[The Metaphysics of Muay Thai: Or, Why Muay Thai is the Greatest Artform in the World]

Corollary 1: This argument also provides a framework for understanding why any striking art (entertainment form, sport) that does not include grappling is at deficit. The reason for this is that if there is no grappling amid striking it encourages hold-your-breath-ism, which means when faced with the gap, the fear, you can just grit your teeth and throw your combo. Get to the other side of the gap and be "safe". You see this all the time in various kickboxing timeouts and ref breaks. The relationship to the gap is just two people holding their breath and jumping over it, to "safe" (the cessation of fear). This is related to aggressive attacks that Jack Slack humorously has called "Karate, karate, karate!". I'm over-simplifying it, and this certainly isn't the intention of for instance kickboxing rules that are imagined to unleash "pure action", but it is what evolves when proximity has no consequence and produces a "timeout". It could be argued that one of the hidden reasons why MMA has thrived in terms of entertainment is that it produces a richer sense of distance and danger. MMA fighters have an inordinate fear of the gap, by and large, but some of this is because they can't just jump through the space and call a time out on the other side. By privileging grappling MMA gives the fighter no safe space, they are forced to more or less continually deal with fear (at least when standing up). Striking arts that remove all or most of grappling are seriously compromising the very logic of the caesura. There is no safe space. 

Boxing makes an interesting example in this, in that because it's a highly developed artform evolved through decades and decades of full contact fighting, and the spatial skill levels are as high as those shown in the classic Muay Thai of Thailand, it rivals Muay Thai in terms of the metaphysics of the caesura, the work in fear. True, there is no explicit grappling in western boxing, but infighting, clinch and dirty boxing up close are art-forms within the ruleset. And, all the proximate spaces are fraught with difficulty. You cannot box effectively by just holding your breath and throwing combinations, and waiting for the clinch break. I also suspect that the reason why so many top level Muay Thai fighters transitioned to western boxing and had great success there wasn't so much because of their "hands" (individual skills), but because of their fundamental spatial awareness, the priority of the relationship to the fear gap. Not needing to grab the side of the pool, the ability to tread water and engage for extended periods in space.

[The Metaphysics of Muay Thai: Or, Why Muay Thai is the Greatest Artform in the World]

Parallel in evidence, when we asked Samart who would win between himself as Somrak - the two are thought to be two of the most artful fighters Thailand has ever produced, though in different eras - his response was both surprising and simple. "I'm not afraid of Somrak," he said forcefully, defiantly,..calmly. He immediately, and in the present tense, positioned himself in terms of fear. The fighter's art, at its highest, is the display of grace in the midst of fear. Fear is the material on which the sculptor's chisel falls.

[The Metaphysics of Muay Thai: Or, Why Muay Thai is the Greatest Artform in the World]

I've stumbled on a giant idea, in fact an idea so large it touches on nearly every aspect of life, and every aspect of what make Muay Thai like no other fighting form in the world. It's also an idea that is so large writing about it proves daunting, an in fact unimaginable, as so much of it is full of the tangential (consequences), and explanation. Just taking it on feels like selecting a single hair at the end of a tiger's tail, and giving it a quiet pluck. But here's to just diving in...

The Paradox of Courage - How the Poet Saves the World

There is a fundamental, seemingly logically paradoxical contradiction to bravery or courage. Without fear, there is no courage. The courageous person is not someone who feels no fear. In fact fear itself can be argued to be essential to courage. Much as someone who has lost the ability to feel pain, and so might move physically and emotionally in seeming defiance of pain, a person who has no fear might appear courageous, but what we cherish about courage is very different. It's the very ability to feel it, and then overcome it in someway. The value lies in contradictions being able to persist together. This contradiction will form the essence of the heroic, in a certain line of Philosophical thinking.

Walter Benjamin, a German social critic and philosopher was living through the tidal rise of World War I. He was a young man and two of his friends had committed suicide over the impending catastrophe that was about to rip European culture to shreds and end any semblance of the Old World. He was struggling with the role of the poet, what could a poet matter in the face of this terrible World conflict that was going to tear at the fabric of reality? What did the deaths of his friends even mean? He took on the examination of a poem by the German poet Holderlin, which itself was an examination of poetic courage. In fact that poem existed in several versions, one of which was titled "Courage", the other "Stupidity" (or "Timidity"). It's hard for us to imagine poets and courage placed together in the same thought construct, except in maybe the most metaphorical way. Can a poet be "brave" choosing words as men are being brave (like, really brave) in trenches while everyone around them is being cut down? But bear with him, and me, because this is about studying the nature of an art, and its importance to us. We love and value an art because it reveals things to us, important things, and it sets our course. The soldier in the trench is brave, in part, because we have stories, indeed some very artful, poetic stories that last for epochs, of bravery.

Walter Benjamin took hold of what was a fundamental logical puzzle of Holderlin's version of the poem. Why did Holderlin go from "Courage" to "Stupidity" or "Timidity" (what is the meaning of this change?). What Benjamin locked onto, and of course there is debate over his interpretation because people like to debate, what he locked onto was that fundamental binary of what courage is. That one is courageous in spite of, but in a sense dependent on FEAR. And, correlate to all of that, the more fear you felt, the more courageous you could be.

Note: for instance, a fighter who just walks forward, numb, feeling nothing, not even perceiving danger, as if that part of her or his brain is turned off, is not admirable. Is uninteresting. Such an imagined fighter is only interesting to the degree that we project our own fears, what we would feel if we stood there, if we create the contrast.

The poet, he argued, in his most heroic (and this is a very male world, Germanic heroism) is the one what looks straight into the divine, straight into the beauty of the world, with no filter on, and is completely dumbstruck. He is immediately aware that no word he utters is of any value, cannot communicate that terrible, awful, tremendously beautiful thing that he sees, his only response is pure gibberish, imbecility, nonsense. That is the extreme condition out of which the poet's courage take seed. That is the reason Holderlin changed the title of his poem in the last version from "Courage" to "Stupidity". It's supidification.

Once stupidified, the poet then courageously seeks to speak. At first he is merely babbling. He is like a baby, but he wades in, and seeks to hold onto the thing that terrifies him. He does not try to dismiss it, or nullify it. He wants to keep it, and bring it forward. He struggles with that terror, and seeks to articulate it. He wants to bridge the world of terrible beauty (the unspeakable, divine) and the articulate.

Above is an essay fragment describing the way that Benjamin proposes that the poet saves the world through his submission to fear itself as a fundamental relation, embodying all the fears we have of the bounded world.

