Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu

I think Micc was saying that because she's in Poland and does not get paid in US currency $16 is a lot of money. Something comparable to $60. Looks like there is a way to loan a book to someone else: Kindle loaning. Maybe we can loan Micc a copy?

Hi Freddy, Sorry you have been feeling low about your work. I've watched Sylvie closely for not only the three years here, but all her years in Muay Thai and I've come to think that the fighter's burden, the fighter's path is all about confidence, feeling it, displaying it, recovering from its loss. How to build genuine confidence and maintain it? Even fighters who exude confidence I think often have precarious confidence, something a losing streak or a bad loss can easily shake. Fighters are always walking such a line, pushing themselves to fatigue, paying so close attention to their imperfections, experiencing make-or-break events (fights). I'll tell you everything changed for Sylvie after a really bad loss and she decided to start mental training. She bought tapes. Listened to them. Did the work, and the results were pretty amazing. One of the things it made her aware of was how often she was negatively tearing herself down, in private, and how to work to change that. I will say that getting with a coach who wants to change your fighting style, and rebuild everything can be really problematic, especially when that style may not suit you. Many coaches will teach what they themselves know, or think in cookie-cutter shapes. Sylvie was pushed into a fighting style that just didn't suit her over and over by many people because she is small and female, and it resulted in her beating herself up, very concerned with trying to please people, over-sensitive to her failings. It wasn't until we identified her fighting style, and that there was such a style in Muay Thai (things she naturally did well and excelled in) and then even made the location move to get instruction that supported that style, did we get on a more positive path. Before that it always felt we were working against the grain. It's good of course to expand yourself, explore techniques or elements that are not natural to your comfort zone, but its a fine line. So I'm not saying that if a coach wants to change your fighting style its a bad thing. But I do think that when it comes to strengths and weaknesses some people are better suited for certain ways of fighting, and others not. And because fighting styles are very deep arts - you can train in a style for a very long time and not have really bottomed out on what it can teach - it seems best to stick with the vocabulary of an approach you feel that expresses YOU. She wrote this post when we finally realized she had to pursue a different style, something that led us to move to Pattaya.

Thanks for the good words Michelle. I've heard several women say this about not liking her. And we know that there are certainly men who just don't like her. I'm eager to read the book because it sounds like she didn't just have a ghost written fluff piece produced, but that there are real things in there. I'm probably on the other side where I can say: "Well, I just like her", though I think I was pulling for Cat Zingano in the last fight because I like her too (and Sylvie trained at her gym a bit before we came out here). The thing that just makes such a huge difference for me is that she really went through hell long before she was known, was at the fringe of falling out of a fighting art that she had devoted life to, and somehow leveraged up a future for herself - I want to read about those things. Also, one of the things I DON'T like about MMA is how it has become a mishmash of martial arts and the top fighters are now not really great at any of them. Ronda kind of represents male MMA years ago, when you came in AS a particular artist, as someone with a very strong background of that art, which you built around. These two things, her throwback nature, and the way she wears her toil on her sleeve really made me satisfied with her. I'll also add that there are a lot of people who just don't like Sylvie. They don't know much about her at all, and what they do know is probably pretty distorted. The way people filter through media is complicated, and a lot of it has to do with pre-existing bias and values in the media that receives her. Women suffer when they are poured across media, especially when that media is conditioned to and by men. It seems pretty clear that Ronda took on the villain persona as a strategy, in really a WWE kind of way. And from what I read it matches up with her own mental game where she always felt disrespected as an American female Judo player on the International scene. Most of the things she says seem well-thought out when I hear them, she seems to think about where she stands. I have to say though that every time she talks about gender it is horribly grating to my ears. Fallon Fox, and now Cyborg. It's painful to hear, and honestly I don't even know where she is coming from. It threatens a lot of credit I've built up for her, but I give her begrudging leeway. I imagine that she's under incredible strain given her position. She basically has two jobs now, full time female fighter - I love that she fights a lot and doesn't stay out of the octagon to protect herself - and as a media marketer for herself and the UFC. The mental skills that make you a great fighter don't necessarily make you able to handle all the aspects of the other. Mostly though I feel like we are all missing how unbelievable this is. As in, 10 years ago nobody would believe it. 5 years ago even. In our day and age we lose a sense of time, we lack perspective. We can't even remember that Facebook didn't exist a decade ago. It feels kinda normal for there to be a female athlete who has so much air time, whether we like her or not. This just was not even remotely imaginable a short time ago. It was science fiction. I remember when CBS (I think it was CBS) was debating about whether to have Gina Carano fight on national television. Would it even be a real fight - can women fight? Would there be blood which would suddenly shock the nation? What does it mean for a woman who is a fighter to be a media superstar? It means at the very least this: little girls growing up now see a woman who is KNOWN for her fighting. Not for her beauty. Not for any number of qualities or achievements. Even her Olympic achievements are largely un-thought-about. She is known as a fighter. This creates a huge resonance in the possible lives of young girls everywhere. For almost everyone you have to see an example before you can know it is possible. And, of course, the phenomena of Ronda also normalizes the fighting of women everywhere now. The bigger the image grows, the more normal it is for a woman to be a fighter, or, for that matter for women to train in fighting arts. Of course it stands to follow though that the choices she makes also cast a very long shadow, or a very bright light, each of which will endure. Who she is will shape who other people can be. I think she has a terrible burden being in that place.

