Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu

I paid 500 baht for my private session with Arjan Surat for that video.

"On more than one occasion, I've heard a grappler express the idea that they like Jiu Jitsu better because your game keeps evolving. You can always learn and develop more. In striking, they said, you can only get stronger and/or faster at the moves you already know. That basic idea seems to be very prevalent here in the west. It's laughable, but it also kind of makes sense that they have that perception." I remember reading something Rousey said about Michael Phelps in the same vein. Her first sport was swimming, because of her dad, and she has this (pompous, but hilarious) attitude that she could do what Phelps does - all he can ever do to be better is just swim faster. But in Judo you have to think of the next move, you have to transition, etc. It's a non-swimmer who knows how to swim assuming she knows what it takes to be an elite swimmer. So, of course, thinking you "know everything there is to know" about striking pretty much shows you're not a striker. There was this really earnest French fellow at my gym. Sweet guy, really, really wanted to get better in Muay Thai. I'd see him shadowing something he just learned, or watch the Thai boys in clinch and then try to shadow the move himself. Hungry for technique, willing to put in the work. I liked him. One time he was hitting the bag and he asked our trainer, Kru Nu, "what is your favorite combination?" Kru Nu looked at me for help, not understanding at all what was being asked. I translated as best I could, but without going into the global disparity between actual Muay Thai and "combination" drills of western gyms. Kru Nu just shook his head, "no, do everything," he said. The "combination" is access to whatever is needed, not a memorized "set." It was an incredible moment of expressing this difference between the practices of Muay Thai. Asking "what is your favorite combination" to a Thai fighter is like asking a native English speaker "what is your favorite sentence?" Uuhhhhh, what am I trying to say? In what context? Who am I talking to? It makes no sense. To some extent, repeating a favorite sentence over and over again is basically a "tick," or using filler like, "like" or "um" or "not for nothing." They don't mean anything, they're just thrown in as part of your verbal styling. And if you use them a lot, you come off like an idiot. If you use the same punch-punch-low kick combination all the time, you're predictable... they already know what you're going to say.

I'm very sorry to be reading this Lucy, but I'm going to just give it to you straight: your (ex)trainer is an asshole. You did nothing wrong, this is a power trip and the reason for it is his own ego. Trying to wrap your head around it won't do, it's not a rational thing. He's just a dick. And you should get your money back for that lesson if he didn't train you, but if it involves talking to him again then just leave it and consider it the cost of getting out of a toxic relationship that was only going to get worse. The thing to focus on is sorting your own feelings. Find your confidence and motivation outside of your involvement with him. All the work you did wasn't him doing anything special, it was you. You did all that work. You got better. You worked through frustration and you had great moments. None of that was something he did; that's all what you did. That's yours. You didn't lose time but you did gain strength and perspective if you allow yourself to have some distance and see it that way. Find another space to start working and get to work on the things that make you feel good. I've gotten away from two toxic environments/persons and it's not easy. It feels like shit and it's a blow to your confidence. But given some distance from it, it's like breathing fresh air after having your mouth around an exhaust pipe. You're better off, even though it's a painful experience. Honestly, fuck that guy.

Do you happen to know why the female fight is listed as "TKO" while all the men are listed as "KO"?

It's going to be impossible to find Thai women your size to fight, but matches are made with compromises and attempts toward balance all the time. So, if you're okay with fighting someone much smaller than yourself, likely with her getting the experience advantage, then it's a reasonable thing to attempt. I'd recommend Phuket, just because that's the place where I've seen precedent for what obstacles you're facing. Training-wise, so long as you have a tough skin around being reminded of your remarkable-ness all the time by Thais, it shouldn't be a problem. Very large men make do in gyms all over the place and it's likely that at your size they'd be cool with you training with the men, although you'd have to prepare yourself for being thrown in with very skilled folks when you're not yet at a matching level. There's no other place in the world with better Muay Thai or training than Thailand though.

A big difference, which I think is less of a difference in camps where they are accustomed to and focused on training westerners, is how correction is given. There's a lot of correction to little kids as beginners - literally posing their bodies to the correct forms - but you wouldn't do that to an adult so you don't see that among newer students from the west. But then correction comes in long intervals after that and trainers tend to let a technique be wonky so long as balance is maintained, with the knowledge that the correct form will kind of hammer itself out or smooth out over the rushing water of the balance, so to speak. When Dejrat, who is real adamant about "correct technique' would show me something I was doing wrong, the issue was balance. In the west everybody is off-balance, so the focus is on a million tiny details which won't make any difference at all because the balance isn't there. Here it seems like it's balance first, technique second, power last. Reverse that for the west.

