Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu

This is it totally. You can be at a crap gym and if you got the right trainer with the right intentions this could be incredible for you. Or you can be at a famous amazing gym, and if you got the wrong trainer, ugh - nightmare. I just talked to Sylvie, we are about to get in the car to drive to a fight up in Chiang Mai, but she said she does know of a woman who went to Samart's gym, and more or less loved it. She'll try to contact her.

The Muay Thai Institute once was a cutting edge gym for women. Sylvie wrote about the history of the gym in this piece on Thai Female Fighters in the 1990s. It was the host of the first Thai female fight team, and the founder built the first and only female oriented stadium in the Bangkok area. Yes, they do offer certificates, but I think that is largely due to its connection to early government efforts, and even present day ones, to formalize Muay Thai. I'm not sure if it is still connected to the IFMA/WMC, but I believe it used to be. Not too long ago it was a destination gym for many. But...who knows what it is like now? Gyms can change dramatically depending on the Krus there, but it is at least worth taking an investigative look at. It has a long history of training women. I seem to remember that someone on this forum was at Samart's gym, I believe it was a woman. I'll see if Sylvie recalls who it was.

The only thing I ever heard about the gym is that Samart isn't very involved with the training (who knows, this may vary). Only reason why I mention it is that he is one of the big reasons why people do go to the gym. This is totally off topic, but as you may be in Rangsit, this is where Sylvie's sak yant Arjan, Arjan Pi, has a home that he works out of. If you are inclined towards such a thing it might be an opportunity that you'd want to take up. He is amazing.

That is absolutely incredible. Organizing an event like that seems like a logistical nightmare, I'd think. But that is way, way out of control. Imagine, walking around with your opponent begging to fight for your championship match. You guys should have gone outside and fought, and filmed it. And awarded yourselves your own belt of some kind to the winner.

So both of your divisions were canceled, one way or another?!

Interesting! Well, how do you feel about it as a feminist? The preservation of the custom, divorced from the beliefs that produced it, in the west is complex. If it becomes gathered together with other things like the Wai Kru/Ram Muay, prajet, mongkol, they potentially just become ornaments of an Asian culture.

Sawsing vs Farida Okiko (WMC and WPMF champ), August 2015

I think some of this can be seen in the overall fight styles of many Thai female fighters, a lack of opportunity of experience, due to cultural beliefs. For instance some female Thai fighters can really struggle with western aggressive, punching attacks, just because they have trained differently, not "trained like a man", so to speak, sparring hard. There could be a valid generalization there. But, where you can really see it is in clinch among Thai female fighters (which parallels your story about wrestling in Poland). There are serious cultural issues with females and males being physically proximate, especially as adolescence sets in, so lots of Thai female fighters are not very strong in clinch, despite being from the land of the best clinch technique in the world. They don't clinch with the boys. And even if they do, it's not the same pedagogy of focus. Sylvie's growth came specifically from that opportunity, clinching like a Thai boy. There are some very good female Thai clinch fighters. Loma (world champ), Phetjee Jaa, have incredible technique and timing. But these are rare exceptions. Usually these are females who found themselves training at an early age among boys - for instance Phetjee Jaa trained right along side her brother, who is a pretty awesome clincher. Now, western female fighters generally aren't very strong in the clinch either, but for different reasons, most of it having to do with the limits of clinch instruction in the west (lack of deep knowledge or practice).

