threeoaks
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Posts posted by threeoaks
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I read that article. there is more than one way to generate press (than trash talk tho I love trash talk): take a page from the Master, Gorgeous George - "shut up, peasants"!!! Ok ok I know it's not MT but they guy knew how to NOT take himself so seriously:
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Cannot quote everyone but love your thoughts. My two cents are regarding the definition of addiction vs dependency. I would say I definitely have a dependency on the endorphin response of training (and get a moody, angry withdrawal if I cannot). Some people like to call this addiction, but I distinguish addiction from a more simple dependency. I ask - does it make my world better, or worse? If it makes my world worse yet despite that I do not stop, it is an addiction. If it makes my world objectively better (not temporarily high), I may depend on its help, but its definitely not an addiction in the classical sense, more like a healthy habit. Eating disorders and various body dysmorphia are pitfalls; I don't deny that. But I am lucky in that that is not part of my experience. Great thread thank you.
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Watched all the fights you posted, Sylvie. Love to see more (from anyone of course). Thank you!
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I like all slob, all the time. I even like "paying extra" in sweat for crappy cotton t-shirts. Sometimes I have to succumb and wear "sports" fabric tanks if its too hot but I don't like people looking at my arms (even though I am vain about it too). Love the hilarious image of dude in tiny shorts. Of course we don't have the cultural component here, much. There is a young woman with a spectacular body who trains at my gym (she is a fitness pro in pilates or some such). She rarely wears shorts but I admire her legs when she does! For me just the short shorts of MT are kind of impossible. Although I am skinny I am eh, old. I don't like shorts. I also would feel pretentious wearing Thai shorts (even though I have a few pairs from a shoot). I need skillz first. :teehee: I make do with some "board shorts" when I have to, because they are long and stretchy if I have to wear the ACL brace (which is rare now). Feel better in that than some kind of fancy legging stuff. I am a tomboy.
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Just watched this fight and really enjoyed it. Thank you for posting. I love your clinch and your evil-looking heavy and fast jab, cool movement. Like to share it on my FB page if ok (Dana Hoey). Need something to take my mind of another awful mass shooting here in the U.S.. This level of fighting and sportsmanship is a comfort and inspiring. Best of luck. New fan.
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Damien Trainor wrote a great piece about sparring http://www.damientrainor.com/2012/you-dont-need-to-win-in-sparring maybe you should show them this, haha.
Anyway I had this problem once at a gym, I was only young at the time and sparring a man who put 100% in every shot and then actually complained when I would hit back very lightly just because they were 10oz gloves (no one else has ever complained). Some people like to boost their ego, I think sometimes a whack back can work, but I just don't want to be that guy.
Needless to say, I left it. I joined a new gym and was sparring someone else who was a complete beginner and who was trying to win the sparring, he wasn't hurting me, but he was trying. My trainer just shouted at him and he apologised and we just laughed it off.
So in my opinion, you're always going to have people that go hard in sparring, whether it's because they're a beginner (maybe watched too many films) or just have a massive ego, but a good trainer will always enforce the light sparring rule and then it shouldn't happen.
Though if you spar someone much heavier and they are hitting you lightly, it might just feel hard, when in reality it's not. I spar this guy regularly who's maybe double my weight, he kicks me lightly but because he's so big it makes a big impact, I don't get hurt but the impact makes me feel like I did, its weird to explain, so this is not his fault, just more of a mental and size thing.
That mental size thing is weird. I feel like I go quite light and have great control, but I think just the height of me (particularly as a woman) just causes fear (which can then cause things to get out of control). I have not had a chance to try to create fear in a fight situation though a real fighter presumably would have fun trying to shut down my reach etc. I don't weigh much but yeah, size. Someone called me a "wall" the other day. My old Spanish training friend called me a "bull"; not so fond of that one haha. :ninja: Seriously though I KNOW I am going light and people cannot seem to calm down. I need to spar with more advanced people and I look forward to it.