Yeah, I'd recommend Royal Thai Residence also because I know them and they're so wonderful and kind. The area is quiet, off the road but not far away from the main roads for getting anywhere you need to go. It's right near Venom - like, within a 10 min walk or 2 min on a motorbike - and near to my gym as well. It's on the opposite side of Pattaya from Fairtex, but everything in Pattaya is relatively close; it's actually a pretty small city. I don't know whether you were looking at Fairtex because that's where you want to be or just because it comes up on searches easily. I'd stay away from Walking Street and Beach Road in general. They're not dangerous, but they're kind of a non-stop, drunken pub crawl at night.

I absolutely hate this article and, without having known Jordan at all, everything I've heard about him since his passing makes it very clear that he loved Thailand and Thai culture. To write this racist bullshit in his name feels, to me, like something he wouldn't have appreciated. His death is a tragedy and one that his gym is suffering from as well. From what I've heard his gym family loved him a great deal and they are not spared the pain of his death. Having lived here for 5 years, I have met enough expats and read enough online expat threads to know that this is a common theme, mostly among men, to rail against "Thais" as a whole. There is a very strong resentment over being "outsiders" to a rather insular culture. I don't have a sympathetic ear for it. I've met very nasty Thai men, but they're just shitty men and there are shitty men in every culture around the world. Writing about these frustrations, difficulties, being fucked over, the super shady aspects of the fight world - all of that can be informative, cathartic, whatever. But that's not what he's doing.

Hi Steve, I've been there, although I have not trained there. It's right next to the stadium and the facilities are huge and new. The front is open-air with fans all around, but the gym is fully covered. The rings are at the front, there are two of them, and then there's some weight equipment and treadmills - those are very rare for Muay Thai gyms. They also have a sauna for both the men's and women's rooms. A few Thai fighters train there as Max fighters and I've seen a handful of westerners, mostly French, fighting under the Max Gym banner at the Sunday Max fight cards. If you're interested in fighting for the show, I imagine this is a very good place to train for the connections and all that. If you just want a Muay Thai training experience, this is going to be a "big gym" experience rather than a more traditional one, but trainers around Pattaya tend to be fairly well experienced. I'd certainly say it's worth a try and if you don't like it there are many gyms around Pattaya you could change over to.

Very few gyms offer full sponsorship to western fighters, but you might look into Sor. Sumalee in Phuket. You must already be an active fighter, I don't believe sponsorship is offered to beginners.

That's a good excuse though. Even doing 3 min while your abs are being shredded to make room for a baby is pretty incredible!

My trainer has us alternate days on these two routines: 1 min ab wheel 1 min situps 1 min plank = 1 set; do 3 sets for 9 min total, no breaks 1 min situps 30 sec pushups 1 min plank 30 sec pushups = 1 set; do 3 sets for a total of 9 min, no break Kaensak used to make me do this one: 1 min bicycle 1 min feet 6 inches off the ground and "flutter" (alternating up and down) 1 min feet 6 inches off the ground and feet crossing over and under each other in-and-out motion 1 min leg raises 1 min plank

Rangsit Stadium has a Muay Thai school within it. Meenayothin is in the northern part of the city, but still in the city. Samart's Popteeratham Gym is also up near Rangsit

A lot of folks who I've seen come and go just have a backpacker's sized backpack for everything and then a gym bag for going to/from the gym. If you're going between places then you just want to be able to carry everything by yourself. Most of the folks I see who want to bring things home with them will buy a suitcase at the night market (they're inexpensive and pretty crappy, but they get your stuff home) and put all their purchases from the trip in there, so you literally go home with more luggage than you came with and you only have to carry it on your way out. A lot of folk buy their equipment here instead of packing from home - gloves and shinguards for training. As long as you have a coin-machine laundry option wherever you stay, you can get away with packing WAY less clothing than if you have to pay per kilo or wash by hand in your apartment.

5 min all at one stretch or broken into sets?

I suspect you're going to have to have them custom made if you want anything other than "satin" or nylon. The "satin" ones are shiny and much thicker than the nylon style, so if you guys currently are using nylon I'd recommend finding the "satin" ones. I personally advise against GI material as the thickness will make it not move with you and you'll get chafing on your thighs or wherever else.

Pearl is here training with me at Petchrungruang for a few months. It's wonderful :)

It's awesome you had such a positive experience and I LOVE that you posted here to encourage others to make a trip out, regardless of where they go. When I visited Khongsittha for the clinch seminar I offered (when Radarjam was there, so I got to meet her/you!) I could tell that everyone there was really happy with the experience, despite a few disappointments regarding getting to fight or injuries or whatever else. But it was clear that there was no "well this wasn't what I wanted" kind of response. I would personally encourage you to check out other camps, just because the experiences are so different and there's so much of Thailand to discover that simply isn't available in one place. Even if you end up liking your first camp better, at least then you know!

