Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu

I think Charlie Hustle got this right, and he got it wrong. The UFC took off because it tapped into both the absurdist passion of Pro Wrestling and the toe-to-toe tough man combat of western boxing. Muay Thai really has none of that. Muay Thai can't become the standup version of the UFC. It isn't what it is. I do think though that it won't grow if you don't know the fighters. Too many fighters hide their tape, hide their personalities, let gyms and promotions do their speaking for them. The one thing that always sells is human stories, people doing something they dream. But western Muay Thai fighters are too busy...more or less...pecking at other fighters and gyms on Facebook and elsewhere, hiding their tape so they can boast about unseen accomplishments, or inflate minor records by not being studied. They should be busy telling their story, and telling the story of other fighters too. The pie is WAY too small to be fighting over the tiny pieces of attention that anyone is getting. Grow the pie. There is no other way. Promotionally Muay Thai should be emphasizing it's Thai-ness (yes, it's exotic qualities, that's how "Kung Fu" grew in popular culture) and extolling the lives of western Muay Thai fighters.

These are really good questions Gavin. Maybe Sylvie can hop in and answer from her own perspective, but from what I see, yes, generally you can build a higher body any number of ways...but, in instances of where your body was broken through violence the fighting arts (and fighting) seems to have a very privileged place. The reason for this is - at least how I intuit it - that the arena of the art, and not just the ring, but the very "stuff" of the art, is composed of the "stuff" that wounded you. If you nearly drowned, learning to breath underwater might have a special place for you. That is what the fighting arts are for some. They teach freedom of movement under the pressures and states that are likely deeply associated with what broke you. Of course each person is on a different path, but generally I feel that this is what is at play. It takes the stuff of wounding and weaves a new cloth. As to "when" the higher body is completed, I'm not sure at all. But when I ran these ideas past Sylvie she responded strongly to the fact that Ganesha could not stop until all the verses were written. There is a driving duty almost to see the task through. One assumes that when the verses are written one knows. Whether this is an act of destruction or not, I think the fighter can feel that. Sylvie is, from my view, after 111 fights in Thailand, much less destroyed, much more free than before. Things break, but the arc is upward. The art, and the fighting is elevating. You can feel the liberty and growth as it is happening, even as you become more critical of what you want to accomplish. But I am sure that there are ballet dancers who have composed a higher body for themselves, and writers, and poets, and skateboarders. musicians, photographers, mountaineers. In a certain sense I think for some fighters fighting has chosen them, it is not something they would ever have chosen fighting. Sylvie never wanted to fight. Then once fighting, even though she loved it she never imagined to fight a great deal. But then the fire took hold, a fire of transformation I think. It is very hard to judge the burning of the fire from the outside, other than to say that something is definitely burning there, and it is making such a beautiful light.

Hey Kaitlin, things can be very different for females than they are for males in more Thai-oriented gyms. A western male might not even think about or realize how different it could be for a serious female. Anything from lack of clinching opportunities, non-clinching, or inappropriate clinching, to getting less padwork, or just not being taken seriously as a fighter (not given fight opportunities), or less sparring can happen. Not say that any of this will happen, but the more "Thai" or "authentic" a gym is, the more unknown a female training experience might be. The gym could be great for you, just like it was for your trainer. Just keep an open mind that you won't know until you get there and see for yourself. Even the experience of another western woman at such a gym, might not be telling, if they don't share your same aims or personal qualities.

I wanted to post my guest post here: Broken Tusk: Breaking the Body and the Art of Fighting because I think this is a really deep topic and possibly there is a lot to be talked about here. The idea is that the fighting arts compose a kind of graphic system that can be used to express an inherent beauty in violence, and that the pursuit of fighting arts, in that they are arts, and in that they verge towards a real violence, can be used to restore bodies and spirits that have been broken. In fact, through fighting the body can be built as a "higher" body, and higher house, a higher vehicle, by analogy. An excerpt: ...Sylvie’s “house of the spirit” doesn’t really exist any longer, not in any sense that we often assume someone to have one. Her house of the spirit, her body, was broken that day of multiple violations. Her spirit has no dependable house, no real protective shell. Since she was 11 she has been living in the ruins of her body-house, and as the human spirit is both beautiful and adaptable she has learned to live in those ruins. She can hide in them, in the broken pieces, use the shadows, the crevices, the places people don’t think to look. She learned since that young age to be in the ruins, of a kind. What Sylvie is doing in Thailand – for all those who don’t get (or worse, approve of) what she is doing – is building a higher house, or one can just as easily say, a higher body to replace the broken house/body she has had for all these years. This is why she strains and breaks herself over and over and over, reaching up to the promise of calm in the onslaught of violence. And like Genesha she cannot stop until the epic is written. This is why the Art of Muay Thai is a salvation and even a duty, the calm she sees in the bodies and faces of so many Thais that have fought since a young age – the poise, the balance, the grace, the ease – it calls her. This attempt is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life. I'd love to hear the experiences and thoughts of others. So many focus on the violence of the real fighting arts and imagine a motive of something between aggression and rage. But to me the fighting arts, when pursued, are something so different. They compose a base language, and a writing system that uses the broken edges of the body as its instrument. In the article I draw the analogy of the myth of Ganesha, and his broken tusk:

