Jump to content

The Struggle Over Muay Thai History Under Pressure from the West

Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu
 Share

Recommended Posts

Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu Mentor

Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu

Posted
Posted

There is an absolutely fantastic academic article written by Peter Vail just this year which details the ways in which Thailand institutionally is struggling to deal with the internationalization of its heritage sport. You can find a copy here: Muay Thai - Inventing Tradition for National Symbol. Not only does it have one of the best summations of the history of Muay Thai, it also goes into contemporary attempts to secure an official history or histories in the face of foreign appropriation and interests. Because its such a long article I wrote an outline of the descriptions of how the western preoccupation with the Eastern arts and the rise of MMA has put Thailand in a place of codifying, and in some cases inventing a history to maintain the very Thainess of Muay Thai. Some of the author's opinions do seemingly come from political perspective, but the things discussed are seldom thought about the west. Perhaps most interestingly it explains the recent promotion of the Tiger King as a new father of Muay Thai, in an attempt to move away from Nai Khanomtom.

The Struggle Over Muay Thai Culture and History

  • An explosion of western interest in "Asian" Martial Art in the 1960s, 70s, 80s due to cinema
    • Bruce Lee, Jet Li, Jackie Chan, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Karate Kid
      • exercise, self-defense, discipline
      • aesthetic, mystical, cultural connections to exotic Asian philosophies.
  • 1990s the west experienced a disenchantment of Asian fighting arts
    • they were rationalized and routinized into sports like Judo and Taekwandoe
    • generations of instruction had devolved into McDojos
    • Muay Thai was a late comer and so did not experience this disenchantment.
  • MMA arrives - UFC founded in 1993 - it repositioned Asian martial arts.
    • Feed on a zeitgeist of western hypermasculinization
    • Originally individual arts were pitted against each other, and thus were emphasized
      • the rise of the BJJ Gracie family
    • Hypermasculinity, efficacy and violence in the arts celebrated over past values such as character building & introspection
    • a reaction against McDojos
    • BJJ and Muay Thai stood out as two iconic martial art-styles (ground, standup)
  • MMA subsumes the arts it celebrates, demystifying them and effacing cultural identifies
    • elements of Muay Thai become only part of a "fighting strategy"
    • it's about the individual in the ring, not the art.
    • This MMA strip of national identity meets with Thai ambitions to internationalize the sport
      • the risk is of losing the "Thainess" of Muay Thai
  • There is Thai anxiety that the Thai identity in Muay Thai will be lost - their art will be stolen
    • Thailand already experienced the loss of Muay Thai identity in the 1960s when the Japanese stole it as "kickboxing" and then later in K1 (1993)
      • This injured national pride and is still remembered.
    • Within Thailand there are movements to shore up and institutionalize the national character of Muay Thai.
      • Three Institutions
        • Institute for Muay Thai Preservation (under the Ministry of Sports and Tourism)
        • Muban Chombueng Ratchaphat University
        • The Department of Cultural Promotion (under the Ministry of Culture)
    • Institute for Muay Thai Preservation
      • Maintains a Muay Thai/Boran museum
      • Houses the Muay Boran Academy
      • since 2003 a Kru Muay association formalizes muay instruction and instructor certification
      • Headquarters of the World Muay Thai Federation (WMF) - formerly International Amateur Federation
      • since the early 1990s has helped the Ministry of Sports and Tourism put on international amateur bouts organized around Nai Khanomtom day - March 17
        • a vast Muay Boran ceremony attended mostly by westerners celebrates the national and historical roots of Muay Thai in Ayutthaya
    • Muban Chombueng Ratchaphat University
      • has established a degree program in Muay Thai studies with even doctorates offered
      • Muay Boran masters enter a thesis program to record history and canonize each school in a nationalist narrative.
        • There is much overlap in this history as sources are scant, and all stem from the 1909 categorization of schools.
      • strongly affiliated with the Nai Khanomtom Day celebrations
    • The Department of Cultural Promotion (under the Ministry of Culture)
      • Muay Thai has been rolled under Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH)
      • The DCP seeks to establish "copyright" over Muay Thai performance, maintaining control over their dissemination, insuring its cultural roots.
      • Rejects Nai Khanomtom as the father of Muay Thai (due to being a common soldier)
        • Seeks to establish Somdet Phra Sanphet VIII "The Tiger King" (reign 1703-1709) as the new father of Muay Thai
          • on May 7, 2011 designated February 6th (his coronation date) as "Muay Thai Day"
      • In 2013 the DCP began sponsoring "Thai Fight"
        • February 6, 2013 the Tiger King becomes central in the Thai Fight broadcast
  • Both camps (DCP and the MCRU/Institute for Muay Thai Preservation) are seeking to fight the corrosive effects of Internationalization, and secure the cultural roots of the art and sport.

