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Sparing, fight and vision - Contact Lenses and Fighting


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Sa waat dee kha :) 

So yesterday my trainer finally told me I'll do my first fight in 54 days (really excited about it!), and told me that it is forbidden to fight with contact lenses. 
For a while I was sparing without contact, but since I wear them I've seen a lot of improvement in my blocks and distance to throw jab/knee/kick.
I thought "it could be great because if I don't see clear there is less chance I'll be "intimidated" by my opponent and the crowd".... however, there is also less chance that I can see punch, kick, knees coming or the ref or my trainer. 
Then I was wondering if I could just "cheat" and put my contact lenses after seeing the doc...
Or basically just fight "blind" (I am astigmatic and short-sighted - both eyes).
Did anyone has ever been in that situation?
Any advices?

Khawp khoon maak kha !

 

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I'd also really like to hear from anyone with experience in this area...I'm pretty short-sighted (around -5 in both eyes). 

I normally wear glasses, but I train without any lenses. I wore contacts when I first started but I couldn't be bothered keeping it up and a few times when I got punched in the eyes, the contacts moved or irritated my eyes.

I've worn contacts in my interclub fights, but I've only done a few so I can't say whether they really make a difference...but they do make you feel more confident on the day, especially as you'll be placed in an unfamiliar environment. I think we're always going to be at a slight disadvantage if we fight "blind", but if you train most of the time without them you can definitely learn to fight without them.

Well done on getting your first fight, and best of luck!

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(sorry for my english)

I had a laser eye surgery in january for this reason :) 

I couldn't train without lenses, I just couldn't see anything... And my self-confidence was totally off... So in trainings I always worn them.
In my first fight I've worn my lenses, the doctor didn't notice it  :D I know, it's forbidden and dangerous, but I didn't care. 

But in trainings my lenses often fell out when my partner hit me, and if it happens in a real fight, you will be disqualified.. 
So I save up, and had a PRK. 

3 months after the surgery I had a fight, and it was so much better.

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Thanks for you comments!!
I think I'll start again to train and spare without them like bbf3 suggested, being disqualified is a risk I wouldn't take, since as you said P.Evi, it does irritate a bit the eye, and they can fall off easily (happen to me 3 times already in sparing, it isn't that much but still!)

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I am nearsighted with astigmatism and I train without lenses. Mine isn't too extreme so I manage all right. Lenses bother me too much to wear so it's glasses when I need them (like to drive) and Macgoo Crew the rest of the time.

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Sa waat dee kha :) 

 

So yesterday my trainer finally told me I'll do my first fight in 54 days (really excited about it!), and told me that it is forbidden to fight with contact lenses. 

For a while I was sparing without contact, but since I wear them I've seen a lot of improvement in my blocks and distance to throw jab/knee/kick.

I thought "it could be great because if I don't see clear there is less chance I'll be "intimidated" by my opponent and the crowd".... however, there is also less chance that I can see punch, kick, knees coming or the ref or my trainer. 

Then I was wondering if I could just "cheat" and put my contact lenses after seeing the doc...

Or basically just fight "blind" (I am astigmatic and short-sighted - both eyes).

Did anyone has ever been in that situation?

Any advices?

Khawp khoon maak kha !

I know a woman in NY who snuck her contacts into the ring with her. One got knocked out of her eye by a strike during the fight and she was very disoriented by having one in and one out. She asked the referee if she could just have a second to take the other one out (I assume her corner would have done this), but he didn't stop the fight for her.

So, if you DO sneak them in, be aware that they might not stay in. And maybe training without them will help you feel prepared for whatever you end up doing in the fight.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Glad I saw this, I just got socked in the eye the other day and nobody knows I wear contact lenses. I let my guard down, got punched lightly, my left contact lens went swimming somewhere in the gallows of my eye, I couldn't see, my eye teared up heavily, and everything was blurry. I finished the round with one eye shut.

So, contact lenses during sparring is not allowed? Should I tell my kru about this and see if he thinks I should practice with no sight correction? At the time, I didn't think much of it, but now that I am reading this I am thinking that I should stop wearing contacts during sparring class. Does it make a difference if my contact lenses are those disposable, 1 month lenses? Thanks! :confused:

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I am nearsighted with astigmatism and I train without lenses. Mine isn't too extreme so I manage all right. Lenses bother me too much to wear so it's glasses when I need them (like to drive) and Macgoo Crew the rest of the time.

I'm pretty much the same, I very rarely wear lenses. I have yet to find a brand that is comfortable for me. Sometimes I wear them to training - but mostly only if it's a seminar kind of class, with lots of people and lots of new stuff. I don't feel comfortable in them, because when I'm in fight stance I have to kind of look up and the lenses don't want to move as fast as my eyes do, so I get blurry vision and have to squint a lot.This doesn't help during sparring ;) 

Maybe i should consider laser operation, too. I'm a bit scared for now, but maybe that's the solution. Though I like my face with glasses on more than without, probably some stupid misconception as someone once told me I look better with glasses on. And here I am, years after that, having an inferiority complex about my natural face <stupid!!!>

Maya, I don't think the brand or type matters. The dailies are usually a bit more flexible and soft compared to the one-month type. I only tried the dailies, not the one-months.

I was curious and once I read through the competition rules of the Polish Muay Thai Association. Using contact lenses is not allowed during competition - probably due to the risk of injury.

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Hi,

I have been training muay thai for 5 years now with a vision of +8. I have never used lenses and i cant get an operation.My bad eye sight was one of the main things preventing me from starting sooner. I was convinced that it would be impossible for me to learn muay thai with such bad vision and that I would be severely handicapped.

