Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu
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Posts
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Days Won
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Posts posted by Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu
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28 minutes ago, Tim Macias said:
The move involves blocking or dissipating the force of the incoming kick, catching the opponents leg, then finally elbowing their leg.
This would definitely be legal in ring Muay Thai.
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Tim's documentation continues:
Day 12
Tim's Vlog on Day 12
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1 hour ago, Oliver said:
That's like... thinking about it / over analysing it way too much for me to comprehend.
Isn't life hard enough without deliberately making it harder, and bringing it that level of negativity into your brain when you're doing what you love?
Yeah, white guys like you and me are privileged. We can coast through lots of situations and not have to think extra "negative" thoughts because we have a passport to get through all kinds of things that others don't. It's a luxury. The first step, at least for me, is realizing that yeah, I'm privileged, and other people in the same space don't experience it quite so smoothly as I do. If these people bring up certain problems that would never occur to me I take a step back and don't immediately say "Hey, you are being negative" or "why you looking for all that stuff". Sylvie tells a great story about how she wasn't able to clinch train in the main ring of her gym in Chiang Mai. It was the "man's ring", women were not allowed to enter it. It's where almost all the heavy clinch was done, and the hard sparring. Muppets were getting pretty high level clinch work, western guys who were not even fighters, while Sylvie (who was actually a clinch fighter with maybe at the time 50 or 70 fights) was getting almost no clinch work. It wasn't on purpose. It wasn't nasty, it's just the way it shook out. All the guys would just climb in and clinch. They hadn't a clue that Sylvie couldn't go in there. Occasionally a guy would say "Hey Sylvie, why don't you come in and clinch". They had a passport, one they completely took for granted. It wouldn't even cross their mind that you actually needed a passport (a penis, really) to clinch. But you kind of did. These kinds of invisible barriers are everywhere, often in much more subtle ways. Just because the barriers don't affect you or me doesn't mean that people who are stopped or slowed by them are being negative by calling attention to them. Sylvie didn't make a stink about that ring. But she suffered under it and its prohibition for a long time. She finally just left the gym and found a gym where women can clinch with males in a single ring and get all the real work. The same thing goes on with power dynamics and how instruction or information is passed between individuals. The tendency to "mansplain", broadly speaking, is really not much different than a bunch of western dudes climbing into the men's only ring to clinch. It isn't something special they are doing. That's just how one talks. It isn't something that feels privileged, it would never occur to them that you have to be a special type to do this. If you aren't clinching in the ring - as Sylvie wasn't in that ring - it must be that that's just not what you want to do. At least for me these are really important distinctions.
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8 minutes ago, Oliver said:
this older person doing the sensei-sim thing, is this a Thai or a farang?
farang, for sure.
8 minutes ago, Oliver said:Only met a couple of white dudes over there who would chat shit to you constantly, & usually they wanted you to invest in their pyramid scheme or something after bestowing their great boxing knowledge. But like, sketchy characters who left fairly quick.
I guess we go to different gyms. It's definitely a type we have run into again and again. I'm not sure if @LengLeng is talking about this type, but I just wanted to throw it out there that this does occur in Thailand, as people have been mentioning western gym contexts.
8 minutes ago, Oliver said:As for the mansplaining thing... often what you're looking for you will find, whether it's there or not.
Hmmm. No, mansplaining is just an air of authority men are raised to take on and feel comfortable with (especially online, where social cues are minimal). It's a pattern of talk that, very broadly speaking, women are much less comfortable with. It's the assumption "I know more than you likely know" as a way of entering communication. Happens all the time. Raised as a man I definitely have been cursed/blessed with it. You don't have to really look for it, like a rare rabbit in the woods, it is pretty much everywhere. Sylvie gets it all the time when people first come to the gym and imagine that they are super experienced when compared to her.
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24 minutes ago, Oliver said:
You guys often think this is 'mansplaining' but.... like...genuinely.... guys do this to each other more than they do it to girls.
Men "Mansplain" to other men all the time. In fact that is how they develop the habit. In fact, I just did it.
25 minutes ago, Oliver said:trainer and 40 people on the mat for a mere 1 hour session, basically means you get hardly any input from the teacher
To offer the other side of it, this is really common in Thailand, and not because there are 40 people in a class. Sylvie calls it "Sensei-ism". Usually or often older, or long term people in the gym who themselves don't work very hard, maybe they've been coming for many years, off and on, and one of the biggest pleasures is trying to convey how much "knowledge" they have. Happens all the time.
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10 minutes ago, LengLeng said:
And this to me is what unsolicited advice does. It robs me of my presence in training and learning and suddenly I become aware I am being observed by others.
I think this is why, often in real, long term training gyms that raise Thai boys up there is very little correction. And, why, you don't get everyone on the gym doing the same motions, having the same muay. Growing young fighters tend to be more nudged towards better technique, rather than "corrected", especially not repeatedly. And emulation becomes a strong tool of honing techniques, rather than teacher direction.