 

While the author at times takes a cynical view of Thai attempts to re-create and even invent a history for Muay Thai, I can sympathize with the fear that Muay Thai itself is at risk, and at a certain level the ceremonial and institutional codifications of the past are indeed something all nations and arts do. It is ironic that in many ways Thailand depends on the exoticizing passions of the west to preserve the boran of Muay Thai culture (and knowledge), just as the west is also threatening to remove the Thai of Muay Thai through a dilution of techniques. As a point of interest I also find the implication that Thai Fight is something of an ideological show really fascinating. It could very well be that while we as westerners may cringe at some of the fights between aged, great Thai fighters and aggressive, often off-balanced westerners, we don't see how Thai Fight is essentially demonstrating, performing the incomparability of Thai Muay Thai and the Muay Thai of the rest of the world, for Thais themselves.

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Most Recent Topics

  • Latest Comments

    • Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu
      Why I'm Obsessed With Golden Age Muay Thai and Its Fighters

      By Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu · Posted

      Many are curious or questioning why I’ve become so focused on fighters of the Golden Age, if it might be some form of nostalgia, or a romance of exoticism for what is not now. Truthfully, it is just that of the draw of a mystery, the abiding sense of: How did they do that?, something that built up in me over many years, a mystery increasing over the now hundreds of hours I’ve spent in the presence of Golden Age fighters - both major and minor. Originally it came from just standing in the ring with them, often filming close at hand, and getting that practically synaptic, embodied sense that this is just so different, the feeling you can only get first hand - especially in comparison. You can see it on video, and it is apparent, but when you feel it its just on another order, an order of true mystery. When something moves through the space in a new or alter way it reverberates in you. How is it that these men, really men from a generation or two, move like this. It’s acute in someone like Karuhat, or Wangchannoi, or Hippy, but it is also present in much lessor names you will never know. It’s in all of them, as if its in the water of their Time. I’ve interviewed and broken down all the possible sources of this. It seems pretty clear that it did not come to them out of some form of instruction. It was not dictated or explicitly shown, explained (so when coaches today do these today they are not touching on that vein). It does not seem sufficient to think that it came from just a very wide talent pool, the sheer number of young fighters that were dispersed throughout the country in the 1980s, as if sheer natural selection pulled those movements and skills out. It did not come from sheerly training hard - some notable greats did not train particularly hard, at least by reputation. It’s not coached, its not trained, its not numerical. A true mystery. Fighters would come from the provinces with a fairly substantial number of fights, but at a skill level which they would say isn’t very strong, and within only a few years be creating symphonies in the ring. Karuhat was 16 when he fought his first fight (with zero training) and by 19 was one of the best fighters who ever lived. Sirimongkol accidentally killed an opponent in the provinces (I would guess a medical issue for the opponent, a common strike) and was pulled down to Bangkok because of this sudden "killer" reputation, but he’d tell you that he was completely unskilled and of little experience. Within a few years he was among the very best of his generation. We asked him: Who trained you, who taught you?, expecting some insight into a lineage of knowledge and he told us “Nobody. I learned from watching others.” This runs so hard against the primary Western assumptions of how Knowledge is kept, recorded and passed, but it is a story we heard over and over. Somehow these men, both famous and not, developed keen, beautiful (very precise) movement and acute combat potency without direct transmission or even significant instructional training. The answer could be located nowhere…in no particular place or function. Sherlock Holmes said of a mystery: Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.. All these things that we anticipate make great fighters, these really seem to be the impossible here. They were not the keys, it seems. Instead it appears that it was in the very weave of the culture, and the subcultures of Muay Thai, within the structures of the kaimuay experiences, in the richly embedded knowledges of everyone in the game, in the states of relaxation of the aesthetics of muay itself, in the practices of play, in the weft of festival fighting, the warp of equipmentless training, in endurance, in the quixotic powers of gambling, the Mother’s Milk of Muay Thai itself, which is a very odd but beautiful thing to conclude. It does pose something of a nostalgia, because many of these cultural and circumstantial elements have changed - some radically altered by a certain modernity, some shifted subtly - so there is a dimension of feeling that we want not to lose all of it, that we might still pull some substantial threads forward into our own future, some of that cultural DNA that made some of the greatest fighters ever what they were. It's not a hope to return to those past states, but a respect for what they (mysteriously) created. As we approximate techniques, copy movements, mechanize styles, coach harder and harder, these are all the things that make up a net through which everything slips out. Instead, this mystery, the how did they become so great, so proficient, so perceptive, so smooth, so electric, so knowing, stands before us, something of a challenge to our own age and time.
    • The Bongo
      Muay Thai career or college

