Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu
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Posts posted by Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu
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This is also a very good example of the not-the-Golden-Kick kick:
Bas Rutten, a much higher level kicker than Aldo. But you can really see the "baseball bat" analogy in his kick. Interestingly, the outward pointed foot, or the foot swing/pivot that he uses is something that many of the Thais in the compilation use to create the end acceleration. They just are not swinging in a wide arc, at all. Sagat in particular, when teaching Sylvie (that video will be up on Patreon next month) really used that foot plant angle to create the later whip.
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Someone posted this on Reddit, a good (and extreme) example of the "baseball bat", more circular approach, from Jose Aldo:
If you compare this to what is in the compilation video you'll have a pretty good idea of the difference.
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Is there a place on this forum where you post your "upcoming fight schedule", Sylvie?
I just got back to Chiang Mai and would be so stoked to see you fight live in your post 200-fights era :)
Just answering for Sylvie, there is no one place where Sylvie's schedule can be found. She'll be fighting in Chiang Mai on November 16th as of now though. The best thing to do for really anyone who has a schedule and wants to see her fight is message her on FB, and she can fill you in on what she knows. Fights are always shifting.
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Thanks for posting these. Good articles, though I wish they had more analysis.
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I don't know where to put this. This needs lots of documentation and analysis, and this is just a start, only notes on something important that Sylvie discovered (and I guess I discovered in watching and talking with her) about the "Thai Kick" that simply evaded our perception for years. 5 years in Thailand Sylvie's been working on her kick, she didn't see it. Years before that, didn't see it. But then in two Patreon Muay Thai Library sessions, neither of which have been published yet (one with Karuhat, one with Sagat) it rang like a big bell. And it became incredibly obvious. Sylvie talked about it a little bit on the Patreon Supporters Facebook Page, and a commentor called the kick the "Golden Kick", so I'm going with that, as it's reflective of a lot of the technique of the Golden Age of Muay Thai. And, as I've begun training in Muay Thai I've been working with it myself, as a knowledgeable beginner, I'm interested in this kick as some of principles below have definitely changed my own training and though process. In any case, here are some starting notes. Hopefully this will be built out by Sylvie herself, and maybe some more film study:
The above is a big exaggeration of how the "Thai Round Kick" has been, I believe, distorted in its translation to the west. Part of the problem perhaps is that it is often referred to as the "round" kick which certainly triggers us to think of roundness in the kick. The name inspires us to think about how it goes 'round the opponent, from the outside, at least in certain teaching contexts. Also, there is something of an optical illusion in the Thai kick itself. Because it has that swerve after forward momentum I believe it kind of looks like it is going "around" or outside the opponent, when seen at full speed, when instead it is often much more running up the frame of the opponent, and then veering through. First of all though it should be said: there is no absolute "right" kick. There are innumerable Thai techniques for kicking, and there are kicks for different purposes and situations. And there are many other ways of kicking as well, developed throughout the world. All that being said, The Golden Kick, as it's been christened, is very distinct in one way. It tends to move upward, and relatively straight-forward, and, to some degree then makes a hard turn when it accelerates through the opponent, at the end. Its upward, straight-ahead approach to the opponent makes it extremely fast, and also hard to see. If you think about it, anything that breaks your "frame" visually the eye, just by how it has evolved, will pick up as anomalous movement. The wider, early acceleration kick that westerners tend to use is quickly seen in its arc. By keeping the kick closer to the frame it is detected much later, often too late.
Below is a rough cut of various Thais kicking across decades. Keep a close eye on the early trajectory of the kick. In all these variations it comes up and forward, even though these kicks are thrown in differing circumstances and tactics by very different fighters. The misses and pulled kicks are sometimes even more telling so they are included. Once you start looking for this you see it in lots and lots of kicks of the Thais, especially in the Golden Age. What's even more incredible is that these aren't "cherry picked" kicks, trying to illustrate a principle. I just looked through fights of well-known fighters and grabbed any round kick that had a clean, visible or instructive angle. The compilation creates the principles.
I know Sylvie has experimented with this already in the last few weeks and has suddenly been able to kick one of her trainers who she never could kick before. He used to taunt her and say he'd give her money for any kick she would land. Now they land at will.
In any case, this isn't an expert's post. This is really an enthusiast who is simply suggesting a change in how you think about your kick. In the graphic everything is exaggerated. More important perhaps is how you think about your kick. Don't think about it going "out" as if you are starting an arc. I believe part of the problem with teaching the Thai kick came from very helpful analogies to swinging a baseball bat or an axe. I know we really fell victim to this.
above, not like this
This image is helpful when thinking about how clearing your hips generates power. But the way it is not helpful is that it creates an arc that isn't true to how many of the Golden Age throw their kicks. You don't want to "swing" your kick as if you are hitting a baseball or chopping a tree. The kick comes directly upward, straight to the target (in some fashion, there are variations), getting as quickly to the hitting zone as possible, and then swerves, accelerating to do damage. It's one reason why Thais are so hard to read and seem like they can land kicks through the guard at will. There's a lot more to dig into here. The forward trajectory allows Thais lots of nuances in how and when they decide to swerve the kick over and through the opponent, ways of generating power with hip angle, choices in how to combine or vary the rising vs the cutting action, games they can play with timing and perception (the coming Karuhat Muay Thai Library session is incredible in this). This is just the beginning.