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That is technical fighting talk, I know exactly what you're describing! Her clinch is so wicked in this fight and just f***ing relentless. Aaggghhhhh, I want to fight Pizza so bad. I also love how spritely she is. My trainers for a very long time wanted me to bounce around and be all fast and tricky like this because I'm small and that's what small fighters are supposed to be - like telling a big heavy guy he should punch hard. But I'm not like that; I'm like a giant in a tiny body so it's all backwards. It's exciting to watch her flit around though, yeah?
Yes Pizza SO exciting. She is fast yet somehow also, laid-back. Weird smooth combination. I love it. Must be a Thai v Japanese thing as you explain above. I love that you are a big fighter in a small body - how cool to have the unexpected style :) Pizza is retired or retired to just boxing you say? What a shame. I bet you could get her to fight. Do high-profile fighters "call each other out" school-yard style like they do over here? A little silly :)
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The simplest, most concise answer to the question of both the side kicks and the "boxing style" of Little Tiger is: "she's Japanese." The Japanese style tends to be very hands-heavy and straight punches (this works really well against Thai opponents), and that side kick is not one you'd see in Muay Thai very much but do occasionally - this many times in one fight is a style though and it seems to be more from a more Japanese style art like Karate or something. She's off-balance quite a lot though, which in Thai scoring is terrible. I think Faa Chiangrai won this fight, honestly.
The sweeps from a caught kick are very common. Faa Chiangrai is what you'd call a fee-meur fighter, which means clever, stylish, tactical and technical. Not super powerful or aggressive, but relaxed and can (and does) fight backwards well. I love her explosiveness, too. That's a signature of Thailand Muay Thai that is almost completely lacking in western appropriation of the art... I want to be like that :)
Yes I understand the concept of a fee-meur, but am only beginning to develop the eye for it (never mind the body). Just beautiful. I want to see a whole list of fee-meur fighters should you be inspired. Wait, did you already do that on 8 Limbs? I feel like I learned the concept from one of your posts and it was accompanied by videos but maybe that was another MT community/page.
I figured the side-kick was karate (I see it in my daughters do jang) but I wanted to get an answer from someone more familiar with Thailand - thank you.
I am just learning how many zillion ways there are to sweep (just for watching so far). All I have seen in person at FNF in the city is sweeps from the clinch when someone is defending with their knee while standing on one leg. The type of sweep FROM the caught leg is just crazy, because its not really a sweep as I understand it (contact to the standing leg), but a sudden shove. I must not understand this! Faa's were so frigging fast and the movements so brief it was just beautiful how Tiger went flying at least twice from a little tiny shove of the caught leg. So graceful. I was taught caught leg push & pull too early but look forward to going back and actually learning it.
As for Tiger, I cannot help but admire her total aggression but I really don't like the style. I can see now why my trainer is sort of disgusted at the idea of the jab (I actually have a nasty one but its time to take it away, use the jab for measuring, and quit being a frigging appropriative boxer, as you say).
Thanks so much Sylvie. This is a gold mine.
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Pizza vs Little Tiger
This is another of my favorite fights. I think this was in the Fall of 2013. Pizza had lost in Japan vs Little Tiger and here shows how effective the low clinch can be. Pizza then retired to boxing only, but I hear she isn't really boxing now either.
Love Pizza's timing getting into the clinch too; its like ZOOP and she's in AGAIN. (That's technical fighting talk you know). Thanks this was great.
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I wanted to start a thread where we can just place video of female Muay Thai fights that are good to keep together. The title says "top" female fighters and fights, but also hard to find video too, like fights of Thai female fighters that lack exposure. Mostly just a place where you could browse and see interesting full rules female fights. You can post video here and on its own thread too, if you like.