This is the really compelling point about the experience. Even though Lanna was an extremely western gym, it may have been the only fully westernized gym in all of Thailand that kept a separate Men Only ring, out of a sort of cultural conservatism. Don't hold me to this, but I would not be surprised if it was the only such gym. Being at Lanna long term I think provided a unique keyhole into the sexist nature of this custom, something that just wouldn't be seen if you are training at Thai gym as a woman and the only thing you come in contact is the request that you enter under the bottom rope for fights (instead of, say, through middle ropes). What's the big deal, right? That's how it is done. But, when you see the remnants of the beliefs that underwrite this strongly conditioning daily training experiences in a gym like Lanna, something you have to deal with every single day and work hard to overcome, then the rope takes on a different weight, a different meaning. In this way, some of Kirian's rant is focused on important things - albeit in an unfortunate tone, and uninformed beliefs. No, Thai female fighters don't suck because of the bottom rope - they don't suck at all, they are VERY good - but there are built in ceilings for HOW good they can be because of the beliefs that surround the bottom rope. Almost every day of the week Sylvie had to see western men being pulled into the Men's Ring to do what could only feel like "man stuff". This is where most sparring was done, and almost all of the clinching. Some of these men were very good, serious fighters, but it didn't matter at all. Complete nubes would find themselves in the ring getting the work that Sylvie as an incredibly active fighter was desperate to have. She needed sparring, she needed clinch. In fact, I would say that one of the reasons Sylvie began fighting so much - and there were many reasons - it was because she could NOT get the kind of live action dynamic work in in training that she needed. She, instead, fought her way to knowledge and comfort. Here she was, a fighter who was becoming a clinch fighter, and she literally could not clinch regularly in the gym to improve in clinch. Instead she just had to muscle it in fights. So you have the westerner who was on her way to becoming the most prolific western fighter in Thailand history not having access to training that others who didn't even want to fight would have, only because she was female. It wasn't because Sylvie wasn't respected in the gym, she was to a high degree, her training and fight dedication was a high standard all others were compared to. It wasn't because there was some sort of decision made about what is right for women in training, and right for men. It was just a matter how how it just lazily shook out because of how the gym was set up (in space, in practice) based on beliefs nobody was really thinking much about. As time went by she found lots of ways to try to circumvent and partially solve this problem. She's a very non-imposing person, especially in those days, but she had to force herself to ask, or even beg for clinching/sparring, day after day, asking trainers or potential partners to leave the men's ring and come over into the mixed ring. What was regularly and frictionlessly awarded to ANY male in the gym was given to her as a kind of exception, an exception she would have to fight for. Almost any day she wanted to clinch it was a result of her having to press for it. She hates calling attention to herself in this way, but the truth of the matter was that if she didn't very little sparring or clinch would ever get done. As her husband I know this because I had to every day check with her if she was able to get any of this work in, and if she didn't, I would have to pressure her to stand up for herself. It was a current of in-oppportunity that was based on gender she had to swim against continually, and it was a huge, repeated, aggravating circle of communication that characterized the time there, and when we finally found Petchrungruang where clinch was encouraged and easily had, it was a stark and relieving contrast for us, especially because Sylvie had developed into a clinch first fighter. When she got to Petchrungruang she realized pretty quickly that she didn't even know how to clinch, despite being a "clinch fighter" and training towards clinch for 2+ years in Thailand already. This is a firm and concrete example of how institutionalized custom based on seemingly benign but still sexist beliefs, had controlled the access to knowledge and experience for women, even though that was not its purpose. And even Petchrungruang, because it too is a traditional kai muay, has its own gendered current which Sylvie swims against regularly, in order to get the training she needs and wants, despite its embrace of her as a clinch fighter. Now, Lanna is a great place to train. An awesome gym, and an awesome group of people. I can't even say that is isn't a good place to train as a woman, in fact, it probably is a very good place to train as a woman because it has benefited from the presence of Sylvie for two and a half years, carving out a space of extremely serious work and expectations, just like Sylvie herself benefited from the very hard working Sylvie Charbonneau before her who was at Lanna for 5 years, had a 50 fight career, and who set the precedent for high volume female fighting. Examples change possibilities. It is a gym with a legacy of long term, serious female fighters for really a decade now. But people should know that the Men's Ring approach that they have is incredibly rare among western friendly gyms (not as Kirian seems to believe, generalized or common), and I would guess among Thai-first Muay Thai gyms it is no norm. But this is the thing. Here is a segregation of the actual training space, based on beliefs that are not even really strongly held by anyone actually IN the gym. The last Thai who seemed to really care about the sanctity of the Men's Ring was a trainer named Wung. He hasn't been at the gym in years. The present Thais (the last time we were there) don't seem to really care about the distinction, though they will enforce it if a female accidentally wanders too close to the Men's Ring. There is some pleasure of the Men's Ring being a "man space" especially during man-testing time (clinching), but this is something that is almost not thought about in any big way. Nobody, including all the western men there, would even think that this segregation would have any impact on female fighters. But in fact, day to day, it had a huge impact on Sylvie. This is almost by definition institutionalized sexism. Men don't even notice it, women really notice it, because it has systematic impact on the real potential of women. Now, the number of women significantly affected by this Lanna policy have been very few. But the experience of it I think really gave a unique insight into the bottom rope issue for Sylvie, one very different than what most other western female fighters have faced. Yes, going under the rope to enter a fight is a ceremonial nuance that certainly can be done with no skin off your nose. But I would wager that in Thai spaces where you have to enter the under bottom rope for the training ring (or of having a ring that is off-limits all together), there are a set of beliefs about gender which will limit what you can achieve as a female fighter. One of the things I'll never really forget is seeing Phetjee Jaa look around briefly to make sure that nobody (her Father) is watching, and quickly enter the family training ring through the middle ropes. It's just an unvarnished moment of a young fighter, 13 then, seeing the bottom rope prescription as superfluous, and even in a moment of adolescent independence, something to violate. Endlessly she climbs under the bottom rope in the family ring, for years now, you would think she was used to it. But she was very happy to skip through the middle ropes unscolded, with a small smile. It was not without some irony when I would listen to Sangwean, her father, rail against Thai bias against women, that fighters like his daughter would not be allowed to fight in so many contexts, all the way up to Lumpinee - the family dreamed of her fighting there as a champion one day - not even realizing that the beliefs that anchor those limits of his child are very much the same beliefs he self-enforces on his own daughter, in his own ring at home.

You have some good gyms there, but as to the above I can't imagine that it would be easy to become a sponsored fighter in a non-tourist area. If you are going for a year though, perhaps it is best to try a few gyms, spend 2 weeks at each and see how they feel, see how receptive they are to you. An interesting alternative is perhaps the new Pumpangmuang gym in Lampang. We haven't a clue about the training there, as it was just being set up, but it is very connected, and as it seems like they are trying to develop a fight team up there, and may be open to sponsoring a fighter with less experience (a unique situation).

That sounds to me like a very astute parallel. It's the kind of thing that within the culture is almost invisible, in the sense that it just is the way it is, and nothing profound even really seems implied by it. But then if you go about unpacking it big ideas start to appear.

This is the interesting thing. I'm sure the guy sees himself as a pure protector of female equality, even a champion of women. I'm pretty sure he doesn't even see how much disrespect towards women he managed to dish out, while jumping up and down about how awesome it was that Nakamoto defiantly went flying over the top rope. And yes, it's a great image.

