Why Sylvie is a Muay Thai Traditionalist and a Feminist - Lived Dignities

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

An interesting aspect of Sylvie's perspective on Thailand's Muay Thai is that she's a devoted traditionalist "just fight, get in the ring", "celebrate & study legends", "learn Thai language & culture", "archive Muay Thai history" "fight in a traditional style"...but very progressive as a person. She celebrates dignity. She's a devoted feminist who is actually also a traditionalist...because both require the raising up of the dignity of others, a dignity that has been marginalized. In the case of the men of Muay Thai tradition by the march of globalization & in the case of gender by the march of judgements. She has a very unique amphibious (even seemingly contradictory) relationship to these two poles that in a time of global social media polarization is quite meaningful. It's not common to bring these two together. Everything is about splitting the spectrum...but she's actually lived its confluence. It means many who love and follow her might not agree with each other. It's a really interesting synthesis, because it wasn't achieved at the intellectual/philosophical level. She wasn't working something out abstractly. It's something that occurred by just following her passion for Muay Thai and the dignity that it symbolized, enacted, afforded as she has studied, trained and fought at historic levels.

I write this as I'm continuously re-struck by her uniqueness. She's telling me this morning about a Karuhat vs Weerapol fight she may have found to be previously misdocumented, while looking through old Muay Thai magazines (very fine detail stuff) while passionately a defender of trans- and women's opportunities and rights. The dignity of both. Some of this is that Thailand's Muay Thai is shot through with VERY Patriarchal values, composed of hierarchies that are both entrenched but also constantly contested...yet also Thai fight culture possesses a unitarian view of struggle itself, a spirit of agonism that reads dignity in fights of every kind. Even down to the insect level, between beetles, there are contests of dignity...which a struggle which founds dignity itself. So, as long as the struggle and battle is "fair", there is dignity to be discovered & revealed. No matter where you find yourself in the imposed hierarchy. Yes, there are continuous (traditional-minded) reterritorializations which code over those battles, and the struggle over "fair" is its own agonism, part of the Muay, but beneath it all is an almost Spinozist sense of personal dignity being cultivated & exemplified simply as force vs force.

Anything and anyone can fight.

This is the (hidden) Joy of Thailand's fight culture, a Buddhistic churn of organized & aestheticized agonism, but really of soul against soul. It's in this way Sylvie can be a devout traditionalist (of a kind), but also a feminist progressive...on the issue of dignities. I suspect this is the "something" that draws people, seemingly very different people, people of countervailing values, to Thailand and its extraordinary Muay Thai. This is the heart of what makes Thailand's Muay Thai like no other fighting art & sport. This is really the softest of Muay Thai's power, and its greatest Reality.

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

Just to give an idea of the spectrum of care and passion that Sylvie exhibits, including her sense of histories some interviews she's done:

Here is Sylvie interviewing Angie, the first trans (presenting) fighter at Lumpinee Stadium (at a time when the gender line at Lumpinee was very hard), before her first fight ever.

And here Sylvie interviewing Angie after she fought at Lumpinee:

Angie would become a very close friend, and even has said that early on Sylvie as a hard-working woman in the gym was an inspiration for her to even believe she could become a fighter.

Sylvie's passionate reaction haven't JUST watched Angie fight:

But here is Sylvie interview the absolute legend Karuhat, who also has become a close friend, about how much Muay Thai has changed:

 

And here interviewing Dieselnoi, a very good friend, going over the State of Muay Thai a few years ago:

These are just two very brief examples, her historical work bringing to light the lives, techniques, Muay, histories of the legends of Muay Thai is unparalleled. You can see the Muay Thai Library for much of it.

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

In Sylvie's person - her remarkable lived path, following the art and Sport of Muay Thai - and the nature of Muay Thai itself, and Thailand's culture of fight agonism I do believe there are principled, philosophical solutions to be taken up, aspects of understanding tradition and progress that do not entail outright opposition, but also are not forced into a (Hegel-like) logic of opposition. This seems paramount as our social media communication systems are more and more driven by algorithms of outrage, attempting to polarize us further and further, just to feed off the heat of it all (a fairly dangerous, purposeful trend). Key in this thinking for me is the way that Beetle Fighting culturally expresses many of the same dynamics as fighting between humans does. There is a continuum of performed agonism in Thai culture that reaches below the human, and puts everyone within a single process. It in customary sense is perhaps seen in gradations: beetle > chicken > children > women > men, these hierarchies built into the sense-making of the culture as well, but the example of beetle fighting, the "lowest" example allows us to view what is happening on all levels of the strata, across them. You can read this two part article Sylvie and I did on Beetle fighting some years ago:

Importantly, even holding to traditional categories of insect, animal, child, woman, man, none of these categories are in opposition to each other. In fact each are seen as participant in the same processes, the same struggle for dignity, which is mirroring, or illuminating the human struggle itself. The art of Muay Thai is about the aestheticized process of that struggle, combined with the real "Reality Principle" of actual fighting efficacy, a search for fighting prowess in the absolute sense. This efficacy ballast, this thing that grounds all of these fights, the application of force upon force, is also what unites them. A woman (or even a child, Sangamnee was 15 when he made his legendary FOTY run) if they can beat a man is partaking in and exemplifying the deeper principle, beyond those categories.

If you want to look at where the Beetle Fighting example may take us socially or even politically (towards an ecology of persons), this post heads in that direction:

 

 

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

I think, unconsciously, Sylvie tapped into this spirit of universal agonism that is at the heart of Thailand's cultural Muay Thai, very early on. From almost the start she took on the huge goal of fighting 50 times, a number that seemed out of reach for someone like her just beginning. She instinctively threw off the symbolism of achievement or greatness, various Belts that other fighters were measured by. Instead it was the actual process - the repeated process - of fighting itself which made Muay Thai almost spiritual. Each time you stepped into the ring you were made different. You changed. You transformed...as you pursued your own dignity, and acknowledged the dignity of your opponent. Each time. So the quest came rather quickly to just throw off all of the external trappings and to just fight, to dive again and again into that stream of renewal and discovery, as incredibly painful and taxing as it may be. It really erases boundaries...while each time redrawing them, more subtly. And she's fought professionally more than any woman in documented history, regardless of sport, nearly 300 times now. She - instead of taking a position politically, or abstractly, she took it personally and artistically - is living the path of this assembled, contested of dignities, repeatedly changed by it.