Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu

Hey all, we just passed 300 members after only 3 months and are approaching our 2,000th post. Pretty wonderful stuff. We are still such a nice, small space, the conversation comes and goes, but I'll say that connecting to everyone has been very meaningful to me. That being said, if you can think of others who would value the space be sure to pass it on. We are only as rich as those that contribute, and there is so much more to share, and to talk about.

I used to get very bad cramps in my arches and I remember it being called "swimmer's foot." I can't find that when I google it though, so maybe whoever told me just made it up. The rubber ball on the foot should probably become something you do even when you don't have the cramps, as a preventive exercise. I'd also suggest stretching the ankles and calves, achilles tendons, in order to keep them all supple and help prevent the cramps. I notice that my arches, heels and Achilles will be very painful sometimes when I come out of the ring, especially when my mileage in running is high and I'm on my toes all the time for padwork. Getting out of the ring and walking flat is a transition that causes pain in my feet. So I make sure to stretch (I use a roller) my Achilles and calves and usually the pain in my feet stops happening. Obviously my thousands-of-miles-away diagnosis is only worth the suggestions, but I hope they help. Foot crams are SO painful.

This is so cool. Go Saya! I have a date with my dictionary to be able to explain this to Mawin and Jee Jaa tonight at training :)

A few members let us know that the default for total "Likes" you can give to content each day was really pretty low. Enthusiastic supporters of the Roundtable were running out. So we finally figured out how to raise that number. You can Like any post or comment just by clicking "Like", so Like away! Not only does liking something make people feel good, we all need more of that, it also helps comments and posts that you feel have good quality have a better chance of ending up in the Best Content area of the site (found at the bottom of each page). Check out the posts that have been most Liked.

Part of the side-effect of having the lowest common denominator as fans is how base they are. I see it on the social media of female fighters, who seem to get a lot of "haters" or whatever better term there is, which is basically abuse from "fans" in the fanatical sense.

Why don't you try running before training?

Okay, so here's the unofficial page with the location. There are female fighters I know who have tagged the location (like Sawsing) and some photos of Thai women training for at least one day, so it's open to women. And here's the FB of the guy who appears to own it Dtakroh Lek - his last name is the gym name, so maybe the son of the man in the video clip above. If you don't have any luck contacting him in message, let me know and I'll translate a quick message with your inquiries into Thai. He and I have quite a few mutual friends.

If you post a link or two of what you've found in Thai I can try to work some of it out for you.

Any time one of our fighters doesn't do great in his fight, my trainer shakes his head and explains, "so-and-so didn't really run." My other gym, no matter what injury you have, my trainer says "run a lot, clinch a lot," that's all you have to do. Everything else can be altered, but running and clinching aren't negotiable.

Kevin and I talk about this quite often. It's strange and, at times, frustrating for me because we recognize that the fan-base in the west is largely the Keyboard Warriors but that's just reality. You can't hand-pick who's supporting the game; in Thailand it's gamblers, which Thailand has been bitching about for years now. But my thumb also really isn't in the pulse of the western audience - I just don't get it. I can't watch shows like Glory, Max or Thai Fight, which people seem to love; I shake my head in disbelief at performances that "the internet" is positively salivating over, like Buakaw's latest ventures or western fighters/fights people seem to love. Yes, we want the sport to spread and grow; but there seems to be a disconnect in what aspects of that sport/game/culture are going to proliferate. Maybe like how the Germans really love David Hasselhoff or something. You can't say someone's enjoyment is "wrong," but it's just hard to understand. But then there's the other side, where it's someone geeking out over the staccato of the second violin section in an overture and everyone else is thinking, "I can't really hear it."

