideal. For us this means that if this is going to happen head defense has to become a very serious priority. Padwork and bagwork can produce some seriously bad habits, unconscious relaxations after combos or single strikes. Yes, it's sparring that will take those relaxations out (you are just going to get hit, and that will correct things), but if you are going to spar a lot the truth is that you just can't expose yourself to that much impact. This means head defense HAS to become a priority. This is one reason why we're working in the Diamond Guard. I feel like this is the most secure "cage" of defense in the sport, and famously protected Archie Moore through well over 100 boxing fights. The point though really is, if you are going to spar, defense and head protection has to become a major focus, just in terms of longevity. You can't just rely on negative feedback to correct your defensive mistakes. You have to stop thinking about offense (which is what pretty much everything thinks about in sparring) and become defensively minded, especially in your guard.

Awesome little review. We had a great time filming with Kru Dieselnoi. One day I'd love to have Sylvie spend a few weeks working with him. He really seemed to get her strengths, and take to amplifying them in a beautiful way.

I've started vlogging my experiences in early work with video and color to capture some of the elements I've been pursuing in still photography. You can check out the first two below: What is principal here for me are all the ways that slowing down footage actually works to produce motion. It is all this micro-motion, which for me is like a kind of breathing, as if the form itself is breathing, that I find really interesting. This...and how color grading can work to building up atmosphere, a materiality of space, out of which the depicted form or focus emerges, is cloistered in, or erupts. This is something I seek in lots of my still photography. It's why I often try wider lenses. I feel like Muay Thai photography, and videography as well, has extracted too much from the surrounding nature, mechanizing it, alienating it, making an fragmentation. These video experiments are in that direction.

I'll have Sylvie try and ask him.

I wish we could have these kinds of conversations! (This mode of analysis, instinctively, feels far from Thai conceptualization about things, to me.) I would point out, also interestingly enough, that even though it is true that much of Muay Thai was transmitted through wat education, the State formalization of Buddhism that began with the turn of the 20th century, and extended through the time of the article above, did work to really narrow the diversity of Thai Buddhism (and likely Muay Thai) in that process. As King Chulalongkorn, for instance, named (and therefore ostensibly created the "schools" of Muay Boran in 1910, this has been seen by historians as an attempt to actually secularize Muay Thai in the country, by putting under State camp auspices. These two dates in our Modernization of Muay Thai bring this forward: The Modernization of Muay Thai - a timeline It would be super interesting to know what animistic, magical practices were preserved throughout the century, and the wat pedagogy of Muay Thai itself, and how much the two came together if at all.

This to me is really unclear...or, maybe involves multiple forces at work. Most of the arguments regarding the State and Buddhism in Thailand, including those in this article, work along the lines of seeing the systematic institutionalization of Buddhism, organized around Bangkok power, as distinctly modernist. A homogenization of belief and practice, and one could imagine that these trends toward homogenization that work against the variety and detail of "femeu" Muay Thai are rooted in that very homogenizing, modernist project. Erasing differences, and localization. These forces, if I'm not mistaken, also worked against the forest tradition you are practiced in, and against some of the animist traditions that lay beneath Buddhism in the country. This is to say that Buddhism and State power seem like they are possibly quite at work in rooting these same commercializing, globalizing forces that currently are degrading Muay Thai. On the other hand, I would totally agree that the "aggro" fighting of international kickboxing and MMA, that aesthetic, is powerfully opposed to the Buddhistic philosophy that grounds Muay Thai in what it is. It really boils down to just "what" is the source of femeu diversity and development? Is it the proliferation of de-centralized locations of power and knowledge, a kind of Garden of Eden, Amazon Rain Forest of ecosystems of fighting, village by village, festival by festival? I see that as an attractive thought. If so, then perhaps Buddhism has had a kind of push-pull effect on that art. Maybe it is worth while drawing comparisons between magico-practices of spiritual belief and femeu fighting diversity, both in terms of State Buddhism and capitalism/consumerism? I say this all in appreciation of your thoughts.

Construction of Wat Phra Sri Mahathat Woramahawihan, the centerpiece of Prime Minister Phibunsongkhram's Spiritual Identity project, began on 20 March 1941 in commemoration of the government victory over the Boworadet rebellion in 1933. The foundation stone of Rajadamnern stadium was laid first, on March 1st of that same year.

Reading a really good essay on how the very National identity of Thailand, a modern conception born out of engagements with the colonial West, was established by creating 4 spiritual centers geographically spread across the country. Read that here: National_Identity_and_the_Geo_Soul_Spiri.pdf National Identity and the Geo-Soul: Spiritually Mapping Siam It traces the logic of the establishment of 4 spiritual centers by the anti-Royalist spirit of Prime Minister Phibunsongkhram, creating a constellation wats that helped define the national borders of the country. Saplings of the original Bodhi Tree of the Buddha's meditation were planted at each of these wats, in the early 1940s. What is interesting to me is that as Phibunsongkhram was carving out a new national identity, it was also in these years that Rajadamnern was being built. And, in these years as well that Phibunsongkhram and magazines celebrating Muay Thai started lauding a new kind of hero, every-men like the much feared Suk. The point being, just as the foundations of the Spiritual conception of a "whole" Thailand was being developed, a people's Muay Thai, along with the first National stadium, also was developed. When people think about what Muay Thai means to the identity of Thailand itself, it was poured into the foundation from the very beginning.

So awesome to see this. I love when people share their person experiences of study...and their CATS! too. I agree, it's a seriously underrated session in the Library. There is a framework for an entire fight philosophy in that session.