Interview With Miriam Sabot
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By Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu · Posted
Nak Muay as pathogenisis creation, the path of suffering (Greek, pathos, to undergo), in the name of surpassing violence with violence as your possible tool. Weil says of the tree of Life, it is only vertical. It has no fruit. -
By Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu · Posted
Following on this thought, Simone invokes such a poetic picture of wearing oneself through Time and Space (here, the ring, the kaimuay) which parallels the Nak Muay. There is something here. -
By Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu · Posted
There is an entirely separate dimension of gaze economy in mixed-culture gyms that I'd love to write about, but bookmarking here so to maybe pick it up another day, and that is the way in which visiting Westerners enter training spaces and do not even look so much at Thais in the space, for orientation (despite all that I wrote so far above on this), and really look horizontally at other, longer term farang in spaces. Writing even from our first experiences in Thailand, in mixed-culture gym spaces, visiting Thailand even in the most touristed areas can be a very intense experience of foreign-ness, and entering a Muay Thai gym, even the most commercial of these spaces (which are themselves quite scocially agonistic and competitive) can be an emotional experience without compass. One enters these spaces looking for "how to do it", and immediately one takes social cues from all the other Western traveling fighters. The at-first imitative, and oriented gaze is towards longer term Westerners who "know the ropes", eventually will become emulative, because part of training in Thailand is learning how to be a traveling fighter, involving many things other than simply the training. Everything from where and when to drink water, to where eat, to how to comport oneself, the sum total of "how to go about things" largely learned through imitating longer term traveling fighters. We remember - and this is just a small thing - that Sylvie at Lanna so many years ago (Lanna being one of the more established "authentic" mix-culture gyms in Thailand, with a lengthy history), had to mentally separate herself out from the 40 minute hand-wrapping beginning of training that had grown among Western traveling fighters, to begin every morning's training, where you not only wrap hands, quite slowly, coming back from your run (for those that ran, most did a pretty substantial run), but really just talking, shooting the breeze, or just being a part of that mini-habitus of training preparation, sitting on the bench with others, even if you kept by yourself. This was a sub-culture of "how to begin training" that had developed around longer term fighters, really a small thing, but it was its own reality, its own pace, an important part of the traveling culture of the gym at the time, quite apart from the Thai-led training. It was emulative. Our time at Lanna then, but also at several other gyms, made us quite aware of how gyms actually were in laminate layers of habitus, a Thai and non-Thai side, and that long term fighters, or adventure tourists played a very large part in creating and bearing the Western sub-culture, in part because it was constantly fed by new, fairly disoriented participants. ****** We are left with a mirroring hypermasculinity, between two cultures / sub-cultures. The Westerner engages in a Hard Body hypermasculinity, and probably a (pomo) Colonialist adventurist hypermasculinity, and the Thai Nak Muay is participating in a hypermasculinity which somewhat resides in his (her) past, that out of which the art and sport of Muay Thai has grown (Peter Vail cited above). The Nak Muay is encountering the project of developing and expressing the (somewhat classic, somewhat nostalgic) hypermasculinity of his (her) own culture, but also caught in the globalized commerce, the subjectivity of Internationalization, which brings these two cultures / sub-cultures together. The newly arrived traveling fighter from the West is thrown in between these two performances in really what can be a heady, transformative way, emulating well-grounded Westerners, weaving himself (herself) into that fabric, fashioning that hypermasculine identity and performance, that gaze economy, while that masculinity itself has been in the longer term developed in emulative fashion on the Thai Body, at least in terms of the transformation being attempted, to lean into Thai, classic hypermasculinity. In this several things map between the two hypermasculinities, but really many more do not. All this while, Thai Nak Muay in these spaces are also being swept up toward a new, globalized masculine, following the new gaze economies the body is exposed to, including those digital economies of gaze.
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The Latest From Open Topics Forum
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By Snack Payback · Posted
I can only comment on Perth. There's a very active Muay Thai scene here - regular shows. Plenty of gyms across the city with Thai trainers. All gyms offer trial classes so you can try a few out before committing . Direct flights to Bangkok and Phuket as well. Would you be coming over on a working holiday visa? Loads of work around Western Australia at the moment. -
By kkadzielna · Posted
Hi, I'm considering moving to Australia from the UK and I'm curious what is the scene like? Is it easy to fight frequently (proam/pro level), especially as a female? How does it compare to the UK? Any gym recommendations? I'll be grateful for any insights. -
By kkadzielna · Posted
You won't find thai style camps in Europe, because very few people can actually fight full time, especially in muay thai. As a pro you just train at a regular gym, mornings and evenings, sometimes daytime if you don't have a job or one that allows it. Best you can hope for is a gym with pro fighters in it and maybe some structured invite-only fighters classes. Even that is a big ask, most of Europe is gonna be k1 rather than muay thai. A lot of gyms claim to offer muay thai, but in reality only teach kickboxing. I think Sweden has some muay thai gyms and shows, but it seems to be an exception. I'm interested in finding a high-level muay thai gym in Europe myself, I want to go back, but it seems to me that for as long as I want to fight I'm stuck in the UK, unless I switch to k1 or MMA which I don't want to do. -
Hi all, Does anyone know of any suppliers for blanks (Plain items to design and print a logo on) that are a good quality? Or put me in the right direction? thanks all -
The first fight between Poot Lorlek and Posai Sittiboonlert was recently uploaded to youtube. Posai is one of the earliest great Muay Khao fighters and influential to Dieselnoi, but there's very little footage of him. Poot is one of the GOATs and one of Posai's best wins, it's really cool to see how Posai's style looked against another elite fighter.
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