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https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=12&v=n7HwHoZmPVE 

Mary Hart an Icon of 1990/2000's female global Muay Thai scene- this generation was kind of usurped by the new and sunshiney new sport of womens boxing ... into which most of the former generation of female muay thai fighters had drained- these women stayed put maintaining high standards in one of the most difficult times for women in the sport- pre internet - pre interest from Thailand ... I believe the interest from Thailand circa 2000 was desperately needed but the fact is they caved to international pressure - their women were beaten consistently until A few enlightened Thai's paid the female scene the attention it deserved. This is actually a key moment in my life - to live through Thailand taking a 180 regarding females in Muay Thai has given my a belief that any dogma can change- Muay Thai has been an example to me in so many ways - I am very thankful for it.

 

 

Yes, I can't find much about it. But heard that they are good clinchers also (they put time in it!).
I will update this topic with my expierences there to inform others.
 
 

They gave me some link to an apartment that is close to them. But maybe it's better to do live-research when I arrive. To see what I can find, unfortunalty I don't speak Thai but I will try to find the best one.

Opinions on their link are also welcome;
https://www.facebook.com/slresidence54
http://www.slresidence.com/contactus-1.html

 

 

Yes I read (and heard) this before and will follow these rule to not bond me to a gym to soon. Thank you!

 

 

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meanwhile in America at 112lbs/50kg - The incredible Kim Messer v super tough Yvonne Trevino - amazing the performances these fighters could put on with only a handful of fights behind them.

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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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Hello Sylvie - sorry just saw the replies. I don't have a source. But there were articles written at the time describing the renaissance amongst a  few Thai women who were the first professional fighters for a long time. And there were articles on the first foreign women to go to Thailand to fight in 'visible competitions'. Mary Hart, Vanessa Belgrade of Canada, Melissa Godfrey of Australia and others - this was when Muaythai's iron curtain was ripped down :). The first global amateur competition - the ifma's or its early incarnation took place without a womens division and the inclusion of women was again a huge turning point and occurred at the same time as the professional shift ... it was late 1990's/2000.

I don't think it was ever illegal or anything for women to fight it was just ignored or invisible, there was also a niche for 'girly' boxing (various degrees of nakedness)  which would come to peoples minds whenever female fighting was mentioned - it all built toward women not being taken seriously in the sport... that attitude rippled through the world but thankfully was countered by equal rights consciousness and a few savvy men who just didn't care - such as Master toddy and my coaches (who have Toddy lineage). It was a man also who headed up the female fighter renaissance  in Thailand amongst Thai women ... it is astonishing to see how far it has come along.

Rangsit stadium was the Mecca of female fighting in Thailand at the time. The sport of female Muaythai had been decimated as womens boxing became legal and drained the talent from our sport with the promise of paydays. It was a handful of women on the international circuit along with the timely about face of Thailand who began organising womens competition tolerating and promoting it- that kept female Muaythai alive during a treachorous time.

I have as much information as I could gather at the time covering this era! As many magazines as I could get hold of. It was in the very early days of the internet so not much from the time is on the net. I will scan and copy the articles here and hope others would add to it - I would love to know the perspective from other countries.

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as a p.s  :bunny:  :bunny:  :bunny: lol sorry love those bunnies. The talent drain to boxing deprived the female side of the sport with many 'passing the baton' matches ... the old guard just left! Many who switched to boxing didn't fare so well in it and were forgotten. We didn't get to see Anne Quinlan fight against a hungry up and coming fighter , nor Lisa Howarth, Lucia Rijker, Michele Aboro and so on . The first fight that struck me as a change in generations was Jemyma Betrian's win over an absolute legend Christine Toledo (who now works with Lionfight). 

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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?

Sylvie I did a bit of research, and it seems like Rosy says, it was an unofficial ban. So I'm not sure how that played out at all.

