Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu

It would be really interesting if after you get some time in with the General's style if you came and spent an hour with Yodkunpon here in Pattaya, and see if the connection you intuit would become a real one. Almost nobody fought like him (he has been looked down upon in some ways for it), but it would be very cool if they informed each other. If somehow Yodkhunpon's very fight-specific style helped helped create some of the connective tissue between the General's Muay Lertrit and sport Muay Thai. Something that does not really exist at this point.

The General throwing his Muay Khorat punch, with the arm rotated closed, striking with the back of the knuckles:

The General and Timothy

The General

What part of the country are you? Phuket? One of the islands? Just to understand where this is happening.

Bangkok does not have a lot of female fights. People are drawn to there because it's the capital, but it is definitely NOT the capital for female fighting. Given your frustrations I would say avoid Bangkok. Chiang Mai has lots and lots and lots of fight cards with women on them. Bangkok almost none.

Day 7:

Tim's Videography continued Day 6:

I can't take this as a point of credit because it just came out of my love for her, but I would definitely say, and Sylvie would 100% agree, she would never, ever have done this on her own. Sylvie is a full on introvert, and it was only through me convincing her that her values, what she cares about committed her to overcoming her introversion, and sharing it all, that it came to be. She started sharing on YouTube because Master K seemed like someone who the whole world should see. It was her value for him that led to sharing, even if she was embarrassed by her mistakes and imperfections - even though people were saying "who do you think you are putting up videos". We are a kind of team, complementing each other, it's true. There were also completely random elements, like for instance living in the countryside at the time, far, far away from gyms. Having no teammates, no gym guidance. Finding Master K. So many unique things. But...Sylvie also has paintakenly carved out a space, cut a path, a space that didn't exist before her. Really no different than the path Dekkers cut in his own unique way, which led to 1,000s of "Dekkers" coming to fight in Thailand. In that space other female fighters can explore their own freedoms, their own version of storytelling. At bottom that is what it is. I think as a female fighter though you have to tell your own story. You have to write your own history. You can't wait for others to do it for you. Female fighters should be vlogging. Sharing their reality. Letting fans see their training. Involve others in the process. Move away from the official gatekeepers (who will always be there anyways).

Where did you fight? Would love to know just to round out my understanding of where off-channel fights are happening.

That's crazy (by our experience). Just go to Chiang Mai. Find a gym that fights a lot. There are female fight cards in the city every night of the week.

This is a sidenote, but maybe an important one. We realized from the beginning that women need to write their own history. They have to be their own historians. I've tried to urge female fighters to stop waiting for their gyms, or promotions, or "the media" to tell their story. It won't be told. You have to create your own record as a female fighter. Female fighters will simply be swallowed by the tide. It's painful to see so many female fighters still beholden to the "official" keepers of history, especially in this age of self-publication. I've written an article (maybe 8 months ago) which I haven't yet published, where are argue that Sylvie is greater than Dekkers, or at least will be, in the sense of comparing the Dekkers-OneSongChai (largely video archive), fighter+publisher complex, vs the Sylvie+self-publisher complex. In the long run the fighter cannot be separated from the web of their history, their record. Women really should be working harder to tell their own stories. I get it, women are told to take their place all the time. When in gyms they often feel special when acknowledged as legitimate, and feel a debt. This often results in some very strong-minded women toeing the line of the gym/promoter assemblage. I remember the very first time Sylvie made her first "athlete" page on Facebook. It was quite a while ago. It felt incredibly uncomfortable to do so. People in the local Muay Thai community back then were like: Who the fuck does she think she is? A Facebook Fighter Page? Putting up all your training videos? Who do you think you are? Putting up all your fight footage? Who the hell are you? But there is no doubt. Women need to archive and be historians of themselves, especially as fighters. And part of that is to be a historian or journalist of others, one's own scene, or those you admire. Hey, just my opinion, but it's been our path, and we've urged other female fighters to do the same -- but so very few do. There just is a tide that flows the other way. But, returning to the main topic, there is some sense in which it seems like Samart's star shot so much higher after he retired. But, and one has to be perfectly honest here, Samart in his fighting displayed a quality which is probably the highest quality a fighter can have in Thailand, which is to appear "above" the fight. As if the fight isn't even affecting him, or that he only has to tap into 10% of his energy to deal with it. This is completely, and I do mean completely an act. But this kind of performance requires incredible skill, and to pull off that illusion is extremely difficult. I think that because he portrayed this particular quality at such a high level, combined with his movie star, singer, playboy persona, it just makes him irresistible to Thais. It's like talking about how James Bond is as a fighter. He doesn't even wrinkle his suit. You get this in other sports. The effortless boxer (Ali), effortless football player (don't know soccer), basketball player (Bird, Dr. J, Magic). golfer, baseball player. football player (Jim Brown, Bo Jackson), etc, etc.

