Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu

Sounds like you're on your way to being a counter striker.

Yeah, like Master K's robot arm, where you just swing the whole body around and the fist torpedos! He'd lightly nudge me with his knuckles when he demonstrated and even that made me want to cry... so powerful. The push-down on the Wall of China is with the hand, very fast, hips in first to create pressure, then relaxed at that moment - followed by an immediate knee. It is very effective. There are other counters but I'm trying to minimize my options so that I don't get caught thinking so much.

I need to be more aggressive, too. I don't know you, but I'll tell you that 99% of the time the reason you "let go" or stop or don't keep on the attack in a fight is because you practice that in training. In clinch training you get dominant position, throw a couple knees and then let go, because you're just training and there's no need to KO someone. But you have to train not letting go, not jumping back out, etc. I do this. I land a knee and jump out for no f****ing reason at all, other than that I do it to "reset" in training. So now I stay on someone in training - not hurting them, but I have to learn how to be aggressive, keep going, smell the blood, etc. You don't KO your training partners, you keep it light, but you keep the energy high.

In training a shin-to-shin clash hurts way more than in a fight. In a fight your adrenaline is going and you don't feel anything. I can win any shin clash any fight, but if I barely graze the edge of the bed it's like torture, haha. But you do need to condition your shins. It doesn't require anything other than just kicking on the bags and pads without shin guards and allowing the conditioning to build up - no special "tricks" required, nor do they work, though simple heat massage like this does help with recovery, especially in the beginning. You can change money at banks or kiosks while you're here, or use the ATM's to withdraw cash as you go. (That's what I do.) I've never used a currency other than Baht in Thailand. You can exchange at the airport when you arrive in order to have money for a taxi or whatever. How to avoid losing face is like asking "how do I avoid offending/embarrassing somebody?" You never know what might offend someone, but there are really broad ways to avoid it because politeness and manners are fairly universal. Be polite in your own culture and generally that's polite anywhere. There are some areas that don't overlap so well - for example, Thais don't really show any emotion to an extreme. Put a smile on every single emotion and you've got Thais. It's rude to correct someone of higher status than yourself, which is something my culture doesn't adhere to anymore, so I have to keep track of it for myself. You can disagree or correct false information, just do it really gently. For example: if my trainer says I'm fighting on Wednesday and I know the day is actually Friday, I don't say, "no, it's Friday," but rather, "I think maybe it's Friday." That's a tiny example and one that, if you forgot, wouldn't be a huge loss of face. A huge loss of face is like when I yell at my husband in public at the gym. That's not good at all.

I've written before about the troubles I've had with a kind of Style (the post takes a while to load, lots of GIFs), and being forced into a style that wasn't "me", or at least that I had a really hard time bringing forward. I just wasn't an evasive, tricky, or dodge-y person. It wasn't until I discovered that there was a different style, a forward, space-eating style that I was set more free. I remember the beginning of realizing this was something that Andy Thomson said: "There is not one Muay Thai, there are 1,000s. Each person has their own Muay Thai." The yesterday I wrote about the Things I'm Working On and a lot of them have to do with my style, and how to best bring it out. These things involve body punches, overhands, clinching hips in, taking space, not rushing. I wanted to post here because a lot of us feel like we want to measure up to "a" Muay Thai. We want to do it "right". There definitely are right and wrong ways to do things, but there is not the one way to do a particular thing. You don't need to be a fighter to think about style. What is your style, and what are you doing to pursue it?

Isn't that why they'd be an energy boost? Both those components are fuel.

Also, so helpful to live at your gym! When I'm leaving O. Meekhun at 8:00 PM after training and Sangwean is yapping at me that he wants me to be going to sleep at 9:30 PM every night, I just look at how the kids can shower, eat dinner and have a good hour to wind down before that bedtime. I'm coming home from buying ingredients to make dinner at that hour, not even having eaten yet! People who work and commute and have to get to their gym... so much time eaten up.