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I've seen the 1995 date as the year when female fighting was formally legalized, but only as a year in reference. What is interesting is that that was the very first year that the WMC met in a big conference, and WMC was (I believe) operating at the behest of Thailand's Sports Authority, the governing body which regulates Muay Thai. I wonder if the WMC made or proposed a change in female fighting, formalizing it's legality in some way.

Legality is a very interesting issue in Thailand of course. Currently for instance Child fighting (which is common) is both legal and illegal by different statutes. Even prostitution is technically illegal in Thailand. If we ever are to get at the bottom of the legality of female fighting in Thailand, which is to maybe say "women being able to formally fight at recognized stadia, where gambling is permitted" we would have to know something about the statutes before 1995, and if any of them were being used in a way to exclude women. And...to know if the WMC or the Sports Authority made some kind of change which altered that legality.

Women I imagine probably fought in the provinces for decades, with the same extra-legal standing as children who fight all over Thailand now, though probably only as a sideshow.

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Peter-Vail-Women-in-Thailand-Muay-Thai.p

 

This is an excerpt from Peter Vail's 1998 dissertation on Muay Thai Violence and Control: Social and Cultural Dimensions of Muay Thai Boxing, and how he characterized Thai female Muay Thai fighting based on his experiences in Buriram, Isaan in 1996 and 1997. Here "muay wat" are temple fights in the provinces. He seems pretty cavalier about the whole thing, and a pretty dismissive given that he is operating on very limited evidence. We do know that some Thai female fighters were fighting at high levels as Anne Quilan fought Nong Lek in 1990 in London, if I've got that right.

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yes 1990 .... first show I saw live . and Anne had already fought Apple Dong Kong Far in a 5x3min ftr fight which Apple won ... this was the first fight I saw on video ... I got a pretty warped idea of the standard at the time :). Both shows had TV coverage which was transmitted in Thailand ... not sure if all fights were broadcast.

At that time study material was a lot more scarce than now- Master Toddy made and distributed a video of 5 ... maybe 7... training camps in Thailand ... just footage of training really raw but gold to many people outside Thailand. One of the camps had women. 

I like that analogy with the childrens fights - it exists but isn't taken that seriously ... but you would have to take it down a few notches ... I stopped talking about the fact that I was a Thai boxer quite soon after I took up the sport ... I got asked in all seriousness if I did it topless... and in England that was the public perception of women boxing.

In all sport at that time (1990)- to make a huge generalisation!!- strong, dedicated and talented women were the exception not the rule, there had been a spate of strong female sprinters in the 1980's but the view now is that was a steroid fueled blip. The strength in depth in all female sports right now is incredible in comparison to what existed a generation or so ago.

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Rosy, did you ever see the TV documentary about Lisa Howarth, Anne Quinlan and Ella Yee? Master Toddy has told me about it so many times but I can't seem to find anything on it! Would love to see some footage if any survived. 

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Rosy, did you ever see the TV documentary about Lisa Howarth, Anne Quinlan and Ella Yee? Master Toddy has told me about it so many times but I can't seem to find anything on it! Would love to see some footage if any survived. 

 

I have something but it doesn't amount to a tv doc. Like a long training montage. There was tv coverage of a couple of Lisa's fights and I have those . The quality of the video is awful though and I need to get it converted. I wish Toddy had decent copies ! I tried to get some video converted recently at a studio and the clips I was interested in were unwatchable ...despite being decent quality on video...the guy working on them was particularly unhelpful so I'm back to square one with converting stuff.

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  • 1 month later...

http://qr.livedoor.biz/archives/51793058.html

Kathy Long- in a class of her own in terms of her media profile in the Martial Arts scene , and still fighting!!! in her 50's now and about to return to MMA which she has had a dabble in before.

This fight with Kyoko was reported as being a big payday for Kathy in one of the martial arts mags- $20,000 ... 

Kathy inspired a young Angela Riviera to take up the sport - Angie trained under Mater Toddy ... met John Wayne Parr there and moved with him to Australia- they now have 3 children with daughter Jazmine clocking up a few fights of her own and Angie co-promoting after reaching heady heights in the sport herself.

