Jump to content

threeoaks

Member
  • Posts

    433
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    48

Posts posted by threeoaks

  1. 5 hours ago, guyver4 said:

    Thank you for all the amazing feedback guys.It's helped a lot.

    I need to clarify though before I paint myself into a corner... I don't do microcorrections on every technique or anything, only usually when someone asks or they look frustrated when we're doing something... It's the shutting up once I start that's the problem lol.

    I'll definitely take a look at the inner game of tennis, I know Sylvie also did a few videos with a round table on Patreon too, so may follow up with that.

    Thanks again guys. "Khob kun krub"

    Ask someone if they want your opinion first.  Then you'll know.  

    • Like 2
    • The Greatest 1
  2. Hope its just soreness.  Holding pads for bigger people can definitely trigger it.  As for "flicky" thing - I think Jeremy means when you kick does your head twist momentarily.  This is kind of common as people build the twist.  I think you are sore from gettin banged on the pads.  Congratulations and hope it goes away soon.  ❤️

    • Like 1
    • The Greatest 1
  3. 20 hours ago, MadelineGrace said:

    I just left a VERY FUN MUAY THAI CLASS

    The combos were just like the ones I could not remember on Saturday but today  only 4  at a time so I was fine- No memory issues and no problems. So I’m happy

    My instructor seemed to be in his more patient and should I say ‘gentler easy going teacher mode’ vs his hard ass teacher mode  ( I’m not trying to criticize him. My goal is to learn Muay Thai,be a good attentive student and try my best and improve. I can’t help when I  react to him when I’m lost and he seems annoyed and a bit hard assy ) 

     

    Just keep the mantra "stay out of his head" and stop trying to read his thoughts.  People are allowed to feel shitty and be short with me.  I don't like it and I am hyper sensitive too.  But don't use your adulthood as an excuse to call yourself the "worst" one etc.  Those are thoughts I have and yes its harder for me to remember sometimes but I try and laugh it off with the coach - boo hoo I am old (beats the hell out of being dead).  Its painful at times.  I am older than you - its just a fact that my brain works sluggishly once in a while (and as a Mom of young kids - forget it - your RAM is nearly full all the time).  So yeah as a person like you I say - stay out of his head, ask questions and if you really can't stand him go elsewhere.  p.s. I am told women tend to want approval and to "belong" more when you coach them.  Its nice if the coach knows this but he probably doesn't so you will either have to choose to dispense with that need or ask for more support or do what I do and just ride with it.

    • Like 3
    • Heart 2
  4. On 6/20/2019 at 5:08 PM, Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu said:

    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.

    Rereading this AM.  I am struck by this passage:  

     

    You are clearly hyper-literate and its both beautiful and strange to have to mediate and explain the caesura and its relation to fear and trembling through Western terms, in a non-Western field.  The great thing is you are translating and not co-opting (one thinks of Picasso getting credit for his radicality by taking from African sculpture; its as if Picasso brought some sculptures to light in the Western world, then lectured on their greatness instead of painting them, or at the very least titled his paintings "after Maliean head"!).

     

    • Heart 1
  5. 3 hours ago, Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu said:

    So, in a sense you are presenting the alter of the motherly, nurturing essence of women (feminism)? But in a more complete picture of, yes, violence. But also in the martial sense of a respectful, bound practice. Does that get close to the kind of message of women fighting in a gallery might have?

    Yes.  It does.  Its a demonstration of rarified conflict.  Your average American white woman is well-versed in passive aggression which, while effective, is not a dominant way to go.  I want access to dominance.