The first couple of years of training this were true. I struggled more than my peers with learning the basic moves. This combined with the fact that I was pretty overweight when I started out made me the worst beginner at my gym. The first semester totally sucked to be honest, I remember almost crying before going to class and wanting to puke when the instructor started paring us up for sparring. I knew that every single one there was more athletic than me plus had perfect eyesight.

I pretty much can’t see the face of anyone without my glasses unless they are completely in front of me. This made for some pretty awkward situations when people would greet me from the other side of the gym and me deadeye staring back at them without acknowledging anything. I learned to counter this by faking an overly extrovert version of myself and greeting and smiling to everyone at the gym all the time like a madman, good times.

I learned much about myself during this time, first of all that I’m stubborn as heck. There was no chance in hell that I was going to let my bad eyes and big ass get in the way of my dream of muay thai. I completely dedicated myself (and still am) to the art and became obsessed with moving past this. I had to work harder than everyone else at my gym to get to the level they were, I lost 30 kilos (60 pounds?) and slowly learned how to work past my eyes. I learned the basics and found clever ways to work around my eyesight. Sure, sometimes I miss with the teep, jab like a madman and totally miscalculate kicks, sometimes I’m in the wrong position and struggle to block. But today I feel almost as good as the guys that started at the same time as me, it just took a bit longer.

I have accepted the fact that my eyes will never be perfect and that in some aspects i fall behind. Regardless, I will continue to train and compete in muay thai, and I love every second of it!

In 3 months I will be going to Thailand for the first time and train for a month, look for the awkward looking Norwegian in the corner teeping into the air.

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I don't use contacts myself, but I just wanted to add that to what's already been mentioned about the likelihood of them not staying in during a fight. I can't count the amount of times I've punched a contact lens out in sparring (although I do secretly go 'yesss!' with my inside voice when it does happen, since it means i landed an accurate punch), and it seems really awkward and frustrating for those partners to deal with. There's always that moment of confusion for them when it pops out and they can't see properly, and if that were to take place in a fight situation, I could definitely see a referee stopping it because if they didn't know what was going on, it would look like you just weren't defending yourself. Remember when Tiffany Van Soest fought Sindy Huyer and the ref called a TKO when a teep pulled Sindy's sports bra down and she turned away to stop her boob from falling out? I imagine it would be the same kind of disappointment. 

Anyway, since I have no experience of actually wearing lenses myself, that's all I can offer. I'm glad to see there's a good amount of discussion on this topic because I have often wondered what it's like to deal with this! You guys are awesome.

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Hi,

I have been training muay thai for 5 years now with a vision of +8. I have never used lenses and i cant get an operation.My bad eye sight was one of the main things preventing me from starting sooner. I was convinced that it would be impossible for me to learn muay thai with such bad vision and that I would be severely handicapped.

The first couple of years of training this were true. I struggled more than my peers with learning the basic moves. This combined with the fact that I was pretty overweight when I started out made me the worst beginner at my gym. The first semester totally sucked to be honest, I remember almost crying before going to class and wanting to puke when the instructor started paring us up for sparring. I knew that every single one there was more athletic than me plus had perfect eyesight.

I pretty much can’t see the face of anyone without my glasses unless they are completely in front of me. This made for some pretty awkward situations when people would greet me from the other side of the gym and me deadeye staring back at them without acknowledging anything. I learned to counter this by faking an overly extrovert version of myself and greeting and smiling to everyone at the gym all the time like a madman, good times.

I learned much about myself during this time, first of all that I’m stubborn as heck. There was no chance in hell that I was going to let my bad eyes and big ass get in the way of my dream of muay thai. I completely dedicated myself (and still am) to the art and became obsessed with moving past this. I had to work harder than everyone else at my gym to get to the level they were, I lost 30 kilos (60 pounds?) and slowly learned how to work past my eyes. I learned the basics and found clever ways to work around my eyesight. Sure, sometimes I miss with the teep, jab like a madman and totally miscalculate kicks, sometimes I’m in the wrong position and struggle to block. But today I feel almost as good as the guys that started at the same time as me, it just took a bit longer.

I have accepted the fact that my eyes will never be perfect and that in some aspects i fall behind. Regardless, I will continue to train and compete in muay thai, and I love every second of it!

In 3 months I will be going to Thailand for the first time and train for a month, look for the awkward looking Norwegian in the corner teeping into the air.

Woo, I'm so glad for you that your vision didn't stop your motivation. Stubborn is the MT community ;) 

 

Since my first post in there (I was wondering whether or not continue training with lense, and whether or not cheating for the fight wearing lense), I've start again to train without them (I basically train with lense for ... 2 or 3 month only, I start without lense, and I'm back to it). 

I've seen a huge improve in the way I block and spare when I was wearing lenses, of course seeing more clearly helps to make you react faster ... while without it, it like "oh why is that kick doing here near my face?!". So my defense sucks a bit without lenses, I just get hit and continue hitting, like nothing happen, but I get tired easily and faster. Hence I also need to have a stronger mental, not to loose my confidence, because of being hit so many time.

Of course, there is some good side, I don't get distract by people watching me, since I can't really see anything past my nose haha.

 

For now I think I'll continue training without lenses at least till I get that first fight, then I'll maybe do once a month a week of training with lenses, just to caught up with some technique and see how I've improve during the month.

 

Also good to ask your coach to compare two sparing (one day you come with lenses, the next day without, or within the same day, one round lenses, you take them off and one round without them). I don't know if my coach pay a lot of attention when I spare, but I've ask him a few time "have you seen any difference between day X and day Y?" without telling him, day X was without lenses and day Y with it. Usually I get the same answer "you need to block more, but no I've haven't seen much difference". So or he is a good liar or I don't suck that much without lenses.