We have had no experience with gyms in Hua Hin, but since you are down there (are you there yet?) have you looked at Por Promin? Sylvie fought a girl from Por Promin, and one of the owners of the gym is a western woman, Miriam. Because you are a woman it seems to have some qualities that would produce positives for women, and I've seen lots of females training there in photos on Facebook. Miriam was very nice, and we could put you in touch with her. By and large though, if you are having doubts about a gym you are at in Thailand you should I think move on and try something different. There are so many. If you haven't gotten to Thailand yet, if you do go to Hua Hin there seem to be several gyms to try out.

It was great to see those clips of the fight. Looks like Duangdaonoi wasn't physically very strong, and out-weighed by a significant amount though too. She probably is a 100 lb fighter, not 105 lb (which doesn't help). And nice to see Haru as a teacher and see a little of her fight style. Great share Charlie.

I know Sylvie takes BCAAs, and has had varying experiences with them. At some point a huge difference. She said when first taking them last year "This is the first time I'm not sore in two years". Trying to get her to write about them. Hopefully she'll jump on this thread.

Brilliant. Love these.

I'm realizing that now. Pretty impressive! Must go to every show. Is he a sports journalist?

Did not even realize that LadyGo was a photographer. I thought a blogger.

This would be highly unusual from what little I've seen. But Thailand is also pretty unexpected. You can always ask.

Fair enough, my bad. I was just surprised that you felt that what Thais say out loud to you somehow would reflect their feelings about race. I've never heard any Thais talk about the skin color of well-known people - other than Master K making a joke about Buakaw's name - but I didn't think that was weird. I just assumed that because I don't speak Thai and don't engage in long conversations it was never something that would come up. And more than this, when I think about it, I'm not even sure I've heard Americans judge Michael Jordan for being black, and I'm American, which is really the point I should have done a better job expressing. I do wonder how he is viewed, and in fact how all people of some celebrity from Isaan are viewed.

I do wonder what Buakaw's image is among the core Thai Muay Thai community. He's a huge name in the west because of his K-1 success, and much of his media seems very western oriented - the face grimace, etc. Though he also puts up a lot of nationalist imagery too (flags, military). He hasn't fought a Thai in almost a decade, and I've been told by at least one person close to the fight game that if he fought a real Thai fighter now he wouldn't stand a chance. He's such an interesting case because of how he broke from his gym, isn't a Muay Thai fighter proper, and is ethnically so dark. Maybe he is like a kind of movie star, who doesn't make movies.

That would be like saying that America isn't racist because Michael Jordan and so many other major sports heroes are black. Or even because whites were pulling for Joe Louis against Max Schmeling in 1938.

To me it is done in the aesthetic of political cartoons. But I also think it has a political tinge in that westerners, and I am one, see all those constants and just give up, but it's asking for kind of humanization, treating her as a person. What is ironic about it is that she's depicted as a non-person, a robot, which is how UFC fans try to depict her, describing her in extra-human or sub-human terms: a force of nature, a beast, so technical, a machine. Fight fantasy has a whole sci-fi, geekdom feel about it, nerdy dudes buying PPV, and in video game mode mentally. It's funny, and meaningful, to ask that people spell your name right. But hey, that's what came to mind for me. I think it's brilliant.

A few western oriented gyms have Kru (trainer) certification, like Master Toddy's, but 99.999% of trainers in Thailand are not certified, and they aren't called Kru typically. "Kru" just means "teacher" in Thai, it isn't a special title like in other martial arts. It can be used, but in most circumstances it isn't. There are traditions and Kru formalities in older, Boran-type, circumstances, but gyms aren't really like that now, at least in the way that people think. I have no idea what your Italian friend did, but this isn't really the way that most of Thai gyms operate at all. Trainers are just ex-fighters, or Thai people with passion about the sport. There is nothing formal about it. They are paid a pretty low wage.

