Journaling - Readings, Muay Thai, Concepts and Articulations

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

This is an English translation of a Facebook post written in Thai by a prominent figure of Southern Muay Thai, protesting the new government and stadium changes brought to make Muay Thai more amenable to foreigners. A lot of truth here in how the knowledge of the sport actually lays within the villages and at the festival level...some of this language is quite strong though, far beyond Thai etiquette. Just posting it here because many don't realize that there are Thais that firmly resist these changes, and see them as undermining the sport and art itself:

"I have been in Muay Thai my whole life. I've been in it before it became corporate. I've stayed in it with love for the sport. Muay Thai is a poor people's sport. Only children of poor families will fight. In the past, this was a "mafia" sport. Hence, no organization wants to get involved. However, this sport still does things the countryside way. Fights relies on temple fairs and annual events. Rules and regulations that are used were made by the people who of Muay Thai who truly understands it. For example; the 5 rounds, 3 minutes per round and 2 minutes break, weigh-in in the morning. It's all made for fairness, even if the bigger fighter will gain an advantage if the fight is at night time, because morning weigh-ins will impact a fighter's management. In the current day, rules are about to change, because the organizations responsible for Muay Thai do not understand the life of the people of Muay Thai. They don't understand fighting in the Muay Thai way. They attempt to compare Muay Thai with the foreigner's martial arts. They try to shove foreigner's rules on to the roots of our sport and tell us it is universal. They are trying to change our way of life by washing away our Thai identity with their papers and regulations. They bring specialists who've never made any contact with the sport to write the rules without asking of what the people who will be following these rules and bequest the national arts think about the rules. This is borderline of selling the country, selling it's traditions, selling your own roots, just to impress foreigners. The spirits of the ancestors will call you damned children."

 

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

One of the great ethical difficulties to the above is: Do you want to make visible what is currently invisible to the cartographic appropriations of colonial capital? Or, just let them sit safely out of range, in their unseen character? On one hand it feels like you must make them visible so to marshall forces to protect and safeguard, and even possibly restore; on the other hand by mapping the invisible then you just set the conditions for appropriation and distortion, and eventual elimination. One of the aspects which I believe kept Thailand's Muay Thai so resilient, despite so many international influences (probably for 500 years even), is a certain kind of hermetic quality to provincial Siam/Thailand, the way that there are cultural dividing lines, which provincial ways of life and culture exist in their own right, than you are passing into another "land". 

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

One of the effects of deteriorating defense in Muay Thai is that sub-optimal offenses will become more effective. Which is to say, they will no longer appear sub-optimal (based on flawed principles). The lack of eyes, or distance control, or sound principles on defense will elevate certain offensive trends which would never fly in the past...one of the subtle ways deskilling is happening. Basic combo-ing sudden is proven effective. Blind pocket trading, effective. Spamming elbows, effective. And with that effectiveness the loss of skill.

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

Geez. I spent the whole night watching all 11 of the existing fights of Wichannoi Pontawee, who many legends named as the GOAT. I've watched his fights before and have enjoyed them, and a few times wowed, but I felt like he's just too important a fighter to be only "somewhat" familiar with him. I had crisp idea of how he fought, and I saw him have some spectacular moments. But its an entire different thing to sit down and watch all the fights - taking lots of notes - back to back, one after another. I don't think I've learned as much watching any other fighter. It's remarkable. Hopefully I can put these notes together for others. 

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

Because I've mostly studied the Golden Age of Muay Thai and after I'm often of the opinion that "Muay Thai doesn't have combinations"...and this is often true. The use of punches are much more vision driven and creative, and at times very good boxers like Somrak won't even be throwing punches, but will be using boxing's footwork or angle taking. But...if you go back to the 1970s many Muay Thai fighters did use boxing combinations to great effect, perhaps no fighter more than the great Wichannoi who punches with speed and power along a grammar of combination fighting. In fact after watching all his fights last night I think one could say that his entire style is organized around his close range combination Muay Maat attack. It's very clear how important they are to him. Last night I also put this brief edit of a 2-5-2 knockout combination that Saensak used to knockout Wichannoi, which is just electric. It really works because Saensak has a thunderous left that Wichannoi is very wary of and has to commit to shut down.