If you want a good example of the opposite of this kick, a much more western style kick, look at the kicks of Ramon Dekkers.
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I should add, in terms of the prospective article I wrote on the role of shame in the training of women, at the time I created a hypothetical "Fear-Shame molecule"
Admittedly this was a kind of sci-fi version of training theory, trying on a conceptual model to see what it might reveal. What is compelling - and I haven't got my head completely wrapped around it, is that oxytocin is implicated in social trauma, when violence or abuse tears at the social fabric. It can intensify and perpetuate memories. And apparently also become a part of how victims hormonally regulate stress responses in the future. At the time I was just hypothesizing, but it is interesting that oxytocin can be both a fear and a shame response chemical, that these two layers can be exhibited in the role of a single hormone. This may be a source of complication when trying to train new fear responses in female fighters with a history of abuse. Could the shame/fear molecule that I hypothesized be related to the complex role oxytocin plays in abuse?
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Unfortunately I don't have all the links from my further reading, but it's all stuff that I found through extensive Googling, so you should be able to find it too. One of the problems with this area is that the available literature tends to be divided into two different, sometimes unhelpful, layers. There is starting to grow an oxytocin "speak" on the internet with which seems to be fairly surface in terms of knowledge or application. Oxytocin being treated as a kind of wonder drug or answer to all our ills. There doesn't seem to be a lot of anchorage in this kind of writing. The other layer is actual studies, many of them animal (mostly rats). As such they are highly specified testings of narrow hypotheses, as they should be, and seldom repeated in research. This means that there is a huge gulf between what is widely understood about oxytocin, and what is more definitively known. This means that oxytocin can be wildly talked about with little grounding, sometimes with conflicting perspectives. I say this as a caution. Hormones interact in very complex ways. There is no simple "good" hormone or "bad" hormone, or good/bad hormonal interaction. They are some of the most primatively evolved ways of regulating the organism, and they can interact on multiple levels.
A good example of this was the effusive reaction to oxytocin when it was labeled the "love hormone" or the "ethical hormone" or the "moral hormone" or even the "God hormone". Some people felt that we just needed more oxytocin in our bodies, so we could all get along. But in some very narrow studies there were very unexpected actions of oxytocin in the body. Some of the most forward applicable research came about, if I'm reading this right, when the military started looking into if it could be (in nasal spray form) a magic bullet to PTSD. The results of research were very mixed. In one very interesting rat study (sorry it's not cited here), oxytocin actually played a role in anchoring fear experiences and making them MORE traumatic. Basically helping to ingrain them in a certain part of the brain reserved for intense traumatic memories. And the presence of oxytocin seemed to retard rats from destressing from fear conditioning, in one study. Another study found that women (if I recall) who had been exposed to early sexual abuse (ESA) when stress tested for performance, had a much higher blood plasma level of oxytocin than women without ESA. In fact such women did not respond with spikes in cortisol (the common "stress hormone") as the non-ESA women did. This is a big deal, and something the researches could only wildly hypothesize about. Another articled talked about how oxytocin could be implicate in the continuation of abusive relationships. And for those that think that oxytocin just makes everyone lovey-dovey, one study showed that the effects of oxytocin can be highly culturally dependent. In an "trust" test of westerners the nasal spray seemed to make subjects more reliant on friends, while the same test with Korean subjects appeared to make them LESS reliant. From all these unintuitive, darker aspects of oxytocin I tentatively read this as: oxytocin helps as a kind of social glue, but the glue isn't necessarily an all-is-right-with-the-world glue. Rather, shame-memories and socially framed stresses might themselves become fortified by oxytocin, at some level...as a way of gluing the social together. It doesn't mean that rises in oxytocin might not also work to unweave, or counter those effects, but it does mean that oxytocin is complicated by the levels on which it works.
One source, not particularly footnoted, suggested that it isn't just the presence of oxytocin that shapes social emotions, but it is the change in oxytocin levels. This could mean that ESA individuals could have elevated oxytocin levels which act like how insulin-resistence does, diminishing the effects a typical oxytocin-promoting event might have. This is just my own wild speculation, but at least something to consider. If abuse can over-trigger oxytocin's role in social regulation it might be even more important to watch the need for oxytocin. And...even more speculatively, could very hard training, testosterone producing female athletes be working to drive their own oxytocin down, countering their own oxytocin resistance? (Okay, this is really speculative, just treat it as such.) I just find it fascinating that ESA stress tested subjects were not producing cortisol spikes.
