Finding The Most Authentic Muay Thai Gyms in Thailand

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

Introduction: Why Muay Thai Gym Authenticity?

what does it even mean, what does authenticity involve?

above, Sylvie at fight 284 (274th in Thailand), with legend Therdkiat tying on gloves about to go into the ring, Buriram

What follows is my attempt to answer the question: What is an authentic Muay Thai gym in Thailand? It comes out of my rounds of answers elsewhere on the forum, but I thought it worthwhile to move these thoughts here and develop them, because its a really interesting and even important question. As more and more people travel the world to come and train (and fight) in Thailand, and as Thailand gyms and promotions turn their face toward the Westerner (and inclusively to the whole Internationalization of the world, increasingly people are going to want to find the "authentic" experience. That's why they are traveling so far, that's why they are putting their bodies on the line, to find something that isn't made for them, something they can't find anywhere else in the world: styles of training, atmospheres of fighting, an art untaught elsewhere. So getting a grip on the very idea of authenticity in such a mixed cultural milieus, amid the very sincere desires of travels, seems an important thing to do, and even a worthy exercise ethically...and spiritually. This is to say, people come to Thailand to be tested and transformed by what is different.

And, in particular, Sylvie and I get a lot of questions about authenticity in Thailand because of our Muay Thai Library project, which is documenting and preserving the disappearing aspects of Thailand's Muay Thai, some of this disappearance related to the accelerations involved in Thailand's embrace of tourism, bending the sport to non-Thais. People who study and support the Muay Thai Library when they come to Thailand are particularly seeking those things, those aspects that flourished in the Golden Age of the sport, however romantically recalled. It's those things they are seeking to find, the rare, so my answer is going to be shaded in that direction.

Also, its important to realize that nearly everyone who comes to Thailand and trains hard and fights have authenticity experiences. Part of this is just due to the very nature of training yourself to new heights not only physically, but emotionally and mentally. This is by its nature authentic, and you know in your heart how close you are coming to that authenticity. The other part of this is that beyond whatever I write below Thailand has an actual culture of fighting. This is like nothing else in the world. It's like going to a planet where your favorite thing pervades every aspect of life, when you step into Muay Thai culture (its krus and padmen, its gyms, its training practices, its rings, its audiences, its rites and beliefs, its sub-culture economies). There is nothing like this anywhere, where fighting is so woven into the actual lives of people as they find meaning in life. It it soaked into the fabric, and the richness of its threads are incredibly rewarding. So, if you physically, emotionally, mentally devote yourself in the gym, and you expose yourself to this other-worldly culture of fighting, you are going to be experiencing unique and rewarding authenticity, no matter how others might judge either aspect from the outside. That belongs to you, and you are an authority in this.

So in this sense, everyone has their own Thailand, their own Muay Thai in Thailand reality, because it is authentic to them. It's one of the most beautiful things about this opportunity. So, what follows if it contradicts with what you or what someone else experienced, this does not in any way diminish that sense of authenticity. This answer is simply from the perspective of Sylvie and myself, as we've had experiences that may be very different than others. Sylvie's stayed away from big gyms and big promotions (because they can be controlling, especially for a female fighter), she's positioned herself on the edge of Muay Thai tourism, and has fought more times than any non-Thai in Thailand (as of writing, 274 times. She's also spent half a decade studying, training with, archiving, documenting the greatest living Muay Thai fighters in history, nearing now 200 hours of archival footage, countless discussions and interviews the great men of Thailand's past. She has a unique experience, especially as it reflects on the question of authenticity, and I as her partner in all this, behind the camera and part of all those relationships, share that perspective.

This is just writing out our view of authenticity of Muay Thai gyms, to be put along side other views, other experiences, as I feel like everyone has these experiences. What is difficult though is that many people who ask this question from across the globe lack the information to even make the assessment from afar, of what will satisfy their desires which have motivated them to come for a long term stay. Not only is first-hand reporting from people online undependable, because people are VERY different, and require different things, not just in terms of skill, but also in terms of physical size, or even temperament (your temperament may really shape how people treat you in a foreign culture) AND because gyms change very quickly in Thailand. Even 3 months might present a different gym if a trainer comes or goes, or a dominant influence in the gym in terms of fighters or students come or go. Gyms are very sensitive micro-cultures, they shift all the time. This can be incredibly frustrating, especially as one seeks to move off-the-beaten-path, where gyms can change even more frequently. In that light it seems good to just put these thoughts out there. They come from an uncommon source and should add to anyone's perspective.

* Also keep in mind in the below, Sylvie does not spend time in lots of gyms in Thailand. She's been all over the country, and in many gyms, but often when filming this is off-hours. And when she has trained in gyms, this is often several years ago. Gyms and spaces change.

** Also, there are still gyms that resist Western influences and Western fighters. Joining these spaces is complex and not necessarily satisfying.