I'm posting this article by Aaron Jahn here because it is a great breakdown of the science behind the Thai (and western boxing) focus on running. There are arguments out there against the importance and efficacy of running for fighting, but the Thais believe in it whole-heartedly, and I've embraced it despite a really heavy work load. It just makes you better. Better both physically and psychologically. I've seen the arguments for HIIT and sprints replacing longer runs for equal cardio benefit, but I've always believed that running was at the crossroads of physical and mental in a way that short "hacks" aren't. I don't always share Aaron John's stuff because he puts some pretty sexist, and to my ear anti-female content, but this article is definitely worth reading: Don't Run, Don't Fight - The Science Behind the Thai Obsession with Running Some parts that I liked include: The other benefit of having a lower resting heart rate is that it will take you longer to reach your anaerobic threshold – the point you switch from producing the majority of your energy aerobically to anaerobically. As Mike Robertson puts it, athletes need to increase the gap between their resting heart rate and anaerobic threshold – the aerobic window. The aerobic window is worked out like this; Anaerobic threshold – resting heart rate = aerobic window For example, if Thai boxer “A” has a resting heart rate of 70bpm and his anaerobic threshold is 150bpm, then his aerobic window is 80bpm. Thai boxer “B” has a resting heart rate of 55bpm and his anaerobic threshold is 180bpm, giving him an aerobic window of 125bpm. Clearly, Thai boxer “B” has the largest window in which to primarily utilise aerobic energy and won’t tax the fatiguing anaerobic systems as quickly as Thai boxer “A”. The cardiac output method is very efficient in reducing our resting and working heart rate and improving one side of the aerobic window spectrum. With regards to raising the anaerobic threshold, there are more specific methods we can use, such as threshold training." And I’ve also learnt that shunning a particular training method which has been implemented by hundreds of thousands of fighters that has served them extremely well over decades of practice because of a few misinterpreted studies is arrogant. Not only is it arrogant, but it is detrimental to the growth of the sport, not to mention the potential counter-productivity its affects will have on fighters. Obviously there are considerable roadblocks to running for many people: shin splints, bad knees, heel spurs, etc. These very common running injuries are largely absent from any of the Thai fighters I've known and/or trained with. A number of these typical injuries are due to a "too much, too soon" approach when westerners touch down in Thailand. Build up gradually - I recommend people get their mileage up before getting to Thailand for their trips. In the article the author suggests there are other cardio options for building up aerobic capacity, but doesn't explicitly give any examples or suggestions. For those who cannot run, Joel Jamieson, who Aaron Jahn sites does suggest a regime of non-running exercises that may give you what running does. Check those out. In that article, Running 2.0, there are some good summations on the weakness of an interval-only approach: Another of the arguments often used to support the exclusive use of interval methods instead of steady-state training is that combat sports are explosive and therefore anaerobic in nature. The biggest problem with this argument is simply that it’s not true. On the contrary, combat sorts require high levels of both aerobic and anaerobic fitness, but the overall majority, i.e. greater than 50% of the energy necessary to fight, comes from the aerobic energy system. How do we know this is the case? Well, for one thing, performance in sports that really are highly anaerobic, sports like like weightlifting, Olympic lifting, 100m sprinting, field events, etc. cannot be repeated without very long rest periods. Try asking a sprinter to run 100m at full speed and then run another one 20 seconds later and see what happens – I guarantee he or she will look at you like you’re crazy! In combat sports, the skills are certainly explosive, but they’re also highly repetitive and sub- maximal. You aren’t throwing every single punch or kick as hard as you possibly could. You aren’t putting every ounce of strength and power into every single movement because everyone knows that if you did that, you’d quickly gas out. The bottom line is that all combat sports require a balance of both aerobic and anaerobic energy development. Writing off methods like roadwork that have been proven for years to effectively increase aerobic fitness simply because they may appear slower than the skills of the sport is like saying there is no reason to do anything but spar because that’s the closet speed to an actual fight. A lot of proponents for the “nothing but intervals” approach also argue that even if roadwork is effective, it simply takes too much time and you can get the same results with less time using higher intensity training. The truth is that roadwork does take more time than doing an interval workout, there is no doubt, but this also is part of why it’s able to deliver more long-term results. As discussed previously, higher intensity methods often lead to greater progress in the short run, but this comes at the expense of plateaus and stagnation. Lower intensity methods may not work as fast, but they produce much more long-term consistent increases in aerobic fitness and when it comes right down to it, improving conditioning and performance requires time and hard work. As much as it might sound good to say you can achieve better results in 4 minutes than you can in 40 minutes, the real world has proven this idea to be nothing more than wishful thinking.

