Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu

The commentary version of Sylvie 244:

To me a super key to switching is getting the footwork down. Here's a public clip of Yodkhupon's galloping footwork. He's a southpaw fighter, but his gallop contains the element of being able to just switch in the cut off. It's part of his strike from any position. You can find his sessions in the Muay Thai Library, or watch detailed sessions with him in the Intensive Studies (I think 6 hours are up there). Yodkhunpon told Sylvie to practice this footwork 20 minutes a day. I think that it is core to a flexibility in switching. Ideally you don't want to be "now I'm orthodox, now I'm southpaw", you want to be fluid, and access the advantages in each, when appropriate. You need a basic footwork, and Yodkhunpon's is pretty damn beautiful.

I think it really matters if you are talking about taking a few private sessions, or you are just talking about training at a gym. The Thai way does not really involve constant and repeated corrections (that produces stress and lack of flow which is not conductive to fighting), but there are krus that can and will be corrective in a private, as that is what westerners want, and it happens to be how they in particular think. The Krus Sylvie lists are pretty precise. Of all of them I would think that Manop is the most precise. He has a lot of experience training westerners as the head trainer at Yokkao, and now with his own gym it seems that he brought a lot of that precision to his approach. In Sylvie's session with him we were shocked at some of the very tiny details he brought out (timing on when the heel came down for instance, after a kick, made a huge difference). You can watch the full 90 minute session as a patron here: #55 Manop Manop Gym - The Art of the Teep (90 min) watch it here You can see beautiful slow motion of his technically beautiful teep here: You can watch a segment of a session with Chatchai here: #64 Chatchai Sasakul - Elements of Boxing (72 min) watch it here Here is a segment with Burklerk, you can watch his session here: #17 Burklerk PInsinchai - Dynamic Symmetry (82 min) watch it here

For my thoughts on this it is best to read Sylvie's post on the Silhouette Test and Muay Thai: Becoming Yodmuay and the Silhouette Test, that will introduce the basic ideas of making yourself visually definable as a fighter. The above video is a breakdown of the animation techniques and strategies used to expressively tell the story of Spider-Man in the off-the-charts refashioning Into the Spiderverse. What is germane to Muay Thai is for me how the techniques and strategies of the animation (frame rates, textures, timing, composition, even design elements) in the film really reflect upon one of the least thought about aspects of fighting technique and fight winning, especially in the west. Almost obsessively we think about the body as if it is a lifeless, nearly mechanical doll, whose limbs were are trying to put into positions, and into specific actions. I've written a little about this in my guest post: Precision – A Basic Motivation Mistake in Some Western Training. There is very little of that in Thailand's Muay Thai, even though we admire Thais for how precise they are. The thing is, they don't get precise by trying to be precise. Rather, and Sylvie has talked about this, they get that way by thinking about Ruup. Ruup is the bodily form. It's the overall composition of what you look like, what you are expressing, and how you are formed. Thinking and feeling about ruup is what gives you grace or power, what bestows balance and timing, and it's also what eventually gives you what Sylvie calls the Silhouette. Fighters in the western tradition of learning don't think enough about their Ruup, their Silhouette, which is compositionally how they appear in space and over time, no less than the animators were thoughtful how each character would be portrayed in the Spiderverse trailer (which the video goes into great depth on). In Muay Thai of course there are templated ruup, which is ways that bodies express archetypes of, let's say, the femeu fighter, the Muay Thai dern fighter, the Muay Maat puncher...yes. But fighters ultimately develop their own Silhouette. Fighters should always be working on their Silhouette, because at the end of it all, this is how you are visually made understandable. By judges. By audience. By gamblers. Everything is a passion play, a Marvel comic. I invite you to watch maybe the first 15 minutes of the animation breakdown above, and then watch one of the most Silhouetted fighters of the Golden Age, in highlight: Don't watch his techniques, watch his Ruup, his outline, his form. The outline and form is what really is expressive of your character, and at most, your soul. We in the west are often preoccupied with inflicting damage, like damage points. Things that you almost add up on a calculator (or literally CAN add up on a calculator). In Thailand, at least traditionally, it is instead a story of each fighter's Ruup, and as a fighter what you are doing is trying to break your opponent's Ruup, their Silhouette. The purpose of pain, or "damage" is only served in a larger project, that of breaking the Silhouette, and for that reason other things like timing, tempo-change, posturing, dis-balances can be even greater tools than simple pain (a landed strike). What the animation analysis at top does for us though, is open the eyes to all the ways in which a fighter can work on, and train Ruup. Do you land softly, do you land with a thud? What does that say about you? Are you striding? Are you hunched? What does that express? What it does is unfurl and enormous canvas of artistic choices you can make, infinite combinations of how you are composed, as if animated into a character. It isn't just what "weapons" you use, or which guard (crude video game concepts of character). It's things like: How close do you stand? How do you respond or recoil from a strike? How does your Ruup react to its own off-balance? How does it self-portray determination, or the reaction to fear, or dominance? You are always and ever training yourself as a 3D animation character. Everything you do on the pads, on the bag, in sparring and clinch, is the sketchbook of a Silhouette animation, filled with powerful, important character expressions. A great deal of this, if you do not attend to it, will simply become unconscious. You will accidentally create a Silhouette, one that embodies personal psychological strengths, but also weaknesses, but...if you attend to it, it can become an artistic fashioning, an exploration. What does your Ruup look like when you are exhausted, nearly defeated, proud, threatened? How do you get off the bench at the gym? How do you pick up your damp, smelly gloves? All of it is in the creation of a character that is to become visually readable, and ultimately admirable. The fighter in you should find your highest values, the poetry of yourself, and be given the clay to become real, under the fire of duress. If strikes land on you, the real test of Ruup is: How does your Ruup respond to strikes landing. They can land endlessly against you, and if your Ruup shines through there is something nearly divine about that, because it's the composed soul that is shining through. But, if a strike lands on you in training, and you stop, you break Ruup, catching a moment to self-critique, you have violating the prime directive of animation. You are losing Silhouette...or, worse, you are creating a new Silhouette, one you do not intend. Think about all the choices pointed out in the first 15 minutes of the analysis at top, and then think of all the choices you can make in training, in every moment of who you are, and, how those choices can eventually find their way into the ring, even if you never plan to fight. That is Ruup. That is why we love things like comic book characters. That is why we love Yodmuay.