 

But, in the story of boxing's influence on Thailand's Muay Thai that goes back to at least the 1920s, it does seem that there was a qualitative change between the 1970s, then the 1980s, then the 1990s. It's almost as if Western Boxing was digested by Muay Thai, and its influence became more and more diffused, affecting more and more elements, but also less standing out stylistically through combinations. Golden Age punching styles took on their own unique character, through a widespread integration.

One of the interesting things is that because Thailand is becoming combination oriented in its training, with the influence of Westerners and the rise of Entertainment Muay Thai, the Silver Age with its much more distinct combination fighting may be a better touchstone than Golden Age excellence. And Wichannoi in particular perhaps. 

 

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

In thinking about Muay Thai training techniques, and the deploy of techniques in fighting, I always turn to a chess analogy. There are "bad" moves one can make against mediocre players, that are in fact "good" moves in terms of results. But, it feels questionable to learn and train "bad" moves of this kind, not only because you might run into a strong player - you might, or you might not - but also because when you learn bad moves, and don't see "why" they are bad or weak, you just don't understand the game at a necessary level. The whole point of looking at moves and thinking about this is understanding the underlying principles that make moves (or tactics, or strategies) good or bad, so that in thinking at that level, you can creatively and spontaneously create novel moves for a given situation. 

There is an interesting sub-example of this floating out there, the "don't turn your lead foot on a hook in Muay Thai because you'll get kicked". There are layers to this idea. The first is the idea that "sure, you can get away with this against a poor opponent, but if you fight a good one, you'll get kicked". Sounds good, sound penetrating, along the lines which are above. But, not the case. There are any number of ways that this isn't really a readymade practical danger, no matter the skill quality of an opponent. Strikes always exposed oneself to counters. The efficacy or dangers of strikes relies very heavily on set up and situation. What is your range? What comes before and after? A 100 questions that matter. There isn't really just a "if you do x, y will happen", and a lot of the discussion of techniques falls into this error. You can't boxing slip or you'll get kneed. You can't body punch or you'll get elbowed. There are always trade-offs, and its important to see potential weaknesses, but honestly getting calf kicked with a turned foot (which isn't likely to happen at the right distance in most effective hook throwing scenarios) isn't that much different than getting your calf kicked without your foot being turned, in fact if you are weight transferring to your back foot its probably not a major problem...and if its a problem, you adjust. Is your foot outside the stance of your opponent? How far are you, what is the distance? Are you proximate enough? What did you just throw? What are the trade-offs? Inotherwords you need to look at all the pieces on the board. Instead you just get meme'd wisdom. If you do x, y will happen. 

This is the layering of the chess analogy. This is when we think about the larger picture, the larger principles. In some cases turning your foot may not be optimal, but in others it may give you several trade-off advantages. Some of this goes to the philosophy of the hook itself, why you are using it and how are you generating power? 

In general though, its worthy to move past the "it works it must be good!" assumption, because there may be larger principle reasons why it will not work against a better opponent, or, the success of the technique may mislead you into thinking a whole class of approaches are fundamentally sound. But, on another level, any question of soundness because of reason "x" also has to be put in larger context of how it matters how a strike is executed, how strikes work in concert, and the trade-offs of offense and defense. 

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

Just published a rough copy of my watching notes for all 11 of Wichannoi's fights:

 

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

[someone posting that students shouldn't be allowed to spar without 6 months in Foundations Class]

 

Not to respond too directly to the above statement, more to just this kind of advisement which is maybe common, but it just shows how far trad Muay Thai development was from today's class centric, out of Thailand (but probably in some parts of Thailand too) is. They are just two very different worlds and practices. Sparring, especially as it seems it was in the Golden Age...was part of foundations. Yes, there was a lot of grueling bag work or shadow boxing, but sparring playfully in space was part of young fighter development. It's not this extreme, but its a bit like saying you shouldn't get on a surf board until you have the fundamentals down for many months. The point was to assemble fundamentals in relationship to others. And, I certainly understand there are huge differences between these worlds, Westerners spar with different intents. It's only to point out that what Thais traditionally achieved was through very different sensibilities over what Muay Thai even was. 