I don't personally know anybody who has trained there, but they do have some very good fighters. It's hard to know whether that's because they have the finances to purchase talent or whether it's from their own training because their top-name fighters are at an age where they probably didn't start at that gym. Great clinchers though! Not having housing available at the gym isn't unusual. Just make sure you can find something within a reasonable distance so you're not having trouble making it to training every day. And I recommend this for any gym: do not pay in advance. Pay for a couple days or a week, then decide after that if you want to stay for a long time and you can pay for a longer stay then.

It's interesting to read through this thread, as the initial post/analysis is about how Rousey is the "most talked about" female athlete. And certainly being controversial is what gets people talking because you have both sides. That's not to say that she's controversial in order to be talked about, just that her controversy has probably had a big part in why those graphs look the way they do. For Serena Williams, her body is mostly what people talk about - at least from outside of Tennis, which is where I sit. And I've written about Rousey before, many times, and when she was first using her loud mouth to talk her way into fights, I thought that was great. Because the "polite" female fighter wasn't getting anywhere. That doesn't mean it's wrong to be who you are if that's quiet and unassuming, like Jojo Calderwood, for example. But people fell in love with Jojo via the very few talking-head moments she had on TUF 20, where it was precisely her little voice and soft-spokenness that men got so worked up about (in a good way). I happen to be a big Jojo fan, from her Invicta fights, but not so much impressed by her UFC work so far. And for a lot of people, Rousey appeared out of nowhere when she stepped into the Octagon with Liz Carmouche... and they promptly forgot Carmouche after that. It's interesting about the rebranding of this Polish fighter who has taken over the Straw-weight division. When TUF 20 was still only previews and teasers it was already evident that the entire Straw-weight division was being branded as "hot," with close-up shots of painted nails in UFC gloves, glossed lips, eyeshadow, high heeled silhouettes. If that's who you are, do it - I like how unapologetic about her sexuality Felice Herrig is - but having to step into that image for promotion or branding is disappointing. And even watching these complete lizard-brain dudes have to talk trash for those pre-fight interviews is laughable, so it's clearly something that's egged on by the UFC media management. I think it's harder for women to ride this line because anything that's said from one woman criticizing another is basically what is said about women fighters generally. So it kind of always sucks, whereas men can just blah blah all damn day and who cares.

We all are co-creating this forum and it's pretty exciting. This isn't a big thing, but we're trying to keep Topic Titles informative. We've edited a few one or two word titles to help readers know more what a topic is about without clicking on it. If you've found that you're topic title has been edited, feel free to jump in and re-edit it to something you like, but along the same lines of giving insight to others. We want to make the forum accessible to as many new readers and informative titles do help. If you aren't sure what to title a your post, write the post and then you can go to the title or re-title. Good titles allow visitors and guests to browse the Roundtable easily.

No, I wasn't referring to your tone at all; sorry that wasn't clear. I read your expression as self-awareness of how your body is changing, which is the self-awareness of change that I was noting is lacking in how these coaches address the "I learned the hard way, now you do it this way," method of advising their students. I've had a female coach who I came to seriously disagree with - she in fact told me to quit Muay Thai for several months because I was going too hard in her opinion - and I've read the blog of another retired female fighter who is a trainer and coach now, who takes positions I would not support. I've also though gone back and forth in a friendly way with Caley on this too, as she has done Muay Thai for over 10 years now and so her methods may be very different from someone who is at the beginning of their path, regardless of age. And, of course, we're all different in our needs and methods anyway. But because someone like Caley's already put in all these years of training, she can do a kind of maintenance workout with cross-training and feel really good when she gets into the ring. For me, pounding out repetitions on a bag while I'm fatigued is how I get there. That kind of workout is a nightmare for some - it's "busy work," but I'm still getting my hours in to be able to kick that same kick when I'm under pressure. We're at different stages... and we're different people, but I see it as how a kid pointing at the page and sounding out every word as she reads isn't the "wrong process" when an experienced reader can "speed read," so to speak.