This is an interesting rant by a western coach over the custom of female fighters in Thailand having to enter the ring under the bottom rope. I leave his name out because there is no reason to be personal about this, I'm more interested in the weave of thoughts here. These are screenshots because after commenting on the post I was banned from continuing to comment - no big deal, it's his space and Muay Thai internet debate pretty much sucks. This is a huge, balls-out rant about the needed equality for women in sport and in particular for fighting, and it really strikes a powerful nerve in just the pure intensity of the celebration of Miriam Nakamoto -- hey, she was GOOD, one of the best ever. But most views on gender (and race and ethnicity) are not purely of one thing. I took pretty strong exception the characterization of Thai female fighters as generally being "treated as sex slaves and servants" (outlined red above) - does this guy even know much about actual Thai female fighters? After I made my first comment about this I believe he edited the word "treated" to "viewed" and then after making the post private to a circle he edited "sex slaves" to "after thoughts". Despite the changes this is a common trope of the passionate male, western pro-female fight "expert" that I've seen, the idea that Thai female fighters are somehow on the edge of becoming (or in this case, treated like) sex workers. Steven Wright also forwarded this idea as well. It's all part of the fantasy image of the "poor" Thai girl, forced into horrible conditions, and that these conditions make female Thai fighters inferior to the liberated, socially embraced western female fighters of the world. It's a complicated argument. He's very right that female Thai fighters are NOT treated in the way way as male Thai fighters in Thailand, and there are huge cultural (and economic) reasons why. And yes, the bottom rope custom is intimately woven into this. But the willingness to slip into these frankly bizarre and uninformed fantasies about Thai women, is just sexist and to me also (Orientalist) racist. Yes, there are lots of sex worker issues surrounding the plight of Thai women in various socioeconomic groups. But the willingness in the west, especially for men, to see the factuality of Thai women as fundamentally that of having a sex-worker status, especially when it seems that these men often have very little knowledge of the real lives of the Thai female fighters they are supposedly championing, is troubling (and no, I know of very few gyms in Thailand now where women cannot train in the ring with men). We saw this again and again, in the early days, when western men tried to troll Sylvie's fighting - the Thai female fighter is fundamentally just a poor girl, a child, a sex-worker in waiting. This is part of a big western (male) fantasy projected onto an exotic land they don't really know, a land much more complex (ethnically, by class, by belief) than they are willing to believe. Almost every top Thai female fighter I know of I would probably characterize as Middle class. Middle class by western standards. You want to see what these women look like? Here is a list of them Sylvie wrote about, the best under 48kg To his credit the author amended his words after making the rant private to a group of people. But I'm really interested in how these two thoughts: Women are Equal! AND These Asian Women are like Sex Slaves? can unconsciously compliment each other. The fact of the matter is that Thai female fighters are among the best in the world. In my opinion they are better, all things being considered, than their natural counterparts in the west, as a whole. Historically there have been some obstacles to actually showing this though: The best western female fighters (Nakamoto, Kitchen, Randamie, etc) historically have been giants to the best Thai female fighters and for that reason either large western fighters don't end up fighting the best Thai talent (if Thais at all), or when they do it can be with a significant weight advantage. Even to this day many of the top western fighters (Barlow, Meksen, van Soest), when weights are more equivalent, do not fight top Thais in Thailand - in fact these fighters hardly have fought each other. And importantly there are fundamental differences in how western and Thai scoring is done, something that leads to misunderstandings in East vs West matchups, and there are differing motivations at times. There is no "international stage" on which to judge Thai female fighter talent - no, the IFMAs have not been taken particularly seriously by most Thais. Yes, Thai female fighters do face a very different place in the gym than do male Thai fighters, something part of the problemized position of women in Thai culture, but it is incredibly disrespectful to describe that place as generally being like that of sex slaves, in any way, or that this status has lead to a general inferiority of Thai female fighters. The "sex slave" characterization trope for Thai women is a loaded one, instead of respecting Thais, one is just forwarding old stereotypes. Thai female fighters have devoted their lives to fighting. They deserve the respect of what they are, fighters who have long trained and fought in their National art. As to the bottom rope, this is such a complicated aspect of Muay Thai in Thailand it is very hard to untangle. Some Thai female fighters feel disrespected by the custom, some find it to be very meaningful and proper. Because the Muay Thai of Thailand is fundamentally a performance of traditional, hyper-masculinity, pulling on the threads of gender may unravel some of that respected cloth. There is to me no clear, principled answer here (Sylvie feels differently I suspect), but rather important principles that clash. But I do present his rant here because it contains some very powerful imagery in favor of female liberty. But in this case, the fact that the author seems pretty dis-conntected from Thailand itself (it's realities, its people, their beliefs) his particular brand of "Fuck your traditions!" feels a little not right.

I should add, these notions of regularity and reversal, the essential way that dramatic moments are perceived, are an important part of how the advancing and retreating fighter is scored in Thailand. Generally, and this is not always the case, the retreating fighter is seen to either be in the lead, or to be making a claim to the lead. The advancing fighter is at least nominally acknowledging this by advancing. This can be a very subtle demarcation of "lead" and "chase". Very often though when western fighters face Thai fighters fights can fall into very strong retreat and advance syndromes as the Thai lets the western aggressor be the bull to his lead-taking matador, usually without the westerner understanding his secondary position. But these same advance and retreat scenarios play out in every Thai fight as well. In terms of Thai scoring a lot can be learned simply by looking at which fighter is retreating (often claiming the lead), and more importantly, when he/she is making that retreat. But in this topic I want to call attention to regularity and reversal in terms of advance and retreat. Think about this. If a fighter begins the fight in retreat (claiming the lead, slightly) and remains in retreat the entire fight, he has put himself/herself in a position that he/she CANNOT go forward and advance towards the end without there being a very stark sense of reversal. This is one of the big disadvantages Thais can face in Thai vs aggressive Westerner matchups, the inability to advance late without suffering the admission of being behind. Of course, if the western fighter is not aware of this dynamic and just keeps advancing til fight's end this builtin problem for the retreating fighter may never get exposed. The potential dramatic energy of that fight long regularity never is taken advantage of. It of course goes the other way too. One of the benefits of being an advancing fighter for all or much of the fight is that you've built up a regularity that allows you to create a reversal by simply stepping into retreat at the right moment. This becomes a very strong visual claim and puts your opponent in a difficult position. They are left with two choices: trust that they have done enough and refuse to chase, or advance and admit that they are behind, and be forced to score dramatically in the end. These are extreme examples, but these kinds of established regularities in terms of reversing the advance or retreat of a fighter play out all the time in Thai fights, and are major keys to reading how 5th rounds are being judged, not only by the judges but by the fighters themselves.

