Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu

I'm, personally, not interested in its use in MMA, or this fight. I think because it came out of a common Thai clinch position it maybe exposes a few holes in the position, specifically in Thailand's Muay Thai (the ruleset and fighting style in the country, which is what I'm most familiar with). I'm not really openly asking anything though. I'm just thinking through the position, from a traditional Muay Thai perspective. There are always blindspots in fighting styles and customs, this seems like one of them, in a very narrow sense. Imagining this position with more optimal postures on the Cerrone side, it would be much harder to execute, but it is interesting to think through it's possible uses, even if more well-defended. This is complicated though by how it might be reffed or perceived within the traditional Thai ring.

Cool to look at. Two useless arms. Conor has a basic Thai clinch position. Arm loop + inside frame. Cerrone exerts no control or pressure over either arm, especially on the shoulder strike side. This lazy over position on the frame drives me crazy. Happens all the time. What's beautiful about this is how Conor is giving ground, which really sets it all up. Backwards movement in clinch is key to so many dominant movements. watch the slow motion of the strikes here: https://web.facebook.com/watch/?v=2852823818097683 This is a pretty fascinating strike in that it's set up by a general grinding forward, and the lack of pressure or control, but also because it develops from a very common position in Muay Thai, so much so it would be pretty easy to get lazy about it. No Thai would just grind forward like that in the clinch, which is a pretty big factor here, but they very well might not dig their head in deep enough, like Cerrone, to control the shoulder and collar bone, or not snake in hard enough from the top arm position. Because Thais clinch train in very lengthy sessions habits and position assumptions do develop - and I find these unconscious shapes pretty interesting. Though shoulder strikes are perfectly legal in Thailand's Muay Thai, they really are almost never seen, likely due to evolving aesthetics, and maybe a sense of sportsmanship. In short, this is a kind of a "hole" in the form of Thai clinch, I suspect. Proper technique probably closes the hole pretty firmly, but proper,. or optimized technique is not always happening, or even trained. From this position Cerrone, in Muay Thai, would be most concerned with the elbow. The shoulder isn't even thought about. It's a blindspot. Blindspots happen in fighting styles and disciplines, shaped by rulesets, cultural aesthetics, and training practices. The shoulder is actually a hidden appendage and leverage point in lots of high-level Thai clinch technique, but it's not thought of as a direct weapon. I imagine that it would likely be seen as "base", perhaps in the way that Yodkhupon's amazing high volume elbow fighting style was looked down upon, despite winning at the highest level (simultaneous stadium belts in the Golden Age). I personally find this strike really interesting because the McGregor position is a dominant one that Sylvie works herself toward and secures in lots of fights. She loops that right arm hard, and is always exploring developments from there. This is a Dieselnoi position. Most often it's considered better to control the neck with the left arm, and work towards knees and turns, but this frame up exposing the open side, pinning it open is definitely an active position. So much of this strike is dependent on Cerrone grinding forward, allowing McGregor to bounce back and load. But it does seem that the shoulder strike is a perfect fit in the vocabulary from this position, even if under neutral pressure. There is a lot to be developed here. Even as a threat (as a miss), it can get the opponent to posture up too high, and set up knees or a deep turn.

Are you wondering: Will I have to run? Or, looking for a gym which doesn't push you to run, or will accept running less? What are your major concerns? - It's cool that you are getting your miles up in advance

If you have related images, aesthetics, feel free to upload and post them!

Our experience with Visas is that enforcements are constantly shifting, and really do vary from office to office by region. Something that is no problem for one area of Thailand, or at one consulate, can be a problem in another area. The best universal advice is to go to a Visa agency in your area. Visa agencies run vans to the border, and have the most up-to-date sensitivities on what is working, and what is not working. If you get a good agency, they have strong connections, work in volume, and may argue on your behalf when something isn't right. It costs a little extra money, but it can be worth while. That being said, this is just our experience. Agencies around Thailand might also vary.

That's beautiful to read, just because I can feel you just throwing yourself into it. A few photos from Samson's time in the gym to add to the color: The last of these is really beautiful. Samson is sitting with Arjan Gimyu, a legend of the Golden Age himself, but as a Trainer. They probably had not seen each other, close like this, since 1992, when Samson beat Arjan Gimyu's heavy-fisted fighter Lakhin, two times out of three, to win the Fighter of the Year Award. That no doubt was a painful result, but somehow it was beautiful to see these nemesises, now sitting together on a bench, in the gym together. In fact, they even collaborated in training together, when Arjan was holding, for Sylvie, culminating with Arjan even holding for Samson: :

Answered to include many regions, you may find this post by @Tyler Byers informative:

We'll try to get the commentary versions out on YouTube this week. The live streams are here: Fight 260 Fight 261

I was...I am...very moved by this post. This is everything I'd hope to hear and read from others, such a human story. All about our frailty, and our ache to be better, to find better, in something, in ourselves. And it is fucking incredible that for whatever reason Sylvie and her work sparked something in you, that all your gears got triggered to turn in whatever beautiful way you are turning them. Thank you for taking the time to write so realistically. It means a lot.