Now, this might sound like a bunch of mumbo jumbo to you. Abstract words describing Germanic Philosophy far removed from the concrete things that matter. But let me suggest to you that what it is talking about is perhaps the most concrete thing in the world. Fear. When I say it is concrete, I do not mean its a "thing". It's concrete in that it is a fundamental relation. Every organism that has ever existed is built on a single grammatical plan. Attraction vs Aversion. Philosophy likes to talk about all kinds of binaries, it plays games with concepts left and right, but when you dig right down to the root of binaries you are entering the absolute fundamentals of not only human experience, but all of experience. Fear, aversion, trepidation forms the very weft our what we are. You cannot get below this fundamental pole in the binary. There is nothing more fundamental. So when Benjamin is waxing poetic about the poet and his relationship to fear, this is not just the imagination of Greeks lounging near white statues eating grapes. He is talking about the Ur-logic of all of life. And he is talking about the death of his friends, as the horrible figure of World War is about to rip through all life and culture. In the figure of the poet he is outlining the beauty of the fighter. He gives us the key to understanding why we love fighters so much - for those of us who do - and what separates out fighters from each other. What is it about fighting that invokes so much that is important?

Autarchy of the Relation - What Sets Fighters Apart

The Greek suffix -archy we know in words like plutarchy, patriarchy, matriarchy. It means something like "rule by". But in Greek it goes much deeper than that. Something that is ruled is really genetically founded by, in something. It goes like a mighty oak with roots that sink deep within a soil where we cannot see. Benjamin proposed phrase to describe the irreducible nature of the Poet's Heroism (and for us, the Fighter's Heroism). The Autarchy of the Relation. The thick girded oak is self-founded, self-ruled (auto+rule) out of the relationship itself. It is not founded on fear, nor on courage, but out of the relationship between the two of them. We talk a lot about overcoming fear, and sometimes imagine that fear is something that we fundamentally need to be done with. You finish it off, and them move onto the next thing (ideally), and when you struggle with fear you are somehow failing in some way. But Benjamin, in his figure of the poetic, is saying no: you bring the relationship with you. The heroic consists of the relationship itself. There is no maturing past fear. There is no growing out of fear. If you have lost touch with fear you have lost touch of the relationship. It would be like a poet who writes and is no longer terrified of Beauty.

Anyone who has sparred understands this immediately. These abstract words and concepts suddenly boil down to real things. The fundamental core act of sparring is really an emotional one. Sylvie writes about this in a forum post here, if you want to take a tangent:

What I want to call attention to is how even the absolute beginner in training, when she or he stands in front of someone who can possibly hurt them, or shame them, is standing right on the precipice of greatest heroic, chasm-facing dimensions of all the world. This is the same precipice that every organism that has ever beat has lived. This is the Autarchy of the Relation. Fear, and how to speak when you are dumbstruck. As fighters many learn fixed patterns of how to "speak" in sparring, and then in fighting. These are formulaic vehicles designed to take you forward when you feel fear. When you feel aversion. And trusting in these, using them to cross the divide, is much appreciated. But...using vehicles to crossover is missing what is really happening in fighting when it comes to its highest art. At its highest art, what is principal is the Relation itself. It is the presence of fear, and the willingness to submit to it, fully.

The Ceasura - Poetry's Gift to Understanding Fighting

Much of what we do, in fact maybe almost all of what we do, is to try and get fear (and its sister, pain) to stop. We move away from things that threaten to hurt, either physically or psychologically. Or, if we are really brave, we rush through the dangerous zone to the other side. We have all kinds of irrational "fears" (fears that we imagine if we looked at them soberly, would vanish) and if we can just get through the immediate "Stop!" we are told everything will be ok. We jump in the cold water, swim across the brook, and are refreshed on the other side. This is something that is different than the Autarchy of the Relation. At its highest art you do not rush through the fear-zone, only to find the happy ending on the other side. The happy ending is just one more version of the avoidance of fear. What you are afraid of will simply disappear. At the highest form of fighting, it does not disappear. It is preserved. It is held in a sacred binary. 

Note: This perhaps speaks to the western preoccupation with the knockout, and the deep dissatisfaction it has with Thai style Muay Thai which often shuns the knockout. The knockout for the west is the relief, the cessation of the fear. It's all over, nothing to fear anymore! The monster is dead. It's nothing more than the parallel of having run away so well you never have to see it again. Muay Thai in Thailand has developed a much keener sense of the preservation of the Relation, holding fear and courage together. You are not, principally, trying to END the fight, as in, end the fear, the aversion. You are standing in it, graced.

Readers of David Goggins will be familiar with this. Goggins an an ultra athlete who uses his extreme training to confront and overcome his own weaknesses and fear. Not to move too far from the topic here is the Rogan interview if you don't know him:

One of the most compelling things that Goggins preaches is how much he chaffs at people who work out, work hard, expose themselves to the extreme in order to be done with it. He felt he ran into this when training to be a Navy Seal. He felt many of the men were "tough guys" who walked around with the badge of their official mark, having gotten to the other side. Goggin's motto was "always back to square one". For him he was always returning to exactly how he felt when he lifted his first weight, ran his first mile. This is the very same horror that Benjamin through Holderlin was talking about. Just because you run ultras doesn't mean that when you wake up at 5 am to run you don't feel horror. In fact, for Goggins, you put those shoes on in order to feel horror. That's the Autarchy of the Relation, remaining in touch with the core binary of fear and courage.

Now, let me take a further detour into the poetic to explain one of the most beautiful things about fighting, and give key into how to watch and appreciate fights. The caesura. The caesura is a gap, a break in a metrically line of poetry. It's used in various ways across human history, but it always has the impact of placing an empty spot, a null value, within a larger economy of expression. Here are famous uses of caesura from the history of literature (from wikipedia):

The opening line of the Iliad:

μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ || Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος

("Sing, o goddess || the rage of Achilles, the son of Peleus.")

 

 

Opening line of Virgil's Aeneid:

Arma virumque cano || Troiae qui primus ab oris

(Of arms and the man, I sing. || Who first from the shores of Troy...)

 

The opening line of Beowulf reads:

Hwæt! We Gardena || in gear-dagum,

þeodcyninga, || þrym gefrunon,

hu ða æþelingas || ellen fremedon.

(Behold! The Spear-Danes in days gone by,)

(and the kings who ruled them had courage and greatness,)

(We have heard of these princes' heroic campaigns.)

There is great nuance to how caesura are used, but for us its enough to just appreciate how it is always a gap, always a silence, a breath. Holderlin argued that this gap, this break - not only in lines, but in dramatic structures - had the potential to signify the fundamental relationship between fear and courage itself. Benjamin's Autarchy of The Relation is signified by the caesura. It's the moment when in the film-strip of representations (frames which each "show" some event), there comes a frame which shows representation itself, which is just a weird, fancy way of saying "I'm speechless", or "representation isn't sufficient". Pictures won't do. This is the dumbness of the poet before the beauty and tragedy of the world. It's a single piece of emptiness in the presentation.

Now this is where it gets really fascinating. And how we come down off of those ivory towers of the poetic and narrotology, and into the nitty-gritty of the things that motherfucking matter to all of us in this world. The caesura, the gap, is the gap that exists between fighters. It's the space that sits there and is unresolved. It's the bubble that is invisible that generates the entire theatre of conflict. It's what generates the heroic and the poetic, and its what makes fighting, when it is at its highest, one of the great art forms of the world. We are dealing with the very fabric and Ur-source of all relations, of every single thing you and I do in the world. Every word we say, every gesture we make.

