The Virtue of Muay Thai Festival Fighting - fighting within the culture of the art, for and by the Thai people

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

 

above is Sylvie's most recently published commentary video, sharing her fight in Buriram earlier this year. Her 282nd fight, her 272nd in the country. In editing the piece together, which for me just involves syncing her voiced video, inserting some titling, some music, I was just struck by how beautiful the event and experience was...and how much comes through in the film. It came back to me, as I lived it, and photographed it, but also it came anew, in the incredible uniqueness of this kind of fighting as it is, for an experienced Westerner like Sylvie. Away from the tourist venues, most of them now swamped with Entertainment rulesets and fights designed for Western consumption, and to produce Western winners, at a Buriram festival where the Muay still holds cultural meanings, much of that involving local gambling passion, social sharing and the proxy struggle over social hierarchies foreigners can little follow. Therdkiat, a Golden Age legend who has taken a liking to Sylvie in the last year or more, has brought Sylvie up to his home province to fight in festival fights. We cannot really know the ultimate meaning of her victories, her performances, as he finds passion in them, but we can know that this kind of fighting is very close to the fabric of Muay Thai which is not bent toward the Westerner...not made for the Westerner. We - well, Sylvie - have fought more times in Thailand than any other foreign fighter, 17 times on broadcast television, she's fought World Title fights and won them, and I can say without hesitation, this, festival fights, are the best fight experiences in all of Thailand. It's not even close. If you love Muay Thai, this is the real Muay Thai.

In this fight the size mis-match is enormous. Probably 10 kgs. Sylvie like no other female fighter in history can handle size disparities, her Muay Khao style is made for it. I believe her record giving up 10 kgs or more in something crazy like 12-2. She has this opponent because she can handle it, and because a rematch was requested. Her opponent trained to counter what beat her in the first fight (you can see that fight here), but it just wasn't enough. She's clinch has even improved, as she's changed her training in it. Her Muay Khao game is tighter than even a few months before. But the point is, this contest really could never happen in any other situation now, in the current state of the sport in the country. It's a beautiful thing, a challenge worthy of the art.

Central to the entire fight is that the clinch still lives in provincial fighting, it's an essential part of the sport, and refs shape it wonderfully with experience in the provinces. In tourist stadia, even under 5 round rulesets, the clinch has been gradually eroded. For years in those stadia refs have broken Sylvie quicker and quicker. Opponents literally drag Sylvie back to the ropes, so the ref will break the clinch the moment the ropes are touched. It changes the entire shape of a fight. If you watch this fight, with its enormous size difference, just look at the clinch. You have a very big fighter who has trained up to counter Sylvie's clinch. She is gripping and at times swallowing Sylvie, attempting to force stagnation. She wants clinch breaks. The ref is just artful in how much he allows to develop in each engagement. He sees what is going on. He sees where the battle is. Even though there is very little "action" in the clinch, it is developing, engagement after engagement. He lets it go. And then finally Sylvie gets to a dominant inside position, and breaks the fight open, almost out of nowhere. But it isn't out of nowhere. 15 fast clinch breaks, and none of that happens. There is no evolution. There isn't even much of a fight. It's a 57 kg girl throwing combos, and a 47 kg girl defending against them, nothing else. Instead, its a chess match of distances.

This is to say, this is the actual Muay Thai of Thailand, one not made for the Westerner. And Sylvie has devoted years now, learning how to fight in this manner.

Size and Fighting

There is a question as to how old this style of fighting is, in the provinces. I stumbled upon this account in 1975, where men in the 70s and 80s were already complaining about the degradation of the sport, something they traced even back to the imposition of weight classes and timed rounds. The muay before was known for its endurance, and the capacity of fighters to face very big weight differences:

source

There is in the root of Thailand's Muay Thai a dimension of gambling and the freedom of the art, wherein the art contains the possibility of beating much larger fighters. And if bets are taken, its because the possibility has meaning. That is something that is beautiful about this fight, and really festival fighting in general. It is the occasion of pure contest in the active interest of the audience, an audience that gives the fight its meaning. It isn't created by a promoter or Instagram posts. It's generated by the actual audience, who is part of the rite of fighting itself.

I've seen a lot of fights in Thailand, and I've seen Sylvie fight so numerously - this fight, and this kind of fight is just something different than what is more broadly encountered by most Westerners, and even by ourselves well over 100 times. It's not a technical marvel. It's not an explosive highlight reel. Its a struggle, a struggle that the audience is involved in to some degree. The ref calls it - some would imagine prematurely - but it is because he and her opponent saw what happened. The fight was cracked open. Clinch was allowed to do its eroding work. The one shot, her opponent's path to victory, was closed. Clinch positions were only going to get much worse. Her head was going to be forced down. The rematch was no longer necessary...at least on this occasion. This is knowledgeable Muay Thai.

I remember sitting at a table of old timers, including reporters from Muay Siam. They all pretty much agreed, there was no more Muay Thai as it was classically known, in Thailand. But then the Muay Siam reporter said: No, in the provinces there is still Muay Thai. And they nodded their heads. Yes it was true. It's about the culture and shape of the fight. The fight's relationship to the audience. It's about small things, the way even non-ideal matchups like this can still be expressive of the principals and values of a very old sport and art. This is the living Muay Thai of Thailand, where the heart still beats.