In Ronda Rousey's book tour a lot of interesting things are coming out. One of these is an article about the specialness of Ronda's Sports Illustrated cover, only the 2nd time a UFC fighter has made the cover. And as is pointed out, it is really only the first time that they have done so AS the story. One of the notable things is where the author mentions that Ronda Rousey threatens to take over Serena Williams as the most talked about female athlete in the world: The former Olympic judoka now duels tennis star Serena Williams as the most-talked about female athlete in the country. As far as domination, her last three title defenses, against Sara McMann, Alexis Davis and Cat Zingano, have lasted a total of 96 seconds. and it goes on... With the exception of iconic boxing figures, a Sports Illustrated cover is a rarity for combat sports athletes. Rousey would be the first judoka ever to make the cover. Nobody from the jiu-jitsu world has ever made a cover, and the lone amateur wrestler, Danny Hodge, did so back in 1957. Still, the other part of the cover is the jinx. The lone female combat sport athlete to make the cover was boxer Christy Martin in 1996. While Martin didn't lose a fight until 1998, her career never really advanced past that point. Martin is best known as a nostalgia figure from the 90s when for a brief period of time, people talked about women boxing. Like Huerta, she is probably best known as the answer to a trivia question about the cover. As a sports figure, Rousey is almost assuredly going to be remembered as something far more significant. read the rest of the article here Personally, I was intrigued about this battle between Serena Williams and Ronda, as I don't follow tennis much and I wasn't aware of just how much Serena has been in the public conversation over the years - it's a great deal. I'm a numbers and graphs guy, and an analyst of digital footprints, so I thought I'd turn to the Google Trends tool and see what the was case. If you are not a numbers person you'll find this boring, no doubt, but maybe the conclusions of interest. Google Trends reports an index of presence of a search term compared to total searches, something that makes it easy to see a rough picture of how much a topic is on the public's finger tips. So I ran a few trend pictures of four different female athletes to see where Ronda has stacked up: 2005 - 2015 - Index of Google Searches above, Ronda Rousey (blue), Serene Williams (red), Gina Carano (yellow) and Danica Patrick (green) since 2005 - you can see that Serena (red) has had a very strong footing for almost 10 years. below the same selections since Ronda came on the scene in 2011. 2011-2015 Index of Google Searches Jan 2013 - May 2015 - Index of Google Searches and then above, the same selection since January 2013. In the last year and a half Serena (red) and Ronda (blue) have been searched roughly at about the same frequency. This is worldwide Google data. If you run this for just searches done in the United States Ronda has indeed passed Serena as the most talked about female athlete in the country. As a point of comparison I also ran the trends of Ronda Rousey and Jon Jones as search terms since Ronda came into the UFC. As Jon Jones has had his share of controversies, this too has stimulated searches. It is just amazing that the budding male star vying for the title of the "best fighter in the world" or Best MMA fighter ever, has caught the public eye perhaps to a lesser degree that Ronda has: 2011-2015 Index of Google Searches Now of course this data is snap-shot, and if we were really to break it down we would provide more caveats and analysis. All these numbers are telling us is that Ronda is really standing somewhere special in terms of reach and public consciousness, both among female athletes and in her own sport as well. This is something we already knew, right? But seeing the numbers puts things into a certain perspective. Why? Because these kinds of numbers are the things that money looks to, the things that drive decisions. The important thing is that in our fast changing world we really forget that there was a time when things we take for granted today were unthinkable a short time ago. 10-11 years ago there was no such thing as YouTube or Facebook. They were a murmur. Now we can't imagine a world without them. And before Ronda it was simply unimaginable that a female FIGHTER, could outstrip male fighters in one of the fastest growing sports in the world. Evey single thing that Ronda does. Every image the media takes up of her. Every motif and story arc is a new thing. Something that never existed before. It is cutting forth a path for female fighting that will shape the fighting imaginations and expectations of both men and women for decades, if not longer.