Is it white and covered in salt before they grill it? If so, it's a Tub Tim fish, which is Tilapia. Soooooooo good. Curious if your Kao Man Gai comes from a vendor or if you're doing this yourself. If they make it properly the rice is cooked in the fat of the chicken (that's the "man" part in the name), which is why it's so insanely delicious. Some places cheat and just give you steamed rice and chicken on it, which is far, far less delicious. But the calorie and macro nutrient breakdown would be pretty significant between those two options. Kevin is right that I have a BCAA powder that's for intra-workout intake, meaning during your workout. The bottle goes on and on about how it's for anarobic exercise, which would be weight-lifting and not so much Muay Thai, but I do find that I get less sore if I remember to drink it during my afternoon sessions. I don't know that it helps at all actually during the workout, if I have more stamina or anything like that. After my morning session, maybe at 11:30 I eat an oatmeal breakfast made from Oat Bran, Rye Flakes, basil/chia seeds and water - I alternate savory: mixing in butter, salt and black pepper; and sweet: mixing in coconut oil, peanut butter and maybe a fruit. If I'm not eating that I'm eating eggs and vegetables in the laziest excuse for a "fritata" ever. And coffee. Before morning training training sometimes a coffee after my run, but not always. Dinner is usually a vegetable stir fry and rice that I make at home. Lots of cruciferous vegetables in there. I'll put a fried egg on it, or sometimes get a bit of Laarp, Nam Dtok (both of those are spicy meats), or grilled chicken (I peel the skin off because it feels to "wet" when I eat it, but yes, that is a super delicious part). I eat too much sugar in snacking form, and go through phases where I cut that completely out.

It takes some effort to find products that aren't skin whiteners here in Thailand. Most deoderant, soap, lotion, face wash, sun screen, etc. is all skin lightening. For men, too, which I don't see across the board in countries where this is prevalent. I've read that in Isaan, which is a very poor and agrarian area, when people leave the rural lands to head to Bangkok for work it's referred to as "going to get a white face." So yes, means you're not working the fields in a very literal way. What I've found interesting is how this was a trend in the west for a very long time and only in the 20's was the tan associated with wealth because it meant leisure. You'd been on holiday somewhere warm. Apparently it was Flappers who really pushed forward this trend. Plump and pale was affluent because you were inside and didn't work, then suddenly thin and tanned was affluent because you were outside and didn't work. In the west, being white but getting sun-kissed dark through leisure = good. But natural dark is still = bad. Sigh.

Thanks for posting this Charlie!

Thai does the same thing with "r" and "l" being largely interchangeable (in spoken Thai). So don't sweat it too much on the transliteration :)

Down in the Red Light District of Pattaya there are these carts piled high with stuffed animals, the type you would win at a carnival game, that are sold to the drunken customers in the bars. I assume western men buy them for the Thai bar girls. Mostly it's bears and rabbits and the kind of crap you'd expect, but there's also this huge - huge, like the size of a 6-year-old person - black doll with red lips; totally mistral "black face." It's always there, so I'm assuming it doesn't sell, rather than that these carts just have to keep this awesome item stocked. But, much like the insane T-shirts you find in English here in Thailand, my question is, "who the f*ck is making this product for sale?" My point is, Thailand doesn't have the history of "black face" that the US does. Thailand doesn't have the same history of racism and oppression against African-originating black skin that the west does. But that doesn't mean that "black face" means something much different. It's still poking fun at something (and someone) perceived to be inferior. While the concept of "blackness" and dark skin is not identical to the history we've made for ourselves in the west, the racism isn't much different. And, as White persons in the west we are far less exposed to the pressure that People of Color in the west feel to purchase products that push toward "whiteness." Hair relaxers and straighteners, skin bleach, contacts, wigs, weaves, etc. The market for this stuff is huge. The fact that we don't see it on TV and in the mainstream magazines goes to show just how privileged whiteness is (we'd only see advertisements for white skin becoming whiter), rather than that we're somehow "post racism".