Hey Jaco!

What often happens to fighters who enjoy the idea of switching stance is that their offense will improve, but their defense will suffer. A lot of this happens simply because you aren't used to seeing things reversed, so you don't pick up strikes as quickly. One piece of advice we've seen when fighting someone who switches back and forth in a fight is to just rush them when they move into their unnatural side, because their defense is probably suspect. But this isn't such a huge problem, you just have to work more on your defense than you might think. Focus on it. The biggest aid in this for Southpaws is learning the "forward check", which is a feigning left leg (rear leg) raise, that closes off the Southpaw's biggest weakness to Orthodox fighters. This is a really, really big tool. Karuhat teaches it to Sylvie in the Muay Thai Library session where he turns her from Orthodox to Southpaw. There is a whole vocabulary of the forward check that is really special, both defensively and offensively, for Muay Thai. Maybe check that video out.

We think that forward aggression is just the natural way to show dominance, but it's more complicated than that. Let's say we are kids, I smack you in the mouth in a fight, and then move away from you and make you miss when you lunge at me. Then I laugh, move slightly out of the way, call you a name, you lunge at me again. And then again, this time I hit you making you off balance, and laugh again. Who is dominating the scene? This is just a simple school yard fight, but you can clearly see who is "winning" the fight by dominance. The kids are all around us, laughing. This is an extreme example of how Thais see the backwards fighter looking in control in a fight. They have to keep scoring, they have to seem like they are controlling everything, but they do it by making the other fighter look desperate or out of control. It's actually much closer to "real" fighting than otherwise supposed real fighting is.

This is something we will probably be discussing in the next Muay Bones Podcast, but it is seriously interesting. It comes from an article on load management in the NBA. I'm not so much interested in any conclusions in the article (that is a more pampered recovery orientation, maybe we can call it Wagu Training, is perhaps aimed at a different aesthetic, and even spiritual goal), so much as the basic diagnostic framework used by longtime Laker trainer Gary Vitti, and how that intersects with the Thai concept of Ruup (basic bodily form, not just physically, but as an expression of state). In fights you basically try to break your opponent's Ruup, and maintain your own. Vitti, when watching players looking for warning signs essentially look for the breaking of what Thais call Ruup: What is super interesting is that this dovetails into Sylvie's recent re-understanding of the common Thai trainer's admonition "Mai me lang" (You have no power [today]). She had always taken this to mean "You aren't hitting the pads as hard as usual", but really came to recently see it more as "Your Ruup is breaking". The overly form of your expression, everything about you, visually. The Thais, ridiculed in the pro-science dudes as dumb and uneducated are right on it. It's all about Ruup, first. When the Ruup is breaking, something needs to change. The other key is further in the article. Intensity must meet load. Thais are famous for their very intense training, but what is missing from the stereotype is a) the micro-rests and relaxation that are constantly occurring in even the most pushed Thai training, the little downshifts are there everywhere if you learn to see them, and b) Thais are not training just Load. They are training Intensity during Load. This is the NBA way of rationalizing this relationship for data capture: What the Thais understand, perhaps even better than Gary Vitti, and this comes from the performative dimension of Muay Thai in Thailand, is that you are first and always training your Ruup, the compensive dignity, the integrity of the movement, and the emotional expression of the Self. The reason for this is that the Thai load is high, very high, and thus the Intensity, the focus has to match that load. Training is like this, fighting is like this. Westerners like to flip themselves onto the ropes, or bellow out in a groan after a brutal round of padwork, maybe even throw themselves on the ground. I've seen the impacts of westerners on Thais in the gym even, as if it's a disease of expression, caught like a contagion from the west. The truth is that if you are rigorously training Ruup in all things you create a carefully calibrated, extremely sensitive diagnostic tool for a Thai trainer. If your Ruup starts to break in even small ways (ie, not thrownly yourself on the ropes, heaving how hard you worked), they can see they something is wrong, or needs to be adjusted, perhaps. And training the intensity of Ruup (composure), is the Golden Key to understanding why Muay Thai is like no other fighting art in the world. Selected from: The Ringer: How Kawhi Leonard Turned Load Management Into a Style of Play. https://www.theringer.com/nba/2019/12/24/21036024/kawhi-leonard-clippers-load-management

You see this much more in the Golden Age, close range, in the pocket hand fighting, and more...hand feeling. One of the beautiful skills of that time involved hand to hand redirecting and really, perception. This Scientific American article talks about experiments that confirm that the human brain reads the environment "through" material extensions of the body, as if the ARE the body. Check it out: Scientific American: The Brain Senses Touch beyond the Body. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-brain-senses-touch-beyond-the-body/ I've always felt that, because the human body is a vast predatorial (and prey) computational device, evolved over millions of years, and because so much of fighting is about not only sensing exactly where you opponent is, but also sensing where they are going to be, increasing the sensorial inputs only makes sense. One spends a great deal of time training vision, imagine if vision inputs become married to kineasthenic/touch inputs could create a super computational perception, well below the conscious level. Think about this. The human body has evolved to actually feel through you gloves, as if the leather at the ends were skin. Think about the precision of that perception. Think about this. Do all you padwork, but do it touching your padman, or the pads, constantly, creating an additional vector of information, to confirm or sharpen the perceptions of your eyes. Fight and train with cat whiskers.