Returning to the original subject there just isn't the science to really know what the story is about the role oxytocin is playing with the emotional profiles of female fighters training at a high level. If they are coming to their training from a history of abuse (and many do, both physical and sexual) then their own oxytocin battles may be more complicated, just in terms of their history and the role oxytocin has taken in terms of memory attachment and stress response. But...in all cases it should be noted that broadly speaking oxytocin and testosterone are considered antagoinists, and even 60 minutes on the treadmill can create a testosterone spike in women. Cortisol, the stress hormone, also is said to be an antagonist. So at minimum we have a profile of counter-oxytocin hormone probabilities laid out in typical high-level training. For women in particular this could be a very important and somewhat neglected dimension of fighting or becoming a fighter.
Qutie some time ago Sylvie wrote a controversial "Myth of Overtraining" article. One of the things I found interesting was the push back from women who definitely experienced mental and physical deficits. One woman in particular wrote about her extremely high, tested cortisol levels. Sylvie's answer at the time was about how what people neglect is resting, what she called active resting. Your rest needs to equal your stress, so to speak. The missing component perhaps was that part of that restorative rest, especially for women, might involve the replenishment of oxytocin. For a woman who is experiencing really high levels of cortisol she definitely is under extreme stress. Sylvie's quarrel at the time was with the idea that degrees of physical exertion alone were the cause of the expressed symptoms of overtraining. If we add oxytocin replenishment to a notion of active rest then maybe we have a more complete picture of the limits of high-intensity training. I could also say that as a victim of extreme sexual assault (one event she has written about) Sylvie may not have a typical cortisol reaction to stress and fear. So her own experiences of the limits of physical training in Thailand may be atypical.
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Kevin I responded before I read the breadth of your research, and all your thoughts (so it was blithe and short). I can't respond in kind to the density of your thought, but its super fascinating. Of particular interest is the idea that female fighters are in chronic deficit of oxytocin, being structurally outside the male bond of the gym. I've taken to madly trying to build female fighter camaraderie at my small upstate gym. I'm not very outgoing, but I am just fascinated for all sorts of reasons. This helps me think through why. Thanks.
It's crazy to think that there is some kind of "structural" (in the sociological sense) and "hormonal" (in the balance of hormones sense)...synergy going on. That as women seek to overcome cultural boundaries and hurdles they also have to struggle against hormonal shifts and deficits. What is compelling is that IF we can locate the difficulty at the chemical level, and not so much at the ideational/character level, if we see the emotional difficulties females may encounter as more or less "natural"...or at least naturalized hormonal imbalances, these can be directly addressable without the baggage of emotional judgment. If you are going to push yourself into states where oxtocin might be put in deficit then you may have to build out oxytocin enhancement as part of your commitment to the sport and art of fighting. It should be part of the program.
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Don't know if these are all real, but food for thought in the right direction of oxytocin re-balancing in testosterone/cortisol producing environments. Article here.
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Perhaps an additional, complicating factor could be histories of abuse or PTSD-type events which could alter one's Oxytocin regulation.
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Two Things That May Release Oxytocin: A Dog and Massage
2. Get a dog. Petting a dog releases oxytocin in the dog and the human. Starting with a canine companion can help some patients become more comfortable with human companionship.
3. In research my lab published in September, 2008, we have shown that moderate-pressure massage primes the brain to release oxytocin and motivates interactions with strangers.Noticeably, these are two things that we have done. Adopting Jaidee from the street felt like an important step, and we are really rigorous in making sure that Sylvie gets multiple massages every week.
Background on oxytocin
Oxytocin, a small peptide, is a neurotransmitter and a hormone secreted centrally from the posterior pituitary, as well as a paracrine hormone secreted peripherally from tissues such as the gut, bladder, uterus in females, and vas deferens in males. Human studies demonstrate numerous roles for oxytocin in physical aspects of daily life of males and females across the lifespan including growth, wound healing, fluid balance, blood pressure and breathing regulation via control of vascular and bronchial dilatation, and digestion and sexual and reproductive functions including birth and breastfeeding via control of smooth muscle peristalsis (Pederson, Caldwell, Jirikowski, & Insel, 1992; Uvnas Moberg, 2003). Oxytocin is active in regulating vagal tone (Porges, 2011), and could be associated with dysregulation of any tissues and organs regulated by the vagus nerve.
Oxytocin is implicated in behavioral aspects of daily life in relation to attachment, affiliation, and maternal behavior (Pederson, Caldwell, Jirikowski, & Insel, 1992), pro-social behavior (Brown & Brown, 2006), stress regulation (Porges, 2011), and memory and learning under very stressful conditions (Pitman, Orr, & Lasko, 1993), especially social learning (Hurlemann et al., 2010). In literature focusing on biobehavioral outcomes of maternal-infant dyadic regulation, dysregulation of the oxytocin system has been considered a potential mechanism of adverse outcomes of early relational trauma such as attachment disorganization and affect dysregulations associated with self disorders (i.e., dissociation, somatization, interpersonal sensitivity) (Schore, 2003). This is consistent with the cascade model of the effects of deleterious early experience on neurobiology (Teicher, Anderson, Polcari, Anderson, & Navalta, 2002) which specifies the oxytocin system as a third “pillar” of the stress-response system, along with the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and sympathetic nervous system.