A lot of deserved attention is paid in the west to the scoring of individual strikes. Which strikes score, and why? Where did it land? Was it powerful, was it on balance, was it displacing? These are important qualities of Thai scoring which are not readily understandable to western eyes at times and Tony Myers has done an amazing job of clarifying these principles, leading the way toward more uniform and more Thai style scoring. I want to talk about an element of Muay Thai scoring that is less appreciated perhaps: How regularity works in relationship to reversal. Narrative Arc - The Proving of the Past I was watching Sylvie's latest fight against Faa Chiangrai, a Northern Champion she has now beaten 4 times in a row, and was thinking about the scoring in this fight. Faa has felt, more or less, that she's won most of these fights - or at least it is in her nature to protest - and this one was actually very close. What made the scoring really interesting to me is the role that early success and failure played in how later strikes are read. In a nutshell, Sylvie had taken a dominant lead with a power/knee game in the 3rd. Faa then started to control the distance better and landed kicks in the 4th to pull ahead. Starting the 5th Faa was well ahead in a narrative sense. She had been on top, but not dominantly so, when the fight was cresting in the 4th. All she had to do was maintain the impression of the 4th and she had it. The very pro-Thai, All-Thai audience of gamblers even had the odds 15-1, they were all betting on her. And then Sylvie landed this: Now, this is the interesting thing. In order to understand the role this moment played in the scoring of the fight one has to know what happened before. There is nothing in this move/event that dictates its inherent value. First thing to understand is that visually this was by far the most dramatic/impactful move of the fight. If the fight had been filled with throws or drops it would have meant something else. Instead, the whole fight Sylvie had been trying to finish Faa off in the clinch and put her down to the canvas; and much of the fight Faa was trying to stymie Sylvie, and in the 4th it looks like she had too some degree solved Sylvie's power with movement, and had begun to score a little. But when this throwdown happened the entire illusion of Faa's control of Sylvie's power was broken - Sylvie's physicality suddenly re-appeared. All of the dominance of the 3rd round clinch game came back into play. In a single moment of the fight Faa's 4th round recovery and lead-taking was put into a new context. This is the very un-western or at least un-modern nature of Thai scoring. Strikes are not blows that take away a fighter's vitality, like video game life bar points subtracted mathematically, which then are numerically compared in the end. It is instead a performance. A performance of skill, of heart, of Life. And as such story-telling is a significant part of the aesthetic and meaning of what is going on. A fighter can add points to his or her column throughout a fight. But there is a more important dimension to this kind of addition. The narrative of the fight must confirm the meaning of those added up points. The reason for this is that landed strikes are not numerical damage done (or, degree of difficulty wushu-like skill demos). They are demonstrations of dominance, the demonstrated control over the space around, and body of, your opponent. In fights you might very well show control over your opponent (dominance) through repeatedly landed strikes in a round, but if you are not able to maintain control over the space, the nature of that dominance comes under question. That is why later rounds are more important than earlier rounds, generally. In this particular fight Faa was able to cast some doubt on Sylvie's power game that looked so strong in the 3rd. She looked like she had come through it, began to control the space a little better, that it wasn't as effective as it appeared at the time. Only when Sylvie threw her to the ground in the final round did the promise of the 3rd round suddenly come to fruition. It wasn't an illusion after all. How Missed Strikes Help, and Landed Strikes Hurt - Potential Dramatic Energy So far I've been talking about a fight none of you have seen, so it probably hasn't been much help in establishing more universal principles or application. So let me take the counter-intuitive idea that missed strikes can help you, and landed strikes can hurt. One of the biggest focuses of attention in a fight in later rounds is looking for the reversal. It may be because audience gambling is so much woven into the fabric of Muay Thai in Thailand, but the shifting of fortunes (or powers) in a fight is really where the thrill or rush is for Thais, it is what raises Muay Thai up as a drama. Muay Thai at least in some buried, cultural sense is dramaturgic and thaumaturgic in nature. And because the eye is so sensitive to shifts in power or fortune any regularity that let's say is present in the first half or more of the fight is subject to meaningful and dramatic shift. When there is shift, there is emphasis. This means that if a fighter attempted to land a heavy cross over and over throughout the fight, and missed and missed and missed (the Thai fighter Thananchai fights like this), these are not just moments of ineptitude that count towards the proven impotence of the fighter, like so many demerits. They are also the build up of potential dramatic energy. In the very nature of narrative the questions begin to grow: Will the right cross eventually land?! If it lands will it be powerful, decisive? When the cross lands, heavily, late in the 4th round, suddenly everything comes alive. All those missed strikes grow into the promise that they implied. Now, a landed right hand after 15 misses does not win a fight, but it sets up a new context. The result of that excitement is that the fight can move into a phase of re-evaluation - it is in suspension. Suddenly everything that happened before that moment can be reconsidered. The onus on the cross fighter then is to suddenly prove the promise he just demonstrated. My rear hand just landed after all those misses, it was not a fluke. If he lands it again, and again, the tide of a fight can shift dramatically. Or, if he then suddenly brings in other weapons that indicate the aesthetic of power he was miming previously, this too can