Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu

He's not really the kind of trainer we are drawn to. Yes, I know he's been highlighted lately, and people find him very interesting, but to tell you the truth the whole "viral" thing is pretty big red flag. Plus, I've seen this review of his gym, which is intense in its dismissal: Elite Fight Club in BKK is possibly the worst gym I have trained at in Thailand, and I've been here over 30 times to train. I've trained in grassroots country gyms in Isaan where I was the first and only farang to train there, I've trained at hardcore gyms in the slums of Khlong Toei, trained at hi-so gyms in BKK where the rich Thai girls train, and I've trained at the tourist gyms in Phuket. Elite is by far the worst of them all. It was more like a fitness bootcamp class at the YMCA than a Muay Thai training session. No Gae didn't beat me up. He was there, but he only peeked out his window at the class and then went back to bed. Who knows what is true, but even if half of what was written is true of energy and what has been built, not very interesting. Live and let live is our motto, but these kinds of things we steer clear of, one way or another. I do appreciate the follow up though.

Sylvie loves him. We almost set a session up, but our contact kind of moved out of the picture for a while. He was at Muaythai Plaza in Bangkok for a long time. I think we could track him down again. Thanks for the reminder!

It it extremely difficult to find apartments or hotels that will allow a dog. They do exist, they are usually run by a dog lover, or dogs somehow found their way into the DNA of the the place, but they can be very difficult to find at times. When we traveled, driving all over with Jaidee, we mostly were relegated to staying in cheap "hourly" hotels if you know what I mean. Some sites like AirBnB do allow filtered searches, but generally the idea of having a dog in your living space is not widely acceptable. It's changing some, but it's still is difficult. When we moved to Thailand we had a plan to have our dog sent over in a few months but we really couldn't find any apartment what would accept one, and ended up having to leave her with Sylvie's father. That was Chiang Mai which can be more conservative. But even in Pattaya a dog friendly apartment is pretty rare. On a sidenote, a story that always stuck with me was a fellow that brought his two beautiful dogs with him, so he could have companions while hiking in the North. I can't remember the details, but he went out on a bit of a hike only a few days into his travel and they both were bit by a snake and died. I can't imagine. I only mention it because it's one more parameter in thinking about bringing your pets. We of course had Jaidee with us, a soi puppy we rescued, and traveled everywhere with him. He went to probably 100 fights. He was a huge part of our life. Sylvie went running with him in the mountains, he rode on the motorbike, so yes, it can work. But there are always complications.

Not sure how germane it is to the discussion, but @Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu's article on what she perceived to be one of the fundamental challenges for men from the west: https://8limbsus.com/blog/fragility-western-masculinity-muay-thai

Hey Chris, sorry it took me so long to get to this thread, we've been driving all over and are finally back in Pattaya. Here, I think, is the thread @Tyler Byers mentioned where general budgetary details were shared by him: Here is his comment where he lays some things out that seem pretty close to Pattaya costs (even though BKK): But yes, definitely fly into Suvarnabhumi Airport (BKK). I don't have experience with the bus as Tyler mentioned, we usually take a taxi which I think runs about 1,500 baht? When flying into a whole new country, new city, etc, it sometimes is worth it to just get to your hotel pronto, to settle down and locate yourself. Then begin the adventure. But, I would guess that the bus is also a perfectly reasonable option as well. I'm a "get me to my bed, first" kind of guy. Royal Thai Residence is kind of a middle of the road hotel. It has surprising amenities, like a pretty nice pool, for a pretty reasonable cost, but it is not the lowest budget option. Though, one of the nice things about it is that Dieselnoi stays there 3 days a week Maybe you can hang out at the pool or the local sauna with him. I'll have Sylvie hop on and maybe suss out how low clean low-budget hotels can go. And I've asked Kero to maybe jump on re: food costs?

Loma isn't really an example of a complete Muay Thai practitioner, in terms of elite Thai male talent. She's the best female clinch fighter in the world probably, and can hot-knife-through-butter opponents who don't know how to face her beautiful throws. But most elite female Thai fighters are usually highly specialized in a singlar dimension of Muay Thai, not representing the "Gracie" level of male Muay Thai I was talking about. That being said, she can do much to alert the world to what real, high level female clinch talent can look like, and what it can do versus other supposedly potent styles of grappling.

99% sure it is just his own. He told us he pretty much invented his Muay Thai after success with a single kind of elbow. People started just waiting for it, because his reputation grew, so he had to invent a complete Muay Thai to make elbows possible from any position. I'm sure he would say that he just created it. Karuhat tells us the same thing about his footwork. Nobody taught him, it came from nowhere.