I find this really interesting because it's something I've felt off of retired fighters turned trainers. I'll specify that it's women I'm referring to, but I'm sure we don't have the "Lion's Share" of this quality and men must do it too. Anyway, I've seen these coaches who take an authoritative tone about how "I trained like this and it was stupid, then I changed to this other thing and it's a shortcut or 'hack' and that's what all fighters training under me should do." My problem with this approach is two fold, the first being that one regime doesn't fit all - but hey, coaches design programs, so I get it; but the second is that a lot of what these coaches say they went through and then later "discovered" was bad probably changed because they just got older. I'm feeling myself getting older already, but I recognize that someone who is 20 can probably do what is harder for me now without hurting herself. Like, these coaches are saying training "x" number of days is better than "y" number of days because you get the same results with less time or impact on the body. But that might not be true at all ages and levels. My mom doesn't need as much sleep as I do, or as much as she did when she was 15. That doesn't mean she's realized that sleeping 10 hours is more than anyone needs, it means that now, where she's at in life, 10 is more than she needs. It doesn't means she was wrong when she was 15 or 25, or 40. Things change. And I think that goes for how we train, what we're capable of and motivated to do.

I don't see why you wouldn't be able to get more fights in the long run. As an amateur, your record isn't going to be putting you in positions or keeping you from positions in a strong way. I highly recommend you start getting some mental training program going for yourself. You can download podcasts, mp3's, and find online resources for free. There are inexpensive books on Amazon and Kindle, and if you can afford it going to actually meet with a Sports Psychologist would be grand. I did an interview with Sports Psychologist, Dr. John Gassaway here, he recommends some resources which might be a jumping off point for you.

I'm sorry you're feeling down on yourself, Freddy. But I don't think there's anything wrong with you, but definitely wrong with your thinking. You can push and push in training, be so tough and strong and do all the work, but if you doubt yourself or don't believe in yourself it's like doing all that work with the "emergency brake" (die Notbremse) on in the car. You can put the pedal to the floor and you'll barely move. But the thing is that you've had that confidence before - you've been there - so you have a blueprint of what that feels like and how to get back there. It's very difficult when you don't have trust with your coach but you just have to realize and accept that it's harder on your own, but not impossible. It took me a really long time to figure out what exactly makes me feel confident. I had no control over it; I just had good days and bad days but had no understanding of what caused it to go one way or the other. And I still don't fully have a grasp of it, but I can fake it on days I don't feel it. That sounds like you're just "acting" and it's not real confidence, but here's the thing: confidence isn't a feeling, it's a behavior. And you don't always have to feel confident to act confident. How would you respond when you were confident, with your old coach? If you were tired and not turning on your kicks, how would a confident Freddy respond to that? Then do that. For me, I laugh when I'm confident. So when I'm not feeling it and when I feel like I'm totally crap at training, I try to laugh at myself - actually out loud. Sometimes I can't even crack a smile, even though I know it will help, but when I can act the way I would act if I were confident, I can feel it creep back. I try to take myself out of it because I can be so hard on myself, it just becomes a downward spiral if I use my own self as the target, saying things in my head like, "why aren't you ____?" Whatever. So instead I think: a confident person wouldn't let that mistake change her mood. A confident person would acknowledge it and move on. A confident person would make a joke about it. A confident person wouldn't let the coach's micro-criticisms affect her flow. Not, "I shouldn't let the coach's criticisms get me down," but "a confident person would take a note of the criticisms and then go in to fight." Because you can fight whether you turn on your damn punches or not.

As these threads continue on, there will be times when we can't read everything. However, for the sake of the quality of our discussions here, let's try to keep everything respectful to one other. Openly stating "I'm not going to read your thoughts," is not respectful. And I understand your frustration. But we're not trying to win arguments here - this place is for discussion, conversation, sharing of ideas, helping one another, etc. We won't always agree, but we do need to consider one another. I agree with you that "self awareness" is the key point to all of it. I'm not - nor do I think anyone is - claiming that physical pain, injuries, fatigue and mental strain are imaginary, or that the people experiencing the symptoms associated with Overtraining are making it up. My argument has always been that you are the expert on you, not some formula you can google for how many hours per week you can push. A guy at my gym who is new to Muay Thai absolutely loves it. He's 60 years old and fit. He's just eating up all the technique and training with a lot of enthusiasm. He asked me three times now if I think he should rest. I asked if he felt the need to rest, to which he said he'd rather train. So I advised him to train. He was clearly concerned about this potential for over-doing it without feeling that he was getting close to it. I put it this way to him, "it's like asking me, 'should I eat?'... Well, if you're hungry, eat; if you're not, don't eat." Can hunger be incorrect? Can you emotionally "feel" hungry without actually "being" hungry in terms of your body's needs? Do you sometimes have to eat when you're not hungry in order to keep your engine running? Of course. I believe training is like this. 90% of the time how you feel is a good indication of what you need, but there are times when your emotions and mental states don't necessarily match what your body is capable of - and that goes in both directions. All this discussion about overtraining is about a tiny portion of that 10% of the time that how you feel can be an incomplete picture for what you're actually capable of. And what you're trying to do or trying to be out of how you push yourself is entirely up to you.