 

The Commercial Muay Thai Gym and the Kaimuay

Some of the difficulty in pursuing "authenticity" in Thai gyms is that non-Thai can tend to have pretty romantic visions of what an authentic gym is like. Or, at the very least incomplete pictures. And, there are versions of imagined authenticity. A great deal of Thailand's Muay Thai of the past came out of the kaimuay (camp) teaching or development method, but there were very different kinds of kaimuay, in some way depending on how close you are to Bangkok's National Stadia, or large city centers where there were scenes of weight class fighting, and thus more money put into the sport. In the outer provinces kaimuay could be just a collection of local boys, in Bangkok a gym that had bought up the contracts of successful provincial fighters, combined with other training/trainer interests. But in these settings there was very little one-on-one instruction, as far as we can tell. Instead, fighters were basically workers, laborers, much as ranch-hands were laborers in the Cattle Ranching of the American West. Fighters were very low status, socially, pad men also usually low status, and the development of fighters was a process, come from mixing all the fighters together, in the work of the kaimuay. There's really no Master & Student dynamic going on, as for instance in Asian Martial Arts, or even like coach-centric Western Boxing traditions. It was largely the churn. Fighters would fall out, or they would rise. There were likely exceptions and unique dynamics in gyms, but this was the "authentic" profile of what was happening. So, if you wanted to be part of a kaimuay, as it was, you would just be in the churn. You wouldn't be getting special instruction. You'd be learning by imitation and repetition, and through lots of sparring and clinch. You would have no authority as a customer (in this fantasy), you wouldn't be allowed to leave the camp and go to another gym if things weren't working out (this problem STILL happens for Westerners in Thailand, believe it or not, because Muay Thai gym are very political). You'd be in a state more or less like indentured work.

That kaimuay, as it was, largely doesn't exist anymore. Which is to say Thai camps have vestigial aspects of the kaimuay, and some still train with a focus on the churn (which is the true way), but this is very far from going to a camp and taking private lessons, as a paying customer. Now lots of Muay Thai gyms offer privates, and also have adapted training to Western expectations, involving more correction and attention, and some of those still try to maintain something of the kaimuay ethic. But, we are already outside of "authentic" as it historically was.

So when Westerners really long for the authentic experience, they are often caught between kinds of gyms, gyms that maintain SOME dimensions of authenticity (just some of that: train in a kaimuay way, focus on Thai techniques and principles, produce Thai stadium fighters themselves, carry a culture of traditional respect and power), but none of them will have all of that (at least as I've seen). Worse, many (even with some authentic qualities, will have started training in more Western ways, holding for combos, focused on Entertainment Muay Thai (which is basically Muay Thai made for tourists and tourism). So its very hard to pick out WHICH authentic elements you are going to get. You could go to a "traditional style" gym known for Muay Khao and just end up clinching endlessly with Westerners who also came there because its known for clinch training. You could go where a true legend of the sport like Arjan Surat still works fighters for the stadia, but there may be nobody your size to train against and with. You could go up to a REAL provincial kaimuay like Santi Gym in Ubon, and just train in the churn of fighters reaching for the stadia, but they probably wouldn't be giving privates (?), and you might find the work boring or isolating. You could go to a "technique" gym like Sitjaopho, where you'll (probably) be pressed together with lots of other Westerners very interested in technique, but in a hybrid way that has approximated the kaimuay churn, while offering lots of correction and teaching, but you won't likely be training with Thai fighters. You could go to Sit Thailand in Chiang Mai, which seems to have a small kaimuay structure, organized around developing his son and a few other good Thais, and take privates from him (a very good teacher), but are there people to train with (this changes a lot in gyms)? Or, you could go the Samart's gym, and be trained by legends like Kongtoranee or Karuhat, and be near (mixed in? I don't know) the Thai kaimuay like processes of their handful of stadium fighters, in a kind of hybrid space? These are just very broad pictures (every gym changes, and as mentioned, we don't really spend time in gyms much). Every gym is going to be missing something, probably a lot of things.

This is the fundamental problem for Westerners. Muay Thai has more and more become FOR the Westerner. In fact they've now invented a new version of Muay Thai which is FOR the Westerner, and its becoming dominant. But, if Muay Thai wasn't turning its face to the Westerner there would be little room for the Westerner in traditional spaces...because traditional spaces are not only hierarchical (not commercial for customers), they were also businesses in the way that Cattle Ranches were businesses. You wouldn't come from another country and go to a ranch in 1950 in Texas to "learn how to be a cowboy".

Part of the problem is that Muay Thai itself, in its authentic strain, is dying, so you can only capture pieces of it, fragments, at best chunks. I'm not an expert in this, only someone with my own experience, but this perspective comes from documenting the Golden Age of the sport, getting to know the great teachers of the art and sport as they are now, but also continually hunting for the kaimuay qualities of "authenticity" for Sylvie herself, as she trains and fights. It's very difficult to find.

 

In the below, if you are thinking about any of these gyms I strongly recommend you watch the Muay Thai Library session to get a sense of the muay that is being taught, the energy of the teaching, and even the space. It will give you deep insight into what you may be experiencing if you go, keeping in mind that these are private sessions, and Sylvie is a unique student.

Muay Thai Gyms With Dimensions of Authenticity

Just to offer something, gyms change all the time, and factors of "authenticity" can also change. And who you are and what you need/desire is probably more important than even the qualities of the gym at times.