    • Nak Muay 1
  6. 3 minutes ago, Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu said:

    It's not so much TKD, but in that book tracing the history of Karate itself, and how far it came from it's actual martial roots. It passed through a bottleneck in which almost all of its fighting context was removed, compressed into kata and Budo practices. It became quite rarified. And then modern Karate all descended from that bottleneck. I have some problems with this Ur-sourcing, this abstraction in its DNA. Then, it developed along various lines, each of them incorporating varying aspects of fighting, but each of those aspects also quite codified and restricted. For me this heritage of development means that there is a highly mediated relationship to the full contact fighting space that arts like Thailand's Muay Thai or western boxing were shaped by much more directly, as they developed through 10,000s and 10,000s of iterations of fighting in a very challenged fighting space. Altering the fighting space, the fear zone, providing safe passage or landing spots, really changes the metaphysical quality of what it means to relate to and stay in that space. This is just my opinion of course, but I find these difference qualitative.

    Makes sense.  Appreciate the clarification.

    • Like 1
    • Respect 1
  7. 10 minutes ago, Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu said:

     I have the same feeling with IFMA Muay Thai

    Can you please describe some of the rule changes?  I know for example in the US back of the head hits are often called as fouls, but they really are not.  Or I think so anyway.  LIke to know more and again, once I return from training, I look forward to re-reading your more central arguments.

  8. 12 minutes ago, Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu said:

    I don't follow Karate, but I assume you cannot punch the head with the fists. This is huge change in spatial and fear dynamics. If you can't strike me in the head with your hand (or even elbows) as I move through the fighting space, this is a vast difference in how I will move through that zone. 

    The difference in space is interesting.  You can travel on one leg before throwing the kick in TSD, which makes distance play a very live & central part of the form.  We are both editing as we go.  I am going back to read your clarifications.  But I am also going to drop this line of thought in favor of returning to your more central points.

    • Like 1
  9. 6 minutes ago, Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu said:

    I don't follow Karate, but I assume you cannot punch the head with the fists. This is huge change in spatial and fear dynamics.

    Back fists to the head allowed., usually the side of the head, no face-punching  Kicks are fucking scary though, and of course they are longer.  I think part of the problem here is you are primarily talking about tae kwon do because of that book (which is on my shelf).  I hear no end of shit-talking about tae kwon do at the tang soo do gym, perhaps for some of the same reasons 🙂  But I get your distinction.

    • Like 1
  10. 3 minutes ago, Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu said:

    But, with the head off limits it is just a very different thing, making it hard to compare to fighting sports/arts were they head is at risk.

    Head's not off limits in Tang soo do.  Head kicks all day.  But I understand what you mean about giving charge to the space, the risk level.  There is no question that MT is a more martial martial art.  My new friend the Army Ranger agrees.  

    • Like 1
  11. 6 minutes ago, Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu said:

    So, in a sense you are presenting the alter of the motherly, nurturing essence of women (feminism)? But in a more complete picture of, yes, violence. But also in the martial sense of a respectful, bound practice. Does that get close to the kind of message of women fighting in a gallery might have?

    Yes I am presenting a live visual paradigm.  I am presenting a live form of my belief system and I am grateful to the fighters for showing up.  In return I hope I offer them a good, well run and well supported fight context as well as a chance to fight which is more rare for the bigger women.  Its interesting.  One of the preparators (people who handle artwork professionally) is a returning Army Ranger who trained other Rangers and was also flown abroad to train IDF fighters (he has some politely harsh things to say about Krav Maga lol).  He is currently in the process of trying to learn non-lethal fighting (he's not talkative but I reckon he shares y'all's opinion of spinning kicks in live combat 🙂  .  You might say he is coming from the opposite direction that I am in enlisting local female fighters to live this enlivening process of being fighters in public.  He is coming back from lethality to locate an art form.  

    • Like 1
    • Gamma 1
  12. 11 minutes ago, Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu said:

    Yes, these are not "opposites" in Thailand's culture, I think I've come to understand, therefore in fight culture here as well. Westerners are somewhat obsessed with the "real" fight, and paint Thailand sometimes, maybe Phuket fights in particular, as potentially dubious and fake. You have the "tuk-tuk driver fights" and always the fear that if you come here, especially short term you will be caught in a fake fight. Westerners long for the "real" fight. It's part of the fantasy (ironically enough). But, as I said, these are not opposites to Thais. Instead fake (performed, staged, theatricized) and real exist in a kind of continuum. The presence of one does not cancel out or negate the other. A single fight can have both, performed elements and what others might call "real" elements. Is the Ram Muay real? Or is it fake? Well, its performed. Is a fighter's nobility after being hit real? or fake? I think this comes down to that performed elements, for instance public face, are very real things in the culture. Appearances have a weight to them. They aren't just thin veils to be torn down, revealing what is real underneath. People, families, communities work hard to create appearances. Fighters work hard to create them. How could this all be "fake"? It's no more fake than a painting is fake.