Ask yourself two questions: 1) did you fall in love with Muay Thai because you could eventually write some numbers down on a piece of paper and have the left column outnumber the right column? 2) if your friend, who loves Muay Thai, fights with heart and trains as hard and with as much dedication as you do was considering quitting because of his record, would you advise him to do it? (Note: if the answer is "yes," you're a shitty friend.) I've bee through some really rough losing streaks. I lost 6 in a row in the US, which was over a year of losing every single fight I went into. I always came out thinking I could have done more, I never was injured, and I always thought I'd let everyone down. It feels like shit. But I kept fighting anyway because I love to fight and every single thing I do in the gym is toward the aim and joy of fighting. I never throw a kick and think "I ought to turn my leg over better because that's how I win." I change the kick because that's how it's done right, because that's what feels good. I wrote about that year-long losing streak in a blog post, "I'm a Loser Baby." And I've had losing streaks again since then. Above is a graphic of another 6 fight losing streak here in Thailand in 2013 - same number of losses, same disappointment, but because of my fight rate in only took me a month and a half to rack up those 6. It feels less bad now, but I reckon that's because of two things: 1) I have more practice at losing now; I've lost so many times (34 times, as of right now) that I know how to handle it. Muhammad Ali famously put it this way, "I never thought of losing, but now that it's happened, the only thing is to do it right. That's my obligation to all the people who believe in me. We all have to take defeats in life." And 2) I realized that nobody cares as much as I do whether I win or lose. My victories don't define me and neither do my losses. What defines me to me, to the people who train me, to people who pay any mind to my blog and my path out here, is that I keep going. You can lose without being defeated, you know what I mean? It's a pity to think that all the love you put into what you do, all the pain and fatigue and hours, is reduced down to a record that means fuck all about you. I talked about how I feel about records in this video: And Emma wrote a great blog post "Does your Record Really Matter?" Pi Nu, my trainer at Petchrungruang, points out some of the champions at the gym and tells me, "he lost for one year, cry every day." Or, "Before, nobody want him, gamblers hate him." He's talking about champions, fighters who I see every afternoon at training and can watch on TV, read about in the fight magazines, etc. You wouldn't know it now because they grew out of these hard times - sure, they still lose sometimes, but they just kept going through those very long losing streaks. And I reckon it made them stronger. If they'd quit because they were losing, then that's all there would be. What a damn shame. And I'll tell you something that nobody's going to tell you: you won't feel satisfied after winning, either. You can always do better, always do more, always have put more in. There's no, "well, that was perfect because I did everything right." Winning just feels better, so you can gloss over the mistakes more easily. You win and nobody has anything to say other than "great job" or "congratulations," or "badass." Wins make you look better than you are and losses make you look worse than you are - none of it is a full picture; none of it is an assessment of who you are or what you're worth. But you do have to get your mind right. You do have to believe in yourself, and at the times that you don't (and there are always going to be those times; I have those times) you have to trust the people who believe in you for you. If you go on Wikipedia and look up Dekkers or Buakaw... those dudes lost a lot. It doesn't matter. It just gets pushed to the side so the work can get done. You're not a bad fighter, you're a work in progress. And that goes for all of us, really.

Yes! I read this on Jezebel yesterday and wanted to share it here, so thanks for doing so! I like very much how she feeds off of the anger she feels toward her competition's advantages - the sponsored matching tea kettle and warmer, for example - and obviously minds being booed, but is pushed by it rather than defeated by it. I've never had that "doubt me, then watch me," kind of motivation - it just doesn't turn anything in me - but I love reading about that kind of drive in others. I don't really care what drives people, actually, just that something does. It's inspiring. And I think she's changing the game for all women, coming from a sport that most of us don't even recognize as an Olympic event and being the greatest an an invisible peak and then doing the same in yet another sport that didn't want us and becoming the biggest name in it. I look forward to reading this book.

