Micc

Yeah I've read the article, I was happy for her. I think in the case of foreign fighters, or like it's the case here, champions, some of the bad things get "lost in translation" and a strong personality always shines through, regardless of the language. She's not exactly "shit talking" other fighters, but well..she could have said it differently, imo. And I think I get the "pretty boy" comment :)

Gavin, "off" days happen. Just as Michelle says, the enforcing of a new habit puts stress on you, and this can result in binge eating. I have these moments, too. I actually have them A LOT. But I decided I will not give up. I will stand up as many times as I have to. Of course I know it's best NOT to fall, but if I can't deal with it and turn to my bad eating habits for a few days, I just need to get back on track. You fall down, you get up, start again. The work you've already put into it is still there, one "off" day won't do much harm. One month for sure, but not one day ;) So as long as you get up quickly, it's alright. It takes 60 days to create a new habit :) So just bear with it. You're on the right track!!

I also want to read the book, it's interesting to know how a life shapes a human being, especially one of her calliber. But...I don't earn my wages in dollars, so 15$ for a book is hmmm....like 60$ would feel for you perhaps ;) So not exactly my top priority spending this much on a book (even if it's great and I want to read it). Gotta put it on a waiting list :) Michelle, I'm glad I could put it into words that you agree with it :) I had a bit of a writer's creativity day today :D Joanna Jędrzejczyk has also a cocky attitude, she has shown it during the face-offs with Carla Esparza, and she was this cocky also on the local Polish ground, beating all the best females - she's borderline disrespectful in talking about her past opponents though ;) She's not fluent enough to bring it into English words YET, but I've watched a few videos of her and she was not talking the best about the Polish girls she fought. She's really humble on the international scene, but borderline boastful on the local Polish fight scene ;) And I say "borderline" because maybe it's all just my interpretation, maybe someone elso wouldn't think that..but for me it's shaky ground :) But I love it that a Polish girl is out there in the world, kicking ass and being awsome. Coz she is awsome! :)

Oh yeah, technically that's true. The thing is, I've never fought without shinpads...when I forget myself and block someones low-kick with my shin (without pad) during some light drill, it hurts so much! I have never conditioned my shins, because I never thought I would fight without shinpads. This will probably be a problem during fighting in Thailand, right?

Kevin, Ronda being the sole women MMA champion for years could have made her "harsh", but I think this is her personality. She despises the weak, she seems to have no understanding for people who can't do something. I'm in a place where I'm slightly fascinated by her and don't accept her way of doing things. So I might like some of her quotes "So they say I fight like a girl. Good." - but I also think she lacks a deeper quality when it comes to speaking about gender-related issues. I love the way Sylvie approches them, just to give you a picture. I, as a woman, want to be empowered by the words of a successful female athlete in martial arts, not feeling bad. It's interesting though, now that the strawweight division has gained a new strong champion - Joanna Jędrzejczyk. She seems to have a similar background as Ronda, but in Muay Thai, being a multiple world champion (of course it's not easy to compare it to the Olympics) and building around it to become a well-rounded mix-martial-artist, but still having her strong Muay Thai and bringing it to good use. Even though she's "my homie" as she's also from Poland, I got interested in her only shortly before she got the title fight at UFC. As she's standing right before her first UFC title defense, this is the moment she will prove herself to be the "Ronda Rousey" of the strawweight division. I think she has what it takes to stay at the top for a long time. Now, the second aspect we can compare two of these female champions: their personality. I like Joanna far more than Ronda. Even though I don't necesserly agree with all her actions, but she's far more likeable than Ronda... A funny thing: I've been following the fanpage of Joanna from before the title fight, and most of the comments from the fans were like "fight!" "war Asia" (Asia is a cutesy-name for Joanna), "train hard", "what did you do in training", "you'll be the champion", "you are great", "you kick her [Esparza's] ass!". A lot of her pictures were also natural, light or no make-up, from training or her home. She's also been replying to a lot of the posts. Now, after she's gotten the win and gained a lot more international fans, most of the comments are like "you are beautiful", "you're so sexy", "marry me", "your eyes are beautiful", "such a pretty champion". NO WORD about training or the most important thing, fighting. She also started to post more pictures in full make-up, less from trainig. This change is drastically visible to me, as I admired and supported her as a Polish female fighter stepping into the UFC octagon, representing my country. Now, you never see her reply to the comments and even though she presents herself in social media just like the UFC could only dream of a champion to behave, but I feel she starts to lack authencity. I just wanted to point out that there's now a new worldwide-recognizable female champion, who will be interesting to watch.