When I say that that space between fighters is the caesura, I'm not being metaphorical, at least to the degree that they perform the same thing. They invoke and instantiate the Autarchy of the Relation. The reason for this is that each fighter feels fear in relationship to this gap, this space. We think of a fighter maybe fearing another fighter, but fundamentally they are fearing the space itself. As organisms our virtuality, the way that we experience space, project ourselves into the material world, represent and orient ourselves is through both fear and spatial compassry. We are negotiating the caesura in front of us in all things. And in the art (and sport) of fighting this is not only literalized (the performance involves a real space) it is performed by agents, by actors, onto which we can graft ourselves. We are projected into the space and relation through the spectacle.

This is the interesting, vital thing. At its highest the fighter does not seek to extinguish the fear. This would negate the relation. She/He seeks to preserve it, and act it out in terms of courage itself, to create a continuity between fear, being dumbstruck, and action (finding words). And all the things we love about fighters, each and every style of fighting and be defined by the quality of that fighter's relationship to the gap, that space sitting between fighters. How much do they stand it in, how often? Can they persist in it? Do they avoid it? Do they rush through it? And, at a deeper, more poetic sense, how do they relate to the gap in terms of their own rhythm? What metrical expression do they use to work through that gap, gauge it, negotiate it? For me, when I watch fights now, I don't even watch strikes anymore. I mean, yes, I see them, but my eye is locked onto the gap between fighters. What is the relationship between each fighter and the gap? It's the glue, the Autarchy of The Relation, which puts all the elements together. If you read poetry, it's like discovering that there was a ruling meter all along, beneath the words.

Watching the Gap - Why Muay Thai Is Special

Watch this fight between two young Thai fighters providing an example of what I'm referring to, the sense of fight space.

watch the fight here - or if that link doesn't work, try this one (mobile)

I'm presenting two fights that just fell into my feed, almost by accident, together. It's not that they are individually primary examples, but they do work to illustrate fundamental differences between the Thailand of Muay Thai and the Muay Thai (and kickboxing, and MMA, etc) of the rest of the world. If you would take 10 minutes and just watch the fight above, but in so doing, mostly just watch the gap between the fighters. Yes, the variety of strikes, the changes in tempo are beautiful, but watch the entire fight looking at the gap, the caesura. This is the fear-gap buried at the heart of all fighting arts and sport.

Now watch this fight below, from ONE Championship, a version of Muay Thai that is maybe closer to kickboxing in its encouraged fighting styles (fast clinch breaks, etc) as it seeks to popularize Muay Thai to an international audience. It features a popular western fighter in Liam Harrison, and an older Thai in Rodlek. Almost all the talk about this fight was about the strikes. But watch the extremely simplified gap-relationship, when compared to even the children fighting above. The very vocabulary of relations to the gap in this second fight consists of Harrisons' safe leg-kicks (his specialty), and his kind of hold-your-breath-and-go memorized combinations through the zone (a very common western style of fighting). Rodlek on the other hand also takes a very simplified approach to the gap, he's just gradually shrinking that gap, in a kind of slow motion vice-grip, making Harrison more and more uncomfortable. It's nothing complex, Rodlek though is in positive relation with the gap. More comfortable in it, and working through the gap, almost using it as a weapon. 

Debates occurred as to how much "damage" Harrison did with his leg kicks, or how tough Rodlek is. But what I want you to see is far beyond this fight. Look at the differences in vocabulary between these two fights. Look at the intense variety of spatial relationships, and attempts to control, work through, live through the gap in the Thai fight, and the very simplistic march down of the One fight. These are not the same sport, not the same art.

As a commercial product you can certainly see the imperative of the 2nd fighting style. It can appeal across cultures, enter into different markets. It encourages viral like fight edits that can frictionlessly slip through social media platforms. It is segmentable. Reproducible. It also grafts more easily onto the immense popularity (and visual structure of) MMA. (Think about the gap, the caesura in MMA.) But, what I'm calling attention to is that the deeper, more profound vocabulary of fear and its sister courage as found in traditional Muay Thai in Thailand, and reaching for an explanation as to why Muay Thai might be the greatest artform in the world. What is incredibly special about Thailand's Muay Thai is how it has created a value, an aesthetic of performance that maintains the Autarchy of The Relation. It has created a poetry of staying in the spaces of fear, and relating to them. And in that aesthetic and those skills it accedes to the highest endeavor of humanity, reaching up to and beyond the poetics of German Philosophy, and Ancient Greek culture itself (considered a root of all the things we think and believe as westerners). And, it presents it all, without dilution, for the common man to see, to witness. Yes, it does require some education of eyes to see, you have to learn to look at the gap between fighters, and not their strikes - I am reminded of the admonition: The music, not the words.

Now look at this Golden Age fight, all time legends of the Golden Age. You can pick 100s of fights from this era, but just watch this fight looking at the gap. Karuhat takes a big lead counting Kaensak who is one of the all time greats, 2x fighter of the year. Kaensak happened to be using the low kick as an early primary weapon. Much of this fight is Karuhat defending his lead. Just look at how buttery he is in the gap. On the edge of it, in it. It's like a force field, a bubble, as Kaensak fights his way through it trying to come from behind. Kaensak was a ferocious kicker and puncher. 

 

There is some concern that the poetics of Thailand's Muay Thai are being lost, a real concern. But one can see much of what Karuhat does in the fight between the young fighters above. You can feel the same relationship to the gap, the caesura, so we have not lost the thread. What I want to call attention to is not what is better fighting than some other form of fighting, but rather to the buried meaning in fighting itself, and the secret way that is expressing something so close to our soul, all our hearts, and the urge that we must hold onto this. Fighting, at the highest, vocabulary-rich manifestation is putting into reality the things that poetry and the plastic arts, what many consider upper reaches of cultural achievement, and fashioning them out of the raw sinews, nerves and spirit of human beings. Fighters are artists of themselves, and in that way are the mid-point between the dumbstruck and the brave, what we all aspire to be. The fighter takes up in her or his real hands the substance of the thing that the painter lifts when she or he lifts the brush, the composure does when striking piano keys, in a way that transcends or at least bridges class, and radicalizes art itself, touching the chords of what makes us what we hope to be.

 

[Best Muay Thai Equipment Shops in Bangkok]

Thaismai - map link -

There is the Thaismai shop that Sylvie visited a few years ago :

and then again, last year:

Thaismai is a super old brand, I've seen photos of lumpinee fights from the 1960s with their logo, and they have pretty nice equipment. I'm don't train much, my job is mostly just being Sylvie's husband, but I love the gloves I bought there. It's well designed, not expensive equipment. Also, it's the only place I know of to buy the 123 Greatest Muay Thai fighters of Thailand book:

which is pretty cool. Worth a visit.