I used to kick elbows more than I do now and, like Micc says, I think that's about control. Both you controlling your kick but also your opponent controlling their elbows! We all have reflexes though, so you can't rely on the other person having control all the time. If you're kicking the body, the more "upward" your kick goes (I call this the "farang kick") the more likely you're going to hit an elbow. If you kick "over" more, you'll nail the body under the elbow rather than kicking into it. The teep Kevin mentions is one that a fighter named Paowarit (fight name Kae Sasiprapa) taught me. You teep with your toes right under the belly button. You don't use a great deal of power, but man... it hurts! It's like being stabbed more than being knocked back. Taking care when you teep someone is also a way to protect yourself. Defensive teeps are less likely to result in the flinch-response that people who drop their hands/elbows have with offensive teeps. So, wait until they're on one leg from a knee or kick and teep as a counter, rather than as a way to offensively come forward yourself. And lastly, either request that your coach teach everyone drills on teep defense, so that your group of potential partners can learn how to appropriately sweep teeps without hurting each other, or at the very least work on this in a very controlled way with your partner before getting into sparring. Sorry about your foot :pinch: You can, of course, rest the injury while still working on other things. You don't have to stay out of the gym entirely.

I'm way into this mashing down the lumps thing. It's funny about your friend's kid's stitches. I've noticed some doctors out here will give women far more stitches than men in order to have a more aesthetically minimal scar. But as my forehead has become more riddled with scars, they don't bother as much. I got three stitches on what would surely have been 7-9 before.

You just put the seeds all soaked up in your mouth, like a gruel? Or you blend it with something?

Okay, here's a question. When I lived in Berlin, I couldn't find oatmeal anywhere other than this tiny "health food" or even "diabetic" section of the store. When I put it in the cabinet in the kitchen, my German roommate asked me, "what is this, horse food?" Yes, he was being cheeky, but he also had no idea how to eat it. And there was really only one brand of rolled oats, no Irish steel-cut or anything... are you the only person eating oatmeal in Germany?

It's interesting about the leggings. In the US they have a few names but are basically all the same: running tights, yoga pants, leggings, etc. The general response from men regarding them is that they're tight and therefore sexy, so even though you're literally covering more with cloth, the tightness might be the factor that your gym is looking at. It's unfortunate though because YOU feel more comfortable and less exposed in them :(

Howdy. Arjan Pi Bangkrating is on a cycle between his office in Chiang Mai, Rangsit (Bangkok), and Taiwan. So it's best to go to his FB page and check his schedule and if that's hard to find just private message him. You don't have to book an appointment so much as let him know what day you're coming, or ask him, or whatever. His English is very limited in person, but he has assistants and Google translate and whatever else that makes messaging in English possible. But do be prepared for your face-to-face interaction to not have a lot of English exchange. My friend Robyn was tattooed by Arjan Neng On Nut in Bangkok because Arjan Pi was away. He's a very well established Arjan with over 10 years experience and a large following. His process is a bit different from Arjan Pi's but only in the details, and their work looks different to my eye because - well, of course it would, they're different artists. All Sak Yant are the same at a glance and all are highly unique in the details, literally what kata are inscribed, etc. Both Arjan Pi and Arjan Neng allow you to choose your own Yant. Arjan Pi has two binder's full of Sak Yant (combined they do not come close to exhausting the wide range of Yant options though) - you don't have to choose from the book though. You can show him a photo of any of his work as well (look on Facebook), and it should acceptable. If it's very large or in a position that is uncommon he may question you, or advise a change. Arjan Neng has a big book of photos of his own work, like the tattoo portfolios you'd see in the west. Arjan Neng uses a stamp to get the outline and then freehands the spells; Arjan Pi uses a stencil for some parts and freehands a lot. I have heard that some Arjan choose your Yant for you, but I think this is far less common. If you go to a monk, however, it might be more likely that he chooses the Yant for you. (Arjans are unordained and practice out of their own homes; Monks look like monks, won't tattoo women and tattoo out of the monastery, generally). Aftercare is similar to a gun tattoo. You won't be sent home with plastic wrap taped over it, but keeping it clean and occasionally putting Vaseline or A&D to keep it moisturized is good. It heals much faster than a gun tattoo - I went back to training after a day with all of mine - and it doesn't "scab" or flake like gun tattoos. It will itch though, after a few days and for a few days. Given your handle, I don't think this is an issue, but as a general rule just be very polite when you interact with whomever you end up receiving your Yant from. Be polite according your own culture and that generally carries over across the language and cultural differences.