 

I recommend to all of you who wears lenses to get daily lenses for sparing (if you only do pad you don't really care), I've lost so many lenses on the ring during sparing, and since it isn't really cheap it's better not to loose or break a monthly ones. 

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I don't use contacts myself, but I just wanted to add that to what's already been mentioned about the likelihood of them not staying in during a fight. I can't count the amount of times I've punched a contact lens out in sparring (although I do secretly go 'yesss!' with my inside voice when it does happen, since it means i landed an accurate punch), and it seems really awkward and frustrating for those partners to deal with. There's always that moment of confusion for them when it pops out and they can't see properly, and if that were to take place in a fight situation, I could definitely see a referee stopping it because if they didn't know what was going on, it would look like you just weren't defending yourself. Remember when Tiffany Van Soest fought Sindy Huyer and the ref called a TKO when a teep pulled Sindy's sports bra down and she turned away to stop her boob from falling out? I imagine it would be the same kind of disappointment. 

Anyway, since I have no experience of actually wearing lenses myself, that's all I can offer. I'm glad to see there's a good amount of discussion on this topic because I have often wondered what it's like to deal with this! You guys are awesome.

 

Hahaha I feel your "mean" excitement, one day a girl spare with me, and got both of my eyes (once you get one, the other is too easy to get since your vision is even more confuse with one lense), and I could totally see a smile on her face, even though she keeps asking me if I was ok. It was like "I feel bad, but also badass" face. 

 

Totally remember that fight with Tiffany and Sindy !!! my breast are too small to relate or compare with the awkwardness and disappointment of "loosing a boob" vs "loosing an eye", but it must be so annoying!

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Well, I've had about 3 days of active sparring while wearing no contact lenses or glasses. It's an acquired taste, lol. I should mention that my prescription is like -7.5 for one eye and -8.5 for another (that's bad)

Before the first day of sparring with no glasses, a teen fighter asked about my glasses (I have never worn glasses to class, just contacts but I switched to glasses so I could take them off and put them on). He mentioned that his eyesight is terrible, too (he does wear thick glasses to practice), but he trains entirely without glasses. He says I'll get used to it over time and that, in a weird way, he can "feel the wind" of a punch before he sees the punch. I'm just a beginner in sparring, so I don't have these awesome spidey senses, so instead I just took a beating because I was used to watching their faces. It really is hard!

I couldn't see their facial expressions or subtle body movements. It was like walking a violent gauntlet blind. On the other hand, not being able to see made me very narrowly focused, since everything else was basically invisible to me, except for the movement of the advancing partner. 

It was really nerve-wracking but by day 2 I was kind of looking forward to the quasi-blind sparring because I figure I had better get used to it and it was like a novel experience, sensing physical movement rather than seeing it with crisp vision. I didn't feel the air of the punch, but I did feel the air of the person lunging or backing off, and that never happened before. It's weird; like this new way of sensing the world! Glad I found this thread or I would never have known it's safest to spar with no contact lenses! Thanks!

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I think if my eyesight gets any worse than it is now (I have like -2 on both eyes) AND I find a brand of contact lenses that don't make my eyes dry out I will definitely train and spar in lenses. There is of course the whole lot of other things you can learn and practice without them, but I want to lear a lot and I feel without seeing it won't happen ;)

Maya, that's actually really nice of the guy to be giving you advice and reaching out. Sweet!

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Is it really a rule that you cannot fight with contact lens on? I fought all mines with them, except for my first smoker/interclub sparring

Definitely helps a lot! However I would have at least one punched out and it sucks. Well seeing with one eye is better than being nearly blind in both. -6 left astigmatizm and -5.25 right, so yeah.. I suggest getting laser surgery or prk if you're serious about it. Financially I am unable to afford it atm but I would get PRK if I could.

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Conflicting stuff on the internet about eye requirements, some seem outdated, others might be a different branch of sports associations. The American Boxing Association says there is an eye exam required for muay thai professionals, but not for muay thai amateurs. (link below)

http://www.abcboxing.com/Medical_Requirements_for_each_Commission.pdf

I also found this link from the international sports contact federation, too, though, which does require at least an acknowledgement of poor eyesight on the doctor's medical authorization form:

http://www.iscfmma.com/ISCFRules12.htm

 

Not too sure now, and I really wish I knew because I'd love to see again! Anybody know for sure what the rules are in California?

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  • 3 weeks later...

I have appalling vision, and without my glasses nothing - and I mean nothing - is in focus. I never wear any sight correction when training or sparring, and I don't find it a problem. If my trainer is really giving the hard nasty scary stare then I can just about make it out, but otherwise he is, to all intents and purposes, a blurry shape. With arms and legs. I sometimes wonder what it would be like to be able to see when sparring, but I do okay. Perhaps it's helped because I do a lot of horse riding with my eyes shut (a very good way of really 'feeling' the horse's movement and your own balance and position). I have hearing problems too, and obviously can't wear my hearing aids when training either. Maybe the whole sensory deprivation thing means that I have a well developed spidey sense!

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  • 2 weeks later...

(sorry for my english)

I had a laser eye surgery in january for this reason :) 

I couldn't train without lenses, I just couldn't see anything... And my self-confidence was totally off... So in trainings I always worn them.

In my first fight I've worn my lenses, the doctor didn't notice it  :D I know, it's forbidden and dangerous, but I didn't care. 

But in trainings my lenses often fell out when my partner hit me, and if it happens in a real fight, you will be disqualified.. 

So I save up, and had a PRK. 

3 months after the surgery I had a fight, and it was so much better.

I think I'm gonna have surgery soon, how long after the surgery until you can spar?

Thanks

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Same here.