Boon Sport - map link -

There is also the Boon shop, which is all Boon.  Looks like this:

Boon is owned by Scott Marr, a westerner who really devoted himself to top quality Thai made equipment, and it's built a reputation of equipment, long lasting gear. Some people really swear by Boon, and use nothing else. Andy Thomson, a trainer in Thailand for 20+ years, who recently passed, was very into his Boon mitts and Belly pads. They don't cut corners. They also have some nice micro-mitts that you can't find anywhere, Scott designed them himself. We bought a pair as a gift for Chatchai Sasakul, one of the great boxing trainers in Thailand, who wanted a pair.

Actionzone

map link - Actionzone we haven't been to, but this is the most often mentioned shop for equipment in Bangkok that I've seen. It seems like it's what most people have in mind when they imagine walking around and picking from various brands.

[The Great 8 of Thailand - The Best Female Fighters in the World]

6 minutes ago, threeoaks said:

Does the building of profiles and online material (training, fight and interview videos) play a role in Thailand as much as internationally?  You all have the best test case of course.  I am wondering if more studies of young female fighters would build excitement the same way (I know Sylvie has profiled many fighters and your "Great 8" is a perfect educational tool for me as a Western fan; just curious how it works there). 

I think what is really required is a kind of journalistic attention to the fighters and the community. This is part of where we are headed.

[The Great 8 of Thailand - The Best Female Fighters in the World]

10 minutes ago, LengLeng said:

Eager to hear more about this as it progresses, I think it sounds really awesome.

Maybe you can work with us if this starts to get rolling. I'm looking to build a team of maybe 4 people to organize the larger-reaching, structural aspects of the changes we are hoping to bring. Sounds like you are simpatico with a lot of what this is about.

[The Great 8 of Thailand - The Best Female Fighters in the World]

46 minutes ago, LengLeng said:

From my personal experience in the bangkok fitness community, there seems to be a lot of excitement for female strength and women starting to like the idea of having a muscular body beyond ab definition. that in combination with muay thai fitness being popular among the thai middle and upper classes might be helpful driving factors. 

From an international perspective I think the issues of sexism, the bottom rope, women not being able to fight at national stadiums combined with the child labour issue might be problematic. But that might not matter in this case anyway.  

The nice thing about the approach we have in mind is that it really isn't audience dependent. It would simply be a matter of putting on a show, 12x a year, and making impact on the Muay Thai scene through fight bonuses. The material support for such shows already exist, female fights happen every every night of the week in Chiang Mai, often at multiple stadia. The ecosystem for the shows is there and thriving. So while involvement and even enthusiasm from people not in the community, whether broadly from across Thailand, and internationally definitely helps, or would be an aim, there is no risk in not having it. The promotion is it's own little box of events and influences. It's part of a larger care system for the already existing female fight scene in the city. Sponsors, or ideally "a" sponsor, would be investing in that system, that community, as a mode of branding. It has a "can't fail" aspect, especially since the buy-in would be so low. Most promotional efforts in Thailand are very short-sighted, people are thinking "How can I make money?!" instead of "How can I change and improve the entire thing?" For that reason they are often imagining: How do I make it bigger?! Which ends up with it being not very big, ironically enough.

[The Great 8 of Thailand - The Best Female Fighters in the World]

26 minutes ago, LengLeng said:

I assume this would also involve non-thai female fighters fighting in Thailand? 

There is great emphasis, in Muay Thai promotion, on the westerner vs Thai match up. It is a kind of commercial "must do". This promotion really isn't designed to go that way. Which isn't to say that there would be zero westerners, Sylvie would probably be on these cards because we'd have to be there anyway helping produce the shows, but the emphasis or point of them would not be westerners vs Thais. It really is about getting the most Thais the most opportunity, and impacting the community over time. That means most of the match ups, in fact almost all of them, would be Thai vs Thai.

Thank you for your co-thinking on this. The more minds on concert, the more likely change like this is possible!

[The Great 8 of Thailand - The Best Female Fighters in the World]

5 hours ago, LengLeng said:

I'm following this with interest. So your aim is to create financial incentives in Thailand for gyms to invest in female fighters? And your strategy would be a fight promotion that a)involves prize money and b) gives these fighters exposure?

I wrote in some depth about this here, on Patreon:

The Fight Card to Change All Fight Cards | Thailand

We actually put this card on and it was incredible. The card was a test-run proof-of-concept for a promotion that would run for a year, monthly. It isn't designed so much for exposure as the main goal, but that would eventually be the result. It is about raising the level of Muay Thai for a giant, already engaged community of female fighters, the biggest in the world. Traditionally it was a sidebet scene that drove the elite level of female fighting, like those produced in the original post in the original post of this thread. This is about creating a systemic supplementation to that process, especially in need because that process seems to be weakening.

There is an important adjacent series of plans that go along with the promotion that I believe would lift the entire project to a completely different level, and have impact possibly across the globe, but I won't go into those here.

5 hours ago, LengLeng said:

Who do you need to convince here? Companies/sponsors who see the potential? Or the current stakeholders in the fight scene? 

In Thailand money speaks. Honestly, if we had the money right now it would already be happening. Once we set the tone and started the process lots of stake holders would buy in very quickly. We have great contacts in this area. For the more comprehensive approach - and I'm really holding on for the more comprehensive idea - there would require more (wider) stakeholder involvement, Thais can be factional and competitive in a community or commercial space, and part of this would be about resolving that, and letting benefits flow to differing stakeholders. I don't think this will be a challenge.

5 hours ago, LengLeng said:

Is there a regulatory body that needs to get involved as well? Meaning the pushback or reluctance to invest in female fighters, where does it stem from in your view?

We have good relations with possible regulatory bodies. It isn't a problem. The investment issue is simply one of vision. Nobody is thinking on this scale, this ecologically. It's so much a resistance, as there just not being pattern of this kind of investment and planning. The plan is incredible, but it honestly is about getting it to the right ears.

 

5 hours ago, LengLeng said:

So having a thai female superstar fighter abroad might change things at home?

Yes, there is a lot of "superstar" thinking in Thailand. This is really about taking care of and feeding an entire community of Muay Thai development, not finding a superstar. It's a rising tide approach. But, genuinely, if you raised the tide of the largest female fighting community in the world, you would end up producing superstars with international opportunity.

[The Great 8 of Thailand - The Best Female Fighters in the World]

Looks like Lommanee may be moving from the inactive to the active list. Super talent, but this is maybe the first full rules Muay Thai fight she's fought against top talent in over 5 years. With everything like this I'm still guessing this fight has a 50/50 chance of actually happening, but if it does it is a marvelous match up. The world of female Muay Thai needs Lommanee fighting.

[The Great 8 of Thailand - The Best Female Fighters in the World]

6 minutes ago, threeoaks said:

http://manufacturingmap.nikeinc.com/#

I'm not entirely sure I understand. The problem is speaking to the right person, the person who actually has her/his hand on a lever, and the kind of freedom and flexibility to exercise vision. There are not a lot of people like this is most companies. If you aren't talking to the right people you are just wasting your time, unfortunately! I have a very good feeling about this though. I can intuit that it's going to break open in a very good way.