I tried it today and added chia seeds to my smoothie I take to work (usually milk, strawberries, almond butter). I forgot that chia seeds make food more "condensed", so it was really hard to drink it, because of its consistency. I don't advise it to add into a smoothie, but yesterday I found a cool recipe to make chia seed pudding, I might try it. So today I had a pudding-smoothie because of the chia seeds ;) I'm also no expert in food preperation :D

Thank you Nalyana for the info! I still have over 7 months left, but I start to think about it more intensely as I want to plan it out during the next 2 months and buy flight tickets. I'm sure I will have more questions, I was scared to ask before to not sound silly, but I decided it's better to ask than do silly things later on ;)

1) is it possible to fall into a 2 trainings a day regimen when I never trained like this at home? Should I train like that for a week or so before my trip to get used to it? (Combining it with work might be exhausting an counter-productive though) 2) what currency is most popular beside Thai Baht? Is it possible to pay in some places in other currencies? Would you advise exchanging money at home or after coming to Thailand? i'm dealing with Euros and Polish Zloty. The exchange rate is better from zlotys for me right now, so i'm wondering how to plan out the money issue. 3) I'm not a beginner, but I'm also not near fighting level. Would it be still possible to get some sparring or do the trainers just observe my training and then say I can do this or that? 4) this might be a bigger topic: what could make someone 'lose face'? If you have links to articles, I'll gladly read them, to learn more about this issue

I started using chia seeds recently, but only added it to oat flakes so far, instead of linseeds. So you say, I can put them into my smoothie and blend it all together for an extra boost of energy? :D

Oh gosh! I'm so sorry to hear you have to deal with such a painful injury....This is exactly why I don't spar with beginners, I'm more scared of them then of a veteran, at least they know what they're doing. I'm also scared of hurting my feet while teeping or doing a front kick to the body and I am currently working on this. For me - the key to dealing with the stress is control of the kick. When I see I can land the kick 99% sure, then I will kick it. If I see the opponent is seeing the kick and getting ready to block, I will stop my kick mid-movement. So basically, I decide last moment if I'm going through with it or not. So far it has worked out fine for me, I've landed a few kicks, had to withdraw from a lot more, but control control control is what rescues me. I never had a broken foot, so I can only tell from observance, but a lot of people come back after some rehabilitation. It's important to take care of the healed foot, so you can't jump right into hard training with it, but you need to "teach" the new bone the strenght you want it to have. I don't know if this explanation is understandable, I hope it is! :) I hope your doctor allows you tokeep at least a bit active during the healing process, maybe you can do some light strenght excercises of the upper-body, or stretching? This way you won't have the feeling of wasting your time.

Sounds a bit hipster...but I'm not judging. Apparently there is a need for such a gym if they have members. I thinks it's a great idea, because a lot of gay men have self-confidence issues which can stop them from undertaking activites in "straight" clubs. I think it's a really understanding and supporting enviroment they are building in this gym. Well, there are people who like to train, but don't like to be hit, or punch someone in the face (remember it goes both ways). I wouldn't call this boxing, but boxing-based self-defence-related classes :) But it's too long, so boxing it is. As a side note: a guy at my hairdressers' was gay (well both of them are) and we were talking about martial arts and he's told me a story from the time he was training BJJ. He said it was a lot of fun for him :D Apart from the sports aspect ;) But apparently no-one knew he was gay there. So there are obviously gay guys who train martial arts in "normal" gyms, but I think there's also a group that has other needs when it comes to excercising martial-arts-style.