This is very, very difficult to do. Really almost impossible among the promoters and stadia we know, because it is not encouraged. Things may have changed since we first became familiar with the situation, I know several people have tried based on what Sylvie has described for herself, I haven't heard of one regularly successful person. A primary reason for this difficulty is that promoters count on the dependability of gyms and their liaisons. Gyms let them know how skilled a fighter is so there can be a good match (something they assess as you train with them), and then maybe even more importantly, gyms filter out undependable people. The promoter needs people to show up on cards. And lastly, and most importantly, these are very enduring relationships between gyms and promoters. The people involved have known each other for a decade or two usually. These are foundational bonds. In Thailand it's very unusual to go outside of these kinds of channels. The only reason why Sylvie was able to break out of this was a kind of perfect storm situation. She had already established herself as incredibly dependable as a fighter in Chiang Mai. I think she had already fought maybe 70 fights in the city. So when we moved to Pattaya, far from Chiang Mai, the trust issue was already there. Everyone knew her skill level, and everyone knew she was extremely dependable. On top of that Sylvie's Thai got really good, which greased the communication wheels. There may have been people who have found their way around the usual channels, but in Thailand you really need to have someone speaking for you, vouching for you. Sylvie's kind of a unicorn in this because she has created her own very solid reputation, something she could never have done without the help of her gym in Chiang Mai for the first several years.

Yes, I have gotten that sense as well. They see him as, maybe, unique and non-comparable. Thais, generally, are very predisposed to body-type thinking, and his frame probably throws them for a computational loop. That being said, I do have a problem with the overall argument that he had some kind of unfair advantage, in the sense, you don't see pretty much ANY other super tall fighters dominating in Thailand. There were a few tall ones, but nobody turned their length into what Dieselnoi did. Muay Thai is not basketball. In fact, you could argue (in the absence of tall fighters simply dominating the sport), that his height might have made him prone as well as having an advantage. You had the greatest coaching minds of the Golden Age scheming how to strategically take advantage of his height and length. You should be able to cut angles on him, make him turn, find his blindspots. Nobody really could If you think about it, tall fighters don't always dominate even in other combat sports. The only one I can come up with is maybe Jon Jones who everyone talks about in terms of his length. You never get anyone saying Jon Jones isn't the greatest because he has an unfair advantage. I think that Dieselnoi deserves great credit for taking his anatomy and turning it into a weapon where all of its advantages showed, and very few of its weaknesses. I do agree that word of mouth probably played a big deal in this. Nobody in Thailand really saw Dieselnoi fight on television. Pi Nu, Sylvie's kru, who was a tall knee fighter was told when he was young that he should fight like Dieselnoi. The only problem: He, and nobody else around, had ever seen Dieselnoi fight, hahaha. It was mostly newspaper photos and magazine covers. The story about him became his height. Whereas Samart had a semi-prodigious media career post-fighting, and had the advantage of a western boxing championship which Thai's fall in love with. It is ironic though that he beat the supposed GOAT, but gets zero credit for doing so. Even Samart told us with pride when we interviewed him: "I never lost to Muay Khao." ummmm. Except for one.

Well, there is one point of divergence in at least most Thailand Muay Thai. In a single gym you will often find intensely diverse styles, and sometimes even contradictory technique instructions - you aren't experiencing this with the General who is really teaching in a much more traditional martial art style. Put your foot here, someone says. Then another kru will tell you to put it in another place. Swing your arm this way. No swing it that way. The variety in Thailand Muay Thai is incredible, even in a single gym. But I assume everyone in your Kung Fu tradition is taught to all do things the same way, moving towards an ideal form. One reason why one generalizes about traditional martial arts is that they tend to be passed down in a generalizing, or maybe, a uniformizing way, that is quite different than say the Muay Thai of Thailand or in maybe western boxing gyms. But, what would be interesting is if any of the Karate, TKD and Kung Fu styles, as branching as they may be, possessed breathing patterns you are learning, the breath on the recoil.