This may be related to the guest post I wrote for Sylvie's blog:
Precision – A Basic Motivation Mistake in Some Western Training
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What I find really fascinating about the General's Muay Lertrit, from the Muay Thai perspective, is that it adds an entirely distinct and new vocabulary of strikes to an already pretty potent vocabulary in Ring Muay Thai. The truth of the matter is that ring Muay Thai, even at its best - and I consider it the best fighting art in the world in the hands of the Thais - still becomes cul-de-sac'd by aesthetics over time. You have John Wayne Parr chain punching elite fighters into submission, perhaps not because he was better than them (if you want to invent a criteria), but because he fought off- or out-of rhythm, pushing them into the deep zone. All fighting arts become aesthetisized. Ring Muay Thai is no different. The aesthetic does become refreshed because fighters are always looking for "what works", but still there are era-specific channels through which it all flows. What is really cool about Muay Lertrit from this perspective is that one discovers not one, not three, but an entire family of strikes and defenses that can operate withing ring Muay Thai, because they are ancestrally related. They fit within the fighting program of Muay Thai, because they are evolutionarily related. It's like you suddenly discovered all the Anglo-Saxon derived words of English, after becoming proficient at the Latinate words which predominate because of Style - a rough analogy admittedly. The Muay Lertrit strikes, aside from the deeper, perhaps much more meaningful elements of balance, breathing and movement, seem to fall into certain holes or blindspots in modern Muay Thai.
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Tim's Day 11 Video Documentation:
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20 hours ago, Tyler Byers said:
I've got all sort of stuff wrong with two different sections of my back and then also my neck.
I know you've tried a million things, so just another one to throw out there. This is for shoulder injury, and has really worked for Sylvie, but if its theory is correct it might help across all neck and back issues (the idea is that we are built to hang and swing): Hanging Theory.
The good thing about it is that it is only a couple of minutes a day and is pretty basic (no learning curve).
Other things we've tried is blue light filter glasses on sundown (it's a bitch to remember to do this) to get the sleep cycle started, and Sylvie's got some very good sleep mask thing that kept being advertised on Facebook, locking out light. Sorry if these were discussed above, just popping into the discussion.
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1 minute ago, Tyler Byers said:
Feinting/hiding your strikes is really important here I think, it increases the sense of panic in your opponent and makes them open up even more.
Hiding strikes, yeah, but I know of no inside fighting style in any sport that feints much in inside fighting. Most of it is just defending well, intercepting, countering hard. Think of inside fighting in boxing. Zero feints. Unless maybe the deep rolls of inside boxing might be considered feints? Is there a lot of feinting in Muay Lertrit? By feint do you mean the twists and recoveries?
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19 hours ago, Tim Macias said:
Kevin has documented this punch before, and when the footage goes live, you’ll be able to see it. But the Buffalo killer is a prime example of the basics of Muay Lertrit coming together.
Here's a photo of the said punch, the moment just before the General rolls the hand, arm and shoulder over. A kind of Rolling Back Fist:
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1 minute ago, Tyler Byers said:
I'm worried that judges won't see the block for what it is and instead look at it as taking the kick on the forearms as opposed to being blocked by the elbow.
Just adjust and use his elbow strikes to the thigh to interrupt, right? hahaha. Yes, if you just take kicks to the arms all day, you lose. But that isn't really the Muay Lertrit style, it's invading of space more. Kickers will be okay for the first 2 rounds, but by round 3 and 4 their kicks will start to fall, pretty soon they'll all be below the waist and hesitant, leading to great narrative for you. Powerful weapons that degrade over time in a fight are a big negative. At least this is what Sylvie's encountered with her own pressuring style versus kickers. She blocks a few head kicks early (which score), but by the end of the fight the kicks are dead.
5 minutes ago, Tyler Byers said:Also the style isn't the prettiest thing in the world (compared to femeur), but hopefully the sheer dominance of it will shine through.
Yeah, it's just fighting with the Muay Khao ethic (minus the clinch). There is a recipe for Muay Khao fighting vs Muay Femeu. Every judge knows it. You have to just follow that recipe I think, for Muay Lertrit inspired action.
What is really interesting about Muay Lertrit, as far as I've been able to witness, is that the entire fighting style is organized around invading the no-mans-land between fighters, and fighting there. Even Muay Khao fighters sometimes ignore this zone, rushing in for the clinch. This is, in some Muay Thai, a neglected area of attack and defense, and for that reason your opponent is probably uncomfortable in this zone. We don't have the time, but I really would love for Sylvie to develop these twisting, intercepting no-mans-land habits and techniques. As a clinch fighter, if one became fluent in them, it would make you kind of undefeatable.
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Day 9: Returning to Work with the General
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Day 8: Capturing the Community Class
The General was traveling, Tim recorded the community class
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Day 7: Working Without the General
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3 hours ago, Tyler Byers said:
Hahaha should be interesting as I am pretty much guaranteed to lose on points if I can't get a stoppage.