Also getting more information about the laser operation.
I normally wear glasses in my daily life but for training I just take them off (I never ever tried lenses).
But it would be easier without the glasses (also for working life).

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For me, its just 1 of my eyes that is bad, I can barely see with my left eye - maybe like 144p on YouTube. The thing is that my right eye does a lot of work, as it will look as far left as it can and basically allows my left eye to be lazy, which puts strain on my right eye which over time will weaken it to be as bad as my left eye. 

In order for me to keep my right eye strong I will need to get laser eye surgery on just my left eye, to fix it and so it can stop straining my right eye. 

I wonder how this affects my Muay Thai though... I've never really noticed anything, I guess because I never knew any difference. It will be interesting to see if my reaction time and stuff improves afterwards though.

 

The only thing I hate about laser eye surgery is how fricken expensive it is... my optician told me that in order to keep the machine working and to be able to pay off the bills (they rent the machine) they need to keep it active every single day of the year, so if you want cheap surgery go at Christmas or any other time where people don't want to get it done. 

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I wonder how this affects my Muay Thai though... I've never really noticed anything, I guess because I never knew any difference. It will be interesting to see if my reaction time and stuff improves afterwards though.

Wow, your eyes seem to be enduring a lot!

I noticed that I tilt my head to the left, which is "not beautiful" in the Muay Thai world - as the trainer in Thailand told me :D He was fixing it a few times, reminding me to keep my head straight and I just keep on tilting it. I think this is connected to my eyesight as I have astigmatism (which comes and goes), so maybe this is how it affects my Muay Thai :)

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I have my first fight on a proper show this weekend and am debating whether or not to wear contact lenses. I think I'm leaning towards not wearing them as I don't want to risk any accidents or distractions, and I know that once I'm in the ring in front of my opponent I'll be okay. It really is more of a confidence issue as I have sparred and fought in interclubs without lenses.

Although, I seem to have a bit of trouble with finding my distance but that could be due to other factors beyond bad eyesight.

I've been trying to do a lot of visualisation in the lead up and it makes me nervous to think that I'll walk out there and potentially not be able to see any faces or where I'm stepping. I think it'll be a good idea to get there early and have a good look at the venue on the night. Will report back

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I have my first fight on a proper show this weekend and am debating whether or not to wear contact lenses. I think I'm leaning towards not wearing them as I don't want to risk any accidents or distractions, and I know that once I'm in the ring in front of my opponent I'll be okay. It really is more of a confidence issue as I have sparred and fought in interclubs without lenses.

Although, I seem to have a bit of trouble with finding my distance but that could be due to other factors beyond bad eyesight.

I've been trying to do a lot of visualisation in the lead up and it makes me nervous to think that I'll walk out there and potentially not be able to see any faces or where I'm stepping. I think it'll be a good idea to get there early and have a good look at the venue on the night. Will report back

Congrats for your 1st (proper) fight! I would say do whatever make you feel more confident, and focus on your strength, not your 'trouble finding distance' (although I realize it is easier said than done. I'm in the same boat as u with distance prob!)

Whatever you choose, keep us posted about ur fight:) 

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Thanks! Got the win by unanimous decision, it was a great experience. The day before the fight I decided I would wear contacts so I could be completely confident on the night. However, one of my friends was doing her first interclub that same morning and had one of her lens split in her eye on the first punch (the ref ended the match early). So I finally decided that I would not wear contacts and suck it up! I made sure I checked all the stairs and entrance to the ring before it was my time to go, so it didn't end up being much of a problem after all. 

Congrats for your 1st (proper) fight! I would say do whatever make you feel more confident, and focus on your strength, not your 'trouble finding distance' (although I realize it is easier said than done. I'm in the same boat as u with distance prob!)
Whatever you choose, keep us posted about ur fight:) 