First off it should be said that none of us have seen enough of either fighter's fights to really definitively say who is the GOAT. We have a handful of Samart's fights, and scraps of Dieselnoi's. It is a great loss. Secondly, it has to be said that those who have seen most of Samart's career, that is the Thais, more or less anoint him as GOAT. He is much beloved. I believe he was awarded his 3rd Fighter of the Year in his final year, ending on a fight he would lose. He is walking greatness. But, it is not as simple as that. Questions like GOATism are really about values, things to be celebrated, and therefore the question of who is the GOAT is perennial. In this question, as it lies between Dieselnoi and Samart, it very well may come down to He who fought hardest (presented himself as an irresistible, unfightable force) vs he who fought like he hardly had to fight (he who floated undisturbed). Which is more great? With these two fighters we also have historical evidence, this isn't a fantasy matchup. They actually fought in a huge, "Who is the best of Thailand?" fight, after Dieselnoi had run out of opponents in his own weight class at Lumpinee - a belt he would eventually have to vacate having cleared out the division. Dieselnoi took a huge weight cut to face Samart, dropping 19 lbs in just a few weeks, on weigh-in even giving Samart a 3+ lb advantage (129.7 lbs vs 133 lbs). That's right, Samart was allowed to be the bigger fighter by weight. It was a weight cut that Dieselnoi feels nearly killed him, and from which he feels he suffers from medically until this day, decades later. Dieselnoi won, eclipsing the charismatic Samart. He would not have many fights left in his career. Having defeated the best in Thailand the weight class below him, he would then, after I believe a year, go up in weight and defeat possibly the most feared fighter in the class above him. Sagat Petchyindee (of Street Fighter fame). Six months later he would completely dominate Sagat in the rematch, winning again. He bookended his greatness. Then well up in weight in his final two fights Dieselnoi would draw vs the powerful Krongsak (a fight Krongsak felt he won), and subsequently he would rematch Krongsak, defeating him definitively. Krongsak tells the story that Dieselnoi changed his tactics in the second fight, becoming more artful, more fimeu, giving him the final say between them. That, I believe, was Dieselnoi's last fight. At the age of 24 he had no more fights to fight. He had continued to train keeping himself in fight shape for several years, but there were none for him to be had. The question is: Why did Samart come out of of his faceoff with Dieselnoi unblemished with his GOAT reputation in tact? It was the extreme weight cut for Dieselnoi that caused famed promoter SongChai to criticize the bout, one he would never have arranged himself (maybe politics). But, Dieselnoi cleared every hurdle in this equation. He beat Samart, he beat Sagat, he exited the stage in his physical prime. He cleared the room. There is in Thailand - and maybe in the west in boxing - a dear appreciation for the lightest of styles (when coupled with some power). Sugar Ray Robinson and Muhammad Ali somehow have a silkiness that defies the gravity that we all find ourselves bound to. And the art of a sport as brutal as boxing or Muay Thai in large measure is painting on that canvas, that one is not perturbed. But, that is not all that fighting is. Fighting is also the ascension of the relentless spirit, the incredible grind and power of the human heart. It is the grit of what works, and is working. The silk of Samart vs the engine of Dieselnoi. Even when the engine won vs silk, silk has been acclaimed. There is even more in this. Muay Thai historically and iconagraphically has always had a tension between the Bangkok (elite) high sense of art, and the power and heart of the fields (everything provincial or agrarian). This tension goes well beyond the story of Muay Thai, and in many ways it has been what has made Muay Thai so beautiful, and meaningful. The so-called Golden Age of Muay Thai in the late 1980s and 1990s was driven by the economic boom of those years. Not only was there heaps of money to invest in gyms and fighters, flowing to enlarged fighter pay and sidebets, but it was the provincial man, the workers, who swarmed to Bangkok to find employment in the suddenly burgeoning, cosmopolitan economy. It was they that filled the stands with their wages in their hands, betting them. It was they who bought the newspapers and magazines. Rural city Champions from those years, like Roi Et's Samson Isaan or Yodkhunpon, were often seen as too rough-hewn. Blunt force fighters. Unartful (though filled with hidden art). Muay Khao fighters a 2nd class of "greatness", even though dominant. Look through the Fighters of the Year Awards of that time and you don't see an endless string of femeu undefeatability. And, among them all, Dieselnoi was the most undefeatable. He was a Giant, but far from simply accrediting his victories to anatomy, name other elite very tall, long knee fighters? Anatomy does not confer greatness. If you meet Dieselnoi in person, and train along side him, you will immediately understand it wasn't his anatomy that made him like no other. He burns like nuclear fission. But, while Dieselnoi painfully watched his love for Muay Thai waste away, unable to fight anyone, eventually retiring and unglamorously becoming a trainer in Japan for a decade (I believe), Samart transitioned into an incredible, cross-over figure, not only a silky champion who can't be touched but also a movie star and a singing star. It was the transmigration of the brutish art, taken to its highest levels. This afterlife of Samart also is part of the equation. You ask Thai men about Samart and they swoon. Not only for his Muay Thai, but the completeness of his aura. Ultimately questions about the qualities of a fighter are questions about "the man". Philosophically one might observe: Heraclitus gnomically wrote "Habit is fate", equally translatable as "character is destiny" or much more wordily: "the things you repeat, what you do and do, is your divine angel, where you will be guided". In this way "your fighting style is your destiny, your aim, your home, your divinity". So who is the GOAT? Does Thai sentiment win the day or does the Thai bias towards fimeu hierarchy lose something important in the question? Does "most unfightable fighter" not translate into absolute Greatness? This is the heritage, the legacy we of the west have inherited in the record. We look back through a glass darkly. Somewhere out there is the footage of that showdown between Dieselnoi and Samart, perhaps it will shine a light back in history, and show us all the time when these two men touched gloves for real. this is from a Facebook post I put up a long time ago, but I think it's good to have here

