Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu
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Everything posted by Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu
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I think men react differently, maybe more with aggression than with crying. Although I re-read your initial post and realized you talked about anger more than I'd realized. I get pissed off - well, not really, but a surge of aggression and wanting to go after someone - in padwork and sometimes sparring but never in fights. I kind of wish I would get it in fights because it might be helpful, but it's just never happened for me. My trainer tells me about all these male fighters who used to cry all the time. Very famous fighters now. He kind of laughs about it, but I also know he's telling me so that I know it's normal. But basically these superstar fighters, when they were kids up until about 14-15 years old were still crying all the time. His son, who is now 14, doesn't cry anymore but my trainer told me that once or twice he took his son out back and whipped him on the butt for getting angry in training; I think it was during sparring with other kids and he got too emotionally aggressive, tried to hurt the other kid, and that was unacceptable so he got punished. You know Thailand, so I don't have to tell you about the inappropriateness of showing emotion in any extreme, but for those who are less familiar - and when I first heard this story from him - it's surprising that the outward demonstration of aggression when it's expressing an emotion is totally out of line, whereas aggression that's calm and devoid of emotion seems okay. That's fighting, but it's controlled. So, at my gym: tears = totally okay if you ignore it like it's not linked to an emotion. Aggression/anger = only okay if you also don't link it with an outward emotion. -
It's going to be very difficult to find a gym and location and fight situation that's all the things you want, all at once. The time of year has a huge impact on fights; what's good for your partner in training and finding fights might not necessarily be as good for you - a gym that clinches regularly in training might not clinch with you, or a gym that has a lot of Thai fighters but not a lot of westerners might not be accustomed to training women, western women, have a stadium that's great for you, etc. This isn't meant to be a downer, but you do have to be prepared that there is no "perfect" gym situation, no "perfect" fighting situation, etc. And the experience between you (woman) and your partner (man) will not necessarily be the same wherever you go. It's going to be harder to find the right factors for you, whereas men can go pretty much anywhere, so focus on the factors that are good for you.
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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?
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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 :)
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This is something you see in more tourist-driven fight settings in Thailand, too. A lot of guys refer to the "Tuk Tuk driver" they're fighting on the islands or whatever, but it's basically a retired fighter who is fat and out of shape, but the heaviest they could get to go against a large western fighter. They fight hard for a minute and then take a fall because it's work; it's a payday, why get hurt if you don't have to? There's a big difference in the "ethical" view of fighting from the standpoint of "every fight is for your honor" that we in the west like to romanticize about, this warrior's code and all that, and then there's the ethics of actually fighting as a job or a way of life or literally to feed yourself. The saying that a boxer is "hungry" when he's fighting hard doesn't come from abstract poetics - Jack Dempsey was literally hungry, fighting several times a week to be able to eat - but that hunger is represented by the fighter never giving up, rather than the payday version. I totally feel for this side of fighting, but I still have the romanticized notion as well where I cannot cheer for a fight where one person in the ring is ready to quit the moment s/he steps in.
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The Star vs Yodying - May 2013 - Pattaya If you want to see how a fight is "stolen" by performance in Thai style Muay Thai take a look at this fight. These were two of the best low-weight female fighters in Thailand in 2013. In fact Yodying told me that they fought this fight at only 42 kg. I've fought The Start twice at increasing weight, and now she is maybe up to 55 kg. In this fight Yodying was, I believe, world champion having defeated Little Tiger in Japan (don't remember which org). By the end of the 2013 The Star would claim the Interim WPMF World belt by beating Saya Ito in December. But watch this fight between very good fighters. Yodying in my eyes inches out the 4th round, but after a few neutral exchanges The Star steals the fight when her corner tells her to dance off the round. This causes Yodying to chase, and a split-hair decision becomes a blow out. I recently had the chance to meet Yodying, wrote about it here. Hope to fight her before she retires. Maybe the best 100 lb female fighter in Thailand.
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My trainers do not yell but the quiet judgement and disappointment sure works. And I don't always have a trainer involved in my fits of crying (or nearly crying), either. Just a few days ago I was clinching with a kid who I was basically tossing around, totally controlling him, and a couple men in the ring started kind of teasing him and that made me get all emotional and had to go cry in the bathroom for a quick minute. For me it's got almost nothing to do with the actual triggers in training, I'm just totally already primed to cry and anything, anything can set me off. But I've had this for a long time now and have blogged about it many times. For me it's a matter of controlling the message I'm sending to my gym when I get like this. I try to still show that I want to be doing what we're doing, even if I'm struggling. It's a male environment and seeing a woman crying usually means something is "wrong." Luckily, my gym now raises young boys up to be champions, so my trainer Pi Nu has seen literally hundreds of boys crying for years already. If we all respond in the "Thai" way and ignore it, it's all good.
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It is interesting because my Thai trainer Pi Nu, who I have great respect for, recently got me to abandon the floating block in shadow. I think he felt I wasn't committed enough to my kicks and wondered if the floating block was a reason for this. I'm not sure that is the case, but I changed it for him. It's a bit of a compromise. You want to shadow the whip of the leg, and keep the leg loose, which is why many turn round on the kick. But you also want to develop balance and control, which the floating block helps a lot with. My kick definitely improved when I started shadowing the floating block. There is no one answer to this. Also, Sakmongkol has been training in Karate as well, and this might be part of the reason he favors the control of the kick. I only suggest that if you have been only whipping around on the kick it might be of benefit to try practicing the control and balance of the floating block.