Why would you think that his Muay Lertrit would score lightly in Thailand's sport Muay Thai? It seems the opposite. It seems like fighting in the pocket with a very strong defensive core would ensure not only entertaining (action-oriented) fighting, but due to it's strong defensive principles would shut out the opponent's scoring opportunities. I think the bread and butter of Thailand's Muay Thai, the mid-kick, would not last very long vs the General (ideally speaking). It really reads like Muay Khao fighting, but without knees, like as you say, maybe how Yodkhunpon or maybe Samson Isaan fought in terms of temp and spacing. Just with interceptive defensive pressure. It seems like it would score well vs contemporary Muay Thai.
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Yet, in the play, is also the countervailing imagery of being willing to be split right down the middle of your dichotomies. In the German the word used, here translated as "head", is more precisely akin to "part". Present the part in your hair, or the place you are split in two, to the heavens. Standing firm, by allowing oneself to be split asunder. This is the exposure that the female fighter ventures, I believe, exposing within themselves the halves of humanity.
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This was Sylvie's article on her experiences:
Cauliflower Ear – How I Dealt With It
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An interesting reading of the essential tension between masculine and feminine in the figure of the Amazon (argued in the context that the Amazon Queen, and all Amazon's after her) tore her right breast off in order to be able to militarily fire bow which a man's efficiency:
from: "Suddenness and Suspended Moment: Falling in Heinrich von Kleist’s Penthesilea"
What is fascinating is how the contemporary female fighter can be positioned between culturally feminine and culturally masculine qualities. Instead of having to resolve which one she is, proposed is a kind of aesthetic solution, putting them in productive tension with each other, making the weapon and the art. Here the artist, the fighter, the Amazonian, sacrifices part of themselves to enter the order of the art, and then puts the parts of themselves in energetic tension.
In the Penthesilea text she herself in turned into a projectile composed of receptacle and hurling elements, a machine of propulsion, as she chases down Achilles - the economy of words in building this combustion picture is really incredible:
Look! With what eagerness
She hugs her thighs around her charger’s body!
How, parched with thirst, bent low into the mane,
She sucks into herself the hindering air!
She’s flying as if shot straight from an iron bow!
Numidian arrows don’t fly half as swiftly!
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15 minutes ago, Xestaro said:
Is it Hongthonglek?
Hahaha. That is what I was thinking as well. If so, good luck!
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A bit from the Science Fiction:
Odysseus
Well, then. Achilles goes with me to greet
The Scythian heroine where she sits mounted
In martial panoply before her maids,
Plumes flowing from her helmet, skirt tucked high,
Her palfrey tossing gold and purple tassels,
Hooves stamping on the muddy ground beneath.
For one long moment, with a pensive gaze
She stares into our ranks, void of expression,
As if we stood before her carved in stone;
This bare flat palm has more expressive features
Than were displayed upon that woman's face:
Until her glance meets that of Peleus' son:
A deepening flush spreads down unto her neck,
Blood sets her face aglow as if the world
Surrounding her were leaping into flames.
Then, with a sudden jolt, she swings herself
Casting a somber scowl upon Achilles
Down from her horse, and, stepping toward us, leaves
The reins with an attendant, and inquires
What brings us to her in such pageantry.
We Argives, I reply, are highly pleased
To come upon an enemy of Troy;
Long has a hatred for the sons of Priam
Consumed our hearts, I say; great benefit
Would be our Joint reward if we were friends;
And other suchlike bounties of the moment.
But then I notice in the flow of talking:
She doesn't hear a word. Instead, she turns
And with a look of utter wonderment,
Suddenly like a girl, a sixteen-year-old
On her way back from the Olympic Games,
Addresses a companion by her side:
Oh Prothoë, I do not think my mother,
Otrerë, ever laid eyes on such a man!
The friend, embarrassed at these words, stays silent,
Achilles smiles at me, and I at him,
While she herself stands gazing, as if drunk
With admiration, at that glittering figure:
Until her friend reminds her timidly
That she still owes an answer to my words.Whether from rage or shame, another blush
Staining her harness crimson to the waist,
She turns to me, confusion, wildness, pride
Commingling in her face, and speaks:
I am Penthesilea, Queen of the Amazons,
And you shall have my arrows for reply!It is a martial love story, with the ideal male form (Achilles). The above is the first outline of the impossibility of alliance, which proposes a fundamental, but perhaps still productive antinomy between the sexes.
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Muay Lertrit Diaries - Coming to Thailand To Train in Traditional Military Muay Thai
in Muay Thai Technique, Training and Fighting Questions
Posted
As far as it has been explained to me, more or less all strikes are legal in Thailand, with the exception of knees to the groin. For instance, elbows to the back of the head...legal. Teeps to the groin, legal. There are social codes that make certain strikes feel dirty, so if you did them you are crossing a bit of a line, but the general feeling is "protect yourself".