It much more than this, I hope to finish an article on how trad Muay Thai is developed as social rite of passage way-of-life development, but at minimum there is a huge difference in concept in how skills should be acquired.  

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

If you love clinch watch rounds 3-5 of Petchboonchu vs Yodwicha. It's three rounds of glory. It's amazing that in 10 short years this kind of performance and even fighting has been removed from the sport. Pure human art.

 

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

Note to self...want to write of the female fighter as axis mundi, the christological (in Simone Weil sense of bridging sacrifice) pinning of the body down the in the turpitude of struggle, eliciting the sparks of the divine. Soliciting the female as artist, who builds the ladder to Heaven of oneself. see Possession (1981). 

What do I mean by this? Some of it is in relationship to my overall theory of ring fighting in Thailand as a rite, and I think my short film was tapping into this intuition:

 

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

Sylvie politely and obliquely pointing out how insane the brutal knockout bonus is, with illustration of one of the great fighters of Thailand's past:

 

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

The way the power is generated, the relationship of the shin to the arc, the point of the knee in sympathy to the overall movement, the hip drive.

I've been meaning to write a short entry on Kerner and the Golden Age knees of the Hapalang gym. As we've documented in the Muay Thai Library project, and in our conversations in doing that documentation, Thailand today has pretty much LOST the Hapalang knee technique. The greatest Muay Khao gym in the history of Thailand featuring 3 absolute legends of the Knee Dieselnoi, Chamuakpet and Panomtuanlek, had an expertise of kneeing that has largely gone extinct. I've mentioned it several times, watching Dieselnoi knee Kru Gai with his belly pad on, at the age of near 60 then, and blasting the pad so hard it actually stunned Kru Gai, an experienced stadium fighter kru. They were like shotgun blasts. The legends of the Golden Age and other fighters of that age have told us that today Thais knee without damage, they knee largely to score, or set up another knee, which is fine, but they have largely lost the power and precision of the Hapalang knee (and likely of many other less famous gyms of the Silver Age and Golden Age era). It's very cool that we have documented these techniques for coming generations, but the video above is also a wonderful piece of history. The French fighter Guillaume Kerner, whose original Thai teacher was the legendary Pudpadnoi, spent a year at Hapalang gym in 1985 when he was 17 years old. Dieselnoi was already retired and a said (pi) trainer, but Chamuakpet and Panomtuanlek were there ascending, peaking into their FOTY performances. He was in the middle of the greatest Muay Khao space in Thailand, right in the heart of the Golden Age, and if you watch his highlights above it shows. No farang I've ever seen knees like Kerner because he was tapped into the source, and Thais today really don't knee how he did, because so far removed from the training conditions and pedagogy that develops this kind of technique. And, his case is a beautiful one because sometimes in "convert" coming to a technique can kind of over-sharpen it, which causes aspects of it to become even more clear, and I think that's the case with Kerner's kneeing. I assume his foundations were developed with Pudpadnoi, but the art of the power, sharpness and freedom of the knee in space bears the Hapalang mark. He also trained at other notable gyms in the Golden Age, (read up on his bio here) for us like a time traveler deposited where we imagined no farang were. As someone who has studied the knee styles of the 3 Hapalang legends, and other kneeing techniques of Thailand, and watched Sylvie develop her own versions of these, in her journey as a prolific, undersized Muay Khao fighter, its actually quite beautiful to see this video. Each time I watch it I'm amazed at how much of Hapalang got transferred to him, the traces and arcs and ethic of kneeing that even Thailand today no longer really has. 