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  • 4 weeks later...

The incredible Kathy Long . QR throwback series brings us this 1989 kickboxing match between Kathy (USA) and Yoshikai Wakana (Japan). These women and others like them broke down the barriers preventing women fighting and in particular fighting Muay Thai - it took small increments ... the fighters here wear garlands . Kathy fought a week or so ago at the age of 51 winning her 2nd MMA fight. We stand on the shoulders of giants. 

http://qr.livedoor.biz/archives/51800391.html

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Sylvie if you ever get the opportunity to talk with Jitti, Jitti's gym (sorry I don't have a more accurate name) he would be a good lead on female muay thai in Thailand. The gym trained 1st class male fighters yet was also open for female foreigners from very early on - I trained there in '93- at that time Thai women fighters were invisible in the media, I scoured the papers and actually found one picture of Lisa Howarth - 1st English world champ- but not a sign of a Thai woman- 

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    • As Thailand's Muay Thai more and more turns its face toward the World and the West increasingly those coming to Thailand to seek out, experience, train in, fight in, even commit to and honor authentic Muay Thai will have a hard time finding it. In this brief article I want to point out the two biggest areas of difficulty. Keep in mind, I'm writing this from the perspective of having witnessed my wife who has fought more times in Thailand than any non-Thai in history, coming up on 300 times, as a fighter who has steered as clear as possible from aspects of the sport which are arranged or made for you, and become perhaps the foremost documentarian of the sport and art. Everything I describe is from often repeated things we've encountered, found ourselves in, worked through, and what we've learned from the experiences of others. Importantly, pretty much everyone who has been in the country a long time has their own experience and understanding of authenticity, and this is just ours. Thai culture, and Muay Thai culture is also a very complex and woven thing, it is not homogeneous or made in one way, so these are benchmark ideas and there are many exceptions. Authenticity, that which is not made for us.   1. Increasingly Thailand's Muay Thai is made FOR you One of the first challenges is honestly that of recognition. Because Thailand is so culturally different, and Thailand gym training not that of than Western and international gyms, whatever you are experiencing is going to feel authentic. Its authenticity will come through in everything that is different. It must be authentic because I'm not used to this. And because we can only judge from our own experiences, and from what we see and read, this is difficult to overcome. After 3 months in the country you are going to feel like you have really penetrated to the heart of something really new. After a year, you really will feel like you know what's going on, and if you have gravitated toward "authenticity" you'll probably feel like you are in a pretty "real" place. My caution is: Nope. You probably don't realize how much of Muay Thai has been turned toward YOU. And if it wasn't turned towards you, you wouldn't be participating in it. This is going to sound harsh, but pretty much ALL Western/International Muay Thai experiences are something like an elephant ride. The elephant (Muay Thai) is very real, and there is great privilege and beauty in being on an elephant. You're touching a living, breathing, REAL elephant...but you are on an elephant ride, made FOR you. Now, there are all sorts of elephant rides. There is the one where they walk in a circle and you get off, and another where you bathe and then bareback like a "real mahout" would, and then maybe all the way up to 10 day safaris, trekking on elephant back (is there such a thing?). But it's still an elephant ride. You get in the ring, its real...even if its arranged for you, its intense and real. You hit the bag, you burn the kilometers in road work, its real. This isn't to say anything is inauthentic. All of Muay Thai in Thailand will change you. This is about reaching, as passionate people will, those aspects of the sport and art that are unique to Thailand itself, that may fall from view as Thailand turns its face toward you. The Rules, For You How do I mean this? The rules of the sport have been changed so that you (in a less skilled way) will win fights, or perform well in fights you might not otherwise in the traditional Thai version of the sport (there is a full spectrum of this, stretching from RWS entertainment Muay Thai to ONE smash and clash). This is a fairly recent transformation, covering perhaps the last 10 years. The sport itself has been altered for you...and, as it has been altered for you, this also