fighting/going to thailand as a trans person
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A beautiful thread you have here. I am late to the party but Sylvie pointed me to it today. If I would ever care to analyze what MT does to me past the superficial "it is fun", this is what I would write, maybe not as eloquent though. 🙂 But as you made me self-reflect today, I realized how deep MT has rooted itself inside me and how it then manifested on the outside. I started at 36 and I have been doing MT for 2 years now. I am definitely in a better shape now than ever, both mentally and physically. People from outside can disagree when they see my sometimes bruised body and my obsession with pain and grind but for me that's the moments when I feel like myself. That's when my most genuine smiles happen. It's been the best tool to reintegrate my lost masculine part back in a healthy way and finally feel as a whole, self-reliant and resilient to societal expectations and pressure. Who would think, right? That the best way to find yourself and your place as a woman could be through such a stereotypically masculine activity. -
Hey everyone reading this, as the MTL and this forum was the initial factor of me going to train at Bangkok i want to share my experience of training with Sagat for a week and what i learned from it. First of all Sagat is a really nice person overall, He was willing to pick me up with his car and bring me to the training and also take me back afterwards every single day. He also shared several lunches with me and invited me more or less to a fight event at lumpinee stadium to show me more of muay thai. You also get a very nice feedback during training with him, depending on your technique the responds vary from critique, to good, to perfect, to uwee and of course "how feel" with a bright smile. What i learned: 1. Go straight: Sagat teaches of what i would call a traditional/old school way of everything. Most of the basic strikes we went through were supposed to travel the minimal distance. For example the kick is supposed to angle at about 45 degree and go straight up like a soccer/football kick, returning the foot by going directly back. Thus the hip snaps more, so you dont fully close the hip(if that makes sense). Also you dont turn in the shin on the last second like in "the golden kick", he corrected this many times as i was very confused with this. 2. Acceleration at the end of strikes: With punches and elbows there was big emphasise on accelerating "after" the hip and body rotation or even more so at the end of the upper body rotation. This way you can go through the target more easily (like when somebody tells you to hit behind the bag). 3. Straight punches: Sagat teaches to throw without turning the fist. Instead you lift the elbow at the end of the arm movement, so that your elbow (not the upper arm) ist positioned behind your fist, this way you get the "snap" in the punch or at least i feel this way. You also come in on a little angle with the fist, instead of coming pinpoint straight. Thinking about it i believe all of his punches work with the "elbow behind the fist". This way the wrist, the elbow joint and the fist feel more supported and the forearm comes as a whole. 4. Stepping in on strike and afterwards step out: I was supposed to step on every punch with the weight mostly on the front leg. I tried on different ocassions to switch my weight back and forth (like in the chatchai sasakul sessions) but i was corrected about it, because i couldnt get back fast enough this way. He also tried to teach me to breath in deeply before stepping in, so that you have enough energy to throw your strikes. I hope somebody finds this in any form useful. -
I was going to thailaind to train for the first time and was unsure where to go. With so much choice I decided to post a thread asking where would be best to go. After a recommendation by Kevin on this forum I decided to just give it a go and visit this gym in Chaing Mai. I messaged the gym and they were really helpful with recommendations for accomodation. Location: The gym is located a few minutes by taxi from Chaing Mai Airport. There is accomodation approximately 100 metres from the gym that is a reasonable price. I stayed in a hotel a bit further away that was right next to the mall. The mall is about a 15 minute walk from the gym and it pretty big. In terms of training it is really easy to get to your accomodation and the gym. The main city is about a 10 minute taxi ride away. Its pretty easy to get around and far less traffic than Bangkok. So if you wanted to live in the city centre and commute to the gym it's easily possible. In terms of things to do in the city there is loads of places to eat and markets seemingly everywhere. Other than that you can look things up in a guidebook for things to do or something. Training: Classes are 7am and 3pm with optional training before this. The classes consist of skipping, pad work, bag work, sparring/clinching. The class is well structured and you are always given something to do. Thailand will often show techniques throughout the session and this knowledge is absolute gold. I also did a few private sessions and got lots of corrections to various techniques but he didn't teach too much so I could retain it. He is an extremely good teacher and would highly recommend private lessons with him. I felt a huge improvement very quickly. It's hard to explain how much my technique improved within a couple of weeks but he managed to improve the fundamentals of pretty much everything I was doing. Thailand is a highly gifted coach and he really cares about everyone in the gym getting better and enjoying training. I cannot recommend this gym highly enough. The vibe at the gym: Everyone here is really friendly. The Thai guys who live at the gym are quite young but this makes no difference, they are technically superb and a lot can be learnt sparring them. The foreign visitors who were also there were all really cool and we all made friends right away. There is absolutely no ego here which was really nice to be a part of. Summary: A highly technical gym conveniently located with a genuinely caring and motivated head coach. Seriously, Thailand is a technical genius. The people at the gym (in my experience) were all friendly which really helps if you're visiting to mainly train as you will be at the gym a lot. There seems to be plenty of fighting opportunities if you want them. I didn't explore this and mainly visited to learn as much as I could. Thanks Kevin for being so active on this forum and making this recommendation.