Dejrat Gym, Bangkok - Arjan Surat is an absolute legend, nobody like him in the entire sport. Gym in his garage (not uncommon in the day), lighter weight stadium fighters even at the champion level come through his gym still. A very tough old school trainer. Pads will shape you. May not be a full gym. Arjan Surat trained one of the first WBC World Boxing Champions Phayao in the 1970s, and countless Golden Age legends and fighters. His gym has long been a station for the wayward fighter who needs toughing up, and Karuhat himself "ran away" after only one day, back in the day. If you want to time-travel into pure Muay Thai Arajan-ness, train in his gym which is just his garage and experience some of the deeper principles of the art and discipline of the sport, this is the place.

Dejrat Muay Thai Academy map link

 

You can see the gym, and study his fighting style in the Muay Thai Library. Not only are there sessions with Arjan, but also with his ex-fighters who carry the Dejrat fighting style forward. It's a tough, disciplined, on-balance, often hands-heavy, stalking style. And Arjan is basically the Clint Eastwood of Muay Thai, if Clint's characters were real.

#61 Arjan Surat 1 - Old School Master (37 min) watch it here

Arjan Surat stands as a tower in the pantheon of great coaches of Thailand. Coach of the Thai National Team, Kru of legends since the Golden Age, there is nobody like him. Learn the basics of his technique, but what is more look into the eyes of the one of the great coaches ever, training legends in his garage for decades.

#90 Arjan Surat 2 - His Old School Tough & Defensive Style (94 min) watch it here

A legend of Bangkok and coach of the Thai National Team, Arjan Surat has a toughened, defense oriented, forward style. In this session he builds it from the ground up, starting with his old school arm swing on the kick (no swing, instead using it to simultaneously block), emphasizing balance and solid framing. Watch and learn!

#112 Chatchainoi Chaoraioi - The Best Padman in Thailand (64 min) watch it here

Called The Man of Stone when he was a Golden Age fighter at the Derjat Gym, today he is the best padman in Thailand, as far as we have experienced. Learn what makes his padwork so effective, and the forward, hardnosed Muay Thai style that he teaches.

#143 Takrowlek Dejrat - Master of the Low Kick (90 min) watch it here 

One of the great low kicking fighters of the Golden Age teaches his squared up, pressuring, Muay Beuk fight philosophy which uses an extremely fast, vertical low kicking technique that keeps the opponent exactly where you want them. This punishing style, built on defense and ring control is extremely effective, using techniques that are not often taught. Study the low kick in a way you haven't seen before.

 

 

 

Santi Ubon Gym, Ubon - a real provincial kaimuay, full of local kids and teens, some ranked BKK stadium fighters, you'll get the legit culture of provincial Muay Thai here. No English spoken.

Santi Muay Thai Gym map link

there's a MTL session which details the training and where you can see the gym and its settings:

#149 Provincial Kaimuay Knowledge | Santi Ubon Muay Thai (85 min) watch it here

Everyone wants to know what "authentic" Muay Thai training is like in Thailand. We visit and document the kaimuay training style of the Santi gym in Ubon (Isaan), the traditional, local community style of training that is core to Thailand's historical style of fighting. Learn the energy of padwork, sparring and clinch, how fighters are shaped from the ground up. Training like there is nowhere else in the world.

 

Sitjaopho Gym, Hua Hin - a very interesting hybrid gym completely organized around Westerners who love technique. Loads of teaching, loads of training, Kru F a great communicator and as nice as you'll find in Thailand. They have a system of teaching that is connected to kaimuay principles in a very devoted way...but its pretty much for Westerners. Some long term Westerners there are also very helpful and knowledgeable, and in fact may be really key to how the whole gym stays in that sweetspot, and gyms can be very affected by who is training. You train here you will learn.

Sitjaopho Muay Thai Gym map link

#118 Phettho Sitjaopho - Muay Femeu Excellence (70 min) watch it here

Much loved Kru F of Sitjaopho Gym in Hua Hin has beautiful Muay Femeu technique. Learn his secrets to very manageable muay, featuring balance, supreme defense, the development of feeling and naturalness. Learn with me as I learn from him.

 

Look Nungubon Muay Thai Gym, Ubon - great legend of the Golden Age, his son a strong stadium fighter now, which really is good to have in a gym. Out of the way so the Westerners who come to this gym have trekked to get there. The gym has real sincerity, Nungubon is wonderful and Old School. Did not see training, but it seemed like maybe not a full gym. That can be good and can be bad, depends on your needs.

Nungubon's Muay Thai map link

#147 Nungubon Sitlertchai - Explosive Striking & Control Over Space (1 hr, 40 min) watch it here

Visiting Nungubon's gym way out in Ubon Ratchathani Isaan we are able to document his absolutely beautiful muay, both explosive and full of the control over space. Learn his secrets to a fluid, punishing Muay Thai, bringing together the arts of boxing and muay, built on a devotion to shadowboxing. True Golden Age excellence.