    (sorry to go off on this, but I find this cultural difference, and the mis-understanding from westerners really interesting)

    Extremely fascinating.

    • Cool 1
  13. On 6/20/2019 at 6:59 AM, Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu said:

    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 definitely get this distinction and agree regarding combat sports with no grappling.  I cannot resist defending karate against this though, as I think the gap in this case is a very different one involving time in a completely different manner.  Its so freaking fast and you fight from so far outside that you enter fight space lightning fast and exit it as well.  I think your ideas can be worked out here at least in some kinds of karate though of course i get why everyone loves to put karate down.  The gap is not spatial, its about being out of time, risking a complete departure from conscious time.  What I love and prefer about Muay Thai though is its seeming slowness in comparison, the relaxation into shuffling, the illusion of stillness.  

    • Like 1
    • Cool 1
  14. On 6/20/2019 at 6:08 AM, Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu said:

    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...

    Walter Benjamin.PNG

    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.

    Fearlessness and Courage.PNG

    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?

    64507180_2313832892197781_7204832957872209920_n.jpg

    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.

    Muay Thai and the Caesura.PNG

    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.

     

    I only read a short form version of this.  You alluded to your love of the space between fighters, or distance, as the negative space and ne plus ultra of fighting.  Its good to read your ideas more developed (elegantly developed) here.  I am going to have to study this for a bit.

    • Like 2
    • Respect 1
  15. 24 minutes ago, Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu said:

    I also have to say, this is incredible. I love, love, love that the performed nature of fights is inviting into an artistic space. I think this is something that Thailand already appreciates at a certain level, that the difference between the "real" and the "artifice" is not a logical dividing line.

    I also have to say that bringing fighting to art falls in with the things that I was trying to talk about in my metaphysics of Muay Thai. The idea that what fighters are doing is close to what artists are doing.

    THANK YOU FOR THE HIGHEST PRAISE and CLEAREST UNDERSTANDING I WILL GET!  I read Metaphysics of Muay Thai and agree 100% its an art form of the highest sort.

     

    A big question in academic photography of the 90's was "what happens to truth now that  we have digital photography".  I say the 90's because photography is so far gone from believability now that everyone understands things can be faked.  I made work that straddled that line - below is a picture of two women who used to fight with their sisters as children.  I had them slapping each other etc, grappling in the sand before the picture.  Their emotions (irritation, anger, pleasure at grappling) are "real" but their actions were performed.  This is very helpful you pulled this thread out of the performance/ reality question in Muay Thai.  Thank you.

     

    image.thumb.png.e38046fb5cd4f716d99dda6a7ac75fd1.png

    • Like 1
    • Gamma 1
  16. 23 minutes ago, Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu said:

    I'm really interested in this. As a photographer, in Thailand, it always feels like there is a ethical veil I have to pass through when framing a shot. Most of this feels like it has been conferred upon me, a sum total of all the ways Thais have been captured in photography already, all those motivations. With a camera you are holding a device of control. And everything that comes out of the device enters into the pre-existing narrative stream.

    I don't find your work exoticizing at all.  I think its because there is almost always text accompanying the photos, that identifies the subject and specifies their occupation as well as what is special about them.  I've got collages like you see above, and this is typical for a visual artist rather than classic photographer - you just take the image of someone and completely separate it from the person.  A former colleague of mine is a most aggregious offender in my opinion.  I love the photos (they are of a Goshkagawa, Japan School Basketball team), but in a NYC, primarily fancy white context they just look like she is using Asians as ciphers and stand-ins for all women.  I did something unusual in this context, which is I made the collages ie; imposed my ego on people, but i also included an introductory room of "posters" (actually high production matte prints but pinned to the wall).  Each poster features name and occupation.  Its just basic courtesy but emphatic in this context and functions just the way your images do on social media - identify and raise up the subject.