Little Tiger (WMPF champ) vs Faa Chiangrai
The first one I wanted to put up was this underated fight in August of 2014. Little Tiger who is the WPMF pinweight champion seems to be a little selective about her opponents, and I was surprised to see that she was fighting Faa Chiangrai, one of my past opponents, but perhaps not well known internationally. This was for a WBC International Belt. Faa Chiangrai is a really under-appreciated fighter. Great toughness and quite femur. I think she was robed of this decision, even though it was in Pattaya. You can see she was shocked at the outcome. After this fight though Faa Chiangrai was suddenly ranked as the 2nd challenger to the WPMF belt in the 105 lb division. This is pretty interesting because this is a weight class above Little Tiger, and also is a weight class above Faa herself. She is one of the top 100 lb fighters in Thailand, in my opinion.
Oof this was a great fight - thank you. I have a few questions. First, Little Tiger threw some side kicks and I cannot get a straight answer about them - "not really Muay Thai but useful as a follow-up if you miss the roundhouse", is what two different trainers told me. Second, Little Tiger's movement is so boxing (shifting skip steps, side to side head movement and fakes with the head) - is that common? Finally I LOVED watching Faa Chiangrai - she was amazing. I particularly love the stillness then explosiveness of good fighters. Those sweeps or knockdowns accomplished from one leg are kind of astounding (maybe its common and I just don't know but was so smooth to watch). Big new fan of both fighters, particularly Faa Chiangrai. Thanks.
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This is my favorite thread so far. Thank you. Off to work for 15 hours (after solo bagwork at home boo hoo) but may have to sneak a fight-watching break. Great resource!
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Rosy I love this topic & perspective. Got to do chores & then look forward to watching the fights. Thank you so much.
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Marnin, I'm so happy that you found a better suited gym for yourself! I'm not a southpaw, but I noticed that trainers sometimes forget someone's a southpaw, so they can't really bring the best out of these people. I hope you will learn a lot and grow as a fighter!!
Michelle, how is your search for a southpaw-friendly gym going? :) Maybe there's a gym where the trainer is a southpaw, this will help you a lot, I'm sure of it!
Yesterday there was a holiday here in Poland, so most gyms were closed, but mine was open and we did a "holiday-training", meaning fun training. Apart from the usual stuff we did a little of BJJ, which I never really tried, I know one or two moves, but I had a kind of trauma connected to it (I wrote a blog post yesterday on my blog about it). The point is, it was so much fun!!! :D I'm so happy I got over my anxiety and rolled around on the ground a bit! :D
Can you put a link to your blog Micc? Sorry if you did before and I missed it BJJ is the wackiest. So great. Also, got some boo-hooing about having to do padwork with me, a southpaw. Wait til we spar. BOO HOO I say. Too bad. :starwars:
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Taking this on the road (the structure ideas above). Sean Fagan also has great workout structure videos. Going to need it when I go to work/travel in the next month.
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Yeah he does that a lot :) I've actually heard from the 'old' guys with whom I train with for a long time that the new ones are also scared of me when they see me kicking low kicks on the bag :D but they are guys, they don't show it ;)
Today I'm going to the new gym!! I hope the guys there will accept me.
Micc I hope your new gym is wonderful - best of luck.
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But this is the whole fantasy about Asian martial arts anyways though, isn't it? They contain a kind of "magic" of moves, or knowledge that allows the weaker person to be victorious. It isn't the man who is victorious, so much as the art. At least in some versions of the fantasy.
Yes that is true. Loops back to exoticizing & bias generally (Orientalism). Kind of a rat's nest. But a great one! Sometimes I wish I was small, because I am always rooting for the smaller fighter!!
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As far as Ronda, I am a fan. Some people say asshole, I say uber assertive. Every major fighter has people that dislike them. What she has done (popularity- hers and women's mma) would have been virtually impossible w/ a Mother Teresa vibe (even if we all love Mother Teresa- que en paz descanse).
What she did to Cat and Sara McMann was completely and utterly impressive.
I am a HUGE Cris Cyborg fan (she always seems so genuine) and it sucks when Ronda bags on her but it will make the fight all that much bigger. Fingers crossed.
100% agree.