Definitely allowed in Thailand Muay Thai. You see in western boxing, especially in mixed stance crowding.

Tim's Vlog #7 - Day 16

Tim's documentation in raw video capture continues: Day 14 Day 15

Tim's Vlog Day 14

This is something Namkabuan teaches, and in fact was a master of. And the Rambaa Patreon session also has a version of it. Both of those fighters use it offensively. But, the next Patreon session, up in a few days, with Kru Gai, teaches this precisely, used to thwart knee and other attacks. Even as a shorter person it works. I"m not sure where Sylvie has covered it in a technique vlog, but I"m sure that she's done so.

If you can count on low kicks, especially early, the Low Kick Destroyer that Sylvie talks about here, can be a fight changer: There are not many things that you can just learn quickly, but this kind of check of the low kick can feel pretty natural to do. Any fighter who has low kick in their arsenal has a good chance of starting out the early rounds with low kicks. It's an intimidation technique. A single check like this can really change the fight. It will not only discourage low kicks, it might even alter how they kick and even check for the rest of the fight.

The biggest question in a match up like this is whether you have a big clinch game advantage or not. If you do, build your attack around that. If it's unknown, or only a slight advantage you can't count on it as the solution. It also sounds like you are fighting a Thai, in Thailand (which makes a difference). If you are fighting an accomplished Thai female fighter it's generally a big mistake to try and out kick them. And, counter intuitively, it's also a mistake to try to out punch them (because they will just wait on you, and out score you by counter kicking). Everything is about moving them off their post - posting is when they get to set up in their stance and kick on their own timing. The best weapon against posting is the teep. Teep, teep and more teep (if you are comfortable with your teep - if you aren't, don't build an attack around a weapon you "might" use). Any time you see them settle in, teep. Also, as a shorter opponent she will be susceptible to elbows. Without knowing the particulars, a good long range weapon like teeping, and a good short range weapon like elbows makes a formidable combination.

As far as it has been explained to me, more or less all strikes are legal in Thailand, with the exception of knees to the groin. For instance, elbows to the back of the head...legal. Teeps to the groin, legal. There are social codes that make certain strikes feel dirty, so if you did them you are crossing a bit of a line, but the general feeling is "protect yourself".

This would definitely be legal in ring Muay Thai.