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Oxytocin Is Also At Play In Intensifying Traumatic Memories
It isn't just the love hormone, it appears to also be involved in creating powerful stamps of trauma that are experienced on the social level. This article refers to the connection.
"...For this study on the link between oxytocin and fear-based memories, the researchers used region-specific manipulations of the mouse oxytocin receptor (Oxtr) gene (Oxtr). The scientists were able to identify the lateral septum as the brain region mediating fear-enhancing effects of Oxtr.
The research shows that one function of oxytocin is to strengthen social memory in this specific region of the brain. If an experience is painful or distressing, oxytocin will activate the lateral septum and intensify the negative memory..."
The author proposes using the social-bonding powers of oxytocin to unwork and re-weave the powerful traumatic connections made by the first memory.
These are related article by the same author:
- "The Neurobiology of the "Love Hormone" Revealed"
- "Holding a Grudge Produces Cortisol and Reduces Oxytocin"
- "The "Love Hormone" Drives Human Urge for Social Connection"
- "Cortisol: Why "The Stress Hormone" Is Public Enemy No. 1"
- "Optimism Stabilizes Cortisol and Lowers Stress"
- "The Neurobiology of Grace Under Pressure"
- "Mindfulness: The Power of "Thinking About Your Thinking"
- "The Neuroscientists Discover the Roots of "Fear-Evoked Freezing""
- "Optogenetics Allows Neuroscientists to Turn Fear Off and On"
- "Decoding the Neuroscience of Fear and Fearlessness"
- "The Neuroscience of Forming New Memories"
- "The Neuroscience of Recalling Old Memories"
- "Returning to an Unchanged Place Reveals How You Have Changed"
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And then there is a 3rd
(prospectively) Cortisol, the stress hormone, is a 3rd player in this dynamic. It is reported also to be a natural antagonist of testosterone AND oxytocin. We hear a lot about cortisol, stress and overtraining. Think about what is happening to oxytocin when testosterone surges. A female fighter in training may begin to lack oxytocin-type experiences of connection. Stress levels increase due to natural workload fatigue (inflammation) but also perhaps because of social alienation, cortisol shoots up creating further detachment, suppressing oxytocin further. No longer is it testosterone which maybe forcing oxytocin down, it is cortisol.
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Losing Harder On Women Than Men?
Here is an interesting study that suggests that women losing to other women in competition actually increases testosterone.
Speaking very widely under the assumptions of the above post, this might suggest that losing maybe even harder for women to experience than men. If testosterone becomes elevated when a female fighter loses, so might oxytocin become suppressed, which means feeling less bonded to the social group. Losing could create something of a runaway train effect at the hormonal level for women. You might come back to the gym, train even harder, raise your testosterone even higher, and push your oxytocin levels lower, and feel even more disconnected and ostracized from the group.
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Was researching - well, you know, Googling and reading, Googling and reading as you do - the hormone oxytocin, a chemical known to be connected with experiences of bonding, and ran into this very interesting piece of information. Oxytocin and Testosterone are antagonists. Originally I was thinking about how some of the social elements under the influence of oxytocin have been issues of stress in Sylvie's training. As many have pointed out women are often much more motivated by social cues (coach trust, fighting for the team, proving worth) than by powerful antagonisms. I've talked about this with fighter Kaitlin Young, and our discussions definitely came back to me as I was reading the below. What is really interesting, at least from a prospective place of investigation, is that it may be the case that many seriously committed female fighters have elevated testosterone. No expert in this, I'll just hazard that some may have just a higher baseline profile of testosterone than average on the bell curve, and some may have increased levels of testosterone as a matter of their regime and their training. Or a combination of both.
This is the really compelling part. If fighter training (and the selection of women who become fighters) will produce elevated testosterone, and the below is also true, being a fighter as a woman may result in oxytocin suppression. This could be related to the supposed need or difference in motivations reported by female fighters as opposed to male fighters (who have different hormonal profiles and balances).
The relevant part:
"...What you might not know is that most hormones work as antagonists to other hormones. In other words, they can balance each other out. When one is released, it tempers or suppresses the over-production of the other. But if you keep over producing one, it can begin to snuff out the other all together.
Now let's look at some examples. We'll start with my favorite, oxytocin, and its antagonist testosterone. You might think that the antagonist to testosterone would be estrogen, the feminine hormone, balancing the masculine. And to some degree you'd be right. But testosterone is more powerfully antagonistic to oxytocin, the cuddle hormone, the one that makes you go, "Oooo" when we see something cute. Oxytocin is released during the experience or even the witnessing of loving kindness and affectionate touch, even when you see it on TV. It's also called the love hormone, the bonding hormone, as well as acting as a stimulant to contractions during pregnancy/birthing. When oxytocin is released, we feel softer, more nurturing, more cuddly, more loving. It changes our visual and mental perceptions allowing us to see the oneness of all things, the interconnectedness of all of us. For a brief moment, it turns us into right-brained systems thinkers, rather than analytical critics. And if you release enough of it, it allows us to see God. Studies have shown that those with high average levels of oxytocin are more likely to believe in God. So can't we just give people oxytocin directly? Sure, but the half life is only about 3 minutes, meaning the effects fade very quickly.