Only $12 on Kindle, not bad at all.

Also this story out from the book, how under the fear of an ex posting photos she decided to pose for ESPN, a preemptive defense she also adopted in playing the villain: Out promoting her new book Monday in New York, the UFC women's bantamweight champion explained how a creepy ex-boyfriend helped her transform herself into a villain. "It's more of a defensive thing," Rousey told the 'Opie Radio' show on SiriusXM. "Writing the book, the whole, 'My Fight, Your Fight' thing has really forced me to be introspective and figure out why I do things the way I do. It was because of that one ex, we called him 'Snappers McCreepy,' because we caught him taking naked pictures of me. The first thing I did was take naked pictures for ESPN. "If it's going to get out there, then I want it to get out there on my terms. The same thing with playing the heel. If people are going to dislike me it's because I sought for it to be that way." the article

There are two places where Thais teep which would be hard to catch an elbow from a beginner. Up higher above the solar plexis, and also very low on the abdomen. This lower teep can be very fatiguing. When Sylvie's been shown this low teep they usually use the ball of the foot, or sometimes even the toes. Also, practicing accuracy, instead of just a general mid-teep, could be more fun or challenging. Maybe Sylvie can hop on and talk about this lower teep. It's very effective.

This is a small, but big deal. Shorter female rounds are linked to all sorts of ideas about the difference between female fighters and male fighters, stamina concerns as well as economic consequences. Lots of details about the struggle for longer rounds in sanctioned boxing in the US. "The issue of three-minute rounds has been a crucible for women’s boxing, and lies at the heart of legitimizing the hard work and effort that goes into professional boxing contests between female fighters including such matters as television time and the pay checks female boxers receive, which are paltry compared to their male counterparts. The “joke” is that women are told they receive less pay because they only fight two-minute rounds! It is also part of a continuing argument on issues of female stamina and even whether the monthly menstrual cycle affects the ability of women to fight longer. The latter was part of the argument used by the World Boxing Council (WBC) sanctioning body, which in supporting championship belts for women, has also waded into the fray by stating they would only sanction two-minute round, ten round bouts for women." and "Boxing trainers also agree that holding women to two-minute rounds is arbitrary at best. Veteran Lennox Blackmoore who has been training female champions since the late 1990s including Jill “the Zion Lion” Mathews the first woman to win a New York Daily News Golden Gloves contest in 1996 said, “I think that’s great. When a woman trains, she trains three minutes a round like anybody else. I don’t see why she shouldn’t fight that way. There are a lot of good women boxers, and it’ll show people what they can do. Jill Mathews fought ten rounds for a championship belt, but it could have three-minute rounds too, she had the experience and the endurance to do that because she trained that way.” The article is here: Three Minute Rounds for Female Boxing In New York State In Thailand it remains either 5x2 minute rounds or less often 3x3 minute rounds, though we thought for a moment in one of Sylvie's recent fights that 5x3 had been negotiate between parties. I think that is Susan of the documentary Fight Like a Girl.