IFMA had to translate Muay Thai to the rest of the world. It's a very difficult mission, having the graft it onto basically kickboxing. I think they did an excellent job. Definitely the case. A major reason for this is that Muay Thai cannot be a definitively "Thai" sport and be accepted into the Olympics. Notice, they changed the name of the sport from "Muay Thai" to "Muaythai" de-emphasizing the Thai definition. It has to be a world sport. The rule sets are likely in part designed to create a kind of equity of wins. If the Thais were wiping out the rest of the world it would be very hard to win inclusion. I think this is a fair assessment. It has to be a world sport. The world has to understand what is going on when they watch the fights, and world participants have to win a fair share. I'm not super familiar with what goes on in the US, other than I've heard complaints about it being kind of brawly, and that the scoring criteria is very inconsistent. The USMF under the general direction of IFMA has probably made huge strides in both of these areas. It's not stadium style scoring at all, but stadium style scoring is very difficult to export because of its narrative structure. I think its been very good for everyone, speaking only from afar.

I don't want to rain on any parades, but this is profoundly not the case. I know the IFMA groups do push this messaging, but no, no and nope - huge differences like how aggression is scored, backward fighting and narrative vs non-narrative (10 point must) put them in different universes. I think it's important to not blur these major differences, it's not necessary to the promotion of IFMA/Olympic Muaythai to claim it is like stadium scoring, though this is often stated.

This would suggest that the General's exhale on recoil is much more in keeping with defensive priorities, as this is when you would be most likely counter struck. If you exhale on the offensive then you would be more vulnerable to counters (on the inhale).

I'm really not sure that this is the case. Or, I am very hesitant to apply "normal" or "natural" to certain reactions. We become highly conditioned. For instance, lots of people might hold their breath during exertion, and exhale afterwards. And in thinking about the animal kingdom I can't even picture an animal exhaling strongly on exertion or attack. Maybe??? But I think it's far from believing that exhalation on a strike is "normal". When a child hits you they aren't making a "Hiiii-yahh!" If I had to guess it is probably more "normal" to just hold your breath? I'm not sure about that either. If you are breathing IN (after your strike) you are actually extremely vulnerable to counter strike blows to the body. You hit someone on the inhale and they go down. Just being armchair here, it seems that the exhale right when you might be counterstruck, would be more ideal defensively. Maybe I'm just spinning things, but at first blush that is what it looks like to me.