This brings us back to it's antagonist, testosterone, the masculine and aggressiveness hormone. It's released when a breach of trust occurs, making you even more distrusting. And as it rises, it suppresses oxytocin. That's what makes it a chemical antagonist. And just like the antagonist in a good novel, you need a chemical antagonist to keep things in balance in the body. Testosterone makes you more logical, linear, rational, and more goal oriented. In societies, it's testosterone that keeps an eye out for threats, dangers and free loaders, those who would take up resources while returning nothing to the community.
So oxytocin and testosterone. They are both required in a healthy person and a healthy society or culture. The reason we need the protectiveness of testosterone is that not everyone has a healthy regulation of oxytocin. Both biological diversity and abuse results in some people who have little to no oxytocin (or poor regulation). This misregulation of oxytocin has been linked to conditions as diverse as autism and sociopathy. Needless to say, if your oxytocin never gets released it becomes harder to see the point of being loving. There may be rational reason to get along, but there is no compelling biology that would require it of those with poor oxytocin regulation. And without the biological imperative of oxytocin to be loving, we are decidedly self-centered, short sighted and egotistical. Without oxytocin, our testosterone would cause us to be more fear-based in our decisions, or at best, coldly analytical.
The testosterone that gets released when we argue makes us less trusting, more closed minded. The oxytocin that gets released when we reach out to lovingly understand and forgive makes us more trusting and allows us to see world views we didn't know existed..."source: Quora
IF there is a causal connection between the increase of testosterone and female fighter training (or selection by population) and there is a bonded antagonism between testosterone and oxytocin, then it would be really important to make sure that there is care taken to keep oxytocin levels in check. Yeah, I know, it sounds stupid. More hugs, more "Great job!'s", more "You're a part of our team!"s, but it may very well be the case that there is a chemical deficit is that is created through training and the ambition of fighting. A coach or a team designing training of female fighters would need to purposively attend to this chemical reality.
Further, female athletes themselves, aside from just generally putting themselves in the "best" or most positive training environments, should probably attend to this hormonal balance in concrete, specific ways. Acknowledge that yes, you are in a regime ostensibly designed to increase testosterone, but this may very well put you in an oxytocin deficit. This means taking active measures to stimulate oxytocin, either outside the gym, or in training itself. Don't be passive to your own states. Your training contexts might not be feeding you the right mix, but you can actively work to caretake. Small things like systematically giving compliments to others, helping instruct others (when it is desired), building team chemistry between partners, could effect your own oxytocin levels.
This is the really profound thing. A lot of the time we can address issues like this at the emotional layer of our "character". If we are not motivated, it's our character that has to change. If we are not feeling positive its our character we have to change. The benefit of changing the layer at which we think of these problems to the hormonal level is that we can think of something like oxytocin suppression much in the way we think of dehydration. To stay motivated and positively focused oxytocin levels needs to be in a certain range, just as we need water to be in a certain range. Really strenuous, aggressive training will dehydrate you. It may also leave you in oxytocin deficit.
As to men, I really don't know. I think studies in these areas are pretty sporadic. I do know that hyper-aggressive training contexts like military bootcamp and wartime engagement are also structurally linked to socializing bonds that end up cementing relationships between men in a very deep way. This goes for team sports as well. So in men there may very well also be an important testosterone/oxytocin balance that is culturally addressed in the very nature of male bonding and training. Men get very aggressive, but then can be glued together through rites, practices and mores. Culture finds a way to set the hormones right in traditional forms, that's how traditions last and are propagated. But what is particular to female fighters is that they are in nearly all instances, almost by definition, "outside" of the masculine coded space, they are almost structurally determined to find themselves in oxytocin deficit, in a generalized way. The rise in testosterone may make oxytocin more difficult to regulate. They cannot as easily avail themselves of powerful forms of bonding, at least not as readily as men may be able to. They may find themselves on a testosterone train without balance. This may in fact account for the powerful romantic (and near romantic) attachments women sometimes form with the instructors who train them (not to say that they are un-real, but romance does provide an oxytocin spike in environments where it may be suppressed). And, it may account for the very significant successes some gym have when women are specifically nurtured, and team is really emphasized.
I wrote about this from a very different angle in my guest post:
The Female Fighter and the Chain of Shame
I hadn't thought about it at the time, but perhaps oxytocin (and testosterone) have a role in that theoretical construct.
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1. Does she feel her victory against Faa Chiangrai was a good decision? Many in Thailand felt it was not a Thai style judgement.
2. Does she feel that she needs to fight and beat Sylvie, redeeming her only decisive pro loss?
3. Does she have the ambition to fight Phetjee Jaa, the Thai rising star in her weight class?
4. Is she done fighting Little Tiger?
5. Do Japanese fighters feel that Thailand holds the standard of proper Muay Thai? Judging style, etc?
6. Does she feel that the importance Thais place on clinch in scoring is fair?
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Nong Biew vs Anna Shiratsuki for the WPMF 112lb title - in Japan
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I really wanted to get to this but time slipped away. A week has passed, are you still taking questions?