[matt quoting you here, but only as a start] One of the most important distinctions perhaps is that what Sylvie is talking about is training for performance IN a fight. There are two things at play in the overtraining story. Do training regimes that far exceed "normal" or even some "professional" recommendations give you a physical edge? And, do they give you a mental edge? A lot of the training that Sylvie does brings her into non-optimal states, and the mental dimension is about learning how to perform at a high level when your resources are down (both mental and physical resources). Much of the overtraining story does not seem to serve non-optimal performance increases well, as you are told to, or you come to, ever be on the look out for physical diminishment, symptoms that are telling you that you need to stop or slow way down. Given the Brain Governor Model of fatigue, the brain will be telling you to stop when you have plenty left, in many instances. It seems like a very slippery slope to start down, and the opposite of what you are trying to achieve in fighting, which is how to fight and respond to deficit (real and imagined). This goes a little bit towards a way of thinking that both the west and Thailand share (differently), that you want to fight as close to 100% as possible. The west more than Thailand thinks about it in terms of physical capability I think, that your punches are faster and harder, your cardio is way up, that you generally just feel GREAT when you fight. (In Thailand it is almost an obsessive focus on rest before a fight: sit here, lay down here, don't move, as if you might expend some little bit of energy that will be wasted.) We've found that you almost never feel GREAT when you fight, and training towards feeling great does you no real benefit. In fact you are always injured, always sub-optimal. You aren't trying to shave hundredths of seconds off a 100 meter time. You aren't trying to close a minute off of your ultramarathon, or even lift more under pressure than you have before. You are trying to respond to an opponent who is trying to actively put doubts in your mind, and doing so with a mind that is reading back to you distorted information about your own reserves and capabilities. You are fighting in a land of doubt. How do you relax? How do you proceed forward? The overtraining story is essentially a doubt factory to me, pushing your eye towards an ever watchful state looking for warning lights. I can't tell you how many times Sylvie has been in states with the red engine light going off and she simply found ways to do more. It does something to you. The other question is of physical benefit. Is risking your limits something that actually improves your physical capabilities? This is harder to say. Certainly we know that sometimes it does. I am utterly convinced that Sylvie has grown much harder physically. Not only is she stronger, and has more endurance, but she just is made of tougher stuff, than she would have been with a much more reasonable regime. Not only is her pain tolerance high, but she literally does not get hurt in fights. When she clashes against experienced opponents, bone to bone, her opponent gets hurt. We saw this in Master K Sylvie's original teacher (in his 70s), and you feel it in the bones and muscles of old Muay Thai fighters. They are made of different stuff, like iron. Phetjee Jaa doesn't like sparring with Sylvie because Sylvie's bones can be felt through the shin pads though they aren't kicking hard. I don't know the real answer to this, but it does feel like the western, finely tuned sports car approach to the fighter is far more fragile, far more susceptible to injury than the relentless Thai style approach to repetition - keeping in mind Sylvie kind of trains beyond the typical Thai approach as well. Of course the emphasis on active rest is an important and really vital one that Sylvie's talked about a lot. But perhaps the deepest lesson is getting to a place where you can rest and recover in your work, during your work. This maybe is the biggest change I've seen in Sylvie, especially after she took up mental training, her recovery time from both physical and mental diminishment is faster and faster. Something that would have put her in a valley for days sometimes is gone in a minute. This I think is the most interesting thing about the overtraining story. It isn't about hitting the gas every single minute. It's about finding your plateau, wherever you are at on that day, and feeling, believing you always can do more. And finding ways to do it. Also, a really interesting distinction here is that Sylvie basically trains herself. She puts herself in the hands of different trainers, but the entire framework and commitment comes from her. That is, if you put her training exclusively under an all powerful coach who was just pushing and pushing and pushing it would be a very different experience, and maybe a unhealthy one (?). A big part of Sylvie's resistance to the overtraining story is that other people are telling you what your limit is. When Sylvie helps others with their training she's never a driving task master. It's more about making people feel and see that they can do more, sometimes in small ways. Becoming aware of all the habits and pull backs that come from the fear of hitting limits. Just some thoughts as an attentive onlooker to what Sylvie is doing.

I don't follow the western Muay Thai scene much, but it's pretty cool to see an ALL female fight card set for next week in Los Angeles California. Cali 8 - Cali's Finest WCK Muay Thai Presents Cali 8. Top ranked standouts in an ALL Female Fight Card! Saturday May 16, 2015 @ 7.00pm Hollywood Park Casino 3883 W Century Blvd Inglewood, CA 90303 wckmuaythai.com

Hopefully Sylvie jumps on this later because I'd love to know what she thinks, but I can say as her husband that it would not surprise me at all if some of her trainers indeed placed bets against her in fights. I know this sounds terrible, and a strong conflict of interest, but the way it feels at many times is that it is really up to the fighter to convince his or her trainers that he or she is the right bet, both during training and during fights (betters don't just bet on who will win, but also bet during the fight and will often hedge their bets). A lot of the betting that goes on is simply out of view of westerners who are fighting. Does this mean that you might get set up in an unfavorable match up? Possibly. But the general experience is that your trainers want to build you up and make you the best fighter that you can be, and they want to bet on you as well. This being said, "representing the gym" and understanding all the relationships that are in place long before you got there, and long after you go is very complex. No gym in the west would do this because gyms in the west don't make their income on students that are only with them for a few weeks to months most of the time. Also betting on Muay Thai fights in the west is not an important part of the fabric of fighting. More or less Muay Thai IS gambling in Thailand. We just don't see it. At the end of it all most matchups I've seen in person between farang and Thai in tourist areas have felt like they favored the westerner if anyone, usually with size.