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There had been a default of only 2 embedded videos (like posting a YouTube watch link - the forum automatically embeds the video). But we've been able to dig in there and change it to something much more reasonable. Now things like fights can be posted if they contain separate round videos, etc.
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Farida Okiko vs Namtan "Sugar" Por. Muangphet - King's Birthday 2013 Watch Namtan just turn it on in the 4th round, with kicks and straight knees. Great fight awareness. Two top, top fighters.
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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.
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Have you watched the full video Dtrick? I mean, the full documentary?
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Those sound like a very good base around which to structure your workouts.
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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. [Edit Update: When YouTubes of fights posted become "unavailable" (are taken down), I'm going to delete that post just to keep the thread clean. If you find another video version of the fight feel free to repost it.] Relatedly, this is my P4P World Rank List of fighters 48 kg and under. 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.
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Rosy, I had the opportunity to interview the Editor in Chief of Champ boxing magazine here in Thailand (she's been the editor for a very long time now but was a writer for them since the 70's) and when I asked her about Thailand's about-face in lifting the ban on female fighters she said she didn't remember there ever being one. To be quite clear, she only wrote about Muay Thai in the big Bangkok stadia (Rajadamnern and Lumpinee) so her thumb was definitely not on the pulse of female fighters at all, but when she asked me where I'd heard about the out-lawing of female fighters I honesty had no source. Do you have one that I can reference?
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Me and Emma rockin' it at Master Toddy's on Sunday morning. Clinching and sparring. This is the fourth time we've had the chance to train together. Roundtable Forum members unite. Had a fantastic time. Hope to train with more members too!
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfixOLk00pQ On the road so I haven't watched it yet, but posting it here for others. Will watch on Monday. Love to hear anyone's thoughts on it. Big female Muay Thai fight.
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Do you think she'll get in the mix of WPMF title fights Charlie?
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I agree that the term and "catch all" of Overtraining is part of the problem, especially in the highly-emotional discussion of it. Science isn't so emotional, usually. This article was posted by a fighter friend in Florida and is exactly what I'm trying to get at in my "Myth of Overtraining" blog posts. Basically, the symptoms do exist; the experience exists, but it's not caused by "overtraining." It's a mental interpretation: "The selective amnesia associated with marathon running could have an evolutionary basis, he added, since early humans typically ran to survive and may have needed to disregard some of the associated discomforts. The study also suggests, though, that not having fun may sharpen your recall of pain, which is unlikely to be motivating. So if you wish to maintain a strenuous workout or competitive program and also blunt the edges of your memories of any resulting pain, find an activity that you enjoy." You can read the full Times article here: "Forgetting the Pain of Exercise" by Gretchen Reynolds.
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The jealousy is real. But I'll be up there on Sunday, so I really hope I get to see both of you!
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I've had to figure out my own schedule pretty much since the beginning because I never had a structured gym. So I'd take what I'd learned or worked on with a trainer (Master K, Kaensak, the guys I sparred with, or my trainers out here) and think about what was the hardest thing in padwork: Blocks? Balance? My left hook? Stepping to the side? Then I use my bagwork to focus on those things. I time my rounds at 4 minutes and do 5 rounds. So I'll use one round to focus on blocking and kicking fluidly. Then I'll work on teep-to-knee combinations. Or I'll work on a 3-4 strike combination. Then I use the last rounds to just flow with all of it together. Or, if I don't feel like I need to work on something specific but I want a good, hard cardio session I'll try to not break between touching the bag - so for the full 4 minutes every strike flows to the next one. Always touching the bag. Or I'll work on pushing the bag between strikes. I always focus on something particular in shadowboxing, which I so for 10 minutes to start and 10 minutes to cool down. Usually I focus on blocks, lately it's been my jab and rhythm with my feet. Yesterday morning I couldn't check kicks in padwork to save my life, so I spent all 5 rounds doing kick and block drills. I was wrecked from it, but this morning I was checking kicks like it was my job! I keep all my conditioning for the end of training because it makes me tired, so I don't want to do pullups and then have to clinch with those damn kids who will tear me apart.
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I know this song, hahaha. There's this AMAZING video I see on TV sometimes where the singer arrives at the festival and this super sexy chick asks him to sign her breast. He gets a nosebleed as he does so. The song is so great but I don't know the lyrics, the singer, or the name :(
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Baowee is awesome. He's all about love ballads and he often sings them atop airplanes because he used to be in the Airforce. Someone realized he kicked ass at Karaoke night and he got a record deal. Seriously. This one is about the lonely moth being in love with the flame. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gP0ptTgyHkY And this one is about asking the moon to tell this chick he loves her.
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And Siripon's voice is my favorite. Thai videos do these mini-movies and scenarios all the time, so you have to wait a bit (or skip ahead 1:50) for the song. But these trucks that drive around with a loud speaker, telling you how much their stuff costs, and the good girl who is overshadowed by the sexy girl... SO Thailand: And this song is probably her most famous. But when you hear me talk about "Festival Fights" and the stage of dancers that's always near the boxing ring - this is what it's like. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fApgxP3dLuU
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Thai music may be an acquired taste, I don't know. But I've really come to love some artists and genres. It ranges for me between morlam, which is basically Thai Country music from Isaan (Siripon further below is a prime example), to pop music and rock ballads most of which aren't favorite genres for me in the west. You can add your own too, if you have some too, but just Thai music please. This guy is my favorite, Maleehuana:
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