Can you maybe post some photos, a map of your gym's location, and other interesting details like the price of training, how to get there, opportunities for fights, anything else that might give a more personal sense of what it is like there.

Sylvie says that she has skinning legs and she uses Fairtex and likes them. The model she has (I think, FAIRTEX - Pro Style Double Padded Shin Guards (SP3)) does not have a stop (additional reinforcement) on the strap that you pull through, so you can make them snug. Not sure about the issue of height.

Is it on your front side or back side? Good question! I would think that lots of footwork shadow could work, in guard. Yodkhupon has a beautiful footwork gallop you could learn in that time. It doesn't involve a ton of twisting. There is also a big question about immobilization and healing. Doctors really like to isolate injuries at times. Sylvie goes in a very different direction, continuously working around and feeling the limits of motion, and expanding them. Something along the lines of thinking that in the natural world when you had an injury you pretty much would never stop moving. There is some sense that motion might encourage healing, in many circumstances (blood flow, etc)

I'm not sure one can advise about mind- or mood-altering substances over the internet, but it is pretty amazing how devastating alcohol can be to ex-fighters in Thailand. Of course alcoholism a problem all over the world, but there is something about it and Muay Thai that has a deep cultural groove to it, and a fairly strong moral judgement as well, it seems.

This isn't the right composition, obviously, but this frame from the film Laura (1944) taught me something in my recent research into Film Noir classics. I was quite surprised by the flatness of the photography of the film, which seemed like it lacked something of the teeth of what I've come to expect from the Noir Aesthetic. But this scene, an interrogation scene, opened up an interesting truth or concept in the Noir workings. While much of the film lacked photographic depth, this scene did not. The blacks produced great depth, with Gene Teirney's face floating above it, almost supernaturally. It gave me to wonder if this is the purpose of shadow effects in Film Noir, a way to create photographic depth, a rich sense of swimming in something. And, sympathetically, this could be the same for any Noir approach to Muay Thai photography. The Bas Relief effect. I feel like I touched on this in the thread above, in another manner, but it is interesting how the study of a subject can provide you with the negative of a positive, the absence bringing forward the subject.

It was in Putlorlek's home town, or somewhere he has a lot of support. It shouldn't have been a surprise to him, hahaha.

Hey Francis, I'm not Sylvie but I'm sure soon. But I've spent a lot of time around Yodkhunpon and I have to say there is very little power in Yodkhunpon's elbow attack. In general the elbow in Golden Age Muay Thai is a cutting weapon, so looseness of movement and accuracy (bone on bone) is prized. It's not a strength or power strike. Everything Yodkhunpon teaches is about creating torso whip, a play in the shoulders. You can find much of this in the Muay Thai Library and Sylvie Study sessions. Things he's advocated for are like: throwing a 1,000 elbows a day, or hanging to open up the shoulders. You want fluidity of movement, not power.

Really well said. This was really even much more the case in the Golden Age because fighters could do everything. There were very few successful one-dimensional fighters. These days you get much more singular fighting dimensions, it seems. Back in the day all the top fighters had all the skills. You couldn't just take their weapon away and win. I can never get out of my head the fight between Boonlai (a kicker) and Somrak (a few years before he won Gold as an Olympic boxer). Somrak wins without throwing a single meaningful punch (maybe not even a single punch, I can't recall). It's pretty amazing: But so many of the top fighters had just capacities across styles. Chamuekphet was a relentless knee fighter, but could kick with anyone. Weeapol had very heavy hands, but could kick with everyone.

You kind of tend to have two kinds of kickers, if you want to be really generalized. You have southpaw kickers who tend to have big, thunderous kicks (because their kick goes right into the power side of the orthodox fighter), like Yodsanklai and Samkor that you mention, and then you have orthodox fighters who are really more Muay Femeu, artful in scoring points and taking angles. Silapathai was unearthly in this. Check out his fight versus Karuhat were Karuhat, one of the most Muay Femeu fighters ever elected to kick with him: Very few fighters ever could out kick Karuhat. It's best to keep in mind that these "styles" are all just descriptors. If you said someone was Muay Tae, it isn't some kind of club he belongs to, you're mostly just saying "that guy kicks a lot". It's not purely that, but we tend to make a bigger deal of these style types than Thais do. Most kickers of the Golden Age though would consider themselves Muay Femeu. Femeu fighting just means "skilled" and "artful", something pretty much any fighter wouldn't mind being said about themselves. The torso kick was the most dependable highest scoring strike in Muay Thai, so the "art" of the kick was using it repeatedly to just rack up the points and demonstrate your control over the space.

The one to watch is Silapathai, maybe the best Muay Tae fighter ever: https://www.patreon.com/posts/21484000 Also Boonlai was a hell of a kicking fighter: https://www.patreon.com/posts/25122414