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In "flow states", presumability, this communication becomes utterly suffused. This is why "play" plays such an important part of Thai training and development, it approximates in a low stakes way this suffusion. Aesthetics and Thought The role of Intensification. In the philosophy of Deleuze (and Deleuze and Guattari) there is emphasis on speeds. The exposure to speeds (sometimes in an absolute sense, sometimes in terms of changes in speeds) produces an intensification within oneself. Something that is too fast, but also something that is too slow...intensifies. In this framework I'll position this as that-which-challenges-thought, or that-which-is-where-thought-cannot-follow. This is to say, using Intelligence to keep track, plan and react is no longer sufficient. Intensification is what puts Thought in relationship with Instinct. (And keep in mind, here Instinct isn't just animal reactiviness, though it includes that too. It is the sum of our Unconscious causations.) Intensifications produce a dialogue. Muay Thai active training, aside from drills and conditioning, is thought of as "getting used to" certain speeds and intensifications, things that would just throw you into pure instinctive reactions if you were untrained. But, it is much more than that. The "getting used to" is not just exposure therapy, it is actually putting Thought and Instinct into communication with each other, by degrees. You want both dimensions, otherwise you will never receive Tammachat. This is how Thai aesthetics - to which a non-Thai must submit and be shaped by - work to sew together these two aspects of our Being. The over-arching picture of what the art of Muay Thai is, is what allows the space in which Instinct and Thought can develop together in unanticipated, experimental ways. Each must shape each...within the Aesthetic, held together by the Aesthetic. The use of intensification - there are many aspects of intensification, but we can stay with solely the quality of speeds - is to unseat Thought and place it into community with Instinct (your Past). If the intensification is too strong Thought will be forced completely down into Instinct, too light and it will operate over Instinct. The key to Tammachat is that they suffuse, the "wisdom" of each in combination. This is why Thailand's traditional Muay Thai, its very high level of command over the fight space, is an art. Fighters develop within a sphere of progressive, integrating, creative intensifications, and the fight is conducted at the level of a Tammachat suffusion of Thought and Instinct. This is what the great legendary fighters of Thailand's past exude an extraordinary degree of being "at ease", which is why they are so "natural" in their speeds and relations. One is not simply "getting used to" speeds and intensifications. Your Past (the full causal panoply of what you are, reaching much further back than even your person, into what you are as an organism) is being synthesized into an Aesthetic, a certain kind of creative completion, or some variation thereof. The Role of "Technique" Techniques are not bio-mechanically pure modularities, any more than words in a language are distinguished by perfectly performed phonemes. Techniques, which each contain their own intensity, shape, duration (duree). You cannot train techniques by rote to bury them into your past, hoping that they will come out in a kind of blind apparition that is Tammachat. Techniques are like words given to you to actively use, to express yourself within the social space (the fight space), as you encounter intensifications (speeds) that unseat thought. It is the use of techniques, as a kind of language, to weave Instinct and Intelligence (Thought) together. They perform a kind of active armature of expression, which of which holds its own intensification, just like poets let us know that words do. Do not get lost in techniques. The appeal of Thai techniques to the West and other non-Thai centers of fighting is clear. It is the most modular "piece" of the fighting Art of Muay Thai that can be exported outside of its art, like borrowing words of another language. Techniques yield to bio-mechanical reproduction, they can be analyzed by Western sensibilities and translated into angles of force and body position, accelerated by video replications and study. They can be and "are" extracted...but as extracted become nearly useless in the pursuit of Tammachat, the synthesis of Instinct and Thought. They instead operate, usually, with a jarring abutment of Instinct and Intelligence, expressing a mechanical repetition, amid exposures to intensifications of speeds which unseat Thought, often placing Instinct and Execution of technique in a kind of war or struggle of expression. No matter how much one trains technique and practices by rote repeated patterns of striking, one can not reach Tammachat.   What is Intensification? The Relationship to Speeds The great Russian filmmaker Tarkovsky in his book Sculpting In Time wrote about his philosophy of editing shots together. Known for his dreamlike cinema, this concept of intensification in alternation is key to the way in which he places Thought in relationship to Instinct (our collective Past). He has compared the linking of shots together as to connecting pipes together of various diameters, differing pressures, through which water flows. A shots pressure builds up slowly, then he cuts. His art is about alternating and working through various pressures. Some quotes from his writing: The distinctive time running through the shots makes the rhythm...rhythm is not determined by the length of the edited pieces, but by the pressure of the time that runs through them Rhythm in cinema is conveyed by the life of the object visibly recorded in the frame. Just as from the quivering of a reed you can tell what sort of current, what pressure there is in a river, in the same way we know the movement of time from the flow of the life-process reproduced in the shot Editing brings together shots which are already filled with time, and organises the unified, living structure inherent in the film; and the time that pulsates through the blood vessels of the film, making it alive, is of a varying rhythmic press reading deeper into theory: Time and the Film Aesthetics of Andrei Tarkovsky, Donato Totaro, A Deleuzian Analysis of Tarkovsky’s Theory of Time-Pressure, Part 1. This is to say, Tarkovsky in his cinema Art makes use of the same unseating qualities of speeds (changes in intensity), which unseat the priority of Thinking, that Muay Thai training (and fighting) does. The highest level Golden Age Muay Thai artist is displaying speed/intensity changes expressively, in Tammachat, in the same sense that Tarkovsky is in his films, producing a dream-like synthesis of Thought and Instinct. It is dream-like because it overcomes the fundamental tension between Thought (directed, intelligent action) and Instinct (one's Past causal treasure trove), allowing each to communicate to the other. The qualitative Flow State. One does not "bite down" on technique when exposed to intensifications (speeds, but there are many others) which give rise to Instinct. Instead, one turns oneself over to the Aesthetic of Muay, and searches for "words" to integrate oneself, within Instinct, within Thought. Seeking the line of Tammachat. In this sense, ring Muay Thai could be regarded as a proto-form of cinema. The Role of Emotion Primordially, the greatest instinct that a training fighter encounters is Fear. The Art of Fighting is in many ways the Art of Communicating with Fear. One does not merely dull or annul oneself to fear, fear which contains great wisdom acquired not only through one's own life, but also through the history of the organism, passing through aeons back. The Art of Muay should be considered the Art of Fear...and with it the attendant Instinct of Aggression. Training includes the Instinct of Fatigue. Fear, Aggression and Fatigue can be thought of as the Instinct loom upon which Thought is woven, through the exposure to intensities and the arch aesthetic of Muay. One finds a language, one finds words, which work together the instinct and intelligence of Muay, in a new Tammachat, a new naturalness.  