convince. It is not enough to just land something you missed repeated, but when you do positively break from a regularity you have bought yourself a ticket to a reevaluation moment. You are half way there to victory, a victory born of a sensitivity to shifts in efficacy and momentum. I've seen big leads erased rather quickly through the intensity created by the emphasis on reversal. In this way a single strike landed, in the context of an already established pattern, can be far more potent in terms of dramatic narrative, then assorted strikes landed in a medley of attacks. It opens the door to a certain sort of perception and reevaluation. The role of repeated strikes can work in the opposite direction as well. If you repeatedly land kicks to the body early in the fight (one of the more dependable scoring strikes in Thailand), and then later in the fight you start to be unable to do so (they start to be checked, or you start leaning back and hitting air) in terms of narrative your earlier prowess can certainly work against you instead of just acting like points added up in a bank. When the regularity is disrupted, in either direction, dramatic form calls everything into reconsideration. If you start landing those kicks again, let's say in the 5th round, all those earlier strikes can come right back into play - they have not been permanently erased. But the onus is on you to renew that regularity, to prove the dominance that they were previously indicating, or to provide a new regularity that redeems the previous one in some way. Because the build up of potential dramatic energy works anytime there is a regularity, it can manifest itself in many areas of a fight. In fact it can manifest itself across fights when a fighter becomes known. A fighter like Thanonchai enters every fight with a "bank" of power punching regularity that can work for or against him in terms of narrative. A fighter like Yodwicha has the same in terms of clinch fighting. In a sense each fight for these fighters is a play off of that regularity, the attempt to produce the story of their dominance. The Benefit of Legible Fighting Styles Much is decried about the softer first two rounds of a Muay Thai fight in Thailand, but much of this is a play the fighters are having either with their own reputations (regularity) or with establishing expectation in the fight. When it is done right both fighters are setting up their independent stories, stories which will battle each other to be the "true" one. But I want to think about this entire narrative force in terms of strikes or styles chosen. It's not just "who is in the lead now" and "will they be able to hold it". It's what regularities are being set up, how is the principle of reversal being observed. A lot of western Muay Thai fighters in Thailand - at least that I've seen - do not have very legible fighting styles. By this I mean they do not seem to feel the importance of demonstrated dominance through repetition and readable tactics. Instead they often attempt to demonstrate their skill, the quality of their techniques (or their power) in a variety of fighting approaches. They may start out with a basic approach, but often by the 4th round it looks more and more just like "fighting" - drawing on whatever weapons that occur to them from their arsenal. The reason for this, if my observations are sound, is that the mentality is more one of scoring, and in scoring, often it is scoring as "damage done". It's a math of damage. Or, in some cases, western fighters are trying to just "demo" various techniques, showing how "Thai" they are in their balance and form. But often western fighters don't have a legible fighting approach, a sense in which strikes produce expectations. You want judges and audience to perceive regularities. Yes they are showing heart, yes they may even be showing sound technique, but it cannot be easily read from a perspective of reversal. Thai fighters on the other hand, just to generalize, have a much more legible approach. You can see where the early regularities are in a fight. As a striking tactic is attempted over and over its potential dramatic energy is built up. Will it succeed? I think for this reason there is a benefit for fighters to repeat strikes or tactical approaches, to increase the legibility of their fighting for judges. The Change in Tactics - Reversal of Fortune Due to the nature of regularity and reversal the power of reversal does not just play out in a single element of a fight. It is not just whether a cross lands after multiple misses. One of the more common narrative plays is the change in tactics. A fighter fights in one way for let's say 3 rounds with only middling success, and then in the 4th changes tactics and becomes dominant. This is for instance how clinch fighting is often used, to demonstrate dominance and power that was only promised previously in other ways: something to create the reversal from the regularity before. It isn't just the case of: "well, that didn't work, let me try this". Most of the time this is a narrative approach, one that builds up a regularity for the benefit of reversal. One of our favorite fighters JR (who fights in China) would start out Orthodox for two rounds or so, and then switch to his more natural, powerful Lefty - perhaps just a gimmick, but for him it is about narrative fighting, building in a reversal from a switch. If you are not fighting with regularities you may be missing out from some of the dramatic potential that is essential to Thai scoring. Of course you can try to fight without pattern. If you are a virtuoso you can play above the fight, and let the regularity of your superiority become the storyline, but appreciation of pattern fighting is most of the time an essential component of Thai aesthetics. Because of the importance of legibility if you are fighting and you've missed your last 10 strikes, you are probably in a much better position if most of those strikes were of an identifiable approach, than if they were 10 different kinds of strikes with no readability. The first builds up potential dramatic energy, ready for the reversal, the other just looks like incoherent impotence. The first invites either the future cashing in on those kinds of strikes (will they eventually land?), or a change in tactics that calls attention to a moment of reversal, the second allows almost no firm dramatic way forward, no quality of contrast.