[The Great 8 of Thailand - The Best Female Fighters in the World]

47 minutes ago, threeoaks said:

You must be making such a great (huge) cultural rupture by forging these connections through the library.

For me it is like this: modernity will run roughshod over and through traditions. It's just going to steamroll it all. If we who love Muay Thai aren't careful we will be like someone running out of a burning house grabbing only a few things to save. What do we want to save...because it's probably only going to be a few things that will last 20 or 30 years from now. Is what we save going to be the prohibition of women touching the ring (itself a modern invention), or is it going to be the marvelous men and techniques of an era that everyone agrees is the height of the sport. We are close to choosing the wrong thing to save. I believe women, and Thai female fighters in particular, and play instrumental roles in saving some of the most valued, most cherished parts of Muay Thai tradition. In the west we don't understand, nobody really cares or follows the reasoning of the bottom rope. Kaensak, a legend of the sport, thought Sylvie was joking when she told him to hold her mongkol in Thailand, so she could go under the bottom rope. We are saving the wrong things, and losing the important things.

As to female fighting in the country, I take an ecological view. The female fighters of Thailand are the best there have ever been. It's a martial art, fighting art resource. We need to think ecologically about how to protect, and even grow that resource. If we do it can be a Ganges to female fighting all over the world.

[The Great 8 of Thailand - The Best Female Fighters in the World]

16 minutes ago, threeoaks said:

How is that going?  Is it an annual show?  Are there potential sponsors in Thailand?

It is going well. There are several levels to this. On one level we are just looking for sponsors for a year long monthly show. The sponsorship is important because the whole point is to infuse an already existing scene with structured financial incentive. At another level those there are more comprehensive plans that I believe can change the fate of female Muay Thai in Thailand, and possibly the world. Because we are looking for biggest impact this would require greater cooperation and just getting a few sponsors together. I have a plan that really could radically change things. At that level I think we really need a single, far visioned sponsor, rather than a handful. So I really looking for the right fit. There have been several businesses and people who have said they want to be involved, but not at the visionary level we need. So, right now we're holding out for the ideas that really might change everything. I really believe this could alter the fate of female Muay Thai, and maybe Muay Thai itself.

25 minutes ago, threeoaks said:

What about abroad?  Any massive Western brands trying to get a foothold?

I think this is the answer. The buy in to this would be a drop in the bucket for most advertising budgets of international brands, and the incentives huge. But getting these facts to the right ears is pretty hard to do. These are visionary ideas.

27 minutes ago, threeoaks said:

Can Masters apply leverage to stadia?

Not leverage, but they are important parts of a growing narrative.

[The Great 8 of Thailand - The Best Female Fighters in the World]

2 minutes ago, threeoaks said:

Does everything depend on this early training?

The short answer to this is yes. In fact, not training. Training and fighting. These fighters are ultra elite because they fought, and fought a lot when young.

4 minutes ago, threeoaks said:

But if change must happen, how do you see it occurring?

I don't know enough about the sidebet sub-system that feeds and grows this top tier talent pool to know if something is fundamentally wrong, and it's not producing the same level of experience and talent. Maybe Muay Thai is just decaying countrywide at that level. I'm not sure. But the solution is just the kinds of female promotions we are trying to create in Chiang Mai. The sport has a still large amount of female participation, well above anywhere else in the world, but it is desperately in need of a secondary financial tier, the chance for Thai female fighters to raise their level. That's behind our efforts in Queens of the North for instance, which we are still working on, a regular, lucrative monthly promotion raising an entire fight scene like that if Chiang Mai, which does not rely as heavily on side bets. 

The other dramatic change would be to open the National Stadia to women. Fighters like Phetjee Jaa, Loma, Lommanee, Sawsing are absolutely capable of fighting at that level, and would dream of fighting there. Female Muay Thai in Thailand, for women, is decapitated in almost every way by this prohibition. Sylvie is also working to change this.

13 minutes ago, threeoaks said:

What is the relation of young Thai female fighters to the Masters (male), and to global fighters coming in? 

There is almost no connection to the masters, though we have thought about doing something systematically, in Queens of the North can be put into action. 

[The Great 8 of Thailand - The Best Female Fighters in the World]

The Loss of Greatness?

As an addendum, there really is a kind of possible harbinger to the future of female Muay Thai in Thailand, it could be argued that of the 8 great female Muay Thai fighters in the list, only 2 of these are currently fighting top talent AND had become part of the "unfightable" through the sidebet process of producing the countries elite fighters. Stamp, for instance, was not one of the top fighters at her weight in the country before moving to Fairtex, and despite ONE's hype, even today is likely not near the best in Thailand. She would very likely lose in a full rules match to Loma, Lommanee, Phetjee Jaa and Amp, and Thanonchanok would be interesting. Of the rest only Sawsing and Thanonchanok are fairly regularly training, and facing somewhat stiff competition. Lommanee hasn't fought an elite opponent in full rules for maybe 5 years (that I know of). Loma has moved on from full rules Muay Thai, as has Amp. Chommanee hasn't trained regularly at a high level for several years, and is not at her peak. Phetjee Jaa has left full rules Muay Thai for boxing. The best female Muay Thai fighters of Thailand are not really fighting in Muay Thai.

Further, aside from Stamp who wasn't part of the pattern of development, all these fighters were elite when they were 16 or 17, that was when they reached "unbeatable" in the sidebet sense, when they were fighting the most frequently and training most regularly. What is a little worrisome is that despite seemingly better opportunities for Thai female fighters in the country there does not seem to be a current crop of elite Thai female fighters now at 16 years of age. The only one I can think of is Nong Biew who came out of nowhere to take World Titles when she was 15. She became something of a star in the country. But almost everyone on this list is in their 20s. They are beyond their peak Muay Thai years, in terms of the regular Thai development. It could be that the process that developed the brilliance of Loma's clinch or of Chommanee's herky-jerk switching has been disrupted, and that Thailand is moving to an different era. I hope this is not the case, but who are the "unfightable" ones of Thailand now, the 16 to 17 year olds who cannot be beat? There is a very good young fighter that Dejrat gym was training who fought at the larger weight classes on Thai Fight, I've forgotten her name [I'll edit it in when Sylvie gets home - Mongonkaw 《《 edit in]. But I can only think of her and Nong Biew. It means that the next generation of greatness, the next group of 20-24 year olds who then will be no longer at their peak may be greatly reduced. Where is the next Sawsing?

[The Great 8 of Thailand - The Best Female Fighters in the World]

On 6/16/2019 at 6:31 PM, Jeremy Stewart said:

I agree. Alma had broken Stamp.