 

Samart's Gym, Bangkok - Gyms in the 2010s started informally breaking themselves into two kinds of gyms, which operated side-by-side. There was "Thai gym" (which trains Thais for the stadia in a traditional way), and the Western gym (which trains Westerners, in parallel to the Thais). Often Westerners can't even tell that there are two different gyms operating side-by-side (that's a little how it felt). At Samart's you get to be trained by legends like Kongtoranee and Karuhat, and there are top Thai low-weight stadium champion level fighters like Chalamchon (photo shoot here) developing. The experience is unique because of just how many Golden Age legends are around, including Samart of course, but also Somrak, Dieselnoi will come through, and many others. So it has a mix of authenticities, some of them absolutely unique.

Samart Payakaroon Gym map link

#34 Samart Payakaroon - Balance, Balance, Balance! (81 min) watch it here

Atop the tower of Muay Thai legends probably stands Samart. 3x Fighter of the Year, 4x Lumpinee Champion and WBC World Boxing Champion, no fighter more brilliantly showed what femeu fighting could do. In this session he shows the foundations of how to build true balance, the ultimate key to his fighting style.

#37 Kongtoranee Payakaroon - Power In The Hands (89 min) watch it here

5x Lumpinee Champion, 2x Fighter of the Year, Kongtoranee teaches the fundamental grounding of strikes that made him one of the most feared heavy-handed fighters in Thailand. Such economy of movement expresses the true beauty in his style, quite different than - but no less admirable - that of his young brother Samart.

 

Samingnoom Gym Buriram - a great legend of the Golden Age, adept in both boxing and Muay Thai, history of teaching abroad in places like New Zealand and Finland, built his own ring beside his small house which he also built by hand. These little gyms have the heartbeat of traditional Muay Thai. He trains local kids and adventuresome foreigners. Very barebones authentic Muay Thai. 

Samingnoom Muay Thai map link

#128 Samingnoom Sitboontam - Femeu Timing & Dominance (1 hr, 43 min) watch it here

Almost a documentary film on its own, we go to the hand-built cinderblock home of early Golden Age legend Samingnoom, where he has retreated from International teaching, and Bangkok gyms. His ring surrounded by farmland, is where he teaches an extremely femeu style that has nearly vanished from Muay Thai. This is traveling back in time, into Muay Thai history in more than one way, and its beautiful.

 

Kem Muay Thai Gym, Khao Yai -  Kem a great fighter of the 2000s runs a trad camp in maybe the most beautiful location in Thailand, high up in the Khao Yai mountains, overlooking a valley. The training is kaimuay style, mixed in with Western style drilling that Kem feels builds proper principles. Kem is very, very sound in terms of the deeper principles of Muay Thai, not only its beautiful strikes, but its balance and footwork. Most of the gym will be Westerners, but they've come a long way so they are committed. His wife Mo is wonderful, and speaks English, so even though it feels very Thai, she can help out with any issues. Everyone eats together, traditional style, high up above the camp. One of the great privates in Thailand.

Kem Muay Thai Gym map link

#13 Kem Sitsongpeenong 1 - Building a System (52 min) watch it here

Kem, one of the best fighters of his generation, shows me building blocks of his system. He teaching a firm, defensive frame, and especially likes an upward elbow that explodes out of blocks, checks and fake teeps.

#53 Kem Sitsonpeenong 2 - Mastering Everything In Between (80 min) watch it here

With one of the great technique krus of Thailand, Kem Kem Muaythai Gym, in his gym in the mountains just below Khorat. A special session that details how to work on all the things in-between strikes. So much to learn in this 80 minutes. He's a special teacher.

#137 Kem Sitsongpeenong 3 - Balance, Fakes and Calm (102 mins) watch it here or podcast here 

Kem goes right to the heart of his beautiful, explosive style. It's all about calm and balance, and using that balance to create change of speed and direction, exposing your opponent to sudden attacks, set up by a mix of fakes & rhythm. What is being taught here can add to the effectiveness of any style fighter, filming at his beautiful gym in the Khao Yai mountains.

 

 

A Checklist of Authenticity

The way I see it there are several overlapping, and sometimes contradictory processes of gym "authenticity":

• developing young Thai fighters to fight in the festival circuit and eventually the traditional stadia (not Entertainment Muay Thai shows)
• disseminating, developing Thai techniques and stylistics through a slow-cook "churn" of training: learning through arduous, play (<< this is important), osmosis and imitation
• maintaining a traditional authority culture, including the legacy of the gym, its heritage
• gaining prestige through high-profile fighters in the Bangkok stadia gambling scene
• the gym, the kaimuay, an expression of the local community, a weave of its people, its location
• a house - sometimes literally a house - of knowledge, kept within a top kru or boss who productively runs the camp, this knowledge is both political craft and technical fighting craft.
• a collection of entrepreneurial knowledges within the group, betting padmen, who themselves are jostling for social position
• a house where chance (gambling) meets technique (knowledge)

 

A lot of this runs counter, or is outright alien to a foreigner (not of the community) paying for (commerce, not alliance) technical knowledge (the structure of the house). So gyms that accept foreigners become hybrid spaces, often with parallel (and contradictory) value systems, or social organization. The more prominent the newer value system, the less "authentic" the gym may be...in this particular description, which imagines that there is something "authentic" to be found and experienced. You can get fragments of this: the experience of kids developing and fighting, the techniques in a lineage, the aura of "respect" and "tradition", the churn of a gym, in mixtures, but almost always in combination with the secondary (usual conflictual) value system that provides admission to the gym.