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Okay, a great week of just pushing through the pads with Pi Nu. It’s so strange to be doing this physically when I’ve been watching it first hand, so closely, for 5 years+. I’m really adept at physically imagining movement, so in a certain sense I feel that I’ve been “doing” Muay Thai for all these years…all the movements are so familiar to me. But it also feels like I’m in rehab after a spinal injury, and my body parts aren’t doing what I know they are supposed to do. It’s like a virtual knowledge trying to map on physical capability.
First Realization: This is something I think I knew, but today it hit me like a ton of bricks. Like I suddenly really knew it. Pi Nu is just an amazing padholder. It struck me today just how much he is teaching rhythm, really his own little style of a kind of music. Techniques are like notes, and yes, you need to play them right, but what is really important is how you play them together. Certain notes belong together, and there are common melodies that can be played within any particular natural group. And yes, the tempo can be changed to produce expressions, and qualities of experience, but it’s the rhythm that holds it all together. And he teaches this rhythm over and over and over, pulling knees and elbows into percussive beats, teeps to jabs, checks to kickbacks, uppercuts to hooks, and back. And he runs you through this music, over the fatigue, until you just start to hum it…you can’t help but hum it. That’s why he was so puzzled when an enthused westerner once asked him: What is your favorite combo? It’s not like that. It would be like asking what are you favorite musical bars? Yes, it’s something that might be answerable, but it isn’t the right level of description. It’s not the level of music.
And, as I climbed out of the ring this morning, armed with my new and weighty realization, I realized another thing. Sylvie often gets the question: How do you not get confused when legends all train you different, sometimes conflicting techniques? She usually answers this by saying she just takes the things she needs or feels attracted to, and leaves the rest. But what struck me was how Pi Nu’s music, which is a certain basic structure of Muay music, is sympathetic to for instance Karuhat’s music, which at surface value is quite different, more lyrical, more sudden. But they kind of harmonize together. It struck me how all of these legends, men who feel Muay Thai in their bones because they have warred it out at Lumpinee and Rajadamnern with huge pressures in the Golden Age, each have a music. And they are all different. What Sylvie has been doing is a kind of DJ-ing these musics into a style she is finding herself, ultimately toward her own music. So creatively, strains of one might sample into another, one harmony might morph into another, beats may syncopate across others. Yes, some music may be jarring to mesh with another, but not really. Not if you really feel the qualities of each. All music can be joined to other music, given the right transition and context. And this just blows my mind.
Second Realization: This came earlier in the week. I was truly struggling with my front leg teep. Being substantially over-weight didn’t help one bit. Being fairly immobile for this half-decade certainly was no boon to my balance. But somehow I was just all wrong about. Nothing made sense. Come on Kev, what are you doing? You know what a teep looks like. But then an interesting thing happened. After several more very confused teeps Pi Nu demonstrated how it should be done. I don’t have to explain how beautiful his was. But, what is interesting is that he didn’t pull the teep. He made it jab right into me. And then again. I’ve seen him do this to Sylvie. Not pull the teep. He doesn’t rocket it, but he makes sure that it has a pointed sting. Now she’s only 105 lbs so she regularly is knocked back, and I’ve noticed that she kind of has gotten into the habit of becoming really passive to this slight bit of aggression, like: If I just melt and fall away…submit…maybe he’ll stop. And he usually doesn’t. I’ve got more than 150 lbs on Sylvie so I decide to take the teep (my gloves were a makeshift pad), in fact after two, I’m going to lean into it, crowd the space. I’m basically not going to be teeped off, at least not effectively. And this changed the whole lesson. Pi Nu felt my resistance, so when he then called for me to try, once again, he resisted. He leaned into it. Suddenly I was banging my foot into his pad, trying to move him. I was no longer teeping “to the pad”. I was actively trying to use my weight against him. And given my size I sent him flying a few times. It’s enough to say Pi Nu was really happy. It wasn’t just that I was able to move him. It was suddenly I was using much better technique. I wasn’t a complete spaz about it. Such a big deal. It made me realize that “copying” or “imitating” a technique really can send you down the wrong alley. You might very well get to a very nice approximation, but if you aren’t using the technique to do what the technique is for, first and foremost, you are kind of wasting your time. Since this moment of realization I’ve had mixed results. Isn’t that the way that it is. Your epiphany is never as clear as when you first have it, but it fuels me, and my teep is definitely working towards a fun and meaningful technique. Now I try to pop him back, let my weight do the talking, and let Pi Nu do his magic and complicate the task with context.