I didn't realize that Sitmonchai Gym was so expensive, but I got to say that when Sylvie and I visited there we were pretty impressed. Sylvie wrote this post about the gym: The Best Muay Thai Gym in Thailand? A Video Tour of Sitmonchai Gym Maybe some of what she has to say there answers some of your questions. All in all it seemed like a self-enclosed little Muay Thai gym world there. A balance between great instruction, lots of Thai fighters, serious students/clients, good people. A lot of top gyms seem to have a big divide between the "Thai" gym and the "Farang" gym. They exist side-by-side, but in different worlds with different motivations. Somehow it felt to me like Sitmonchai has been able to blend these together in a unique way. I do remember that they never have farang spar with farang, that you are always working against a Thai. They appear to keep a big staff to make sure that is possible.

Kaitlin Young just spent a month there, living in the house. I think she mentioned that there were rooms to be had not far from the gym too. If you need help figuring it out maybe she can give insight. She's on Twitter and FB. Sylvie can help you with Thai if you need to ask a question of their FB page.

I've heard Eminent Air is pretty expensive for what it offers, and while it used to be a go-to gym for many long termers we knew that trend seems to have changed a little. Hopefully someone else can hop in with actual knowledge of the situation, but thought I'd add this: It's a completely different part of the country, but Lamnamoon sounds very interesting, based on the things you are looking for. Also, a hidden little gym that gets very little coverage in English is Dejrat Gym in Bangkok. We visited there last month, and Sylvie did some work on pads and in private. Arjan Surat is extremely Old School, very correcting. He's the head coach of the Thai National Team, and is no-nonsense, but also seems very big hearted. People looking at Chuwattana and Eminent Air tend to be looking for the "authentic" Thai Gym experience, and Dejrat is definitely that. But it is very small (physically). They do focus on clinch, from what we were told. You read a little about the gym here. Here is a little of their sparring: Here is a video walk through: I know neither answers your question, but more information is better than less. Might as well throw it out there.

Regarding the problems of gambling and it ruining Muay Thai in Thailand, I just don't buy it. The reason I don't by it is that in the Golden Age Muay Thai was basically run by huge, powerful mafia. The grip over Muay Thai was so strong that there were assassination attempts (shootings, a bombing) at Lumpinee. Gambling was the promotional bedrock of the greatest Muay Thai we've known, it's not a suddenly strong influence - gambling is likely expressing something within the culture, not artificially imposing something. This is probably a very nuanced history, but great fighters of the Golden Age notoriously lost their careers by throwing fights. But staying focused on female Muay Thai, female Muay Thai in Thailand has its own short, minor history and sub-culture. One of the things we seemed to glean from the gamblers in female MT matchups, is that gamblers love Sylvie because she fights. And she fights hard. There seems to be a sense from at least some Thais that as female Thai fighters adopt a very "femur" (technical) fighting style, lots of retreat, point-scoring kicks, evasion, that they aren't really fighting. Even though Sylvie is a clinch fighter, some Thais seem to read this as real fighting, forcing the Thai fighter to fight. The technical approach, at least among female fighters, can be read as anti-fighting. If I would guess, this may also be how many Thai female fighters are viewed in Japan (or China), as anti-fighters, fighters who won't fight, in promotions where aggression is esteemed. I think that some of this same thirst for "real fighting" also exists at the level of male Muay Thai too. I think that's why shows like Thai Fight and Max Muay Thai are having wide televised audience success - these are often circus-like shows, but very popular, and their popularity should be telling us something. They are offering "aggression" in contrast to the more controlled fighting style of traditional Muay Thai. This may also be key to why MMA is starting to take a small foothold in younger generations. I'm not saying that this is a good thing, but I really don't think that the economic decline of Muay Thai in Thailand is because there aren't enough techniques being shown at Lumpinee. It may be even the opposite. Technical fighting may not have widespread appeal. The power vs technique question has been a long running one, and I'm sure it goes much further back than when Samart lost to Dieselnoi who just clinched and kneed, a loss that still probably stings. But this is why I say that in particular to female Muay Thai, the style of Muay Thai in Thailand, for women, may be in a precarious place. It is caught up in this much wider march towards power fighting and aggression, which is really typified by the International populist ethos of MMA, and its various step-child promotions of kickbox striking.

Muay Thai of Thailand in the West When Caley Reece retired I mentioned to her that with her probably passes the last high profile western female fighter who fights in what might be termed a "Thai style" in that she is both a crisp fighter with Thai techniques who also strongly favors clinch and fought professional Muay Thai - at the time it was very hard to think of another female fighter like this. Tiffany van Soest, who carried the torch of Muay Thai stardom in America was really a Karate style fighter who fought under (and succeeded in) Muay Thai rules. In fact I recall that after some difficulty in the ring Tiffany said she had to get back to her Karate roots. Iman Barlow, who also vies for the unspoken title of "best female Muay Thai fighter in the World" doesn't really fight Muay Thai rules any longer (2 Muay Thai fights in the last 2 years), instead fighting very frequently for K1 style Enfusion, along with many other top talents. I'm also not quite sure how "Thai" her style is, in the sense that she prefers not to fight in Thailand, and fights with great pressure and aggression. Anissa Meksen, another top Muay Thai western name, fights from a very heavy Savate background (11 years Savate champion). Jorina Baars is very Dutch in her style. Clinch fighters like Teressa Wintermyr are nearing the end of their careers, and now that Tiffany is moving onto MMA, likely to the UFC (with a brief stop over in Glory/Invicta), and with the UFC absorbing big names like Valentina Shevchenko, or turning Jedrzejczyk into a name, there is a real sense that as much as female Muay Thai seems to be growing, in a strange way the western female Muay Thai of Thailand (Thai-style) is ending. Yes, women will still come to Thailand to train and pick up techniques, but as fighters are pulled more and more into non-Muay Thai promotions, variations of kickboxing, and "Muay Thai" itself becomes a broad international style, it could be that the Muay of Thailand for women is waning. The Muay Thai of Thailand, Internationally This is speaking of the west. But even for Thai female fighters the pressure away from traditional Muay Thai has been happening for several years now. First it seemed to be the draw to go fight in Japan for significant purses that could not be had in Thailand (easily). I'm not an expert on these fights, but of those I've seen it has often involved female Thai fighters being beat on under rules they did not fully understand or were unprepared for (Shoot Box, for instance), or having Japanese Muay Thai champions face Thai opponents who were sometimes not the top tier, or outside of their natural weight class. This felt somewhat Nationalistic to me, as Japan has always had a tension with Thailand ever since it tried to steal (perfect?) Muay Thai as "Kickboxing" in the 1960s, a Muay Thai that challenged the supremacy of Karate in many ways. The Japanese want to beat Thais. Again, I'm no expert, this goes back much further than when I started paying attention, but in watching recent female champions in a few weight classes closely it seems like the best Thai fighters are no longer invited to fight for Muay Thai belts in Japan, and even that Japanese champions sometime come to Thailand somewhat quietly, and fight what they believe to be lower level names. This has left some of the best Thai female fighters without a chance at more international acclaim. One has to add to this the more recent trend of Thai fighters being more or less "set up" to fight (and lose to) Chinese fighters. The first time we witnessed this was on the Queen's Birthday fights a few years ago. There was a bizarre match up of a very robust, almost hulking Chinese female fighter tossing around a Thai fighter in some of the oddest rules I've seen in Thailand - it was unexpected because this was a National holiday typically celebrating Thai female fighting. The Chinese fighter was basically ragdolling the Thai girl around the ring with hip throws and whatever else, in a part of the broadcast that was being sent to China (I believe). It was pretty stunning. Since then, and probably before, there are similar fights between Chinese and Thai female fighters, in Thailand, with rules designed to benefit the Chinese fighter, televised back to China (I presume). Thai female fighters also gain big purses flying out to China to (sometimes) be bludgeoned, again, under similar rules in what also seem to be unfair weight disadvantages. Again, it feels like Thai female fighters are serving what is essentially a Nationalism of another country. All of this makes me wonder about the future of the Muay of Thailand for female fighters, even as female Muay Thai in Thailand seems to be receiving its widest reach and appreciation. The growing, looming wealth of China will likely only increase these kinds of Nationalistic matchups, a Wushu nation seeking to dramatize it's potency in real terms. and in the west the expansive pressure of the UFC and all its ripples in the pond (various "stand up MMA" striking promotions), may lead to an Internationalization of Muay Thai that will take "female Muay Thai" further and further from the Muay of Thailand, just as Muay Thai opportunity is expanding for female Thais within their country...and this is not even taking into account the pronounced globalizing success of the IFMA, which is quietly bringing about significant changes in the sport. It may be as simple as the fact that the Thai-style rule set and scoring aesthetic does not exist outside of Thailand, so it is hard pressed to imagine that the Muay of Thailand could exists in anything outside of pockets of "Purists" who seek to preserve the artform in the west, or the proliferation of techniques and tone from former Thai fighters turned international coaches and therefore ambassadors for the sport. This is something that all of Muay Thai is facing. But, because of the precarious nature of female Muay Thai, the reality that far fewer women fight or train seriously when compared to men, shifts in style, trends in popularity and maybe more importantly opportunity, can have a much more powerful, and perhaps categorical effect on female fighting than they may on male fighting. As the United States loses its one female Muay Thai star to kickboxing, and then inevitably to MMA, a star who herself was perhaps a Karate fighter at core, one has to wonder just what the future of the Muay of Thailand is for female fighting. Will the Muay of Thailand become anything more for female fighters than a collection of techniques (spinning elbows, teeps, knees) added to a style simply known as "striking"?