Well, this is the thing Charlie, overtraining becomes a huge blanket category that is vaguely applied to an almost infinite variety of effects. The very link that you give has a host of causes of Rhabdomyolysis, including: "The use of alcohol or illegal drugs such as heroine, cocaine or amphetamines" - not to mention several other possible causes. The list is long including the flu and herpes simplex and bacterial infection. Instead it just gets chalked up to "He overtrained." It is extremely difficult to cite these examples and know at all where they are coming from.

Really nicely done. But is it just me and my personal response to the edits that being summarily called "the perfect specimen of beauty and brawn" is a little jarring and that a male fighter would never be called this? "John Wayne Parr, the perfect specimen of good looks and toughness". Big fan of Caley Reece, and no doubt being beautiful favorably serves female Muay Thai in some ways. But what was special about her wasn't that she was/is beautiful, in my mind. It's that she fought in a Thai style which is becoming less uncommon in the west, fought injured, fought with incredible drive in her career, fought as a clinch fighter. I guess this is just the state of things. When beauty is present in almost any category of achievement for women, it's going to push itself forward into our awareness whether it be politics, academics, business or athletics. And Caley is such an interesting case in this, as she did everything while being iconically beautiful.

Wow. Great long combinations, nice body lean Charlie! It says she fought at 52 kg. Is she now up in weight? Wonderful share.

There is an absolutely fantastic academic article written by Peter Vail just this year which details the ways in which Thailand institutionally is struggling to deal with the internationalization of its heritage sport. You can find a copy here: Muay Thai - Inventing Tradition for National Symbol. Not only does it have one of the best summations of the history of Muay Thai, it also goes into contemporary attempts to secure an official history or histories in the face of foreign appropriation and interests. Because its such a long article I wrote an outline of the descriptions of how the western preoccupation with the Eastern arts and the rise of MMA has put Thailand in a place of codifying, and in some cases inventing a history to maintain the very Thainess of Muay Thai. Some of the author's opinions do seemingly come from political perspective, but the things discussed are seldom thought about the west. Perhaps most interestingly it explains the recent promotion of the Tiger King as a new father of Muay Thai, in an attempt to move away from Nai Khanomtom. The Struggle Over Muay Thai Culture and History An explosion of western interest in "Asian" Martial Art in the 1960s, 70s, 80s due to cinemaBruce Lee, Jet Li, Jackie Chan, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Karate Kid exercise, self-defense, discipline aesthetic, mystical, cultural connections to exotic Asian philosophies. 1990s the west experienced a disenchantment of Asian fighting arts they were rationalized and routinized into sports like Judo and Taekwandoe generations of instruction had devolved into McDojos Muay Thai was a late comer and so did not experience this disenchantment. MMA arrives - UFC founded in 1993 - it repositioned Asian martial arts. Feed on a zeitgeist of western hypermasculinization Originally individual arts were pitted against each other, and thus were emphasizedthe rise of the BJJ Gracie family Hypermasculinity, efficacy and violence in the arts celebrated over past values such as character building & introspection a reaction against McDojos BJJ and Muay Thai stood out as two iconic martial art-styles (ground, standup) MMA subsumes the arts it celebrates, demystifying them and effacing cultural identifies elements of Muay Thai become only part of a "fighting strategy" it's about the individual in the ring, not the art. This MMA strip of national identity meets with Thai ambitions to internationalize the sportthe risk is of losing the "Thainess" of Muay Thai There is Thai anxiety that the Thai identity in Muay Thai will be lost - their art will be stolen Thailand already experienced the loss of Muay Thai identity in the 1960s when the Japanese stole it as "kickboxing" and then later in K1 (1993)This injured national pride and is still remembered. Within Thailand there are movements to shore up and institutionalize the national character of Muay Thai.Three Institutions Institute for Muay Thai Preservation (under the Ministry of Sports and Tourism) Muban Chombueng Ratchaphat University The Department of Cultural Promotion (under the Ministry of Culture) Institute for Muay Thai Preservation Maintains a Muay Thai/Boran museum Houses the Muay Boran Academy since 2003 a Kru Muay association formalizes muay instruction and instructor certification Headquarters of the World Muay Thai Federation (WMF) - formerly International Amateur Federation since the early 1990s has helped the Ministry of Sports and Tourism put on international amateur bouts organized around Nai Khanomtom day - March 17a vast Muay Boran ceremony attended mostly by westerners celebrates the national and historical roots of Muay Thai in Ayutthaya Muban Chombueng Ratchaphat University has established a degree program in Muay Thai studies with even doctorates offered Muay Boran masters enter a thesis program to record history and canonize each school in a nationalist narrative.There is much overlap in this history as sources are scant, and all stem from the 1909 categorization of schools. strongly affiliated with the Nai Khanomtom Day celebrations The Department of Cultural Promotion (under the Ministry of Culture) Muay Thai has been rolled under Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) The DCP seeks to establish "copyright" over Muay Thai performance, maintaining control over their dissemination, insuring its cultural roots. Rejects Nai Khanomtom as the father of Muay Thai (due to being a common soldier)Seeks to establish Somdet Phra Sanphet VIII "The Tiger King" (reign 1703-1709) as the new father of Muay Thaion May 7, 2011 designated February 6th (his coronation date) as "Muay Thai Day" In 2013 the DCP began sponsoring "Thai Fight"February 6, 2013 the Tiger King becomes central in the Thai Fight broadcast Both camps (DCP and the MCRU/Institute for Muay Thai Preservation) are seeking to fight the corrosive effects of Internationalization, and secure the cultural roots of the art and sport. While the author at times takes a cynical view of Thai attempts to re-create and even invent a history for Muay Thai, I can sympathize with the fear that Muay Thai itself is at risk, and at a certain level the ceremonial and institutional codifications of the past are indeed something all nations and arts do. It is ironic that in many ways Thailand depends on the exoticizing passions of the west to preserve the boran of Muay Thai culture (and knowledge), just as the west is also threatening to remove the Thai of Muay Thai through a dilution of techniques. As a point of interest I also find the implication that Thai Fight is something of an ideological show really fascinating. It could very well be that while we as westerners may cringe at some of the fights between aged, great Thai fighters and aggressive, often off-balanced westerners, we don't see how Thai Fight is essentially demonstrating, performing the incomparability of Thai Muay Thai and the Muay Thai of the rest of the world, for Thais themselves.