has washed back onto trad Bangkok stadium Muay Thai, which has absorbed many of the entertainment qualities which are pervading social media and gambling sites. In some sense the "authentic" traditional Muay Thai of Thailand doesn't really exist in promotional fight form anywhere in the halo that tourist and adventure tourist has reached. It's just a question of degree. The issues and influences behind this in trad stadium Muay Thai are more complex than this, but it too has turned its face towards "the foreigner". Some of this is just what people like to call "progress" or "the force of the market place" or others might call the "deskilling of Capitalism", but just know that in the fights themselves, they are by degrees turned towards YOU. It really might only be in the festival fight circuits of the provinces where you will still will find the culture and aesthetics of the sport and art FOR Thais. To be sure in festival fights there can be matchups that favor a larger foreign student of a local gym, which has relationship ties with the local promoter, especially if there is no sidebet. But the EVENT isn't for you, designed around you, catering to you or people like you. You're the oddity, and the rulesets and aesthetics have been less altered if at all. The Training, For You On a deeper level, the training in gyms is also made FOR you. The traditional pedagogy of Muay Thai, the manner in which it was developed through youthful circuit sidebet fighting, the kaimuay culture of non-correction and group dynamic sharing of a grown aesthetic, has been seriously eroded, supplemented and sometimes just outright replaced. You are (likely) not learning in the manner of the Thais that produced such acute excellence so many decades ago. Yes, there will be obvious things like farang krus and padmen in some gyms (many of them quite devoted to Muay Thai, but not produced by the subculture), something that is increasing in the sport, but, subtly, even if your padman is Thai, he may not even be an experienced ex-fighter, as mid-so Thais are holding pads now in the growing commercialization. Muay Thai is experiencing a gentrification and an internationalization at the gym level. Beyond padmen, the very manner of instruction and fighter development will have been changed in some sense for you. For one, increasingly you'll notice "combo" training, memorized strike patterns, which is both a deskilling of the sport (making it easier to teach, replicate and export), but also is training that is geared towards the new Entertainment trade-in-the-pocket patterns and aesthetics, made for tourists and online fandom. The change in the rules of the sport over the last 7 years or so, also is reflected in a change in how the sport is actually taught...even in spaces that feel VERY Thai. The sport is bending to the "combo" because it is signature to Western and international fighting aesthetics, and it can be taught by less skilled/experienced coaches. Fighters did not train like that, nor did they fight like that. As the sport has become deskilled the combo has taken an increasingly important role. Added to this, gyms have had to accommodate the expectations of Westerners and other non-Thais, as the weakening of the sport economically has turned almost every gym in the tourism halo towards at least a hybrid relationship to tourism...it needs to give the Westerner something they recognize and expect...and, because tourists and adventure tourist come with all sorts of investments and motivations, on different timescales, a lower common denominator works itself into the equation. Group "classes", organized drilling of groups, increased conceptualization and rationalization of techniques involving verbal correction and demonstration, even foreign coaching, these are FOR YOU changes in the sport. Sometimes these trends and aspects will only be subtly present, sometimes they will characterize the entire process. This is an elephant ride. And often it is difficult to distinguish where the elephant ends and the ride begins. Even "Fighter Training" Isn't The Process Along these lines of hunting the "authentic" training in gyms you'll run into this difficulty. You may be in a gym full of Thai fighters, even very active Thai fighters. There aren't many combos being held for. No real "group classes". A lot of Thai culture is going on, or seems to be. You are doing the work of fighters, real fighters, right there next to you. It's by Thais its for Thais and its pretty authentic...but for these things. For one, this gym if it's not a kaimuay in the more grassroots sense, all these fighters were made somewhere else. They were bought and brought into the gym, to be part of a stable. So what you likely are seeing, and doing, isn't actually how they became what they are. They are in the polishing, or add-a-level stage. The heartbeat of what made them is elsewhere. Even if you are a developed, accomplished