    23 minutes ago, Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu said:

     

    Is there any way you can open up what those preconceived ideas are in your mind, and how you feel this can be confronted with real, live-staged, but still performed fights?

    Feminism:  I don't like the conventional idea that women are the kind peacekeeper mother earth types who would run the world better if we had a chance.  Blegh.  We are just as flawed and violent as anyone else.  Yes there is something called "toxic masculinity" and yes we need more seats at the table and yes this would change things for the better, but instantly associating us with kindness etc is weakening.  We need strength.

    Combat violence:  I didn't write that haha.  Just noticed it.  I guess "violence" is correct but I am just talking here about something everyone here understands, which is that yeah fighting is about the violence, but its more about the love of the form and a kind of love of your opponent, not anger.

    Self-defense:  I think self-defense is so much more about attitude.  When you train martial arts you train offense at the same time.  In conventional self defense class there is an assumption the woman will be a victim.  Now, this is true statistically, but there is no real defense without offense which is usually not trained in self-defense context. 

    Martial Arts: same deal - people think its about some kind of primitive violence, rather than a refined art form.  I will just show them by having live fights 🙂  They probably won't understand, but I will feel better.

    • Like 2
    • Gamma 1
  17. Kevin kindly invited me to post this press release for my upcoming NYC art show here.  I am a visual artist by profession, and I managed to squeeze my main love, combat sports, into the mold of art as you will see below (I shoot photos but not fight ones per se; I also do live events in the name of art).  Some of you will find the language pretentious and that's ok 🙂  Opens next Thursday in case anyone is local.  Will be a sanctioned Ladies MT fight night with 6 amateur fights for July 12.  Its same-day weigh-ins, geared especially for the higher weight classes.  This is free and open to the public (as is the show), but space is limited so if you are around come early!  Thanks Kevin!  p.s. I am with you. I think Muay Thai is one of the World's great art forms (I believe you wrote "the greatest" and I love it).

     

    Petzel
    transparent.gif
     

    0e4405a0-0610-4e07-9310-af53a1d04e02.jpg
    Dana Hoey, Alicia and Navajo Blanket, 2019, Lightbox, 20 x 65 inches, (Detail).

    DANA HOEY
    Dana Hoey Presents

    June 27 – August 2, 2019
    Opening Reception: Thursday, June 27th, 5–8pm 
    456 West 18th Street

    Petzel Gallery is pleased to announce Dana Hoey Presents, a para fictional exhibition conceptualized, produced and directed by Hoey, in which the artist will show her own photographic work, the performance and sculpture work of Marcela Torres, and a live ladies Muay Thai fight night that will take place in a 20’ x 20’ boxing ring installed inside the gallery. The show, which challenges and confronts preconceived ideas and realities of feminism, combat, violence, self defense and the martial arts, will be on view from June 27 until August 2 at the gallery’s Chelsea location and will feature an opening night performance by Torres.

    “During the run of Dana Hoey Presents, my role will be that of Svengali,” Hoey says. “Although I make work as a single subjective, expressive artist, I prefer to emphasize my position as a participant in a larger social construct.”

    For her own work, Hoey will present Ghost Stories, highly subjective, surreal lightbox collages, made from images shot by Hoey, and a logo designed by David Knowles, which will recur elsewhere in the show. The people featured in these photographs will also be presented in a separate room as poster-style portraits featuring their names and occupations. In the labeled posters Hoey’s aim is to surface the power dynamic of portraiture, particularly as it relates to a white artist taking the image of non-white people. Hoey will also present a 14’ tall stop-action photograph of the great boxing World Champion Alicia “Slick” Ashley shadowboxing. Ashley, a fighter as seasoned and skilled as Mohammed Ali, holds 3 Guinness World records and many World Titles, yet she remains unknown to most Americans.