Day 13

Tim's documentation continues: Day 12 Tim's Vlog on Day 12

Yeah, white guys like you and me are privileged. We can coast through lots of situations and not have to think extra "negative" thoughts because we have a passport to get through all kinds of things that others don't. It's a luxury. The first step, at least for me, is realizing that yeah, I'm privileged, and other people in the same space don't experience it quite so smoothly as I do. If these people bring up certain problems that would never occur to me I take a step back and don't immediately say "Hey, you are being negative" or "why you looking for all that stuff". Sylvie tells a great story about how she wasn't able to clinch train in the main ring of her gym in Chiang Mai. It was the "man's ring", women were not allowed to enter it. It's where almost all the heavy clinch was done, and the hard sparring. Muppets were getting pretty high level clinch work, western guys who were not even fighters, while Sylvie (who was actually a clinch fighter with maybe at the time 50 or 70 fights) was getting almost no clinch work. It wasn't on purpose. It wasn't nasty, it's just the way it shook out. All the guys would just climb in and clinch. They hadn't a clue that Sylvie couldn't go in there. Occasionally a guy would say "Hey Sylvie, why don't you come in and clinch". They had a passport, one they completely took for granted. It wouldn't even cross their mind that you actually needed a passport (a penis, really) to clinch. But you kind of did. These kinds of invisible barriers are everywhere, often in much more subtle ways. Just because the barriers don't affect you or me doesn't mean that people who are stopped or slowed by them are being negative by calling attention to them. Sylvie didn't make a stink about that ring. But she suffered under it and its prohibition for a long time. She finally just left the gym and found a gym where women can clinch with males in a single ring and get all the real work. The same thing goes on with power dynamics and how instruction or information is passed between individuals. The tendency to "mansplain", broadly speaking, is really not much different than a bunch of western dudes climbing into the men's only ring to clinch. It isn't something special they are doing. That's just how one talks. It isn't something that feels privileged, it would never occur to them that you have to be a special type to do this. If you aren't clinching in the ring - as Sylvie wasn't in that ring - it must be that that's just not what you want to do. At least for me these are really important distinctions.

farang, for sure. I guess we go to different gyms. It's definitely a type we have run into again and again. I'm not sure if @LengLeng is talking about this type, but I just wanted to throw it out there that this does occur in Thailand, as people have been mentioning western gym contexts. Hmmm. No, mansplaining is just an air of authority men are raised to take on and feel comfortable with (especially online, where social cues are minimal). It's a pattern of talk that, very broadly speaking, women are much less comfortable with. It's the assumption "I know more than you likely know" as a way of entering communication. Happens all the time. Raised as a man I definitely have been cursed/blessed with it. You don't have to really look for it, like a rare rabbit in the woods, it is pretty much everywhere. Sylvie gets it all the time when people first come to the gym and imagine that they are super experienced when compared to her.

Men "Mansplain" to other men all the time. In fact that is how they develop the habit. In fact, I just did it. To offer the other side of it, this is really common in Thailand, and not because there are 40 people in a class. Sylvie calls it "Sensei-ism". Usually or often older, or long term people in the gym who themselves don't work very hard, maybe they've been coming for many years, off and on, and one of the biggest pleasures is trying to convey how much "knowledge" they have. Happens all the time.

I think this is why, often in real, long term training gyms that raise Thai boys up there is very little correction. And, why, you don't get everyone on the gym doing the same motions, having the same muay. Growing young fighters tend to be more nudged towards better technique, rather than "corrected", especially not repeatedly. And emulation becomes a strong tool of honing techniques, rather than teacher direction. This may be related to the guest post I wrote for Sylvie's blog: Precision – A Basic Motivation Mistake in Some Western Training

The General

What I find really fascinating about the General's Muay Lertrit, from the Muay Thai perspective, is that it adds an entirely distinct and new vocabulary of strikes to an already pretty potent vocabulary in Ring Muay Thai. The truth of the matter is that ring Muay Thai, even at its best - and I consider it the best fighting art in the world in the hands of the Thais - still becomes cul-de-sac'd by aesthetics over time. You have John Wayne Parr chain punching elite fighters into submission, perhaps not because he was better than them (if you want to invent a criteria), but because he fought off- or out-of rhythm, pushing them into the deep zone. All fighting arts become aesthetisized. Ring Muay Thai is no different. The aesthetic does become refreshed because fighters are always looking for "what works", but still there are era-specific channels through which it all flows. What is really cool about Muay Lertrit from this perspective is that one discovers not one, not three, but an entire family of strikes and defenses that can operate withing ring Muay Thai, because they are ancestrally related. They fit within the fighting program of Muay Thai, because they are evolutionarily related. It's like you suddenly discovered all the Anglo-Saxon derived words of English, after becoming proficient at the Latinate words which predominate because of Style - a rough analogy admittedly. The Muay Lertrit strikes, aside from the deeper, perhaps much more meaningful elements of balance, breathing and movement, seem to fall into certain holes or blindspots in modern Muay Thai.

Tim's Day 11 Video Documentation:

I know you've tried a million things, so just another one to throw out there. This is for shoulder injury, and has really worked for Sylvie, but if its theory is correct it might help across all neck and back issues (the idea is that we are built to hang and swing): Hanging Theory. The good thing about it is that it is only a couple of minutes a day and is pretty basic (no learning curve). Other things we've tried is blue light filter glasses on sundown (it's a bitch to remember to do this) to get the sleep cycle started, and Sylvie's got some very good sleep mask thing that kept being advertised on Facebook, locking out light. Sorry if these were discussed above, just popping into the discussion.

Hiding strikes, yeah, but I know of no inside fighting style in any sport that feints much in inside fighting. Most of it is just defending well, intercepting, countering hard. Think of inside fighting in boxing. Zero feints. Unless maybe the deep rolls of inside boxing might be considered feints? Is there a lot of feinting in Muay Lertrit? By feint do you mean the twists and recoveries?