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The Struggle Over Muay Thai History Under Pressure from the West

Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu
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Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu

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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.

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    • Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu
      Entertainment Muay Thai isn't really like Warfare at all

      By Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu · Posted

      Speculatively, it seems likely that the real "warfare roots" of ring Muay Thai goes back to all the downtime during siege encampment, (and peacetime) Ayutthaya's across the river outer quarters. One of the earliest historical accounts of Siamese ring fighting is of the "Tiger King" disguising himself and participating in plebeian ring fighting. This is not "warfare fighting" and goes back several hundred years. One can imagine that such fighting would share some fighting principles with what occurred on the battlefield, but as it was unarmed and likely a gambling driven sport it - at least to me - likely seems like it has had its very own lineage of development. Less was the case that people were bringing battlefield lessons into the ring, and more that gambled on fighting skills developed ring-to-ring. In such cases of course, developing balance and defensive prowess would be important.  Incidentally, any such Ayutthaya ring-to-ring developments hold the historical potential for lots of cross-pollination from other fighting arts, as Ayutthaya maintained huge mercenary forces, not only from Malaysia and the cusp of islands, but even an entire Japanese quarter, not to mention a strong commercially minded Chinese presence. These may have been years of truly "mixing" fighting arts in the gambling rings of the city (it is unknown just how separatist each culture was in this melting pot, perhaps each kept to their own in ring fighting).
    • Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu
      Entertainment Muay Thai isn't really like Warfare at all

      By Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu · Posted

      For anyone who follows my writings I do not argue for any sense of a "pure" Muay Thai, or even Siamese fighting art history. Quite different than such I take one of Siam and Thai strengths is just how integrative they have been over centuries of development (while, importantly, preserving its core identity). For instance Western Boxing has had a powerful influence upon the form and development of Muay Thai for well over 100 years, and helped make it perhaps the premiere ring fighting art in the world, but Western Boxing itself was a very deep, complexly developed art which mapped quite well upon traditional Muay Thai in many areas, allowing it to flourish. This is quite different than the de-skilling that is happening in the sport right now, where instead the sport is being turned towards a less-skilled development, for really commercial reasons.  The story of whether the influx of attention, branding, not to mention the very important monetary investment that Entertainment Muay Thai has brought will actually help "save" traditional Muay Thai is yet to be written. It very well might, as the sport was reaching some important demographic and cultural dead-ends, and it needed an infusion. But, let's not have it be lost, what itself is being lost, which is the actual very high level of skill Thailand had produced...and how it had developed it. Let's keep our eye on the de-skilling.
    • Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu
      Entertainment Muay Thai isn't really like Warfare at all

      By Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu · Posted

      One of the more slippery aspects of this change is that in its more extreme versions Entertainment Muay Thai was a redesign to actually produce Western (and other non-Thai) winners. It involved de-skilling the Thai sport simply because Thais were just too good at the more complex things. Yes, it was meant to appeal to International eyes, both in the crowd (tourist shows) and on streams, but the satisfying international element was actually Western (often White) winners of fights, and ultimately championship belts. The de-skilling of the sport and art was about tipping the playing field hard (involving also weigh-in changes that would favor larger bodied international fighters). Thais had to learn - and still have to learn - how to fight like the less skilled Westerners (and others). In some sense its a crazy, upside-down presentation of foreign "superiority", yes driven by hyper Capitalism and digital entertainment, but also one which harkens back to Colonialism where the Western power teaches the "native" "how its really done", and is assumed to just be superior in Nature. The point of fact is that Thais have been arguably the best combat sport fighters in the world over the last 50 years, and it is not without irony that the form of their skill degradation is sometimes framed as a return to Siam/Thai warfare roots. It's not. Its a simplification of ring fighting for the purpose of international appeal. 

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