Maybe if an elite Muay Thai fighter - like the current fantasy about Saenchai - joined the UFC and cleaned up? So far I'm not sure that the UFC has seen true Muay Thai, that is, high level Muay Thai born out of the process of Thailand, with strong knowledge of clinch. BJJ would never have taken off if the fighters that introduced it were mid-level BBJ fighters. The UFC has never really seen a Muay Thai version of a "Gracie".

I can't say I really follow this. Have you seen old footage of Boran style fighting? It's not really Muay Thai either. It doesn't matter what shape (or gloves) they are working within. Modern Muay Thai fighters at top stadia would have cleaned up those fighters. Muay Thai, as we know it, is really created out the aesthetics of its rules and scoring, as they express and preserve Thai culture, as the techniques developed over the period of Thailand's modernity (generally 1960-1990s). Take a look at Boran style fighting not long after the first rings were being used 1920s Even by 1946 John Wayne Parr's promotion is basically trying to create "stand up MMA" which is not Muay Thai, at least in my opinion - though I don't blame him, it's a natural progression. [Edit: a quote from JWP: "I'm addicted to it," he continued. "I buy almost every single pay-per-view. As a Muay Thai fighter I got to this stage where I was very jealous of them fighting in a cage. I wanted to prove myself as a warrior, just to show I am just as tough as MMA guys are. I decided to get the cage and host an event. I did a little bit of research on Youtube and I seen a few Muay Thai fights in a cage, but they were wearing traditional gloves. And it looked wrong and really peculiar. If I wanted to get the same respect from the fans as the MMA guys get, there is no way I could have fighters going to the arena fighting with boxing gloves instead of MMA gloves. I thought, 'If I am going to do this, I am going to do this 100 percent.' That's why I decided for the gloves and the cage. Keep it Muay Thai rules exactly the same as MMA except for when it goes to the ground, you stop and stand back up again. Every single UFC fight that they call 'Fight of the year,' is the ones where they stand the whole time. I'm giving the fans exactly what they want to see."] To me the kard cheuk fights are a joke/gimmick. They are put on, as form of spectacle in an attempt to rile up Thai nationalism, usually in a show like Thai Fight. There is a strong and lasting narrative told in Thai history that it was Muay Thai that kept Thailand free from western (and neighborly) control. Kard Cheuk is an evocation of that narrative. Thai Fight usually isn't really Muay Thai...it's a Muay Thai show, featuring famous fighters of Thailand, often against overwhelmed western fighters. At the gym the Thais joke about how you have to fight in a totally different, artificial way for Thai Fight, featuring ridiculous moves, etc. Of course there is no "official" Muay Thai. But Muay Thai to me is the process and promotion of the sport which grows the potency and depth of the art. Thai Fight and Max Muay Thai are spectacle shows. MAX Muay Thai for instance has a rule/advice sheet passed out to its fighters that tells them to fight in a way that is opposite to Bangkok stadium fighting, for the sake of aggression.