    “I invited Marcela Torres to be in this show because her work intersects with mine in dynamic ways,” Hoey explains. “She is first and foremost a performance artist who directly visualizes and attacks the currents of power acting on her queer brown body.” Torres works with fight training devices (speed bags, heavy bags), that have been mic’ed and the sound amplified and remixed. For Dana Hoey Presents Torres will present Agentic Mode, a 40 minute performance that employs audial soundscapes, martial arts movement and spoken word to contemplate contemporary violence as a lived war zone. The instruments she uses for the performance and the recorded sound will live on in the heart of the show after the live performance.

    Exhibition programs include:

    Thursday, July 11

    Violence and Victimhood, a panel discussion moderated by Dana Hoey, featuring Nona Faustine Simmons, Emma Sulkowicz and Sarah Schulman. This panel is intended to frame the question of violence and historical, personal and cultural victimhood from viewpoints other than Hoey’s.

    Friday, July 12

    Ladies Muay Thai Fight Night, emceed by artist JJ Chan and featuring 5 amateur fights. Doors open at 7pm and entrance is free and open to the public although space is limited.

    Thursday July 18

    Multi-disciplinary Fight Clinic, taught by Tang Soo Do World Title holder Jo-Anne Falanga. Clinic is open to all levels including beginner, and all styles are also welcome.

    Dana Hoey is a feminist artist working in photography, video and social practice. She most recently exhibited Five Rings at the Detroit Museum of Contemporary Art, which featured self-defense classes for young women from the Police Athletic League and the local community. Three books are available on her work: The Phantom Sex, with essay by Johanna Burton; Experiments in Primitive Living, with essay by Maurice Berger; and Profane Waste, in collaboration with the writer Gretchen Rubin. Her persistent interests are conflict and the possibility of political art.

    Marcela Torres brings into action performance, objects, workshops, and sound installations that investigate the interpellation of our diaspora.

    Petzel Gallery is located at 456 West 18th Street New York, NY 10011. Gallery hours: please note that the gallery will be open on Friday, June 28th and Saturday, June 29th from 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM.  Thereafter, our summer hours begin Monday, July 8th, and we are open from Monday to Friday from 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM. For press inquires, please contact Ricky Lee at ricky@petzel.com, or call (212) 680-9467.

    • Like 3
  18. 7 hours ago, Yau Hoang said:

    I have been training allot both boxing and thaiboxing almost everyday about 1.5-3.5 hours a day and of course having a resting day.
    But even having/bought item that reduce/preventing huge strain on my elbow I'm starting slowly get tennis elbow and it starting to hurt.

    So how do you guys prevent that beside stretching?.
    Sins people have been training like hell and mostly dont have any strain problem on tendon like ankle or knee?.

    I would have someone check your form on the inflamed side (boxing hook & MT hook can be different, plus have someone check the height of your elbow/angle of it on that punch).  I’ve had assorted injuries that have been corrected through better technique. Others, such as a year or so of inflamed wrist tendons, simply improved as my bones & muscle hardened & tempered around them.  But maybe you are past that.  Ice!  Copper bracelets!  Voodoo!  I hate injuries.  Good luck .

    • Like 3
    • Cool 1
  19. On 6/19/2019 at 2:56 AM, Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu said:

    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.

    You’re not inviting me & I’m not looking for an invite but I’d like very much to follow along, help if I can as an auxiliary outsider 🙂  

    • Respect 1
  20. 4 hours ago, Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu said:

     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. 

    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).  

    • Like 4
  21. 18 minutes ago, Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu said:

    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.

    Of course and I have no contacts.  Glad you see a way forward.  I’m a fan of how Nike is handling themselves in the US (Colin K Jersey etc).  Someone there has an advanced vision.  Will watch how you do this happily.

    • Heart 1
×
×
  • Create New...