Returning to the original reference (below), emotion stands as that which exists between Thought and Instinct. Emotion is that which surges when Thought loses its footing, inviting Instinct in. It is the qualitative way in which we pass through the world, bouncing from intensifying state to intensifying state. For this reason the Thai Buddhistic approach to emotion plays a central role in achieving a new Tammachat communication between Instinct and Intelligence. Emotional reactions in training are to be expected - and emotion itself provides the bridge - but in order for the Aesthetic to provide the cover for development emotion needs to even'd out, understood as a connective force, but not reaching intensities that obscure the sought-for connection. Emotion is simply the sign that Intensities (speeds) have reached a place where Though can no longer adequately follow. It is the door that allows Instinct in. In the right regulation, the right temperature, enough Instinct will enter to guide, and technique (one's learned words) will be allowed to speak, joining Intelligence and Instinct together. Emotion is the conduit. The extension of emotion into a perceptual space (and not merely a spiking or depressive reaction), along Buddhist non-reactive principles, is what allows the art itself to work the synthesis together, properly in training in play. It allows the Tammachat to grow. Without emotion, the substantive expansion which exposed to intensifications that leave Thought & Intelligence behind, one cannot be nourished by one's collective Past. But, it is a question of temperature. Emotion drawn towards Mind. All of this has grown quite esoteric, but it is much more human, much more basic than that. In training one is exposed to differing speeds (intensities), and given techniques (words to speak), both with these speeds, but also amid these speeds. Importantly, these speeds are not just intensifications of fast, they are also intensifications of slow. One is working through a disorientation of the mind (thought, intelligence) in manners which are designed to provoke emotion, but emotion which is only a door to the much wider wealth of Instinct (Unconscious). Emotion is to be regulated, encouraged to be non-reactive, eased into a larger framework of the Aesthetic of Muay, so that the door to Instinct remains open, just enough, so Instinct and Intelligence can collaborate and find ground in a new Tammachat. The invocations of Instinct come out of the very form of training in the Kaimuay in Thailand, a summoning up of the Past, both individual and social, in a community of fighter development. One cannot simply "take out" the techniques of the kaimuay, from this matrix. As fighters train into fatigue, Instinct is also invited in, to speak and inform the Mind. The Aesthetic of Muay steps in to hold the two together, also brought together in the social glue of the kaimuay itself. There is an important mutuality to training, which also falls to the traditional forms of Thai hierarchical culture, a way that the Past inhabits the Present through social bond. Muay Thai is the art by which the Past is allowed to continue to speak, so as to inform (and be informed by) Intelligence. This occurs though, principally, through the exposure and involvement of speeds (intensities) designed to provoke emotion, which itself must be modulated by Buddhistic appeal. This is a fundamental shoreline in training, which then expresses itself in a higher state when fighting.  The Fighter and the Unconscious: the flinch and the archetype To follow along in this discussion its important to understand what the nature of the Unconscious is. We are very far from Freud's vision of a repressed Unconscious of drives. We are thinking of a productive Unconscious, the Unconscious understood as everything from flinching to (perhaps) Jung's concept of archetypes. This is because the Unconscious is everything that falls below the threshold of awareness. It includes all the aspects of one's personal history, the experiences of childhood and before, all the things learned as "forgotten", and (following Jung) the energies of one's personal force such as the Shadow or the anima/animus, etc. In training the fighter is engaging, in a systematic craft of intensity exposure and development (its no accidental that Muay Thai is by custom part of the pedagogy and maturation of male adolescents), eliciting emotion for its relative control, turning it onto a conduit. The conduit is connecting Mind (Intelligence, Thought) to Instinct (the Unconscious), and back again. It is drawing forth on the resources of the Unconscious (all of the Unconscious - from the composite of the organism and the species, all those reflects and affective capacities and perceptions, to archetypal forms of being in a social world, the mythos of the Individual - all of it), to animate and inform the art of the Muay, which operates as a continuous aesthetic. Both the flinch as a reflex, and the flinch as a half-memory when you were hit as child, (and also the flinch that served emotionally as a recoil from a dominance, a psychic positioning of your energies before a stronger energy), all of those levels of Unconscious capacity are drawn into the aesthetic of the Muay, and are given words to speak, so as to be symbolically present, imbued in movement. The movement is also informed by those Unconscious qualities and many others, made full, through the deeper knowledge of survival and persistence. Key is understanding that the Past is not regressive. The Unconscious is not limiting/limited. It is full of a wealth of the capacity to do...but, it is beneath awareness, and definitionally not accessible by Intelligence/Thought alone. The instinct to flinch, the reflex, following our example, despite violating the aesthetic of the fighter is imbued with tremendous resource, a speed of perception, a defensive priority, which surpasses any conscious action. Those extra-personal knowledges are to be folded into the Aesthetic of Muay. So this is the case with enumerable capacities to sense and act, affective energies of presence, aspects of the organism and the Self which are so infinite they cannot be known. Imperceptible transitions between modes and embodiments of Time. The training (and the performance) reaches reaches through up from the reflex to the sweep of the mythic Self, all of it inaccessible to the direct perception of the Mind. Emotion and Intensification Noted above, in training intensification gives rise to emotion, which opens the doorway to the Unconscious (Instinct). Intensification on one level, let's say in terms of sparring (play), operates along the aspect of speed. One is exposed to speeds, including changes of speeds (tempos), which defy the capacity of the mind to follow, which gives rise to emotion. The intensification though is not emotion. It produces emotion. Emotion that rises to the point of object obsession (that "fighter" is doing this to me, that "technique" is doing this to me, making me feel this) has already lost its role. It's role is to open Thought to Instinct. The coaching and calculating