OR if you're serious about this and your boyfriend has some titles or at least is very good, maybe you can try to find some sponsors? I'm making serious attempts so that the company I'm working for sponsors my trip, at least the flight or accomodation...they already sponsor 2 athletes, but they are big names, not in muay thai, but in other disciplines unfortunately...BUT I'm not giving up hope and working extra hard :D

Hey Gavin, it's great that you're making notes of the techniques, this will definitely help to review the techniques in an off-day!! Props to you for this idea! As for flexibility, you HAVE to warm up thoroughly! :) I like to to do a basic routine that warms up all my joints, then some light cardio to warm up the muscles and only then I start with LIGHT stretches. A good thing is also to stretch after a class. I often stay 20-30 minutes late, sometimes even an hour and stretch all possible liagments and muscles that worked during the class. I like it :)

Cool video, definitely gives honour to her incredible muay thai career. Missmuaythai, you are so lucky to have her as a friend! This doesn't quite sit well with me either...she IS gorgeous, but more then her beauty I see her strenght and incredible incredible will-power. Will-power as in she will make the things she want to achieve into reality. This is what strikes me when I see her videos or hear interviews. I'm simply stunned by her perfection in every aspect!

I'm constantly trying to lose weight, so I tried a lot of different diets. Most of them left me with no strenght to do any training. I even thought I'm exgagerrating my exhaustion and just have to pull through, but now I'm on a balanced diet leaning onto low-carb and I feel great. I eat less calories, but have more power than before. I plan to reduce the carbs, but with my weight I still have a long way to go on this diet, so I can't cut carbs at the beginning. I also supplement my diet with protein shakes and BCAA (the last one works MAGIC for me). From what I know, eating a lot of pasta and carby stuff when you're a vegan is not healthy at all. I have a few vegan friends and when they started out they had always eaten a lot of carby stuff and that lead to them gaining weight. Then they have changed their diet, "learned" the healthy way of vegan eating and they lost weight and are now healthy. They eat a lot of vegetables, but served in so many different ways! As far as I know there are already available cooking books for vegetarians and vegans, with healthy and balanced recieps. There are also a lot of cooking blogs for vegetarians. You could also find some ideas for healthy vegan meals in the Indian cuisine. As for training camp and cutting weight - I have no experience in that area. PS. Just after finishing this post, I've stumbled upon this blog on my facebook: http://www.cookingquinoa.net/recipe-index/and there are at least 5 or 6 more that frequently pop up in my newsfeed :) There's also a Polish BJJ girl who shows her healthy fighter meals, it's in Polish but you can get the general idea from the pictures: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Clean-taste-Zdrowe-od%C5%BCywianie/754989324552962

Hi P.Evi, I was going through the same dillema when I decided I want to go train to Thailand: I want to have a taste of tropic holidays (maybe it's the one and only time I go there, considering the money) and I really want to train Muay Thai, not be distracted by party people. The option that I found and which sounds interesting is Lamai Muay Thai Camp, known as WMC Muay Thai Camp in Koh Samui. I heard only one opinion about this camp and it was a really good one, from a guy who has high expectations when it comes to training and he also went to Phuket. He said at Lamai the atmosphere was nicer and much more focused on helping you learn Muay Thai compared to Tiger Muay Thai, where he didn't really like the group classes. Now I'm starting to consider Master Toddy's in Bangkok, because of Emma's great opinion and because it's a Western- and female-friendly gym. There must be some beaches nearby, too...don't they? :) I'm planning to go in January, so I still have some time to decide, so I will be reading the responses here!

Hi TZ, I think I know what you're talking about. I might have the same issue, I always thought the reason is mental, that I'm too old to learn something new (compared to when I was in high school and learning karate). I'd love to hear advice from more experienced people as well. The only think I managed to work out (and it's progressing really slow) it's concentrating on one thing. Before I go into the ring for sparring, I breathe in, breathe out, visualise what I want to work into my sparring technique and I need to keep it in front of my head throughout the sparring rounds. I think it would help me if someone on the sidelines would remind me of that, but I'm not confident enought to talk about this issue with my trainer or gym guys...

