Journaling - Readings, Muay Thai, Concepts and Articulations

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

The relationship is to the muay, not to any particular opponent, or achievement, belt. Those things help you create and nurture the relationship to the muay, and that means ultimately to yourself. In the muay you see yourself sculpted out against Time, in the spirit of emotion, with your body, like a stylus that has been writing in hieroglyphics your whole life.

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

Muay Thai is not a commodity, it is a way of Life.

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

Just heard about a name Thai gym's training style described as progressive. Westerners are the worst Muay Thai fighters in the world...let's train like them. smh.

 

On a deeper level, this may be the future of the sport, because the deep-learning training of Thailand's Muay Thai, how it got such excellence out of its fighters, came out of its culture, its sub-culture...which is changing/eroding. More and more those training conditions will not be available, and the lure of modernity (which doesn't actually produce fluent fighters), will always be there to fill in the increasing gap.

Unfortunately, this also ties into the very old place Western (and globalizing) culture - its "civilizing progress" ideology - has had in Thai consciousness. If it has blinking lights, its good.

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?ref=watch_permalink&v=942850751079497

So enjoying this Udon festival fight stream, found via Egokind (https://x.com/Egokind1)

This is the real of Muay Thai. Hell, the last fight with kids was pulling 6K viewers in the stream, while RWS was pulling 2K. There was a Japanese fighter earlier (guessing from appearances), maybe big-for-his-age 12, or maybe 14, who gave it his all as the Thai illegal tripped him endlessly, such a very real experience for him. Just hearing the crowd of gamblers and community shout on every strike, even the local commercials, this is just beautiful stuff. Hard to explain how satisfying it is when it its not just a "show" for tourists.

I say this, as two...maybe "influencers"?? (who don't have much Muay Thai, or once had Muay Thai, but now seem to have have quite a bit of animosity), go hard at each other in the ring, right now. There is a difference between a "show" that is a commercial product, and what I would call Thai spectacle. Spectacle is understood as unreal (thus, "does not count", un-significant). Thailand's Muay Thai, in its cultural fabric, can weave the spectacle and the real, together...which is why Entertainment Muay Thai, as a tv phenomena in Thailand, was so hard to read. It was completely unreal...spectacle (Thai Fight & MAX in those days)...but then it started making claims of the real, even the "most real".

In festival fights like these you can get an entire spectrum of Muay Thai, in all its shades and colors, from spectacle to the very real. Kids on the come up, Old Men, rising stars, big side-bet fights. It's like a fair of Muay Thai.

The most wonderful is that you get the full ruleset in the provinces, including repeated and continuous clinch fighting, and very strong aesthetic sense of narrative in scoring. Everyone understands stories are being told, and they are being told at all distances, in a full range of skills, even among the less skilled. It is the spoken story of bodies.

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

 

 

Geez, that was completely unexpected. Thought Diandra Martin would kind of walk through Hongthong tonight on RWS, but instead a very sharp KO on a 1-2 from Hongtong. Hongtong looked at a size disadvantage even, and Martin had beaten Amber Kitchen on ONE (looking it up).

Our interest in this fight was Sylvie has fought Hongthong 4 times herself giving up huge weight (about 22 lbs), and we almost always are pulling for her ex-opponents (nothing against Diandra, we just don't know her). We know Hongthong and her gym, her gymmates, and her coach well.

This is a huge win for Hongthong who has been fighting Muay Thai for long time.

I also suspect that Diandra wasn't well served by fighting a patient, "Thai Style" fight. When Hongthong can reset, reset, reset she's on much more comfortable ground.

 

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

12 hours ago, Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu said:

There is a difference between a "show" that is a commercial product, and what I would call Thai spectacle. Spectacle is understood as unreal (thus, "does not count", un-significant). Thailand's Muay Thai, in its cultural fabric, can weave the spectacle and the real, together

I say unreal, but in another sense there is a reality to spectacle, almost an alternate enjoyment enjoyment that includes all sorts of values, but...it does not count. It is not added to that register of counting and measurement. This, I suspect, also helps explain thrown fights in even Bangkok stadium Muay Thai. When a fight is thrown, even though many will be upset, there is an additional sense of "I see what happened there, this wasn't real". The fight then slips into spectacle. This "counts" vs "spectacle" in Thailand doesn't quite match up with Western concepts of sport, where things are just real or fake, with strong judicial codification. This is one of the complexities in trying to produce "Entertainment" (Spectacle) versions of the sport/art, that are regarded as the "most real".

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

16 hours ago, Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu said:

I say this, as two...maybe "influencers"?? (who don't have much Muay Thai, or once had Muay Thai, but now seem to have have quite a bit of animosity), go hard at each other in the ring, right now.

This caption (below) says "Honestly, this fight was more exciting than ONE", from Remina's page

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=3793175460900201&rdid=anii3llwrR2LSV4j

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

Clinch Devolving

Channel 7. Muay Thai has gotten into a very bad habit of when there is a lead the ref just breaks clinch the moment it gets to the rope. This leads to just a fighter chasing to the rope, and then break, over and over and over and over. If refs would just let these positions on the rope cook for a bit, they'd start to degrade, and the fighter with the lead would have to do more than just wait for the ref.

Main event today. An early count just led to endless ref breaks.

Let clinch breathe. It builds skills, narrative.