I've never seen someone train and also be paid to be a trainer, and I've seen both Petchruangrung and WKO. The first difficulty would be that pad holders aren't paid a lot of money generally, and tend to work long hours. But the bigger difficulty is that the few times I have seen westerners hold and train these were people who had been with the gym for very long time. They were part of the gym family. This takes a while. That being said, Master Toddy's in Bangkok does have a trainers program, and I do know that he was looking for trainers at one point for a new gym that he had opened. Maybe contact Emma at Under the Ropes for more on that?

Pretty awesome political cartoon of Jedrzejczyk from her FB page.

I think I had read that two things had happened. The first that Jojo had been in a romantic relationship with her trainer for a long time, and that this ended. And also that Jojo had experienced something that sounded inappropriate during her training camp just before Cracow. This is just from memory, not sure I got all that right.

Do completely agree, great to see. Everyone expected JoJo to be the Muay Thai breakthough fighter. I was really pulling for her, loved her attitude in the house, admittedly a highly edited version of reality. In a strange way Joanna has become the anti-JoJo, fulfilling the promise. I wonder if they will ever fight? Jojo's strength appears to be knee fighting and it's unsure if Joanna Champion can defend that. But Jojo seems a very forwards and back fighter, something Joanna might eat up. Still, a fight I've love to see one day, if only for the world of female Muay Thai.

I think Jack Slack is kind of awesome, some of the best MMA writing in general. He draws from lots of historical source, puts things in wide context, etc. But his treatment of Joanna is a little over the top. I think UFC people are kind of drunk on her success, a lot of it coming from her fighting somewhat physically smaller opponents without much striking skill. I'll completely agree that the Fedor kick analysis was an example of this over analysis: "Jedrzejczyk has to consider that a caught low kick, even perfectly landed, is bad news for her. Consequently she has opted for the Fedor Emelianenko kick, almost upwards and forwards more than it is about turning the hip over." The impression he gives is that she had some how adopted this kick as some kind of MMA compromise to avoid being taken down. But this is the same same kick she used, very ineffectively, against Duannapa in Thailand, in a Muay Thai fight. She's a low-kicker, she's not avoiding the takedown by adopting a special kick. I don't know, people get carried away.

All I can say is "wow" Emma. Very tough.

Emma, it means a lot to hear real world examples like this. I think it is very hard for us in the west to interpret Thai racism towards dark skin. Part of this is that it comes from a different set of social circumstances (the whiteness is the whiteness of Chinese skin much more than it is of Caucasian skin, for instance), but the symbols and concepts of derision seem straight out of some of the most backwards western racist thinking. I can't imagine what Tu experiences in Thailand.

As I pointed out, the woman's skin is turned black for a moment "enjoy your moment". And this ad is likely aimed at rebellious university students, it's attempting to shock, to reverse everything, to "break every rule". It would though be a big mistake to assume that black is generally desireable in Thai culture, or that Thais with darker skin are experiencing an social advantage in some way.

The article suggests that much of the protest came from international quarters, Dunkin' Donuts is a world wide brand. The Doughnut campaign seems a complicated issue of racism. Ironically enough, in the commercial the exact opposite thing happens than happens in the bear commercial. A very light skinned Thai woman eats the doughnut and turns black, and this is a positive. Maybe a way of saying this is: becomes Other...but only for a second..."enjoy your moment". She takes her walk on the wild side. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwvSb6x4a08 The campaign suggests that becoming black is "breaking every rule" and may be aimed at University students - we saw that Dunkin' Donuts is pretty popular with CMU students - perhaps mirroring the popularity and cutting edge of rap (just a guess). Progressive Thais did not see it that way though. It was just plain racism, using stereotypes to sell products. As to "charcoal", keep in mind this advertisement is in English for educated Thais most of whom are not fluent in English. The word "Charcoal" probably does not have the same connotations to Thais that it does to us. I would also say that a black comedian going "white face" is politically very different than a white, or light-skinned person donning "black face". They aren't analogous to me. One comes from a position of social disenfranchisement, the other from a position of power. The history of black face and racism is well documented and is generally offensive in the west. I do think that the younger generation that this seems aimed at makes the kind of racism implied complex.