      By The Bongo · Posted

      I guess you're in the UK?  If so, do college.  At your age it's free.  As for after college, do what youth allows.  Have a go at fighting.   You pay for uni whatever age you are.  Nothing wrong in doing something in uni in your mid -20's+.  I did a second degree in my 30's.  I would not have been held back by a career as a fighter earlier on.  As you get older, you begin to regret the things that you didn't do, far more than the things that you did.     Good luck in your fight career!
    • Wewarm
      Muay Thai career or college

      By Wewarm · Posted

      I am soon to be 17 and I’ve been training Muay Thai for nearly 3 years now. I also happen to be doing quite well in school and plan to go to uni. However, that all changed when I went to Thailand last summer to train for a few weeks and fight. One of the trainers, with whom I have developed a close connection, told me not to go back home and stay in Thailand in order build a career. “You stay, become superstar” to quote him, as he pointed at the portraits of their best fighters hung on the gym’s wall. After realizing he wasn’t joking, I told him I couldn’t stay and had to finish my last year of high school (which is what I am currently doing) but promised him I’d come back the following year once I was done with school. Ever since, both these words and my love for Muay Thai resonate in me, and I can’t get the idea of becoming a professional fighter out of my head. On one hand, I’m afraid I’m being lied to, since me committing to being a fighter obviously means he gets more pay to be my coach. But on the other hand, it is quite a reputable and trustworthy gym, and this trainer in particular is an incredible coach and pad holders since he is currently training multiple rws fighters including one who currently holds an rws belt. And for a little more context, I don’t think this invitation to become a pro came out of nowhere, because during those few weeks I trained extremely hard and stayed consistent, which I guess is what impressed him and motivated him to say those words. Additionally, I was already thinking about the possibility of going pro before the trip because of my love for Muay Thai and because a female boxing champion who has close ties to my local gym told me I had potential and a fighter’s mindset. Therefore, I have to pick between two great opportunities, one being college and a stable future, and the other being a Muay Thai career supported by a great gym and coach. So far, I plan to do a gap year to give myself more time to make a decision and to begin my training in order to give myself an idea of how hard life as a pro is. This is a big decision which I definitely need help with, so some advice would be greatly appreciated.

  • The Latest From Open Topics Forum

  • Forum Statistics

    • Total Topics
      1.4k
    • Total Posts
      11.6k

Footer title

This content can be configured within your theme settings in your ACP. You can add any HTML including images, paragraphs and lists.

Footer title

This is an example of a list.

Footer title

This content can be configured within your theme settings in your ACP. You can add any HTML including images, paragraphs and lists.

Footer title

This content can be configured within your theme settings in your ACP. You can add any HTML including images, paragraphs and lists.

×
×
  • Create New...