Third Realization: There are two basic footwork patterns in Muay Thai. Not to oversimplify it, but there are two. In one weight goes to the opposite side foot when striking. In the other weight goes to the same side foot when striking. I had gotten into a bad habit during my few months of hitting the bag at Lanna (I didn’t really take an instruction then), years ago. I got pulled into the Dempsey jab which involves a deep “falling step” sending your weight forward onto the lead leg. This set up a basic weight transfer for me, same side weight transfer on all hands, and it kind of got into me somehow and hibernated all these years. This is the exact opposite of the weight transfer Chatchai Sasakul taught Sylvie. I don’t want to go too far into this with examples, but I can feel that these form two different kinds of “walking”. So, in shadowing elbows in a really informal, light way I started experimenting with walking with the opposite side weight transfer. It took me a couple of days before I really started to feel the way that this kind of transfer creates a twisting, elephant-walk-like, basic rhythm. I also realized that it’s really important not to blur these two kinds of walking, at least when distinguishing them in your body. It’s the reason why in the classic right cross you are told to nail your back foot to the ground. You don’t want to slur them. Yes, there are moments when you want to walk with same-side weight, but this holds it’s own purity. It counts as a counter measure. Of course there are many way to blend footworks, but this, at a basic level, felt like a profound element. So, I’ve been working to make sure my weight transfer is opposite, slowly growing to that rhythm. Today I realized how this kind of weight transfer can have a big effect on elbows, allowing them to be married to the basic “cutting off” gallop of a fighter like Yodkhunpon. Each gallop holds it’s own elbow at the ready. Side to side one can move, taking elbows off the typically linear, right in front of you elbow striking practice that is common. It opens angles.
Fourth Realization: This is also something I kinda knew, but as with all these things experiencing it really made a difference. Contrary to some fears of those who have not yet been to Thailand to train: It doesn’t matter how good you are to be taken seriously. No honestly. Yes, a lot of things do matter, and yes, this applies to what I might call “true teachers” of Muay Thai, but you can be the worst example of an athlete – look at me, vastly overweight, in his 50s, almost no training experience – and you can still be pretty interesting to a “true teacher”. The reason for this is found in Sylvie’s 2 part article on Beetle Fighting. In the Muay Thai world there is just an elemental – I’m tempted to call it pure – love of the battle, of the clash. In beetle fights it doesn’t matter how good or bad your beetle is, or how likely he is to not be good, the whole game is to find someone who might be a good match…and to have a battle. At any level. There are champion beetles that may be worth thousands of dollars (I’m assuming), and there are beetles you just find on trees. All of them battle, or can battle. If you find one that doesn’t really like the fight, won’t engage, no problem, he probably isn’t made for the clash. I think, after watching Muay Thai for these 5 years, this is a fundamental grounding ethic of Muay Thai.
There is another part to this though. True Teachers are a bit like Real Mechanics. Real Mechanics are fascinated by any kind of mechanism. How to make it work better? You see this with car guys. Guys have the car up on blocks trying to make it better. It can be a rare model, or it can be a Pinto, its the same ethic. What can I turn this Pinto into? Teachers like Pi Nu are exactly like this. All their students are like projects. They are thinking: Hmmm, what can I turn this into? Yes, the main business and pre-occupation is building Thai boys into stadium fighters and even champions, but deeper, below all of that, there’s a deeper morality. Everyone can be improved. What can I make this fighter into? Humble beginnings don’t really matter much at all. In fact, in some ways it’s more interesting. Pi Nu took Angie, a trans Thai woman with zero Muay Thai experience in her 30s and through matching effort and focus help turn her into the first trans-woman to fight at Lumpinee. Not because that was any kind of aim of his, but because he looked at her and said: What can I improve? I say all this because I can see in his eyes that he’s thinking the same thing when he’s holding pads for me (and really probably anyone). I have no intention of fighting, but already he’s thinking of possible opponents for me, starting to joke about them. When my teep sent him flying he thought: Hmmm, we can do something with that. When he felt how I kind of love knees and elbows together he thinks: Hmmm, we can do something with that. For these kinds of pure teachers everyone is like a stock car whose engine he wants to work on, and that he’d like to maybe race. Not on some amazing, famous track, but on the neighborhood drag strip against another car around it’s same capacities. See what this can become. Of course not every kru is like this, and some gyms have real bottom lines or business aims, but I’ve seen this in several krus in different camps and it’s a beautiful thing.