I think his gym is still at the original location. He has two gyms listed on his website, but he is always at the original one because it's his house also.

I talk about my style quite frequently, as I've come to identify and embrace it. So, I clearly see myself as a knee fighter, or Muay Khao. I wrote about the experience of even learning to identify different styles in this blog post about Choosing Your Muay Thai Style, which was amazing because I'd never even considered before that there were subsets of style in Muay Thai. I just thought everyone was "supposed" to fight like the fighters famous to the west. In my opinion styles are hard to select, as I reckon each person has tendencies which drive them toward one style over another. Some people love having space, some people just want to close in. Some people feel strong kicking, some naturally bank on punching. Seeing what feels good and then embracing it so you can work to develop it seems like the best method, and seems like what they do here in Thailand for the most part. Kids just grow into fighting in whatever style they naturally are and then you hone it. In the west it feels like we try to force styles, maybe because there's only one trainer at a gym and so they only teach their own style, which may or may not even be their best style but rather just what they picked up from 2 months in Thailand or something. There is no "one size fits all" in any Martial Art or sport.

Hi Timothy, Landing the kick is tricky to answer because there are so many elements involved. I assume you just want to land on the body, becuase you can throw that kick and land it on the shoulders (biceps, really) and still score. But if the block is getting there too quickly, it means you're telegraphing or kicking too slowly. If you're telegraphing, it means you should add more rhythm to your in-between states, when you're not striking, in order to hide your strikes. So, add fakes or figure out how to throw that kick as you're rocking in your natural rhythm to kind of hide it. If it's just too slow then you might benefit from practicing repeated kicks - like 3 at a time - in order to speed it up. Another possible thing to help is making sure you step outside your opponent's stance with your lead foot before kicking. That way you're kind of kicking at an angle into the front of their belly, rather than just strictly to their side (ribs). It's harder to block kicks that are coming kind of from the front.

"Satang" is like cents. There are 25 and 50 satang denominations but you don't need those and when you get them as change you'll have a hard time getting rid of them again. Just get mostly 100 Baht bills and smaller folding bills (100, 50, and 20). You can use bigger bills like 500 and 1000 at most commercial stores like 7-11, Tesco, and bigger restaurants, a taxi from the airport, as well as at the hotels for your room, but asking a food vendor who is selling you a stick of chicken for 20 Baht to break 1000 bill isn't going to be easy.

The French movie "Chok Dee" is pretty good.

We do a lot of elbows on the pads at my gym, but depending on the clinching/sparring partners you can add them into those contexts in a very controlled manner. Again, it's about control - having someone who you can tell isn't in control of their limbs throwing elbows at you sucks. We basically feint the elbows and pull them so that they are either thrown fast and very real-time speed/power but not even close to landing (a good 6 inches or more away from target), or we pull them in speed and power; this one kid does a fantastic job of putting the elbow on the target and then pushing through instead of striking. Picture putting your fist on someone's chin and pushing to indicate the punch - like that but with elbows. With one of my partners, in clinch I'll put my glove or bare hand over his face (so my palm is flat on his cheek or forehead) and then land my opposite elbow on the back of my own hand/glove. I've never seen anyone else do that, but it works for us. He basically just throws the elbow at a far distance where it won't hit me, but it's close enough that I know that it would have hit me. And my trainer throws everything right into my guard, so they're pretty good speed and power but intended to create stress rather than land in an opening. So, that's a bunch of different ways to train them without pads and in the context of clinching and sparring. But I've heard that there are a few Thai gyms which don't allow westerners feinted elbows in sparring at all, due to lack of control. So, again, it's about whether or not you and your partners can have enough comfort and control to handle them in that kind of context.

I had a concussion from being thrown in a fight. Directly after the fight was bad. I couldn't remember much other than snippets from a few moments after the throw until an hour after the fight. Apparently I was asking if I'd been knocked out over and over again; like, every 30 seconds for an hour. When I came out of that I didn't have a lot of symptoms other than fogginess and having a hard time multi-tasking. So I took it easy for about a week to really monitor everything and heal up. But I didn't have light or sound sensitivity, no headaches, just kind of zoned out. I think I was really fortunate in how mild my symptoms were and how quickly they resolved. When I did go back to training I was careful not to do sparring or anything where I'd get hit in the head, but I did fight not too long after. I've not experienced any problems or recurrences, but anytime I act "strangely" my husband asks if I'm concussed. He's not joking or teasing and I don't see my strangeness when he mentions it, so maybe it is a lingering symptom and maybe he's just sensitive. Not sure.