mind, the analytical mind, will lead emotion in the wrong direction. That is why the Buddhistic aspect of Thailand's traditional Muay Thai works to solve the mis-steps of emotion. The Buddhistic aspects of Muay Thai are embedded in its aesthetic form. One doesn't have to think of emotion in terms of Buddhism, but it can help. This is to say, the directionality of the rise of emotion is toward Instinct. One wants to open a two-way door toward the Unconscious. Because Muay Thai is trained also through fatigue and an aesthetic of dominance, intensification (and its attendant rise of emotion) can also occur through fatigue or dominance. Together they can create a very large doorway, weaving together both the materiality of the Body (fatigue) and the psychodynamics of personhood and social status (hierarchies). Turning to the aesthetic of Muay, its conditioning of Ruup (body posture and form), its characteristic display of presence and being at ease (physically), its flattening of emotion, allows the doorways of intensification/emotion to remain open, productive and expressive. Ideally perhaps, emotion per se is stretched out toward Mind, experienced more so as direct intensification alone, a portal to Unconscious Instinct, and the formative powers of what one is. The Mythos of the Self and the Fighter Thailand's Muay Thai is culture bound, which means that its figures of significance and valorization are drawn from the culture itself. It operates within a Thai-Siamese mythos. For this reason great legends of Thailand's Muay Thai past, let's say of the Golden Age of the sport or before, stand in the same light as the gods that are performed and invoked in the Ram Muay. In my discussion of the 10 Principles of Muay Thai I call this "be the god". The meaning of this is to be understood within the mythos of the Unconscious, both at a personal level, but also at the collective level of a people. The fighter in the ring draws up from the Past (the Unconscious) the supra-personal forces that go beyond their mere ego (constructed identity), so that they can assume a symbolic capacity within the ring, making of the art a collective rite. This occurs through the aesthetics of the sport, and the ways in which the fighter has attained the capacity to transmute intensifications into Instinct and Thought syntheses. In this sense fighters can become embodiments of a collective, mythic past, drawing on the forms of what anchors a people, but remain inaccessible to Intelligence alone. The openness of this capacity is achieved in the openness of training, through play and the aesthetics of Muay. Time and the Nature of Muay (the Natural) Bergson's concept of Duration (la durée) is an important building block for understanding what is happening in traditional training and in fighting. A duration for Bergson is an unbreakable envelope of Time. Returning to the example of cinema, a shot holds a certain complete shape to itself. If you edited it in any way you would break what it is. Bergson describes duration as Time what is "swollen with its past". Just as a story is told in a narration, the ending of the story is swollen with its history, the telling of it from the beginning. A duration is anything that cannot be broken, in terms of Time. There may be durations within a duration, unbreakable envelopes within the duration, this does not disturb its wholeness. The image is given of music where one has the musical piece (a duration), and individual notes played (a duration), as well as refrains, phrasings, melodies, etc. Our lives are durations, our days, our thoughts, our bodies, anything that swells with its past, with the passing of time, so to complete it. When one enters a Thai kaimuay to train, or enters a ring to fight, one is entering as a duration (in fact a duration made up of many durations). And one is joining a duration, the event. The rhythms and shapes of the event envelop your duration hold you in concert with other durations you will encounter. In a kaimuay these are the patterns of training, the aesthetics and customs of the art as trained; in the ring it is the aesthetics of Muay as it is fought. This is the set-up. As you train your duration, what is the you of you, your temporal wholeness will be challenged by intensities of speed, fatigue and dominance. This will lead to intensification, and usually emotion. As Thought ceases to be able to manage one's place, one's wholeness, one opens up the the Unconscious/Instinct, to draw on resources that allow your duration, your rhythm, your wholeness to persist. The Time of which you are made (your duration) is enriched by the rise and integration of Instinct, and that which usually falls below consciousness. Your duration is expanded. Fighting is the art of breaking another's duration, their rhythm and tempo which makes them whole. This is why Muay Thai is principally a Time War, and why it occurs under an aesthetic of narration (the scoring is narratively anchored, and not abstract point counting). The techniques of engagement are temporal battles, strikes holding their own duration within the larger duration, attempts to break the unbreakable coherence of the duration of the other. This is why Ruup and continuity play such a large role in Muay Thai aesthetics and skill building. The Natural, the Tammachat, comes from the presence and integration of Instinct, the presence of the Unconscious, which is engendered to flow with Thought. This is achieved in training, through the application of intensities and the invitation of modulated emotion/affect.       Bergson on Instinct and Thought, from Deleuze and the Unconscious (2007): one can leave aside the direction of this argument toward frenzy and the mystic. Important is the relational dichotomy of Instinct and Intelligence.      
    • Instinct and the Thai Principle of Tammachat (ธรรมชาติ) This will remain somewhat obscure, as it's hard to fill the gap in my recent reading, but thoughts on the nature of Tammachat (natural), which is one of the more essential, basic yet obscured qualities of Thailand's Muay Thai - and one that non-Thais most deeply struggle with. How can something be "natural", which is trained? They seem a contradiction, or at the very least in strong tension. Into the gap Westerners try to place concepts like "muscle memory", as if you can create a new causal chain, a new "memory" in your body which then operates with something like "naturalness". This supposed manufactured "muscle memory" is often trained with great tension - a very high degree of unrelaxed, biomechanically precise constant correction. It does not really solve the problem of Tammachat, and instead inserts a mechanical bridge between between what I'll call Instinct and Thought. I'm drawing from these two passages in the excellent book Deleuze and the Unconscious (2007, Christian Kerslake) discussing the influence of the philosopher Bergson. Bergson is concerned with how matter and memory work together. In a certain sense we all have a powerful inheritance of memory, something which includes not all of our conscious experiences, but all of our experiences, much of it unconscious. This is not just things that we can recall to our mind, but rather the very large raft of causes well below the threshold of our awareness, including our biological instincts. Instincts are wisdom, skills, reactions, frames of perception which have been developed through not only 10,000 years of ancestry, but also 100s of millions years of life itself, well below our species. All of this is inherited, in a way, in "memory", the form of the matter of which we are made. When "memory" is acting, this by default is read as "natural". If someone fakes a