You can study the Hapalang 3 legends in the MTL here:

Dieselnoi (1982):  #48 Dieselnoi Chor. Thanasukarn - Jam Session (80 min) watch it here  AND  #30 Dieselnoi Chor Thanasukarn 2 - Muay Khao Craft  (42 min) watch it here  AND  #3 Dieselnoi  Chor Thanasukarn  - The King of Knees (54 min) - watch it here #76 Dieselnoi Chor Thanasukarn 4 - How to Fight Tall (69 min) watch it here

Chamuakphet (1985):  #49 Chamuakpet Hapalang - Devastating Knee in Combination (66 min) watch it here  #81  Chamuakpet Hapalang 2 - Muay Khao Internal Attacks (65 min) watch it here

Panomtuanlek (1986): #131 Panomtuanlek Hapalang - The Secret of Tidal Knees (100 min) watch it here

 

Of course there still remain in Thailand many beautiful knee styles, many of them quite effective in their own right, there have been legends and great fighters who have carried the art of the knee fighter on. But, as knee fighting has been downgraded in the sport, and in some versions outright suppressed, there is reason to fear that even more branches of the rich pedagogic tree of knowledge  will be severed, as legends and great krus start to age out.

 

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

The three legends of Hapalang gym, 3 photos:

 

 

 

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

Two Points of Contact

 

 

I'm excited about this coming piece in the MTL. Something we discovered in Karuhat's frame control. His use of two points of contact, opened up by the turn of the hand. 

 

 

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

"People think who you work with doesn't matter, if you just do the work. Utter bullshit. You absorb the qualities of who and what you work with."

 

Proven again. 

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

Dieselnoi told us once, "It's how you end up". When discussing the careers of legacies of fighters its much like the traditional narrative structure of Muay Thai fights. Early leads mean next to nothing, but as your legacy unfolds in the culture over the decades its exactly like 4th and 5th rounds. Dieselnoi was one of the most remarkable prodigies, between the ages 14 and 16 he rode into the Bangkok national stadia with a probably unpresidented 20 fight win streak, until he ran into the buzzsaw of the legend Wichannoi...twice, until overcoming it, and reaching the status of the unfightable fighter, retiring just shy of his 24th birthday. An incredible meteoric rise, peaking perhaps in his victory on Christmas Eve of 1982, beating the since-coming-into-consensus GOAT, and good friend Samart Payakaroon. When we think of the greats, and their legacies, we need to realize that many of them see themselves in this way, as a narrative fight, it matters how you end up. 

This is one reason, in fact our friendship with Dieselinoi, who we experienced at first as somewhat only as legend, a myth when we met him, but not so much a man, living a life, and came to know him as the man who loved Muay Thai perhaps more than any person I history, with all of his might, a volcano of love, that we've sought to preserve, uncover, raise up, document the extraordinary careers, accomplishments, arts of the soul in the ring that were forged in a time of the sport that no longer is. These men are fighting still in their hearts. All of them. 

As much as we push for progress in the sport, and international love and acclaim, we not only owe it to great fighters of the past for them to finish well, finish strong in the eyes of the people, but its also to the betterment of everyone fighting and consuming the sport today, that it have legs, that it has myths, that it has roots that feel unshakeable...because they are. These are roots that we have to preserve and nourish, and spent work delineating, tracing how they grew and how they today anchor the trunk of all that grows today.

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

One thing that Sylvie noted is that very likely the smart phone has undermined even the most common Thailand gym culture. Trainers, fighters, everyone just does their work and then goes on their phones. The very communal aspect of trainers hanging out and watching the fighters do work, making judgements, correcting or commenting softly, talking with each other has become largely fragmented. The mutuality of knowledge and fighter development, even in trad settings, is quickly eroding. And in commercial spaces it may be entirely gone. 

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

In all this time, I never realized that Muangchai's WBC Championship belt was the belt that Chatchai Sasakul won, passed through Yuri. Basically Chatchai resumed the Thai Champion legacy. The more you study, the more you see how embedded Western Boxing has been in Thailand's Muay Thai history. 

 

Filmed with Muangchai yesterday, documenting his Muay Thai.