There all kinds of means of ring control, it really depends on your fighting style. But, for an advancing fighter Yodkhunpon's pressuring gallop footwork is a thing of beauty, and a wonderful tool to have:

These are 27 Muay Thai Library sessions filtered out with some Emphasis on Ring Control: Ring Control: Muay Thai Library You can see these filtered out on the Posts Page of Sylvie's Patreon, and scrolling down. You can see tags there, it looks like this: One session that really sticks out in my memory is Kru San of Sitmonchai, you can see that session here: #33 Kru San Sitmonchai - Control of Pace & Distance when Advancing  (56 min) There are lots in that list though. If you really want to dive in you can watch the Intensive Series Sylvie did with Karuhat, which is over 30 hours long. It's not all ring control, but large portions of it are. Karuhat has a whole system of leading the opponent where he wants him to be, limiting options, and then striking where they are going. Intensive Series here.

Can you upload a photo?

Things Sylvie has written on Prah Rahu: Towards the Diety Pra Rahu – Presenting Offerings at Wat Samanrattanaram Life Stages – My Sangwan Rahu Experience – Sak Yant by Arjan Pi Bangkating Chiang Mai Exploring Meaning – Rahu and Khun Chang Khun Phaen

He's actually really shy about the camera, and we've hardly filmed him because of it. We definitely want him in the archive, because it's a historic record, but it would have to be done differently than any other entry, simply because he works so much with Sylvie, and 99% of it is just grinding, very slow cook But, thank you for the suggestion, it's good to be reminded. Maybe instead of one hour session, we could maybe film small segments over time and put them all together.

What are Bas Rutten's boxing tapes like, what did they give you?

I just want to say, as someone who has supported Sylvie, and has been blown away by everything she is and does, my number 1 thing is, just commit, just dive in, just push every line. I'm serious. Every fight is precious, congrats on 30, but even well past 200 we savor every single one. Once fighting is done every one will be a gem in your mind, something taught in a way that nothing else can teach. I say - knowing nothing else - stop teaching, just push your training, save up, come to Thailand for 3 months, 6 months, a year. There is just nothing like it in the world. The country lives and breathes the art. It soaks into everyone. Motorcycle taxi drivers know more about Muay Thai than most western krus (no offense, it's just part of their fluency, their literacy). We overcame a lot to get here. We lived hours away from training. I recall us back in NY on one particularly bad winter's day driving literally 4 hours through the snow to get to a sparring session that lasted 15 minutes, and then 4 hours back. That's 8 hours of travel for 15 minutes of training. It was that bad. I just say you gotta take the jump, throw yourself at your passion. Go on a thin, thin budget, take extra work, and just get the hell to Thailand. Don't go to a bullshit camp, go to a living camp, and feel it. Kill yourself on the bags, the pads, get some fights. Stop training others. You are part way up a huge, huge mountain. When looking down at those below you you forget just how high you want to climb. Put your eyes up, up, up. 30 fights outside of Thailand is no joke. You're heart is in this. note: the above is complete bullshit in the sense I don't know your life, and all the things that may feel very "complicated" to you, but it's my natural response to the feeling I get off of your post...so not bullshit at all.

Eyes change when you spend a ton of time looking at a particular fighting aesthetic. You see things you would never have before, and you ignore things that otherwise would have been interesting. I don't know what happened, but the UFC just got very, very boring to watch. A lot of it has to do with MMA spacing, which involves lots of circling out, some of it has to do with the relentless hyping of every fighter as the greatest, or the baddest, or whatever. Ugh. It's exhausting. And, then some of it is what Sylvie said. I know people have enthusiasm for hybrid rules, and a whole new fighting style, but in some ways it feels like someone made up a sport called "basket-baseball-foot" mashing together basketball, Baseball and football. Yeah, putting the skills of each into one sport definitely makes you have to compromise and modify, but what I really miss are acme performances seen in the reflected history of decades and decades of development. It also is a little disappointing that the UFC hasn't really see a single high level, elite Muay Thai fighter, ever. The picture most fans have of Muay Thai in the UFC is basically just versions of western kickboxing, which isn't Muay Thai at all. I wish I enjoyed it more. I miss the good ol' days of the WEC, when we were just falling in love with Muay Thai.

There is a very good book to read on this subject which is The Inner Game of Tennis, which presents the Coach's Dilemma, which is verbal correction very often leads to the opposite results as intended. As an overthinker you might find this book very interesting. If the aim is to actually help someone (as the outcome), and not just display knowledge, it gives powerful food for thought. I say this as a very analytical, breakdown oriented, let-me-explain-things, kind of guy. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003T0G9E4/

How long are you thinking of staying? How many sessions or how much hard work? Mostly, is this something you want them to really dive into, or you want to to be a part of other travel and vacation like experiences? Chiang Mai is really a nice city to experience these things in. For one, it's lots lots to do and see. Secondly, in the North it's culturally more conservative and traditional, so you will get less of the touristed Muay Thai subculture (not saying you won't get it there, but generally the city has a kind of conservative quality). Also, there are female Muay Thai fights pretty much every night of the week in the city, so they can go and watch some fights and maybe enjoy that and be inspired. Once you let me know how much time and how deep of a dive you want them to take (do you want them training twice a day, coming back to the hotel wiped out?...or, do you want them training once a day, or even less?) maybe I can give a few recommendations?