punch and we flinch...this is natural. It is speaking from our memory. It flows, seemingly, without thought. But Thailand's Muay Thai has a concept of developed naturalness, which is to say the qualities of physical expression which also can flow with the ease that memory has. The temptation is to create "new memories" (that's why "muscle memory") is a thing. If we can train and cram-down memories back into our causal shoot, far enough in, then they too might come out some what "natural" in the future. You see a great deal of this in the proliferation of the "combo", a fixed pattern of strike that is trained over and over again, trying to force it back down into the causal chain, so it can come out "natural"...though it almost always, when trained like this, comes out "forced" and far from Thai Tammachat. The reason for this failing is identified in the passages below (though, this is just a note, and the passages themselves may be hard to decipher, I'm drawing out a line of their thought). The point or idea is not to create new memory, or new instincts (they will never be as strong as those inherited by the instincts of biology, or of those learned deep in our forgettable pasts), its to put Instinct itself in relationship with Thought (or, in the text Intelligence). The ideal state, the Tammachat state, is one in which Instinct and Thought alternate and affect each other. Not only does Thought shape Instinct, Instinct shapes Thought. In some sense the great history of our Being, our personal Unconscious (all things experienced, most of it well below our threshold of awareness) and our collective biological Instincts, all the causes of how we act, is placed in communication with Thoughts, Intelligence, Ideas, in the sense that there is dialogue and mutuality, and no priority of either. In "flow states", presumability, this communication becomes utterly suffused. This is why "play" plays such an important part of Thai training and development, it approximates in a low stakes way this suffusion. Aesthetics and Thought The role of Intensification. In the philosophy of Deleuze (and Deleuze and Guattari) there is emphasis on speeds. The exposure to speeds (sometimes in an absolute sense, sometimes in terms of changes in speeds) produces an intensification within oneself. Something that is too fast, but also something that is too slow...intensifies. In this framework I'll position this as that-which-challenges-thought, or that-which-is-where-thought-cannot-follow. This is to say, using Intelligence to keep track, plan and react is no longer sufficient. Intensification is what puts Thought in relationship with Instinct. (And keep in mind, here Instinct isn't just animal reactiviness, though it includes that too. It is the sum of our Unconscious causations.) Intensifications produce a dialogue. Muay Thai active training, aside from drills and conditioning, is thought of as "getting used to" certain speeds and intensifications, things that would just throw you into pure instinctive reactions if you were untrained. But, it is much more than that. The "getting used to" is not just exposure therapy, it is actually putting Thought and Instinct into communication with each other, by degrees. You want both dimensions, otherwise you will never receive Tammachat. This is how Thai aesthetics - to which a non-Thai must submit and be shaped by - work to sew together these two aspects of our Being. The over-arching picture of what the art of Muay Thai is, is what allows the space in which Instinct and Thought can develop together in unanticipated, experimental ways. Each must shape each...within the Aesthetic, held together by the Aesthetic. The use of intensification - there are many aspects of intensification, but we can stay with solely the quality of speeds - is to unseat Thought and place it into community with Instinct (your Past). If the intensification is too strong Thought will be forced completely down into Instinct, too light and it will operate over Instinct. The key to Tammachat is that they suffuse, the "wisdom" of each in combination. This is why Thailand's traditional Muay Thai, its very high level of command over the fight space, is an art. Fighters develop within a sphere of progressive, integrating, creative intensifications, and the fight is conducted at the level of a Tammachat suffusion of Thought and Instinct. This is what the great legendary fighters of Thailand's past exude an extraordinary degree of being "at ease", which is why they are so "natural" in their speeds and relations. One is not simply "getting used to" speeds and intensifications. Your Past (the full causal panoply of what you are, reaching much further back than even your person, into what you are as an organism) is being synthesized into an Aesthetic, a certain kind of creative completion, or some variation thereof.                                  
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    • 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? 
    • You could just pick a high-level gym in a European city, just live and train there for however long you want (a month?). Lots of gyms have morning and evening classes.
    • Hi, i have a general question concerning Muay-Thai training camps, are there any serious ones in Europe at all? I know there are some for kickboxing in the Netherlands, but that's not interesting to me or what i aim for. I have found some regarding Muay-Thai in google searches, but what iv'e found seem to be only "retreats" with Muay-Thai on a level compareable to fitness-boxing, yoga or mindfullness.. So what i look for, but can't seem to find anywhere, are camps similar to those in Thailand. Grueling, high-intensity workouts with trainers who have actually fought and don't just do this as a hobby/fitness regime. A place where you can actually grow, improve technique and build strength and gas-tank with high intensity, not a vacation... No hate whatsoever to those who do fitness-boxing and attend retreats like these, i just find it VERY ODD that there ain't any training camps like those in Thailand out there, or perhaps i haven't looked good enough?..  Appericiate all responses, thank you! 
    • In my experience, 1 pair of gloves is fine (14oz in my case, so I can spar safely), just air them out between training (bag gloves definitely not necessary). Shinguards are a good idea, though gyms will always have them and lend them out- just more hygienic to have your own.  2 pairs of wraps, 2 shorts (I like the lightweight Raja ones for the heat), 1 pair of good road running trainers. Good gumshield and groin-protector, naturally. Every time I finish training, I bring everything into the shower (not gloves or shinnies, obviously) with me to clean off the (bucketsfull in my case) of sweat, but things dry off quickly here outside of the monsoon season.  One thing I have found I like is smallish, cotton briefs for training (less cloth, therefore sweaty wetness than boxers, etc.- bring underwear from home- decent, cotton stuff is strangely expensive here). Don't weigh yourself down too much. You might want to buy shorts or vests from the gym(s) as (useful) souvenirs. I recommend Action Zone and Keelapan, next door, in Bangkok (good selection and prices):  https://www.google.com/maps/place/Action+Zone/@13.7474264,100.5206774,17z/data=!4m14!1m7!3m6!1s0x30e29931ee397e41:0x4c8f06926c37408b!2sAction+Zone!8m2!3d13.7474212!4d100.5232523!16s%2Fg%2F1hm3_f5d2!3m5!1s0x30e29931ee397e41:0x4c8f06926c37408b!8m2!3d13.7474212!4d100.5232523!16s%2Fg%2F1hm3_f5d2?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MTAyOS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D
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