Not to get too much into this, but this is something that happened to Stamp in her last fight, vs Janet Todd, in the 5th round. She was kind of broken by Janet, but she already had too big of a lead in that fight, so survived it. You could see it in the ring when they were waiting for the decision - Stamp looked defeated, Janet not - I discussed it on the Muay Thai Bones podcast. But in this fight it happened in the 4th round, and it was way, way more apparent. It was very evident. I give her credit, she didn't completely collapse, she stood resilient in the 5th throwing get-off-me counters (but hey, that didn't make up for what happened in the 4th. not by a mile for me). This is just an emotional flaw she has as a fighter, and the pressure of fights is bringing it out. All fighters have them, when they come out you can work on them, I hope she will!

On 6/16/2019 at 6:31 PM, Jeremy Stewart said:

I was worried Stamp would clinch her up. Alma doesn't like that.

I've written elsewhere, I think Stamps clinch has been somewhat overrated, I've even overrated her. I think in the media it's maybe because of Loma's incredible skills in the clinch. Stamp is nowhere near Loma, like not even in the same world, in terms of clinch, and truthfully almost zero women, Thai or otherwise, are either. Maybe it's just fashionable to ascribe Loma-like qualities to Thai female fighters? Or, the way the highlights looked from Stamp's first fight for a title in ONE, when she faced someone who looked like they had never clinched in their life, maybe that's where it took root? (When you are ok in clinch, and you face a novice you can look like a magician.) In any case, Janet Todd who doesn't count clinch as a strength (I believe) completely neutralized Stamp, and then Alma did the something close to same, also someone who isn't a big fan of the clinch. That's two moderately skilled clinch fighters who stood up to her in the clinch. I will say that this neutralization, especially in the Alma fight, was GREATLY aided by incredibly fast clinch breaks by the ref. It was K1 style, nearly. The fight was basically kickboxing with elbows. If Alma had been forced to defend in the clinch for longer periods of time as she would have to in a normal Muay Thai fight in Thailand she probably would have gotten into some pretty big trouble. She was taking positions (partially turning herself to her opponent) that are serious no-nos in clinch. (Humorously, the announcers were praising Alma for this.) This alone showed that Stamp is really not an elite clinch fighter in that she was not able to take advantage of this, it's a very bad position. I do believe though that with extended clinch time, without the breaks, it would have eventually have spelled doom for Alma.

[The Great 8 of Thailand - The Best Female Fighters in the World]

21 minutes ago, Jeremy Stewart said:

Maybe a rematch with Yolanda and Chommanee. I think Yolanda is under rated.

Yolanda is seriously underrated, she's beaten both Chommanee and Saifaa 2x. The problem is, these fighters are nowhere near their peak shape or skill-set. I don't think Chommanee trains much at all, to be honest. It's one of the big problems trying to assess the skills of the Thais, they are usually far removed from their best, most focused fighting years when they were much younger, and are not in life situations where they are motivated to get back to them. It's a great accomplishment to beat Chommanee, but she also isn't really "Chommanee" any longer, I fear.

[The Great 8 of Thailand - The Best Female Fighters in the World]

2 hours ago, lisward said:

What are your thoughts on the Stamp vs Alma fight? I personally thought Stamp won but many think otherwise.

That was a very painful fight to watch, at a personal level, because I do pull for Stamp and cheer for her. You can make all sorts of technical arguments for who added up the most rounds (points) for either fighter, but a fighter should not win a close fight with the kind of emotional performance Stamp had in that 4th round. She was not gassed, she was defeated and showed it, not even returning to her corner. That was a serious dis-qualifier to me, not her best performance. Hopefully it makes her stronger and she grew from it. Alma won that fight in my book, mostly due to that 4th round, and I suspect that Stamp also felt that in her heart as well. But, unusual decisions is kind of par for the course in the world of fighting. What can you say.

[The Great 8 of Thailand - The Best Female Fighters in the World]

If interested in this topic you can read my p4p Best Female Fighters in the World Top 10 List made last August, due to be updated.

P4P Top Ten Female Muay Thai Fighters in the World

 

[The Great 8 of Thailand - The Best Female Fighters in the World]

With Stamp Fairtex about to fight probably the hardest fight of her career since she fought Loma years ago and bumped her head on the ceiling of "unfightable", it seems like a good time to just take stock in the elite female Muay Thai fighters of Thailand and the orbits in which they are stalled. These are female fighters with hoards of experience, fighting since they were very young, and now find themselves packed with all the things that could make them the best fighters in the world, if they were swept up into elite training programs and promotions. Watching Stamp ascend from what she was, maybe 2 or 3 years ago, maybe a B/B+ local fighter in Chonburi, to a celebrated, and somewhat transformed star by ONE, really calls back to all her sisters in Thailand who indeed were much more celebrated, much more unbeatable than she. There is a sense that the immense talent of female Muay Thai fighters is languishing.

 

Lommanee - One of the most intriguing talents in all of Thailand. A surreal sense of space and distance, she basically Cadillacs through fights (a complement in Thailand), finishing of rounds and score cards, her talents topped with a sweet lead arm elbow. She trains out of Santai Gym now in Chiang Mai, but really her fame came years ago before her current situation when she reached the ranks of the "unfightable". She's fought nobody of elite talent for many years, with fights falling through, or opponents supposedly ducking. As with many top, top Thai females at this stage of their career one never knows how fight ready they are at any particular time. They've been training and fighting since they were kids, developing skills like nowhere else on the planet, but without regular fights or even daily training challenges it can all stagnate dramatically. One of the best female Muay Thai fighters in the world, just sitting there on the shelf. Probably the only person in the world with a winning record against Loma in Muay Thai, who is also on this list.

Sawsing - Could be the most weaponed, and charsimatic fighter of the list. She can fight and dominate at any distance, but above her skill she possesses a kind of fight nobility, a pride and ascendant spirit that is like no other. This is a superstar in waiting, ready to burst onto the world scene, who has been an emblematic star in Thailand since she was maybe 12. She's been shaped by the hardcore Bangkok gym Dejrat and the Old School values of Arjan Surat, there is no female fighter in all the world like her. But, as a mother, and an owner of a gym her attention is divided, and her progress as a fighter in terms of opportunity and training in doubt.

a photo montage of one of Sawsing's 2019 fights, above

Loma - can lay claim to perhaps the best female clinch fighter in the world. She has been a fighting star out of Isaan since a little girl, and she shut the door on Stamp's ascent years ago, defeating her in a big showdown of the "unfightable" ones. Nobody has her sense of timing in the clinch, developed at a very early age. She is on her own level in this. She is now at Tiger Muay Thai in Phuket who took up her sponsorship maybe a year ago (?) helping her transition to MMA where here clinch awareness and sense of counter fighting space pay off dividends, especially against opponents who are not ready for it, and are expecting a Muay Thai star to be a big, powerful "striker". That isn't really her game. She's an elite, elite grappler. Unleashing her on an unsuspecting western talent pool is a little like introducing someone to a fighter with an arm bar game that nobody has really seen. Loma is climbing the ranks at Invicta, and has largely moved out of and away from Muay Thai (I heard she is skipping the IFMAs this year, where she has rung up Gold many times).

