Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu

In Chiang Mai Thapae Stadium is probably the best. Chiang Mai Boxing Stadium also has fights (Facebook: Chiangmai Boxing Stadium), as well as the new Kalare Night Market Stadium (Facebook: Chiangmai Nightbazaar Boxing Stadium).

I think it just has to be a photo. But I'm not sure, I haven't tried putting in a GIF. The GIF though, if it would work, would have to be hosted somewhere else.

What a great, detailed review. Sylvie hasn't been training full time in many gyms, but the lack of clinch instruction, technically, is pretty common I believe. This is how the Thais learn. You get thrown, and thrown, and thrown, and locked and locked and locked, and you figure out it. It's a very difficult way to learn in the short term, but it's how they all learn. Also, the repetitive training on basics is also very Thai. Even very advanced fighters train heavily in the basics. Again, how they all learn.

There are some how look to Taekwondo's inclusion in the Olympics (for roughly 12 years as a demonstration sport, and then as a medal sport in 2000) as a model for the kind of leap Muay Thai might be able to make. And yes, Taekwondo has received plenty of criticism for how things unfolded. But, it's worth looking at how Muay Thai fairs against TKD in the world and in the US:

A year later, just checking the trends. "Muay Thai" (as a sport) in October hit was at the lowest, World Wide, that it's been since 2004, in terms of search percentage interest: In the United States it also hit the lowest point since 2004: If you want a point of comparison with another sport/art that got a big boost from MMA and the UFC, in the United States you can see the difference between Muay Thai and BJJ: If you are thinking seriously about the future Muay Thai, in the world, this is data that should be discussed. The trends continue.

I don't know if Natalie ever told you, but --- if I remember correctly --- when she lost a close decision she felt she had won to Julie Kitchen the ref (was it Big John McCarthy, or am I inventing that part of the memory) told her afterwards, something to the order: "Because of your look, you can't expect a win." Sorry for totally screwing up the memory of what she told us a long while ago, but it is was something along those lines. Incredible. The way Natalie told it it was almost as if the guy was telling her this as a consolation.

Perhaps the answer to this impassible union between marketing and sexuality is to embrace that there are so many sexualities that can be expressed by fighting women, that the "sexy" isn't just a glossy Swimsuit sexuality, but that there are gritty, or ardent, or geeky, or "x" sexualities, that can intensify marketability. Yeah, it would be awesome if it was just a question of "skills", but in the marketing of fighting there may always be a dimension of "sex" that is never left behind. You see this in men too, in a way. There was even a kind of Boss Hog aura of attractiveness being pushed in someone like Big Country. Perhaps this is the thin line which could create more inclusion.

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.

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.

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.

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. m.me/sylviemuaythai/ or https://www.facebook.com/pg/sylviemuaythai/

Thanks for posting these. Good articles, though I wish they had more analysis.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

Lower cerebral spinal fluid oxytocin levels found in women who had suffered from early childhood abuse or neglect. Perhaps an additional, complicating factor could be histories of abuse or PTSD-type events which could alter one's Oxytocin regulation.

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. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3539231/

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" Oxytocin study that suggests it can delay fear extinction.

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.

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.

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.

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?

Nong Biew vs Anna Shiratsuki for the WPMF 112lb title - in Japan