I've recently watched a few movies that deal with the cliche of "friends with kids." Basically, as an adult, once you have kids your circle of friends becomes pretty limited to other people who have kids. People who don't have kids are like, "stop talking about your kid's potty training," and people with kids are like, "stop asking me what I've been up to; I've been fucking parenting." I got married quite young, before any of my friends did, and being "the married one" changed our abilities to relate to one another. People who have children aren't "obsessed" or "love-having-no-sleep junkies." They're called parents and that's what their world is defined by. As athletes, our worlds are in some very key and definitive ways different from our non-athlete associates. So it's hard for us to relate on that time expenditure. I have a hard time with my family on this one. They love me, a lot, and they all support me a great deal. I might consider one of my brothers my biggest fan, outside of my own husband (who absolutely takes the top tier on that title). But my family doesn't "get it." I'm frustrated all the time by how it's seen as a "phase" or something I will turn into something else by opening a gym and becoming a teacher or something. This isn't just something I did when I was young, like a "study abroad" or kiddie soccer clubs. This is my life, my passion, my transformation. That's hard for people to get because most people use physical challenges as hobbies or for fitness. Hobbies stop being "hobbies" when they are transformative. Take for example Mark Hogancamp, who creates an entire world out of dolls and model buildings. There's a whole documentary and in it you learn that this is Hogancamp's therapy. It's not temporary, it's not "just for fun" and it's not a hobby. Dolls are stuff of hobbies, but only if it's practiced as a hobby. Is Mark "obsessed?" Surely. Am I obsessed with Muay Thai. Yes. But that's not a bad thing. If you're climbing Everest and you're not "obsessed" with getting to the top, you not fucking getting there. I can promise you that. It's not a casual endeavor. And in the end, you should ever be made to feel bad about the thing that makes you feel good.

Good point about fighting vs training in both functionality and comfort (or alternately functionality vs. comfort). I'm not sure if I said this before on this thread, but I've heard more than once from different men in Thailand who were having their first fight that they were far more afraid of being shirtless in public (in the ring, which amounts to a "stage") than they were about another man trying to kick their face in. These men sometimes were diligent about wearing a T-shirt in training due to self-consciousness and some were okay in the "privacy" of the familiar gym space to be half naked. And the gender majority power dynamic shift is a brilliant phenomenon. I went to a college that used to be all-women and since going co-ed in the 70's has remained roughly 75% female. So, in many classes there were very few men and in some classes only one. In most classes in the US where there are equal numbers or even more men (like in the sciences), women totally hang back and don't speak up as much; in general women tend to clutter our language with "I think/ I feel" or "maybe it's just me, but," or other such softeners to take away authoritative tone. But in these classes where there were so few men, it was THEY who took up a kind of "does anyone else feel?" kind of intro, whereas the women would far more comfortably speak out, speak up, or even disagree far more freely than more traditionally ratio-ed classes.

In the newspapers here Saya Ito is referred to with what would be pronounced Ai-toh, sometimes following that with a gym name. I think she'll smash Superball, especially now that Saya's been working her clinch with O. Meekhun gym when she visits Thailand. Superball is Southpaw though, which can shake things up a bit. Saya's experienced enough that she's probably faced that plenty of times before.

This is so awesome. All my Japanese language knowledge comes from Anime, which just means it's super limited but I love when connections jump out. Took me a long time to figure out that in Thai "555" is "hahaha" (5 = ha)

Current UFC Straweight Champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk vs Duannapa Mor. Rattana Bundit World Muay Thai Angels 2013 Quarterfinals Action begins at 7:40 - I include this fight here because I only just realized it ever happened, two very high profile fighters on one of the biggest promotions for female fighters in Thailand; though, at the time, I had no idea who Joanna was and probably few outside of Europe did either. For those who don't know, Duannapa was widely considered the best female fighter in Thailand a few years ago, though at the time of this fight she had become fairly inactive and her weight was an issue, and commonly discussed in the male Muay Thai gossip circles. In fact, she was disqualified from this all-female tournament in the finals a few months later (still fought, but could not win) because she did not make the 57 kg weigh in. (So she competed but could only come in last regardless of fight outcome.) This fight is really interesting because it shows how different Thai Muay Thai is from much of the kickboxing of the world, and also how styles (and matchups) make fights. Joanna, who has been called "a force of nature" or "an animal" as a striker in the UFC, is more or less stymied in this fight by Duannapa's defensive, countering posture. Joanna surely grew as a fighter in the year and a half, but still the fight is instructive. It should also be pointed out that Duannapa significantly outweighed Joanna here. Duannapa barely cut down to 57 kg, or maybe not even, and Joanna now fights at 52 in the UFC. This is a big deal, even for striking - it can determine confidence, but also how impactful strikes look to the judges. A point of comparison is that the two UFC fighters Joanna recently overwhelmed were I believe smaller than her, both Esparza and Penne, and non-strikers. Also, it's important to know that low-kicks do not score in Thailand unless they affect the opponent, so almost all of Joanna's low-kicks are non-scoring. Also, punches need to rock your opponent to score. Duannapa takes all three rounds in my opinion, with incredible poise, in the Thai style. Count her kicks landing to the body. She basically scores and then neutralizes. For those who don't follow Thai Muay Thai closely, the retreating, defending fighter is usually perceived to be in the lead. This is World Muay Thai Angels, a tournament style all-female promotion, which has only 3x3 rounds instead of the typical 5x2 rounds for female fights. The breaks seemed really long.