fighter, and you too are in the "polishing" stage, you don't have what they have, which is a very different history of training, fighting and development. They are made of a different material, so to speak, and in truth that "material" is the actual "stuff" that everyone comes to Thailand looking for, that is where the "authenticity" is in their movements, vision, rhythms, stylistics. You can do all the padwork, all the clinch rounds, all the runs, all the bagwork, all the sparring, and you'll get better, in fact a LOT better...but, you'll be missing that "authentic" piece, the thing they got before they came to this gym. To add to this, if you did seek out the kaimuay that grows fighters in the principles of the sport, and their fighting circuits, these are not economically robust spaces, they are no longer teeming with fighters, and they're not focused on the tourist. They are part of a fragmenting economy of largely provincial fighting, and in which is difficult to find one's place, especially as an adult, as they are made for youth. The best you might find are hybrid spaces, kaimuay on the low ebb, which also are run by a great kru, making room for non-Thais, but even these spaces are a kind of bricolage of culture, knowledge and practice. There is no pristine location for the "authentic". "Treated Like a Thai" A layer even further down in terms of authenticity, it's not uncommon to feel that if you've stayed a lot, trained a lot, fought a lot, that you are being (more or less) "treated like a Thai". This is a big desire in the reach for "authenticity", and that experience of being "treated like a Thai" is therefore quite meaningful. But you aren't. You are still likely on an elephant ride, in a certain regard. And that's become Thailand's traditional Muay Thai is culturally founded on intense social power disparity. It is strongly hierarchized, and hierarchies vie against other hierarchies constantly in a political struggle that the Westerner, even the Thai-speaking Westerner, largely cannot see...and if they see them, they cannot care about them in the same way a Thai does and would. This is a continuous struggle for social "position" in which the Thai fighter has almost always has almost zero power. They are bound not only by contract obligation (contract), but more significantly by strong mores of social debt and shame, and the networks of hierarchy which make up gyms, community and promotion. They are in a web with constant top-down and lateral pressures, with very limited choice, you are not. You do NOT want to be treated "just like a Thai"...and honestly, you probably can't be, even if you want to be brought into the same workouts or expectations of a fighter. The reason this is important is the almost all of the motivations you have as a fighter, to become better, to win, to be acknowledged are very, very VERY different than the Thai fighter kicking the bag right next to you...and their motivations are actually the "authentic" part of Thailand's Muay Thai. Stadium Muay Thai is not the free agent professionalism that non-Thais aspire to. It is intense social stigma straining under a culture of obligation. You can do all the work, mirror it beat for beat, but you are not in the affective position of Thai fighters, and so in some sense cannot fight like them, for their alliances and values, the things which bring the strikes out, are largely invisible to the Westerner. All these things: that they've changed the rules so Westerners can win or perform well, and will enjoy watching, that they've changed the way Muay Thai is trained, that you aren't likely exposed to the actual processes that made stadium fighters who they are today, and even that you cannot experience the disempowerment, position and dignity of Thai fighters themselves, all cut off aspects of "authenticity", much sought by those that travel in earnest. This is leaving behind all those more common internet concerns like fake fights, dives, bad match making. It's in the actual fabric of the sport itself, as Westerners reach for it, and as it has turned its face toward the Westerner, making itself for the Westerner...and others. 2. The Fighters Aren't the Same The second difficulty in reaching for "authenticity" is that even if you get through all those layers. If you shun the rehearsed combo, you identify living threads of kaimuay culture and its values and ways of life as much as possible, if you fight five round trad Muay Thai fights, don't take weight advantages when you can, if you emotionally connect with the low social position of the Thai fighter, all the things, and then make it to the ring where "authentic" Muay Thai is "happening"...it's not even happening there. I mean this in this sense. Aside from the erosion and deskilling of the sport due to new promotional motivations, tourism and market pressures, Muay Thai itself has been eroding on its own within the