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9/29
above, me down to 269 lbs, with my sweet
Okay, I'm resolved to not turn this into a weight loss journal, though of course it can risk becoming that. This part of my writing is really about my love of Muay Thai and that I finally have a portal to it, even though I've lived in Thailand for 5 years and have always been close to it. This month, my first, was pretty difficult. Not in terms of work, but non-work. I was coasting along really nicely in the first week. There was a real sense of groove where Pi Nu was pushing me, but not just physically. He was beginning to shape my rather crude and off-balance Muay Thai. The way he works in rounds is that he just keep drawing you out, like putting threads. A knee naturally in followed by a same side elbow, a teep follows a jab. He works his rounds pulling you through natural Muay Thai strike pathways, but also trying to drain you. If you start jumping to his next called strike you'll find yourself in Cardio Hell. I noticed this a long time ago, watching Sylvie on pads. So for me that week was just feeling those progressions, like trying to hum a tune that someone else is humming, but also staying on the right side of cardio, making sure I had my balance before striking, making sure I wasn't busting myself too far from center. Yeah, it would be great if I was an animal right off, but I was nearly 280 and not used to movement. Plus, I feel like part of being a fighter is finding your tempo sweet spot, imposing your rhythm a little. If you just chase your padholder you are mirroring. I'm not sure that is a great habit to build. So, that week was awesome. Burning my lungs a little, finding/feeling Muay Thai (I was loving the cross arm neck grab on knees, and the feel of how that connects to elbows). It was good. Then we had to go. One of the difficulties of this mission is that Sylvie and I hit the road for at least one week out of the month. This time it was 4 fights in 2 weeks, so there was a real sense of disruption. Honestly, one of my difficulties is that I'm kind of OCD about regularity. If I'm set to do something everyday, over and over at the same time I have relentless energy and commitment. A juggled schedule fucks me. I'm going to have to figure out how to work this out at a personal level (no suggestions necessary). My joy is working with Pi Nu. It makes me go.
So, there was a lot of disruption this month, and I really didn't get right back on the horse until today. We have maybe 6 more days of uninterrupted Muay Thai before Sylvie's next fight so I'm set for more digging in. I'll make this work, it's just a matter of focus, preparation and planning. The good news is that this month I did lose at least 4 kilos to find myself below 270! (122 kg, 269 lbs). Hey, that's pretty awesome. A big part of this was not only the first big week of training, it was also that Sylvie and I both took a big turn in our diets. No processed carbs, no big GI Index carbs. We noticed that carbs of all sorts were putting Sylvie in a bad frame of mind, and it made perfect sense that I should follow along with this as I'm probably per-diabetic. Yeah, it was hard to reformulate our menus, and sometimes it feels like there is nothing I want to eat, but it certainly has helped with the weight loss. Now if I can just buckle down and put my Muay Thai right along side my diet change, we'll be getting there.
As for my Muay Thai I need to get into bag work way more. I'm lacking focus (and joy) there. I gave up playing with the Amardillo Guard, which I'm still theoretically way excited about - I believe there is a whole Muay Thai fighting system buried in that guard, something no one has thought to work out because it's a boxing guard. But I also have to work on my lead leg teep which is horrendous and comical at the same time. Geez. That teep says a lot of where I'm at physically. I should make it a mission to take that teep as a symbol of my possible transformation toward the love of Muay Thai that I have. Maybe in a year I'll be writing about how incredibly my lead leg teep is. I like that idea.
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Loma Lookboonmee vs Denise Castle S1 Championship, 2013
This was an interesting fight. Loma had beaten Denise in Thailand, Loma flying back from getting KO'd by Erika Kamimura in Japan just 48 hours earlier, I believe. Then she took this rematch in England. This is an example of a huge misunderstanding in Thai vs western style scoring. As you can tell from the commentary (which believes that "catching kicks" is a point somehow, or that throws don't score if you don't land a strike, or that elbows score really high) this is just a different world than Thai scoring. If you watch Loma by the end of the 4th round she believes the fight is over, as she has a big Thai style lead controlling the 4th round. She told Sylvie that she stopped fighting to be kind and not unnecessarily hurt Denise. You can see the "touch gloves" agreement that the fight is over. But, when it came to the score cards a different story. Denise fought a good fight, what a nice 3rd round, but when one opponent believes the fight is over its very hard to even assess the competition.
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Thank you Ben and Dana. :)
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9/2
Today in pad work I figured out a little trick after getting the pads smashed down onto my cross, sometimes twisting my wrist a little. I know pad holders do this just to counteract the force, and build strength, especially with big guys...and I'm a big guy...but I gotta keep my wrists going. So I just started targeting the top part of the pad, where the logo happened to be. End of pad smash, and it gave me a nice refined target to sharpen my eyes. For me, what I'm really trying to do, as my body fails me in so many ways, it's about trying to control my space, my environment. Checking the smash down was just part of that. Mostly it is pace. Pi Nu is incredible at just drawing you into a cardio world where you cannot recover, or breathe. I've watched him do it to Sylvie so many times, and she is a cardio monster. I do know this is good for me, health wise, but I want to from the beginning be measuredly focused on controlling small elements. This is fighting. Taking control of all the small things. So I do not jump for bait when strikes are called for, I take the extra beat to be more on balanced.
But I'm in love with the ways Pi Nu is pairing strikes, how he is already teaching me the flow between natural knees and elbows, on the same side. And I'm loving the cross grab on those knees, so the elbows just right out of a very protected position, the subtle way that you can either claw down or push, as you knee, and how that becomes an elbow. Just love.
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The Golden Kick - Why Most May Be Kicking the Thai Kick "Wrong"
in Kevin's Corner - Muay Thai, Philosophy & Ethics
Posted
This is the second piece of the Golden Kick, the slight pivot or open step that is used to create the last acceleration, after the turn:
I've reedited the compilation of kicks to focus on the standing leg.