This being said, the two value systems, roughly we can call them Tradition and Consumer Capitalism, are always working upon each other in the culture, and uniquely in every gym, mutating each other, so there are no hard lines between the two. In gyms where there are parallel structures, one for Thais and one for Westerners, the two value systems can become more distinct, if you develop eyes for them, but in terms of the Thais themselves, the meaning within each value system still has to be understood in terms of Thai culture, social class and capital (prestige). In otherwords, even in the values of Consumer Capitalism, everything is still being understood by Thais in terms of traditional hierarchies, position and social contest. Western values like the autonomy of the individual (which often inspires a Westerner to become a fighter), the liberty of choice & service purchase, are really not at play; they are merely tolerated as a means of commerce. This is to say, even supposedly "inauthentic gyms" insofar as they are Thai, are still more traditional than most Westerners may imagine, even if they cater strongly to Westerners and Western style training, because Thai social hierarchies and motivations underlie everything. By analogy, a Thai owned restaurant might make hamburgers and steaks for tourists, but its still very Thai in the kitchen and the back of the house. But...hanging with the Western customers, adopting the signatures of that food's culture, participating in its celebration appeal, may very well change what kind of Thainess there is.

And remember, class is a very significant part of Thailand's purported authentic Muay Thai. Nearly all the great fighters of the past were provincial fighters who made it in Bangkok, where powerful elites (Sino-Thai promoters) and underworld bosses held court, and where Muay Thai had an ideological dimension expressed by Thai Nationalism and royalty. All of these classes were "authentic" Muay Thai, but as with most highly developed fighting arts, the core of this authenticity comes out of the lower classes, the rural poor, or the urban working poor. This is where the myriad of small gyms and fighters come out of, the roots of the sport. So, in a sense, the further you move away from this, the further - at least culturally and historically - you are moving away from a kind of resolute authenticity.

Today's Muay Thai in the Capital is being redesigned for the Thai hi-so (upper classes), in the inspiration of the next generation of promoter families, some of them educated abroad, often in America. It is being internationalized, as Thailand has always had an internationalizing strain within its culture, which sees social wealth in terms of world standards. Entertainment Muay Thai shows now show inspiration from NBA half-time entertainment, and its not an accident. This is an expression of class.

The turn towards tourism aids in this transformation, as the Thai government leans into the tourist sector economy, developing not only economic power, but Soft ideological power, (the ability to sway world opinion through perceived cultural value). The political elite are expressing themselves, in terms of Muay Thai, in this new way, just as there was a political elite (authentic) expression of Muay Thai 40 years ago, 70 years ago. This stretches Muay Thai away from its lower class root system.

And, within gyms, ex-fighters are finding themselves having left the lower classes they came from, at least in terms of opportunity. This is on account of Thailand's rising standards of living, but also part of their own risen status within a sport that is increasingly turning toward the foreigner. Their sons (now of fighting age) are in a different social strata, with opportunities quite different than those that led them into fighting in the first place, and their gyms (or their students when they don't own gyms) increasingly cater to the Westerner, who without irony, holds them in more esteem than perhaps fellow countrymen, who considered Muay Thai low-brow and underclass. In such gyms and training having affluent students is a signature of social climbing, and even having (relatively) affluent Westerners holding pads or teaching weight training, under them, working FOR them, raises their social position...all without regard for the quality of Muay Thai within the house. There is an authentically Thai drive to move up the social ladder, in a sense because that is what Muay Thai itself always was, the agonistic struggle for recognition and accomplishment. Yodkhunon once asked Sylvie, who prolifically fights out of her own value sense "Why do you still fight, you are already famous?" Changes in the sport and art which we might regard as "inauthentic" are authentically Thai.

 

Soft Power and the Thai Gym

Someone like me might see a gym that is now holding for combos when it used to not, or have a combo-holding Westerner on pads, for Muay Thai shows that have become combo-centric and clashy for the enjoyment of the tourist, as deeply inauthentic, almost a cultural colonization of the sport. But because Thailand's Muay Thai largely is an art of social climbing, done through the art of ring fighting and gambling social capital, moving toward a combo-centric teaching and fighting style, with Westerners in the gym, is bringing not only financial affluence, but also is moving away from Muay Thai's lower class (and rural) roots. It's bringing social status, as Thailand bends towards International values and standards. It doesn't matter so much that this is a less effective way of fighting, or that Thais themselves are losing their fighting acumen and art in imitation of the West, because within Thai sensibility has always been a strain that seeks to distance itself from the rural and "uneducated", joining the World in its modernity. Since before the end of the 19th century when Thai elites and royals educated themselves abroad in England, there has always been an aspect of self-renunciation of the provincial other. Bangkok, in its National Stadia traditional fighting in the 1970s-1990s presented a unique amalgam, filled with rural fighters and their arts, gyms of mob bosses and other kinds of bosses, its own kind of rich, a slowly rising economy which would become deeply internationalized by the early 1990s, it was a heady mixture of tradition, class and investment. Through this, including the influence of Western Boxing through those decades, "authentic" Muay Thai was changing.