It's cool! I hope he will write more. I still can't belive there are such loving and unselfish husbands out there in the world like him, as well as Sylvie's Kevin!

I'm not having any problems with loading the forum...I have avarage internet connection (10Mb/s) and the forum loads in a tolarable time-frame for me. The blog does load a bit slower than the old version, but it's not very bad. I'm using Chrome and I'm not sure if it really helps, but enabling the one-color background instead of multi-color might help with the speed of the forum. A faster server is always great, but I like the way Sylvie thinks - you never know how long there will be people to donate for the server costs....

First of all, hello :) Second, can you cough and laugh without feeling a sharp pain in the side where you were kicked? If it's otherwise it might be broken and it'd be better to check it at the doctor's. I got small experience with rib kicks, but it helps to cool the place with an ice packet for a while, then I put some cream that will cool it further and work as an anti-inflammatory (I don't know the English name:(). After a few hours I put some cream with arnica that I put on bruises. I only have time to do it in the evening, but I think twice or even 3 times a day should be even better. It helps me, maybe it will help you, too. I hope you will get over this bruise/injury before your trip, 2 weeks should be fine if it's just a bruise.

I'm motivated by the prospect of improvement. I like to set small goals, as in... ...I've came from karate to muay thai, I knew NOTHING about clinch, and the guys were swiping me, clinching and I didn't know what to do. Then I've read Sylvie's blog (of course! :) ) about the clinch game and only then I realized that this is something I can work on! So, I set a small goal of learning the basics of clinching, I stayed after training with someone willing to clinch and learned it. Then another time, I was hit pretty badly in the face in sparring by a guy with a strong boxing background. I was frustrated, but learned that I need to work on my boxing defence. These are only my experiences, but it motivates me when I finally see results. You can set your own goals, e.g. kicking a stronger low-kick, kicking higher, learining a good striking combo - youtube is a good source of ideas on what to improve :D Of course it's hard sometimes when nothing gets better for a long time, but you need to create your own opportunities. There are also times when I'm motivated by the thought of meeting people at the gym :) It also motivates me when I see a video from my sparing and I realize I did okay. I hope some of what I wrote might help you find some motivation :)

I work a 9-5 job, and a few hours of my part-time job a week. I'm 6x a week at the gym, for about 1,5-2h. I have to drive to my gym around half an our, so at week days I'm back home at 11pm. It's more tiring if I have my part-time job (it's not regular) and to be honest, I barely manage. If I were to fight, it would probably be possible during the weekends, when most of the fights take place anyway around here. I should squeeze in some running in the morning, but getting up at 6am is impossible for me at the moment. I hope that when it gets warmer I will be able to run in the evening (or rather, at night ;)).

Before I started getting to know the Thai culture, more specifically the Muay Thai culture I never knew why the Wai Khru was performed and what it even was. I even though it was a bit funny. After learning a LOT (mostly thanks to Sylvie's insightful posts on her blog about Thai culture) I know and understand the meaning of the Wai Khru. So this is a topic for those of you who train/had started training Muay Thai in the "West". I'd like to know when and where did you learn your Wai Khru in the Western gyms? Is it as important as in Thailand to perform it? Who taught you the Wai Khru and who initiated it (in other words: did someone said "now you will learn the Wai Khru" or was is you asking to learn it?) Who do you learn the Wai Khru from if your trainer doesn't want to teach you? Is it wrong to learn a Wai Khru from youtube? How long does a Wai Khru has to be in the West?

I'm kinda used to the guys taking their shorts off to put on the cup, I was witnessing this even during my junior/high school karate times, so this doesn't offend me...probably because I was witnessing it before I knew if this was proper or not. There are some guys though who do it in private, so I always assumed they are shy, but after reading your post, I think maybe they see it as inapropriate. I can't say I'm fully ok with them stripping down, but it doesn't seem to bother me too much, I just look somewhere else. :whistling:

I love the idea of a women-only forum. I'm an only female in my gym, so I'm sure this forum will be a great place for me, who don't have female friends which can relate to the martial arts experience.