I'd say I pretty much agree with your breakdown, although the fighting boom in Japan was a bit ancillary. It created a hardcore niche fan base in the West, but the UFC really exploded because - in my opinion - it gave expressing to (largely white) male (middle and lower class) frustration. The sliding social power of the UFC demographic found potency in what the UFC was selling, something that felt like REAL fighting. Part of this was taking the wave against the orientalized martial arts fads of the 1970s and 1980s, with so many McDojos, and martial arts developed outside of actual fighting. Muay Thai partook in some of this because it is developed through 1,000s and 1,000s of fights for decades, it felt like "real" fighting (as opposed to so many other martial arts, which didn't). But, those that love Muay Thai also love the culture of Muay Thai, which falls back into the orientalization of the art (it's Kung Fu-ism). This is the fundamental contradiction of Muay Thai in the west, and the thing that prevents it from becoming commercially viable. 1. It has this Kung-Fu aspect, full of "cool" moves and techniques, and a whole Boran history (it's exotic). 2. It has this real fighting aspect, born of actual fights. Those that love it's real fighting aspect just want to steal or imitate its moves. You get a very watered down version of "Muay Thai" in the UFC (and elsewhere) which is really much more just kickboxing. All the supposedly exotic stuff just gets thrown away. So you get silly reverse elbows over and over, out of context, and off-balance kung-fu-like moves, and the rest of it is all tossed away. The Muay Thai moves will just be absorbed by kickboxing and MMA, there's no need for the rest. For those that love the exotic dimensions of Muay Thai, this runs hard against the very core of what makes the UFC and MMA in general popular. Doing the Ram Muay, calling your instructor Kru or Arjan, the UFC fans looking for KOs don't care about these things, they are antithetical to "ass kicking". The people who love the exotic aspects are seriously marginalized. Any promotion is forced to draw on this very small group of people because they are most passionate about the art/sport. But any promotion always has to face the fact that it can't answer the question: Why not just do kickboxing with cool Muay Thai moves throw in? There is no answer to that. The truth is that real Muay Thai is found neither in its exotic fantasy component, or it's "cool moves" stand up MMA component. It's found in the 1,000s fights across the country of Thailand. It doesn't really exist outside of Thailand, in my opinion. So any western promotion is really forced with presenting some sort of imitation of it, to a largely inexperienced audience. It has to piece together its fanbase from very diverse quarters.

I'd say I pretty much agree with your breakdown, although the fighting boom in Japan was a bit ancillary. It created a hardcore niche fan base in the West, but the UFC really exploded because - in my opinion - it gave expressing to (largely white) male (middle and lower class) frustration. The sliding social power of the UFC demographic found potency in what the UFC was selling, something that felt like REAL fighting. Part of this was taking the wave against the orientalized martial arts fads of the 1970s and 1980s, with so many McDojos, and martial arts developed outside of actual fighting. Muay Thai partook in some of this because it is developed through 1,000s and 1,000s of fights for decades, it felt like "real" fighting (as opposed to so many other martial arts, which didn't). But, those that love Muay Thai also love the culture of Muay Thai, which falls back into the orientalization of the art (it's Kung Fu-ism). This is the fundamental contradiction of Muay Thai in the west, and the thing that prevents it from becoming commercially viable. 1. It has this Kung-Fu aspect, full of "cool" moves and techniques, and a whole Boran history (it's exotic). 2. It has this real fighting aspect, born of actual fights. Those that love it's real fighting aspect just want to steal or imitate its moves. You get a very watered down version of "Muay Thai" in the UFC (and elsewhere) which is really much more just kickboxing. All the supposedly exotic stuff just gets thrown away. So you get silly reverse elbows over and over, out of context, and off-balance kung-fu-like moves, and the rest of it is all tossed away. The Muay Thai moves will just be absorbed by kickboxing and MMA, there's no need for the rest. For those that love the exotic dimensions of Muay Thai, this runs hard against the very core of what makes the UFC and MMA in general popular. These people are seriously marginalized. Any promotion is forced to draw on this very small group of people because they are most passionate about the art/sport. But any promotion always has to face the fact that it can't answer the question: Why not just do kickboxing with cool Muay Thai moves throw in? There is no answer to that. The truth is that real Muay Thai is found neither in its exptic fantasy component, or it's "cool moves" stand up MMA component. It's found in the 1,000s fights across the country of Thailand. It doesn't really exist outside of Thailand, in my opinion. So any western promotion is really forced with presenting some sort of imitation of it, to a largely inexperienced audience. It has to piece together its fanbase from very diverse quarters.

If Lion Fight would fall I think it would be a pretty strong sign that Muay Thai is not commercially viable. They've been doing this for nearly a decade, have developed very strong business relationships and ties, have experimented with venues, sanctioning bodies, built up its own stars (Tiffany van Soest, Kevin Ross) and even gotten Thais fighting on the show. I'm not saying that it proves its not viable, but a new promotion would have to think that Lion Fight was doing something fundamentally wrong, something they could do quite a bit better, or they would just be throwing money away. I'm not sure what that wrong thing would be. Bottom line is that the commercial viability of these promotions are parasitic on the UFC, that's how one is able to draw outside of an extremely niche, but very small fan base. And the truth is that K-1 or kickboxing is just closer to the UFC in aesthetic than Muay Thai is. John Wayne Parr tried to cheat the system a little by putting Muay Thai on in a cage with MMA gloves, and hey, maybe there is a way forward there. But that is NOT Muay Thai really. You can see the UFC pressure being exhibited even in Thailand, with televised shows like MAX Muay Thai strongly distorting the rules/scoring, for a more spectacle-like, aggression-heavy show. If this is happening even in Thailand (because of the aging of the Muay Thai demographic, and the class-ism involved) it's sure to be the case all over the world. Lion Fight (or any promotion) is caught between the two directions of catering to a devoted "pure" Muay Thai that will sell local tickets to gyms, and becoming more and more like the UFC...which Muay Thai fundamentally is not. I don't think there is market demand here, in an easy way.