Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu

Here's a rough film study we did on the "Golden Kick" Keep in mind though that there is not ONE "Thai Kick." There are lots of variations and technique might not be "wrong." Honestly, if your kick is powerful and fast then you have a good kick. If it comes out readily in the rhythm of your other movements, it's a good kick.

The current situation (who knows how soon it will change) is that overstays are still being fined as overstays, but you won't be punished by deportation or being barred from re-entering the country, as are the penalties for overstay in normal circumstances. The fine, as far as I know, is the same amount as it always is, 500 Baht per day of overstay. So, get to your Immigration Office before your visa runs out and go over what your options are for extensions.

A reader asks a good question: "I had a random question for you/Sylvie to regarding roundhouse kicks, if you don't mind? I know there are variations and I've read your thoughts on the golden kick. My question was more related to some confusion on my part when I see trainers/fighters teaching that a roundhouse kick should involve turning over of the hip to strike through your opponent. That's all fine and how I've always practised/taught a roundhouse kick. The confusion part is when I then see those same fighters doing 20-30 continuous kicks on pads, at which point their kicks have very little hip rotation and become almost a slightly angled in straight up kick. Is this bad technique on their part. Or is it a deliberately modified kick so they are able to throw fast repetitive kicks?" I'll be jumping in here later to answer this

I don't think this is correct. The self isn't "located" in the body, but Thai language and concepts put a lot of emphasis on the heart for qualities of a person. If they're good qualities, they generally have the word for "heart" as the prefix. If they are current states of emotion they have "heart" as the suffix. Bad characteristics and emotions also use this, but additionally a poor quality or characteristic can put "shit" as the prefix, interestingly. What you read before might be Kevin's comments on how Thais emphasize the center of the body as a higher point of focus for scoring in Muay Thai, whereas in the west we like to head-hunt. In English we use the head for language the same way Thai uses the heart, for example "hot headed" or "cool headed" in English is directly "hot heart" or "cool heart" in Thai, which is the locative difference you've picked up on in your question. But I think it's important to make clear that the "Self" in Thai concepts, since it largely is a Buddhistic culture, isn't located anywhere. And is ultimately an illusion that causes pain, suffering and should be escaped.

Anything you can hang from for pullups is awesome. Situps, planks, pushups, squats, burpees... all body weight exercises are awesome.

Almost everything is shutting down in Thailand as well, depending on location as each province can make their own rules. But tomorrow the PM will be announcing the articles of a State of Emergency that will start on March 26 and extend at minimum to April 26th. I'm pretty anxious awaiting the details, honestly. Gyms are closed, restaurants are take-out only, only groceries and "essential businesses" are open.

I've filled this out, hope it's helpful.

Thailand has varying responses. Some promotions are continuing and airing live on TV, but they don't allow spectators in to watch. There's a limit of 100 people (in some of these cases) including cameramen, cornermen, doctors, etc. Some places have stopped promoting completely and made big public displays of deep-cleaning and disinfecting the venues. Some places are carrying on as usual, no changes, other than seeing more people wearing masks. There are a few gyms that have stopped taking new clients (those who are already there and paid are continuing), some are closing entirely (this is highly unusual), and some that have international clients are requiring "health certificates" before accepting new students. It's a huge problem in terms of affecting the livelihood of countless people in Thailand though. From fighters to promoters, gym owners, professional gamblers, etc. People have to eat. There's a lot of criticism of implementing these cancellations without also offering help to those who it affects the most.

PhuketKing Muay Thai Gym is good. Kru Pot is awesome.

It's pretty unusual to be only taking private sessions, unless that's what you signed up for. That's definitely not a normal gym program. But most importantly is that you FEEL this is a scam, which I'd advise you to check out other gyms because of that. Even if you don't end up changing, you'll have some other experience to compare. It might be hard to get a fight right now, tons of shows are being cancelled or limited for health precautions. So even if you are in a legitimate training situation, getting a fight might prove difficult. Being happy with your training is important in either case though. Maybe try 1 or 2 sessions somehwere else.

I wrote about my experience cutting water weight here. Every body is different, so I don't know how easily you'll hold or lose water weight using the water loading, and I only cut a couple kilos ever. Cutting out salt is one method, but you have to also balance with potassium. Speaking with a nutritionist about that, if you're able to do so, could be helpful. But the kind of cut you're talking about isn't out of reach and is something that your coach or fighter friends should be able to help you with. You want to diet down a little, not a huge amount, and then just use a water cut for the last few pounds. And don't stay dehydrated for very long at all, so you can rehydrate fully.

I've been concussed once. If I could know then what I know now, I would have gone HARD keto to recover from that. Carbs and sugar aren't good for the brain, aren't good for inflammation, and fats and ketones are very good for the brain during that time of recovery. Once you're sensitive to concussions though, there's nothing you can really do. You just have to make the call for yourself. If you're worried about it, you'll keep being worried about it and should devise a plan for whatever degree you're comfortable engaging in that kind of activity. You can't really "Google" your way to a resolution, it's a very personal choice and experience of what affects you or doesn't.

I only know of the Sitjemam Muay Thai gym in Chiang Rai, but it's run by and mostly occupied by westerners (Italians). So, nto sure how that feels to you.

Howdy, In the West folks tend to do some padwork, maybe a total of 3 explosive and then relaxed sets. Not too much. In Thailand we don't do that at all, we just get the oil massage (with the Thai linament, it warms you up) and some light shadowboxing and maybe some stretching. I've seen studies that say that a kind of explosive, out-of-breath for a minute warmup about 10 minutes before a race (running) shows improved times for runners. So I kind of go hard in my shadow the fight before mine, then relax. I've never trained combos or anything before a fight. But I do visualize for myself, which is something you could maybe guide your fighters through or at least tell them to do for 5 minutes.