Loma, as an Invicta MMA fighter, above

Amp - Amp is maybe best described as The Best Female Fighter in the World that nobody knows. She used to fight Muay Thai under the name "Pizza", finishing up her career with an absolutely dominant performance against much hyped Japanese champion Little Tiger, taking the WPMF World Title (seen below). She then dropped out of Muay Thai (often this is due to contract disputes, but I really don't know) and has been training in BJJ and MMA seriously in the last few years. She blasted back onto the fight scene, for those who were paying attention, by a very unexpected win vs Loma in MMA, beating her at every distance in a rather short fight. While Loma's clinch is a hot knife through butter against most, Amp's solid base and own high-level clinch (not the same skills, but still, accomplished and uncommon) allowed her to neutralize Loma's confident move toward where she expects to rule. I'm sure pretty much everyone who didn't know her was surprised by just how good Amp was. And she might be as good as any female fighter in Thailand, still in her native art of Muay Thai. She also possesses an incredible outward magnetism of confidence that you don't often seen from Thai female fighters, check out the Thai language interview of hers below - you watch her talk, and you just want to see her fight.  She's over at Phuket Top Team when she trains, though I'm not really sure there is a promotional avenue equal to her talents immediately apparent. 

watch this interview with Amp, above

 

watch Amp vs Loma, above

watch Amp's world tile fight vs Little Tiger, above

*I include the fights and interview because of everyone Amp is the most little known in the west, though she very well may be as good or better than anyone on this list

Chommanee - For some time could lay claim to being the best female Muay Thai fighter in the world. She has a beautiful. unorthodox switching style that makes her very hard to read, a master of distance and tempo-change, there is maybe nobody more beautiful to watch when she is on top of her game. Unfortunately she does not train very often (I believe) or maybe very hard. She is almost the epitome of the wasted talent of Muay Thai, just unimaginably loaded with instincts and knowledge, but with no career path forward there is no real program for her to develop her talents further, or even maintain them at the razor sharp level that made her a nightmare to face. She's had several losses on big stages over the last few years, and you can't help but think that this is really due to inactivity, . By the time of their early 20s elite female fighters are often losing or dimming their skills due to inactivity and loss of focus, just when western fighters are finding their feet.

Chommanee, as talented as any female Muay Thai fighter anywhere, anytime - above

Thanonchanok - Like Chommanee an extremely talented fighter, but unlike Chommanee her connections to famed Kaewsamrit gym and the the WPMF organization has kept her fighting for world titles and facing relatively high level talent throughout. She's very likely the most decorated female Muay Thai fighter ever in Thailand, a perennial holder of the WPMF belt through weight classes as she grew. She has great hand, is an artist at managing rounds, and a beautiful demeanor that is tough, stylish and intelligent. Because of her belt opportunities she does regularly cycle back into shape, but there is also is the sense that she is always almost-out-of-shape at any particular time, so you never quite know which fighter you are getting. When at the top of her game as good as any fighter in the world at her weight.

Thanonchanok, perennial WPMF World Title Holder, above

Phetjee Jaa - The great Phetjee Jaa who has faded largely from view. She gained fame fighting and beating boys on television until the government cracked down on those shows calling them inappropriate. Her clinch game, when she was fighting regularly, is the only clinch game that I've ever seen that might be equal to Loma's. But unlike Loma who was largely a counter kick scorer in Muay Thai, she had a complete striking arsenal to go with that clinch attack. Samart told us that she was pretty much the only female fighter he knew of who could really fight. Her family managed her career in maybe something of traveling sideshow way, putting her in show fights with her brother, I'm not even sure of the full nature of some of her wins, and ended up demanding unreasonable fight purse sums when she gained fame. There were accusations that she backed out of proposed Loma showdown fights a few times when both seemed the best at that weight, and then she moved out of Muay Thai and to the Thai National Boxing Team, I suspect motivated to go for the big financial payoff of Olympic Gold. She owned almost all the opponents she faced, many of them ridiculously. She beat Stamp pretty definitively, giving up weight. In fact she would fight up in weight regularly (something not all top fighters would do), but as she bumped her head against opportunity at 16 or 17 it pretty much pushed her out of Muay Thai. Now that she's been developing as a boxer for a few years it might really be that she's the best fighter of the bunch. Combine Olympic hands with a mad teep game, and some of the best clinch fighting females have ever shown, and that may be something like no other...but we may never know. 

above, Phetjee Jaa amateur boxer

Stamp - Stamp is the only fighter of the list who wasn't an elite fighter in Thailand itself, when at the height of her Muay Thai development. She was maybe a B/B+ level fighter in Chonburi before Fairtex picked her up, and it was looking meager before joining Fairtex's brand new MMA fighter program. She had lost to Phetnaree (a solid, rising fighter at the time), and to Phetjee Jaa (who beat Phetnaree for a WPFM title), and it was very unclear where she could go. The reason she is on the list is because more than any other female fighter she received the training and fight promotion opportunity that could expand what she was as a fighter. She was given the space to grow. She gained confidence, aggression, extended the length and ferocity of her combinations, and grew to a new level. It's not really sure how high of a level that is because her ONE victories were not really against elite world talent. Her fight vs Alma is the first step into that proving ground. No matter how it turns out, Stamp is feasting on the kinds of stimulation and growth that one would wish so many other Thai female fighters could see. The fascinating thing about Stamp is that there are 100s of female fighters in Thailand, right now, about at the skill level she was at before taken up by Fairtex. In a way she represents the whole of Thailand potential.

You can watch one of the best Muay Thai documentaries ever made, Todd Kellstein's "Buffalo Girls" which followed Stamp as a young stadium fighter, above

Stamp Fairtex, above

These are really the top tier of great Thai female fighters right now, in varying degrees of semi- or soft-retirement, or inactivity, or passing onto other sports and opportunity. There are others who are just below this tier, fighters like Buakaw (I could have easily replaced Stamp with her as Buakaw indeed passed into "unfightable" status like the others on the Thailand circuit, while Stamp did not, but it felt important to include Stamp, and limit it to 8), Saifaa, Dokmaibaa, Mesa, Nong Biew, Faaseethong, Faa Chiangrai sitting there full of mad talents and skills found nowhere else in the world. The difficulty with almost any fight vs the elite of Thailand is that one is never quite sure how honed the blade is when it enters the ring. In terms of skill-set, fight intuitions and hard-fought ring experience there are no fighters like them on the planet.

I'll probably be editing in and updating this post over time, adding information.

[Your Favorite Muay Thai Gear]

I hardly train at all right now, but I just love my Thaismai Gecko gloves. Everytime I see them, or even think of them, they make me happy.

[Brain Criticality in Skill and Qualities Development in Muay Thai]

Attempting to bend the thread back to it's general theme a bit, for those reading across the posts, the concept or critique of patterned training in the west is perhaps, from the position of Self Organized Criticality, one in which the notion of error and correction produces a real ceiling on development. It causes us to view errors as broken pieces of a machine of techniques to be repaired or replaced. I've elsewhere made the connection between patterned fighting, and the more broad commercial requirement that patterns facilitate promulgation. Meme-ishness below.