Some people have experienced slow page load times on Chrome. In one instance upgrading to Chrome's latest version improved Chrome performance. Personally I see some sluggishness on Chrome (vs Explorer and Firefox), but nothing heavy. More that Chrome eats up CPU at a high rate. I did some Googling around and found this very interesting article on how to speed up Chrome: Quick Fix For Your Slow Chrome Browser - I made this change on Chrome and it seemed to really speed up the load time, anecdotally so far. The article explains it, but you basically go into Settings>Show Advanced Settings and uncheck this box (below) and Restart Chrome. It may seem counter intuitive to uncheck acceleration, but it does seem to help in some cases.

Do you have a pic of the street Luc? Would love to see it.

I know you've been at Lanna a long time Luc, what was it that appealed to you about Sitsongpeenong? Things you have heard?

Hi, yes. The dark background probably shows the traveling line. I haven't looked at the dark theme on Chrome.

That may be the color change of the background? On the Chrome browser it shows as a line that moves across the screen. but on Firefox for instance it's just a color gradation. Or do you see something else?

Hey Rosy, Sylvie put up a Forum Features and How to Use them Post that describes it. Basically the photo has to be uploaded somewhere else on the Internet. You take the url of the photo and paste it in the field that shows when you click the picture icon on a post.

As a husband looking on I can really just feel the way in which some (western) men are saying: This is MY space. There is an unspoken degree of freedom, a freedom of movement that men simply accept as their own. Some don't think about it at all. Some do think about it, and make a point of their freedom. Come on Italian dude. Don't go stand next to a woman and put your cup on. There is something about power going on here.

When she breaks down and cries at the end of that last round, backstage, it is heartbreaking. This fight, the fight that never really was. Wow. Has Rena retired?

So many compelling things. Most Karate styles keep their hands low, do they not? I'm just pretty amazed at her comfort guard, and footwork. I love hearing about the backgrounds of these fighters and the events surrounding fights. There just isn't a lot out there. So is the thought that the promotion for some reason fixed the fight for Rena with these ridiculous clinch breaks? Are there actual rules against clinching? I mean, when these cards are shown is it supposedly understood what they are for? I also don't have a very clear timeline of Erika's career. Did she ever really recover from this fight? How long after this fight was it that she retired?

How did you see it?