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A beautiful thread you have here. I am late to the party but Sylvie pointed me to it today. If I would ever care to analyze what MT does to me past the superficial "it is fun", this is what I would write, maybe not as eloquent though. 🙂 But as you made me self-reflect today, I realized how deep MT has rooted itself inside me and how it then manifested on the outside. I started at 36 and I have been doing MT for 2 years now. I am definitely in a better shape now than ever, both mentally and physically. People from outside can disagree when they see my sometimes bruised body and my obsession with pain and grind but for me that's the moments when I feel like myself. That's when my most genuine smiles happen. It's been the best tool to reintegrate my lost masculine part back in a healthy way and finally feel as a whole, self-reliant and resilient to societal expectations and pressure. Who would think, right? That the best way to find yourself and your place as a woman could be through such a stereotypically masculine activity.
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By AlexanderWenderson · Posted
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Thanks for responding and wow, what a beautiful ram muay. I think I really resonate with what you said about allowing yourself to occupy and utilize masculine and feminine energies without it having any bearing on your actual gendered existence. Being able to "go back" into masculine territory with Muay Thai has really let me take ownership over the parts of myself that I was running from and contextualize them into my post-transition persona. You and Angie are literally who I think of when I am overwhelmed and pessimistic about fighting. You both made room for me in the sport in your own ways and I am very grateful. PS, Bev Francis is so dope. -
By Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu · Posted
I will be sharing your words with Angie, as I'm sure they mean as much to her as they do to me. For me, personally, what drew me to Muay Thai was the performance of masculinity, with these simultaneous soft and fluid expressions. I've written on my blog about how masculinity does not belong to men; men "wear" it just as much as women can, it's not intrinsic or "natural" or inherent. Bev Francis, one of the most famous female Body Builders in the 70s and 80s pushed past the "acceptable" limit of muscles that "feminine" bodies into muscles that were heavily criticized as being "too much" for a woman. But Bev loved muscles and being strong for the exact same reasons males with those bodies love them: because it feels good. A pleasure not "belonging" to a gender, even if socially it is flagged or coded to the binary. As a cis woman, this is how I've navigated the very complex experiences of Muay. The parts that are masculine feel good for the same reasons they feel good to men, but I do get offended when folks comment that I "look like a man," or am "strong like a man." As a Cis woman, I have a more relaxed privilege to those offenses because I don't worry about "passing," but I do, at times, fret that I can never be unaware of being NOT A MAN in a man's arena. But vacillating in the in-between is where the real beauty is and, if Muay Thai allows you to explore and express your gender in a more nuanced way, then that's a wonder I have greatly appreciated as well. If you can find Superbank's stunningly beautiful Ram Muay, wherein he is pouring out feminine grace and at the exact same moment filling himself with masculine prowess...it's that. That's the perfect example. -
I started late, 25 yrs old. I have recently found Sylvie's videos interviewing Angie and while that is a huge inspiration for me as someone now a few months into training, I have found the real hook that kept me coming back to class religiously is the impact of Muay Thai on my relationship to my body. I pass fairly well when I am conforming to western femininity but I actually gravitate towards tom/butch expression (undercut, little makeup, "men's" cloths) despite being MTF. For my whole life, and especially the last few years during transition I have had basically hypervigilance/hyper fixation surrounding my body and how its being perceived/gendered and how I exist in space. Surrendering to the grind/burn of Muay Thai has been one of the biggest non-medical transition tool for reframing my relationship to my body from one centered on the perceptions of others, to one centered around learning how to assert myself in space and exercise balance and autonomy over my body. I have a lifetime of sharpening ahead of me but I have found a great deal of relief and reward in the distance I have come so far. As I become more at home in my body I am able to understand how my natural tendencies match up to the various subdisciplines/systems of Muay Thai and serves as a salient anchor for these parts of myself I want to develop in my regular life, and for getting past traumas. Making this post to share this experience, as after the fact I thought it was very ironic that this thing that is so good for specifically trans mental health (in my opinion) is socially and sometimes legally off limits to us. How does my experience compare to yours? Do you know any trans fighters that have had similar or different experiences?
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