 

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

The TAT in Thailand put forth its huge marketing strategy for tourism investment, detailing a budget of about $140,000,000 USD, but notably Muay Thai is almost entirely absent of mention (other than the large scale Wai Kru Ceremony which I believe is aligned with the Amazing Muay Thai campaign.

read it here: https://www.tatnews.org/2025/07/thailand-launches-the-new-thailand-vision-to-redefine-tourism-in-2026/

Most notably is ONE's absence, especially in the list of the kinds of international sport events that its trying to be included in,

"...marquee events such as the Amazing Thailand Marathon 2025, the 33rd SEA Games, and Honda LPGA Thailand will reinforce Thailand’s status as a premier sport tourism hub"

A lot of ONE's argument has been how it is radically separated itself out from Thailand's Muay Thai, as part of a larger internationalist sport and martial art entity, in a way that traditional stadium Muay Thai is not. Instead it seems that the overall strategy of the TAT - which I was pretty impressed with, especially went it got down into the segmentations in the lower half of the article - has turned against the very exaggerative metrics that ONE likes to generate and turn to. It wants more meaningful tourism experiences, culturally and locally defined, anchors of attachment, not pushing big numbers which can vacillate and change at the drop of a hat or an investment rate. This is one of the problems with chasing the algorithm and turning traditional Muay Thai into a digital content (knockout) machine. You just become another piece of entertainment whose attention can slosh towards you or radically away from you. The TAT seems to see these and has turned against just number chasing. The kinds of values being put forth actually seem to mirror some of traditional Muay Thai's greatest strengths, the way it is culturally bound, locally defined and experienced, sewing itself into the very fabric and geography of the country. While Rajadamnern's efforts at Entertainment transformation also are not included, it and traditional Muay Thai in general, seems much better positioned to enter into the kinds of expenditures and themes the TAT is taking on. Thailand wants meaningful experiences, cultural attachment and identity, uniqueness, impassioned connection (not social media arguments and memes), it wants travelers who will return and return, who will spend lengthy time, this is traditional Muay Thai, and the Muay Thai of Kaimuay Culture. 

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

 

Watched this fight today. Kongtoranee with a valiant effort attempting to solve very similar spatial problems that Wichannoi struggled with for much of his fighting-up career, as a short armed, hands heavy fighter. And using the low kick and body shots in similar ways to chop into the pocket bubble, before he really has to fight in there. Petchdam just too big, his knees under punches just to massive. But same calculus. 

 

you can see my Wichannoi notes:

 

 

 

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

The Dying Centaur by Antoine Bourdelle has something to do with what we are doing with Muay Thai. The extinguishment of a lyrically, living, massive capacity of human spirit and body. 

 

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

It's hard to assess these things because Muay Thai is so fragmented, but I think Ronachai may be the best Muay Thai fighter in Thailand. 

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

17 hours ago, Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu said:

It's hard to assess these things because Muay Thai is so fragmented, but I think Ronachai may be the best Muay Thai fighter in Thailand. 

 

Watched some Ronnachai, who in the past was an incredibly boring, very passive fighter who really liked to play on the ropes with small leads. His recent stint at RWS may have brought out some of the more aggressive sides of his personality, balancing his trad style out some? (a rare instance of Entertainment fighting complexifying a top trad fighter?).

This fight vs Yothin a couple of years back really shows that old, passive style. There are almost no points scored in the fight and Yothin wins it in the 4th with a big rip from lock, I believe evening up there record against each other.

 

Here is Ronnachai at his most aggressive in RWS, uncharacteristically chasing a KO against a smaller, less experienced opponent:

 

Yesterday versus View, known for his hands, he won all the hands exchanges, and was willing to engage there. Maybe they are related? 