country. The rising economic standard out of the classes of people who traditionally fought it have changed many of the motivations and commitments of the fighters themselves, and the talent pool of fighters has dramatically decreased. I'm going to throw a wild number out, but I'm just guessing in an educated way...maybe the talent pool is 10x smaller. Leaving aside that combos and entertainment aesthetics are now working their way into more or less "Thai" gym spaces, the fighters themselves just are not that good, not as developed, complex or accomplished by the time they are in Bangkok rings. Big name gyms grab up local kaimuay talent earlier and earlier (green fruit off the tree before ripe), the developmental fighter classes (informal groups within gyms) that grow the skills are seriously on the decline. A kaimuay may have had 20 fighting boys, now may have 3? Traditionally there was a stirring of the pot that was cooking a very deep stew of skills, more and more its a process just a few ingredients heated over a short time. This is to say, even if you can get all the way to the "authentic" rings, the quality and sophistication of the Muay Thai you will be facing will lack something that "authentic" dimension that characterized the freedom and expressiveness of skill of past generations. You may in fact fight a Thai who will fight quite like a farang (as far as it goes). They may end combos with a body shot, or throw endless elbows, be unable to defend well in retreat, have a muay of one or two weapons, or be limited and simplistic in the clinch. Not only is the skillset diminished, but in new generation fighters the rhythms and shapes of fighting that are "authentic" may not be there in full force. In some ways the Westerner may encounter a dim mirror of themselves. I'm writing this because this quest for authenticity is seriously meaningful. It's meaningful to us, those of the West who love Thailand's Muay Thai, and it's also meaningful to Thais as well, who have great esteem for its legacy. The only way to significantly engage in the question of authenticity is to acknowledge that it is already substantively hybridized. You and everyone else may be on elephant rides. It's only by identifying the aspects of Muay Thai that are not made for the tourist and adventure tourist, the threads of culture and practice that developed without your presence, or others like you, and nurturing with respect those aspects, that will the authentic journey begin. You may be in a very commercial gym, full of combos and group classes, but your padman probably grew up in kaimuay culture. It's in him. It's what made him. Find ways to connect to that. There are also at times "Thai gyms" (mini-kaimuay) inside commercial gyms, which operates under a different code than the gym for customers. You may be in an Entertainment fight promotion, fight in the traditional style, try to win in the traditional style, even if the ruleset doesn't favor it. Push back against what has been made for you. Learn and identity the lineages of cultural practice that have defined Muay Thai, and connect to those purposely. In a sense, if we all realize we are on elephant rides, at a certain point you have have to love and care for the elephant itself, which is the beautiful, mysterious, almost-like-us, powerful, magical creature. This is the art of Muay Thai. And even if you aren't on the best ride, you are on a mother-effin elephant. Find the culture of the elephant. Find the elephant's history among the people. Find what the elephant needs. Find what is natural to the elephant. Protect and honor the elephant. we wrote a manifest of our values here    
    • As Capitalism deskills and enshittifies (this is pretty clear now), how come people don't realize that this is happening in Muay Thai? It is not "progress". It is the grinding down of skills and our capacity to perceive.
    • Watched this fight the other day, and as much as Wangchannoi is known as a hard-hitting Muay Maat, his hidden art is really the art of spoilage. Watch him spoil one of the great clinch attacks of the Golden Age. Among the many things that he is doing is that his punching and pinning Langsuan's collarbone on his right hand side grab (unusual for an orthodox fighter).
  • The Latest From Open Topics Forum

    • The first fight between Poot Lorlek and Posai Sittiboonlert was recently uploaded to youtube. Posai is one of the earliest great Muay Khao fighters and influential to Dieselnoi, but there's very little footage of him. Poot is one of the GOATs and one of Posai's best wins, it's really cool to see how Posai's style looked against another elite fighter.
    • Yeah, this is certainly possible. Thanks! I just like the idea of a training camp pre-fight because of focus and getting more "locked in".. Do you know of any high level gyms in europe you would recommend? 
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