 

 

In many ways this isn't really something so much to blame, as to simply recognize as a phenomena. For things of one culture to promulgate in another culture there has to be some sort of grafting of the one onto the other, very often including extreme translation. People are going to experience this as a bastardization, or a distortion. Perhaps, but it is almost an necessary one. In the widest view we just need to recognize it.

On a more personal level, when dealing with one's own Muay, and thinking about the patterns within it, this thread is about maybe thinking about one's progress not in terms of Bell Curves, but instead in terms of possible Power Laws, where exceptional leaps are expected as part of the process.

[Women fighting & training - how do you feel, similarities and differences with men.]

14 minutes ago, threeoaks said:

I sometimes use the word “patriarchy” cause it’s accurate.

It's actually a pretty crappy term. It immediately positions the problem, and more importantly its solution as academic, the discourse (hahahaha, yeah, "discourse") on it and its reality at a very rarefied level of class. And it isn't even rule by the father. It's really rule by all the sons of the father...perhaps filiiarchy.

[The Craft of Legendary Fighters - How Fighters Become Artists]

We were talking to Chatchai Sasakul, a fighter who fought so many of the greats in the Golden Age in Muay Thai, and then came into fame winning the WBC World Championship western boxing belt. He's in the Library here, and we are about to add another session with him. We were asking him why in his fight style back in the day he wasn't doing many of the things that he was advocating now. He said, "back then I didn't know". He looked at us like we were crazy, like "what do you think I've been doing for 20 years since I retired" or "of course I didn't know, I was young". It brought home for me one of the most special things about the Library. We talk about it as if it is preserving the literal techniques of the Golden Age, but it is much more than that. It's preserving those techniques AS they have undergone a period of reflection and refinement. If you talked to an active fighter you may very well get some very noteworthy pointers on how to fight. But if you talk to that fighter 15 or 20 years later you get something very different. You get those elements having passed through a very long stage of reflection. You get to see those elements, very often, taken up as craft.

Sometimes, if that fighter has fallen out from the fight game entirely, like maybe someone like Samson Isaan (in the Library here), and who is a taxi driver, this is mostly the craft of recollection, of memory. What he knows and thinks about are all the things that worked for him, and probably some of the things that didn't work for him, things that had success against him. The whole thing goes into a process of memory's slow boil, low and slow, and what you get is a condensed essence of fight knowledge, his style, under refinement. Even if he isn't actively working on improving on or conveying his fighting style, it has been worked on by memory and reflection. It is the art of his style, his knowledge.

On the other hand when you have someone like Sagat - you can find him in the Library here - this is someone who has been teaching Muay Thai for probably three decades. Not only is he bringing his fight style, the one he once had, but he has become a craftman about it. What he is teaching is a rarified, purified form of his fighting style, something that has been honed and polished over decades of communication and thought. What he is showing you in the ring today is very different than what he would have showed you 30 years ago. It is enhanced, has been worked on endlessly. Not in the "I've got to be a better teacher" way, but rather that each time you try to convey something you touch it a little, you change it, you add reflection on it. Sagat teaches a great deal of precision and correction on his strikes, as does Chatchai, who also has been teaching for years. Chatchai as a fighter would drift away on his jab. Today he insists, do not do this, this is stupid.

I've seen Sagat incorporate things into his teaching that I know he recently has experienced - for instance he has been helping General Tunwakom teach Muay Lertrit lately. These internal elbows are now in his mind, as he teaches movements. Sagat is 60 years old, and his Muay is still evolving. I've watch Karuhat come up with brilliant throws, things he is simply inventing on the spot, feeling his way on, things I've never seen before, because Karuhat when he was a fighter in his gym would always be experimenting, stealing things from others, dreaming up new wrinkles. When we look back in time, through our telescope of the Library it isn't like how starlight is reaching us from far away, how it was years ago. It's instead coming to us with immediacy, having passed through the reflections of these men, as they have become craftsmen, working on the raw materials of their fight days, lifting it to art.

Perhaps nobody is more like this than Master K, Sylvie's first instructor back in America. He's 80 years old now, and his Muay Thai is this incredible time capsule of Muay Thai before the Golden Age, the Muay Thai of the late 1960s 1970s. But...it also is filtered and hand sanded by the mind of a Thai man who was no longer in Thailand, reflected on, improved and dreamed up through watching the great boxers of the decades, long ruminations in his own basement kicking the bag until 2 AM, the result of a craft-work of elaboration and self-creation. I think that is what a lot of us miss. These men, all of these men, are producing the work of their mind, as artists, as creators, bringing to life and carrying forward a new thing. It isn't just their techniques, or even their fighting styles. It's the fecundity of the years since they stopped fighting. It is their meditation.

What is also kind of incredible is that these ruminations, these craft-works, have been documented and continue to be documented. And that Sylvie has first hand seen them.
You can see the full library here.

 

[Choosing a Muay Thai gym in Chiang Mai]

On 6/13/2019 at 11:57 AM, plmuaythai said:

Do you have a suggestion on which gym is better for someone in my situation?

Maybe I can add this too, as a point of detail. There are really two important factors in one's experience in a Thai gym in Thailand. There is the general culture of the gym, which is the overall vibe of what is happening all around. Are the trainers lazy and not into the work? Is there a general sense of "This is happening, dive in"? Do you feel included or excluded? What are the qualities being expressed by everyone, the Thais, the farang, etc. This is like the high or low tide of the ocean, it floats or sinks all boats. It's hard to get a feel for this at a distance. It's going to impact people different, but more so because the feeling in a gym changes all the time. It depends on how crowded it is, which trainers are there, how much time the "boss" spends in the gym. The energy in the gym might be great one month, but then a top trainer goes back to his village and the gym is overbooked...then, not so great. That's why you have to go and see.

The second part is which trainer are you put with? By most of our experience longer term farang will usually end up paired with a particular trainer, at least somewhat. This has a huge impact on your experience. You can be in the shittiest gym in Thailand and if you connect with your trainer, and get a relationship where he wants to improve you, this can be an amazing experience. On the other hand, you can be in the best vibe gym in Thailand, but if you somehow find yourself regularly with a trainer who is reluctant or dismissive, or whatever, it doesn't make up for all the wonderfulness of the gym. You don't have a lot of control over this aspect of a gym. You can try and steer this, somewhat, but it's kind of a roll of the dice. That's why you want to be in gyms that generally have pretty good trainers all around. But, no matter the gym you find yourself in, working on your relationship with a regular kru or padman is the surest way of having a positive experience. You just need that one. That's why I mentioned Kru Daeng at Lanna. I know for sure this is a very fight oriented, excellent, fair trainer. If you go there, b-line to him, and tell him Sylvie suggested him. Budgeting a few privates with a trainer is also a good strategy if you see someone you really want be guided by.

So, whatever gym you are talking about, spend 2 days there and just take the temperature of the space. Then when you pick one, work hard on your relationship with your kru or krus.