But, for those coming to Thailand from across the world, today, its important to note that the true "soft power" of the sport relies on its unique foundations in the lower classes of the country (as in all fighting arts), the residual knowledge, practices, beliefs, which powered the entire sport and art, as it then was signified, displayed, developed, symbolized in the Capital (this is leaving aside discussion of the specific military - and police - history of Muay Thai). The authenticity, in that there is one that the foreigner is looking for, is the aspect of Muay Thai that cannot be made or invented by anyone else...calling into question the new-style imposition of training and fighting in imitation of the Westerner. With all irony aside, the Westerner comes all the way to Thailand to not find themselves in a mirror. Its to find something they do not understand, something that they intuit is important to them, but which is alien and perhaps unapproachable. Something that will change them. That is the true Soft Power of Muay Thai, that is what the Westerner often means by "authentic".

Another Checklist of Authenticity

In thinking through this, this means things like:

• local, neighborhood development of kid fighters
• local, festival, gambling driven fighting, where social face is at risk
• learning directly from great krus & legends who know a Muay Thai that no longer exists, and may ever exist again (even if direct teaching like this is not traditional or "authentic" in its own right).
• training in the churn of a full gym, preferably predominantly Thais seeking to fight, with a full spectrum of skill levels
• finding and respecting tradition-rich spaces which hold the unique history of the sport
• partaking in the culture of respect and hierarchy (which may mean suffering under it, losing autonomy, even losing good training or fight opportunities). For foreign women they can be even more complex & problematic, even dangerous.
• learning to lose - this means, exposing yourself to largely alien traditional fight aesthetics, learning 1,000 ways to lose
• refusing common for-Westerner advantages, including weight bullying advantages. In Thai culture, weight bullying usually comes out of political power, the ability to impose disadvantages on the less powerful.
• do the work, which can be transformative, but understand this is traditionally labor and done through social submission
• understand that the art of (trad) Muay Thai will challenge your understanding and experience of violence.

In general, avoid Entertainment Shows which have been made for the Westerner, and the foreigner in general, both as participant, and as consumer. It's like eating super sweet, peanut-buttery Pad Thai all day. And find excessive combo training (anything pre-patterned that you are supposed to "do" under stress, trained in rote), especially organized around hands, suspect. Muay Thai in its traditional form should be improvisational, perceptive, defense-oriented, and narrative. It's built around display and problem-solving. As Entertainment Muay Thai impacts even traditional shows, the rise of the combo has entered even otherwise "authentic" gyms. Given the low-skill level required from pad holders, and the low level of investment, it is populating the very language of Muay Thai. Add in that Westerners are starting to hold pads in gyms (and what most Westerners know best is combination thinking), the one realizes that the Combo and the Entertainment Show are two powerful currents that move against the transformative authentic experience described above. Combos proliferate because they are easy to teach and do not require the entire social setting of a kaimuay, and because Entertainment Muay Thai is made to reward them. The "authentic" knowledge of the sport is being quickly drained away at both the pedagogic and performative level, through patterned clashing.

 

Worse Than The Army

When we asked the legend Pudpadnoi why he left Muay Thai in the 1970s, one of the very best of the decade, he said "It was worse than the Army"

He briefly went to America, and then settled in France, becoming one of the first of elite Thai fighters bringing authentic Muay Thai to Europe, a Muay Thai though that as a fighting knowledge is difficult to separate out the social conditions which generated it, and the fights that produced it. Pudpadnoi didn't mean just the training, it meant how controlled he was. Filming at one of Bangkok's more "closed" gyms (they only have Thais who train for the stadia and top promotions) we asked if they would accept Westerners. Immediately they shock their head "no", but then 30 minutes later a different answer came. "They could train here, but they couldn't leave". It wasn't immediately clear what this meant, but it did mean that any fighter would be under their social control...in the traditional sense of pervading control.

 

What Sylvie Looks For In Terms of Gym Authenticity Now

For us, for Sylvie, who is incredibly experienced both in Thai style training and in fighting, and who speaks Thai with near fluency, we look for specific aspects of "authenticity" and are willing to sacrifice others.

For us, the training in a gym is conditioned by the moral force of the Big Boss, the owner. The owner, if strong in character and motivated, exerts a pressure on the entire gym that not only makes training consistent, but also expressive of their ethos. Who they are, and what Muay Thai means to them permeates everything, transmitting a quality. And, this is expressed stylistically in the fighters they develop. A good, authentic gym will be something like a stew in which the various kru and padmen each contribute their stylistic and technical perspective, but it all becomes folded in under the head of the gym. So the first thing we look for is not a successful "business", but a personal expression, a culture of Muay Thai, under a moral force of character. This will produce a kaimuay churn of work in which styles and techniques become mixed. There is good work to do there. You are nourished by the churn, and someone like Sylvie can add to it, mix in intensities, styles & qualities she's picked up from training with and fighting for legends, and from a vast in-ring experience itself.