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

Solarity, Bataille and Efficiency

Thinking about Bataille today, and his advisement that our problem is not that we cannot use, save, do efficiently, its that we no longer know how to expend. How to burn, shine, profusion ourselves in waste we can never use. Thinking about what this means for ideas how efficiency in Muay Thai, but also in traditional Muay Thai itself. In the mechanistic West we definitely have a hack mentality of efficiency, a "train smarter not harder" ethos which in some sort of Sport Science manner reflects (distorts) deeper pictures of fighter efficiency. When we see in the ring the movement of greats we see that there is no wasted movement, an ease and naturalness (that ironically enough cannot be attained through the kinds of mechanistic hacks of efficiency and purposed functional movement science, which mirror the notion...one cannot build "natural" out of lego parts and gearworks). What does a Bataille notion of excess and expenditure say to these very prime ideas of stripping away the excess, to fall into conditions where nothing is "wasted"? 

The first insight might be found in his questioning of the very idea of "use". He is already criticizing a "systems" sort of thinking (economics, but really a larger ideology) which isolates a structure from its environment, and seeks to strengthen it, grow it, empower it. This aspect of "use" value means that anything that adds to this growth, this power, necessarily is a utility, it has a purpose. His critique is that this is a false picture. Yes, you can grow and strengthen, develop all sorts of capacities, as a fighter assortments of techniques, physical patterns and extensions, but Bataille will tell you there is a limit in this. That at a certain point the challenge is not in building oneself out, but in expending oneself, and if you don't address this there will be problems. In his work The Accursed Share he poses two possibilities (speaking of social structure), that of festival and potlach, immense public displays and donations of wealth for others, immense gifting...or, atrocities of war, which are also expenditures of great waste (even if they have reasons behind them, giving them purpose). This comes from a turbulence that develops once one has built out capacities, once one has grown. 

For those that picture fighting to have something to do with War, one could imagine that fighting (and even for some, sparring) is exactly that kind of expenditure, that kind of "waste" without use that comes out of built-out turbulence, as it engages in the hotter emotions, aggression and anger, releasing (spending) the pent up, and this could be so. But It is worth thinking about how Thailand's traditional Muay Thai is born from the festival tradition of the countryside, the rings of gambling and communal expenditure as Gift. It is born - and renewed - out of the splendor of expense which folds in the public, and this gives clue to the kinds of expenditure that come out of the great, acme examples of Thai fighters, the unique way that they shine. It is that they have become, in all their training, all their fighting, an immense profusion, a festival expenditure of the Self, which is not for the self, which is not of "use" or made efficient, what Bataille would likely qualify as a solarity. 

As techniques are traced from the great fighters and their fights, and even their instruction, and placed in regimes of efficiency, to be replicated in innumerable copies I cannot help but think about what it is like to be space with legends of the sport and to feel how they move, how much it is made of this kind of profusion, a shining out, which does not come from usefulness or utility or even efficiency (as an end). There is an excess that comes off their aura that defies utility itself, that comes off as Gift for the eyes, and for our sense of self...for us.

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

I suspect that if we took on a Bataille perspective we would much better understand the manner in which Westerners (and those of other parts of the world) come to Thailand to train, often quite rigorously and with great passion. They are looking for a way to expend themselves, in almost a bonfire sense, to undergo and profusely endure an expense, along the order of some kind of transformation. I think though, along with Bataille, we should not look to what they are trying to expend themselves FOR, or what skills or qualities they are looking to attain. There are those kinds of descriptions of reasons available to us, but I suspect that the impulse lies much deeper than this, in the sense of turbulence that Bataille identifies, which MUST be expended, if it is to not become war-like and aggression prone. In this sense many Westerners come balanced on a knife's edge needing the sense of expenditure, in the gift-like manner of surrendering oneself over, into that which one could not partake, but is also confined by the bellicose picture of fighting arts themselves, the idea that fighting, that Muay Thai, is of the more aggressive, hostile affects of the soul, that is a kind of making-war. What they encounter in Thailand though is the second half, the other branch, the branch of festival and shine, which turns away from the urge to make war, to expend oneself in war. To waste in war. Instead it is a wasting that leans towards the solar and the shine. But, this alien reaction to turbulence of the pent-up, the unexpended, hoarded energy is not easy to digest, to even understand. It can take many, many years before one enjoys the role of expense itself, the wasteful portion that does not belong to you, that is merely Gift. Through fighting though (festival) and through daily gym celebrations of expenditure, one can come to it.