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As for the Aristotelean bias, I am reading a great book called "The Expressiveness of the Body" by Shigehisa Kuriyama (Zone book), which details the evolution of medicine in China and Greece (as well as Persia). The arguments are too detailed to post here (and I am still trying to understand the book) but here is an interesting quote which in my mind not only pertains to male/female biases but also touches on the complicated East/West biases you see in Westerners fighting Thai fighters in Lion Fight and elsewhere - they can be so proud to "beat a Thai" but really, if Asians are emasculated (as in quote below), there is a nice reversal of bias in which they expect to be beaten by the feminine/Asian. All of those are terribly f*cked up biases but in Muay Thai I like that despite the generalizing and exoticizing of Thai fighters there is the expectation that they will be better.
(This is a chapter on the focus on musculature in Greek medicine (and sculptures), which is not seen in early Chinese medicine, which concentrates on energy patterns, dismisses tissues and rarely if ever dissects to understand the body including muscles):
"Visible joints, in short, separated one part of the body from another, distinguished individuals from each other, divided Europeans from Asians. To this list we must add one more: visible joints demarcated male from female. According to Hippocratic embyology, if the male fetus takes thirty days to begin articulating, the female fetus, being moist, takes forty-two (footnoted). More generally, males are fiery and dry, females are moist and cold. But the solid parts of the body are formed by fire drying out the original moisture (footnoted again). In the hermeneutics of the Physiognomics (Aristotle), the poorly articulated joints, ankles and legs that signal weak and cowardly characters, are the feet, ankles and legs of women. Sinewy, well-jointed limbs are characteristic of men".
Greek understanding also was the fleshy people were easily enslaved ie; women, therefore one ought not to be either female or fleshy. What I would give for sinewy legs! A lot of that is genetic though - I am a mesomorph and do not "cut" well but who gives a sh*t at this point.
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I remember reading somewhere a study, I have no idea where, but it said something along the lines that in terms of just pure physical strength- women are just as capable as achieving the same strength capacity as men given the correct training regimes (I think it was with lifting specifically). Reading this actually surprised me at first, because also still unconsciously react with the belief that men are stronger/superior in athleticism than women. Even with evidence this is a hard mentality to shift.
(That is a quote but I cropped it so it looks funny - sorry I forget the workaround). Really interested and happy to read.. that you read that about weight-lifting Steph. If you remember the source I would love to know it.
My trainer (JJ) was talking yesterday about sparring a woman of equal weight to him (Nat), how she hit hard, and of course he hit as hard back. He made NO mention of being stronger at the same time, even though I alluded to it (I buy/bought the Kool Aid that a man of the same weight is stronger). He would not take the bait - she is very strong (and of course I remember from Sylvie's interviews: https://nyfsc.wordpress.com/2009/09/23/women-of-muay-thai-an-interview-with-kru-natalie-fuz-part-i/)Natalie saying when she spars men they hit plenty hard, maybe because of her size, which made her less afraid to be hit by women. She assumes the women will hit less hard too). I don't know how to parse this but I despise arguments based on "science". The entirety of the scientific line of reasoning is never laid out and science is a series of questions, not closed arguments.
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Lion Fight is probably the biggest in the US, although it's still very young and has practically no competition in terms of similar shows. Glory has appeared in the US a few times with some cross-over fighters from Lion Fight's roster, but they're K-1 and tend to pull from and show to a European pool.
Yokkao is trying to gain momentum with their shows - they're still quite new as a promotion and make most of their money through equipment and apparel, as well as seminars where they cart Saenchai and company around to the UK, Italy and now the East Coast of the US.
"Cart Saenchai around" - too funny. FNF in NYC is starting to get on the Thai v Western fighter train too.
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Yay! Like party! No no I think having some credibility is good - I have a Buddhist friend who makes it a practice to like EVERYTHING so me & my husband get the giggles sometimes: 'Oliver. Ilona liked my picture' (Oliver laughs). Sums up the desperation of liking likes. That said, I like them! It's positive!