Importantly, for us, The top-down exercise of stylistic force, the ethos that holds the gym forward and gives it personal direction also needs to be connected to the community, to a continual class of young Thai fighters, a mix of growth that is ever in development. This often breaks into "classes" (fighters of a certain age) that develop in parallel, each fighter sharpening the other. This is the bubbling up of Muay Thai. Without this the vitality of the gym, and of its owner can be lost.

Today, as the socio-economic conditions of Muay Thai are either eroding or shifting, the gap between these two is widening. There are fewer and fewer young, local fighters, and Big Bosses become more business men, with Westerners filling in the growing chasm. The cultural dimensions of Muay Thai, its meaning and its most effective training dimensions are splitting apart. And the tourist is making up the difference (with Entertainment Muay Thai in tow).

In many ways the traditional form of the kaimuay is now fragmented, gym heads are now running commercial enterprises in which character and ethos are less in play, and the Thai youth are not entering the sport. So we piece things together, finding important, powerful parts of authenticity, training directly (in non-Traditional ways) with men of great character, ethos and skill, shapers of great muay, even if they don't run gyms, and finding streams of youth, where young fighters are still developing in a churn of training, reflective of kaimuay...and imposing Old School training principles on our own, in isolation, kind of cobbling together what was "authentic" in ways that would nourish further growth and discovery. A kind of virtual authenticity...this is some of the ethic behind the Muay Thai Library documentary project, because the character and knowledge of these men will pass away, and in fact the MTL itself was simply the record of Sylvie already piecing together training when we found existing gyms un-ideal, even though living, training and fighting frequently in Thailand.

 

 

 

 

 

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

1 hour ago, Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu said:

And remember, class is a very significant part of Thailand's purported authentic Muay Thai. Nearly all the great fighters of the past were provincial fighters who made it in Bangkok, where powerful elites (Sino-Thai promoters) and underworld bosses held court, and where Muay Thai had an ideological dimension expressed by Thai Nationalism and royalty. All of these classes were "authentic" Muay Thai, but as with most highly developed fighting arts, the core of this authenticity comes out of the lower classes, the rural poor, or the urban working poor. This is where the myriad of small gyms and fighters come out of, the roots of the sport. So, in a sense, the further you move away from this, the further - at least culturally and historically - you are moving away from a kind of resolute authenticity.

Today's Muay Thai in the Capital is being redesigned for the Thai hi-so (upper classes), in the inspiration of the next generation of promoter families, some of them educated abroad, often in America. It is being internationalized, as Thailand has always had an internationalizing strain within its culture, which sees social wealth in terms of world standards. Entertainment Muay Thai shows now show inspiration from NBA half-time entertainment, and its not an accident. This is an expression of class.

in the above, there is a brief discussion of how Thailand's Muay Thai is being shaped by class, as it gravitates toward the International model of fighting and its presentation. Understanding this, especially in terms of authenticity, its necessary to how this connects up with long-standing modernizing views, and how they reflect on Siamese/Thai classes. Muay Thai as it reflects provincial origins or practices, or even urban underworld moralities, is going to turn away from those authenticities of class, when in the eyes of the upper classes.

Class and The West as Model

When Muay Thai "modernized" in the 1920s this was largely through the efforts of King Vajiravudh, who had been raised much of his young adult life in England. He brought back to Thailand not only broad cultural reforms modeled on European standards - particular things like giving everyone a "last name" (family name) - moving Siam to the Western notion of a modern Nation State, he also reshaped Muay Thai (then) in the image of British Boxing. This was a continuation of the upper classes following of the International image of "civilization" in a Siam way, from previous Kings (many elite and royals were educated in Europe, but it also extended itself into the decades of the middle of the century, marked by Phibun's dictatorship. In the paragraphs below you can see how the mindset of the West as model shaped the very idea of Thainess, and presentability. Phibun would install the now characteristic "ka" and "krop" gendered speech particles (which are not a tradition of Siam's people), to establish distinctions between genders in a European way, and would impose new dress codes, by mandate:

 

from:

"Pibulsongkram's Thai Nation-Building Programme during the Japanese Military Presence, 1941-1945 (1978)

 

This is harkening to the West and its approval is not something that lives only in Thailand's past. Today as Muay Thai itself climbs up the class and standard of living ladder often will look upon its own roots with disapproval. When Westerns talk about "sport science" or take endless supplements, there is within the culture at large a self-diminishing perspective that favors these things as "modern" and necessarily superior. This is not universal though, its a strain in Thai thought. In thinking though about Muay Thai authenticity one has to take these class-oriented trends into perspective, especially as Muay Thai moves towards Entertainment and "Show" models of business, and away from its gambling (lower-class) origins.

I have argued elsewhere that these rural, gambling origins likely played a powerful shaping role in creating the complexity of Thailand's Muay Thai.