I completely agree and am on board with moderating in order to keep slut shaming in check. But I do also firmly support that it is not a "free for all" in how we dress ourselves or conduct ourselves in cultures that are not our own. I believe in individual choice, but not without being well-informed about and also responsible to the consequences and ramifications of those choices. I highly recommend this article by Callie Beusman on the decisive difference between the use of the term "slut-shaming" to create critical conversation about female sexuality in the public sphere, and the use of the term to essentially shut down conversation or engaging with critical thinking entirely. I want this forum to avoid the latter. The critical difference in the discussion over how women dress in gyms or dating within the gym is that we acknowledge that modes of dress are sending tacit messages which are coded to sexuality, rather than shaming the sexuality itself. Excerpt from Beusman's article below: "[T]he proliferation of "slut-shaming" has resulted in an inaccurate conflation of "being critical" and "prudishly or maliciously taking issue with female sexuality." Not all criticisms of public displays of sexiness are meant to shame, which is something many people seem to have lost sight of. [...] If these accusations of slut-shaming led to a nuanced discussion of the ways in which we interpret, discuss, view, construct and consume public displays of female sexuality, I would have absolutely no problem with that. But all too often, "slut-shaming" is used to police women... for policing other women, which is just hypocritical. "In the a feminist sphere, telling someone she's slut-shaming has mutated into a method of dismissing her argument without engaging with it on any level, of taking issue with her tone and refusing to hear the content. Of course, the tone of these allegedly "slut-shaming"open letters and essays was often scolding or problematic in some other way, but still. It's unproductive for feminists to tell other feminists that their thoughts/anxieties about a certain kind of representation of women in pop culture have no validity whatsoever. And so not only has "slut-shaming" lost its meaning, it's also become censorious. Rather than helping to facilitate debates about how we view sexuality — as it originally did — it now shuts them down before they can even start." (Read the entire article at Jezebel.)

Gemma, I've edited the quote above just to be more concise for what I'm responding to, but I really love your addition to this discussion. In my blog posts, which are long and I know not everyone reads them, I do state that the symptoms of overtraining are very real. What you describe are things I've also experienced and not being able to sleep when you're dead tired, fatigued, and your brain is fried... it really can make you suffer both mentally and physically. And I'm not trying to come off like people who don't train 100% every second are lazy. I believe that we are experts of our own selves and in knowing our own bodies and minds we can make decisions about when to take a break, when to slow down, when to push harder, etc. The overtraining notion that I recent is as if it's only possible to train this many days, this many hours, this many reps, etc. My response is "how the fuck would you know?" And I totally accept that exact response being directed at me by persons who know when they need a rest or what's too much for them. I don't know. A friend of mine described a machine that's next door to her gym (or at a gym but it's not the Muay Thai part) that is basically like a heart-rate monitor. You hold a metal piece or stick your arm in or whatever, and it reads your "vitals" and then gives you a red, yellow, or green light. Red means no training; yellow means take a light day; and green means go ahead and have a hard day. I call bullshit on the whole thing. It's the pseudo-science of a gadget telling you what you can do; or an internet page or article. Your nutritionist and trainers, that's different because you're working together. And I connect to your point that being overworked sometimes doesn't necessarily mean overtraining. I just was talking about this to my husband over dinner. I do believe there's a translation issue in defining "overtraining," in that it can't be defined singularly. So the definition that some people hold may not be the definition I'm taking to task. What I am most staunchly critical of, however, is the definition of overtraining as being a permanent limit.