I've never heard that before. Why do you associate Muay Thai shorts with correlative skill? I could find myself not being willing to buy expensive yoga pants because I'm going to use them for napping way more than for yoga (I don't do yoga), but the shorts to me are like wearing a swimming suit for swimming. I did note that my trainers, who are in their 40's, opt for longer shorts now - still nylon material rather than the board shorts, but similar length. Kinda like how western boxing trunks are now, but that carries over to basketball also... which is a damn shame. Those short shorts back in the Larry Bird days were something I could holler at! Ah-whoooo-gah! :woot:

Howdy, late October should allow you to have festival fight opportunities (rural, out in fields) but if you want a stadium fight you'll probably have to travel from a "rural" gym. Maybe you can clarify a bit about what you want out of a rural gym - like, what are specific attributes you're looking for? Low student to trainer ratio? Nice areas to run? Not a lot of tourists? Small town feel where you can't get real coffee? There are degrees of difficulty when it comes to how rural your gym is and a lot of the comforts that we as westerners don't realize we miss when we are, in fact, separated from them come about from the things surrounding training and not necessarily in the gym itself. No hot water in the shower? Not a huge deal. Nescafe instant coffee for weeks... amazingly harder than it might seem - okay, you can tell I've been in Thailand a long time! Sitmonchai Gym in Kananchanaburi province is fully equipped, comfortable enough rooms and good equipment, a variety of trainers, Thai and foreign fighters and they're accustomed to training women. It's located on a rural feeling road and your runs are along big open fields; maybe a 40 minute drive to Bangkok for weekends or a fight. Then there are gyms in Pai (Chiang Mai province) that are mostly westerners but certainly rural; Santai is in San Kamphang (also Chiang Mai) and the area is pretty quiet, close enough to the city that you can dip in and out. They have Thai fighter and western fighters, have women fighting for them.

Being harassed or criticized for how you dress/look is not the monopoly of "attractive" women! You can be wearing sweatpants, a huge shirt, be totally red in the face and sweating like a pig and men will still flirt, make comments, cat-call, and harass. But signaling that you're not interested in the attention does help to quiet it down or direct it away from you. It's interesting, Micc, that you mention how being the only woman kind of makes you the "standard" against which any other women who come in will take their cue of how to dress. I think this is the case with me as well. Just the other day an Italian woman came in and was wearing only her shorts and a sports bra, which I reckon she trains in back home, but I could tell she noted the difference in how we were dressed. I don't think she became uncomfortable (she's Italian, after all) but I'm curious to see how she'll dress when she comes back today. There are these two women who come in the mornings sometimes, just for fitness, and they've both adjusted their clothing choices toward looser-fitting clothing rather than the tank-tops they started in. I certainly don't want them to feel they have to, but I do see that they appear focused and comfortable, whereas they were very giggly and uncomfortable when they first started. That could just be the normal process of becoming more familiar with the space rather than a clothing thing. There's a guy at the gym who is twice my size but wears my same size shorts. I think with men it ends up being comical more than it's a sexual thing (because it's a heterosexual space and the other guys aren't sexualizing him). But I reckon we'd all be more comfortable with a better fitted pair of shorts.

Wow, Brooks, this sounds like a great night for your team and a great event as well! Congratulations for your fighters all being is such different positions but all of them sound like they're growing - you look so proud in that picture, too.