How Thailand's Muay Thai Has Been Collectively Created Through the Wisdom of Local Markets and Gambling

 

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

How Authentic is Your Muay Thai Gym in Thailand?

this is a totally idiosyncratic, somewhat in fun, somewhat in all seriousness list of traits that can be added up. If the gym adds up to over 110 it's officially "authentic". This is just to add detail and perspective, not a real judgement.

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

Taking Privates in Thailand

Listen. Taking privates in Thailand is NOT Authentic in the usual sense, but...if you've read my article post above (and clicked through to the rest) you will absolutely understand when I say: Take privates in Thailand. And take them especially from great ex-fighters and krus. Because the traditional path to elite, Golden Age Muay Thai no longer really exists in Thailand, or at the very least is highly fragmented, learning directly from the men who lived and were shaped by that process in concentrated one-on-one sessions is probably the best single thing you can do. These skills, that knowledge, was not developed in that way (one on one instruction), but these men hold knowledge that nobody on earth holds, come out of their own experiences and their continuous living in the sport especially at the highest Age of its development. There is no replacement, and its time is limited. So, while you will not be learning in the kaimuay churn in these sessions, and instead will be directly interacting with a great fighter or kru, what is being taught is in some ways the most authentic. And, if you aren't in Thailand, the Muay Thai Library is probably your only way of coming in consistent contact with it (aside from having such a great Thai kru yourself).

 

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

Like the Santi Ubon Muay Thai gym mentioned above, Siriluck gym in Udonthani was thoroughly reviewed in our forum, and sounds very much like a similar style gym. We have no experience with the gym, but perhaps the author of the post would respond to questions.

 

[sean182818]

 

On 11/17/2024 at 12:03 AM, Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu said:

For us, the training in a gym is conditioned by the moral force of the Big Boss, the owner. The owner, if strong in character and motivated, exerts a pressure on the entire gym that not only makes training consistent, but also expressive of their ethos. Who they are, and what Muay Thai means to them permeates everything, transmitting a quality. And, this is expressed stylistically in the fighters they develop. A good, authentic gym will be something like a stew in which the various kru and padmen each contribute their stylistic and technical perspective, but it all becomes folded in under the head of the gym. So the first thing we look for is not a successful "business", but a personal expression, a culture of Muay Thai, under a moral force of character.

I really appreciate and learned a lot from this perspective. Also love the way you attempt to define what many people, myself included, are trying to say when we use terms like "authentic". It really has so many different meanings from person to person and really helps to look within and try to find what we are really communicating when we say "authentic". We all will certainly have our own definition of authentic muay thai. But what is truly authentic, we would have no part of as foreigners. Really good food for thought there. There is so much romanticism around what muay thai in Thailand is and this write up helps me get a proper perspective. Beautiful writing as well and thank you for this insight. 

Also think your spot on about what I quoted above. "So the first thing we look for is not a successful "business", but a personal expression, a culture of Muay Thai, under a moral force of character". I think Lamnammoon embodies this quote.

Also just wanted to ask Kevin, if there's any philosophers, authors, or books that really made an impact on you?  Would appreciate any recommendations.     

 

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

1 hour ago, sean182818 said:

Also just wanted to ask Kevin, if there's any philosophers, authors, or books that really made an impact on you?  Would appreciate any recommendations.     

 

Thanks for the good words. I used to write a Philosophy blog some years ago, so you could get a sense of my interests and influences from there. Most of it was research around Spinoza, with influences like Deleuze & Guattari, Wittgenstein, Davidson, Autopoesis, Bourdieu, minor influences like Agamben, Negri, Campanella, Vico. Most of the blog was organized around research into Spinoza's lens-grinding and optics. I'm not sure though how to recommend books, as some of the stuff I read feels very, narrow of field?

This was my list of 10 greatest philosophers:

1. Spinoza (parallel postulate under a register of power)

2. Plato (formulating the Orphic)

3. Augustine (Immanent Semiotics of truth)

4. Plotinus (Degree of Being transformation of Plato)

5. Davidson (Triangulation and Objectivity)

6. Guattari and Deleuze (Ontology of Affects)

7. Wittgenstein (Language Game)

8. Nietzsche (Ascent of Metaphor)

9. Sophocles (The Surpass of Tragedy)

10. Maturana and Varela (Operational Closure)

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

1 hour ago, sean182818 said:

Also think your spot on about what I quoted above. "So the first thing we look for is not a successful "business", but a personal expression, a culture of Muay Thai, under a moral force of character". I think Lamnammoon embodies this quote.

Yes, Lamnammoon is a perfect example (too bad he kind of has left go of his ambitions to restart his gym). He has that aura, that presence, that vision, that ethic.

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

1 hour ago, sean182818 said:

It really has so many different meanings from person to person and really helps to look within and try to find what we are really communicating when we say "authentic". We all will certainly have our own definition of authentic muay thai.

Also I think, aside from even the ideas (and values) inside of all our heads is that what must be respected is just how authentically people experience Thailand in differing ways. It is a transportive country, and Muay Thai, no matter how you encounter it, has a way of opening foreigners up and showing themselves a possibility that is extremely meaningful...to them.