Pacquiao has been hit in the face a million times. Conversely, he was KOd by a body punch ONCE and completely revamped his abdominal training in order to avoid that ever happening again. Body strikes suck. I totally get the Thai focus on balance. Once I became aware of it, this awareness made it very hard for me to watch a lot of western fighting, across all disciplines. Fighters are terribly off-balance during, before and after strikes. Imagine a gymnast landing on her ass or a diver belly-flopping into the water. That's what it looks like. Our eyes aren't looking for it, so a lot of western fans don't see it. But once you see it, you can never "un-see" it. It's pretty bad.

I get asked quite a lot about how I've gone about learning the Thai language. For me, it's not a direct answer to a more or less direct question, because how one learns a language when you actually live in the culture is entirely different than how I learned German, for example, which was sitting at a desk in school, in America, for 5 years. So, the short answer is: I moved to Thailand and it was important to me to learn the language, so I've been learning it all along. The long answer is: tutors, books, websites, magazines and newspapers, being forced to communicate with trainers, strangers, government officials, and promoters, and having friendships with Thai people. None of these things are singularly responsible for my ability to speak, read and write Thai; and none of them would have made it possible without all the others. Thai is a tonal language. What that means is that the inflection of a word doesn't express your emotional connotation, instead it is required for the meaning of the word itself. For example, if we say "what?" with a clipped tone, we might be ready to fight. If we say, "whaaat?" with a rising tone we might sound like we're in disbelief. But the meaning of the actual word stays the same. In Thai, the change in tone would change the meaning of the word. So, for example "ma" with a flat tone means "come," whereas "ma" with a rising (like asking a question) tone means "dog," and "ma" with a high tone (like an incredulous "huh?") means "horse." How easy it is to mix those up in speech, and yet they're all spelled differently. For a long time, as folks coming from non-tonal languages, we can't even hear the difference between these words. All this is to say, I think it's important to have a teacher at some point in your process of learning Thai. Not only are tones important for people to understand you, but it teaches you how to hear as well, so that you can understand other people. My first teacher was Kru May, who was a generous young teacher at a school that was on the same street as Lanna Gym in Chiang Mai. It was my first trip to Thailand and I wanted to learn some Thai, so I'd contacted a teacher via an advertisement on a light pole. That didn't work out so well and I was lost. I wandered into this school and the office-director, when she realized what I was looking for, was so kind that she just sat me down and had Kru May teach me Thai every few days... for free. It was an incredible sign of Thai generosity. She even invited me to her home to have dinner, this odd little farang who wandered in, but that never came about. I'm really grateful to Kru May and Khun Luang (the woman who took me in). When I got back to New York, I found an online tutor and continued learning that way. This was my teacher, Titcha Kedsri, who may or may not still be offering lessons. Once I moved to Thailand, I met in person with a tutor named Simon, maybe for 6 months or so. For those who want to wade in with their own materials, there are a few sources that are really valuable and free: Women Learn Thai is an online source that really has a lot to go through. If you're a man, don't be confused by the name, it's in no way female specific and often still uses male pronouns and polite particles. Another great resource is video lessons by Mod and Pear, so you can really work on pronunciation and hearing those tones, "Learn Thai with Mod" is great for rudimentary and basic Thai phrases and vocabulary. A book that I used in order to be able to start reading is this Thai: An Essential Grammar by Smyth. Learning a language with proper structure, grammar, spelling, rules, etc. is dizzying for me. It's a good reference and it's the reason I know that the class of a consonant, coupled with it being "live" or "dead," and the length of the vowel, plus or minus a tone mark, all changes how a word is pronounced. I know those things in my head, but over time I just read and now how to pronounce something because I'm learning the language via exposure and immersion all the time. That's really important. I don't know all the rules of English the way I know those rules in Thai, but you know what sounds correct or not. You need both. Finally, and most importantly, I think: it was really important to me to learn Thai. As soon as I could sound out basic words, I was struggling to read through the Muay Siam magazine that gave short reports of female fight results. I tried to order my food in Thai, even when I was painfully shy about it. Moving from Chiang Mai to Pattaya significantly improved my Thai, because I was forced to speak Thai more in Pattaya (there's much less English here than in Chiang Mai). I started chatting with Kru Nu in the mornings. I had to start booking my own fights, so I was texting with promoters - man, I'm sure I made some serious errors along the way. My messages were super short and basic. Now they're long and conversational. And occasionally I still don't understand things, but I have lots of practice in how to figure them out. Because it's an ongoing process.

Off-topic, but my mom also says "drat." I am very, very happy to see you using it here. Sometimes the audio will simply be cut due to the music, but I don't know as much about it as Kevin does.

Legit in what way? It's a structured course, so it's not what you'd generally find in Thailand, but it's not a Thai gym so it's not uncommon to be this way. A lot of gyms in the west use ranking systems and have curriculum that you need to advance through with some kind of grading system. Traditional, authentic Muay Thai? No. A very typical training regime outside of Thailand that will teach you technique... probably. But I agree with Kevin, just go check out a class or two and see if you like it.

I also recommend looking into North Jersey Muay Thai. They've been around for a long time now and have always carried a good reputation. I obviously don't have first-hand experience that's contemporary, but you should be able to know for yourself pretty quickly by just visiting a few classes and seeing how you like it.

Thanks for your detailed reviews, these are so helpful to people who are trying to figure out where to go!

I've updated the original post to include new photos and to replace any photos lost in the hack of the site, check it out: https://8limbsus.com/muay-thai-thailand/stitches-cuts-stitches-thailand-cuts-care-healing-training-fighting-scars