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An Essence of Thailand's Muay Thai- A Sense of Distance

Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu
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Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu

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Watch this video of a very tiny Thai girl fighting an incredible round against a Thai boy.

Little Girl Thai Fighter

essence.jpg

Let's leave aside any personal feelings you may have about child fighting, child safety, etc. And Let's leave out the arguments about gender. There is something unreal in this video, something kind of incredible. This little girl, who probably has had very few fights, and very few sparring sessions, as an acute sense of distance. In her miniature approximations you see essential Thai, as in Thailand, Muay Thai fighting characteristics. The retreat is just out of range, but not only just out of range, it's done with emotional equanimity, not out of fear, just a little step back. And, then her snapbacks with punches, closing the distance again. The counter rhythm is repeated over and over again. This is core femeu control of space, something even western fighters literally with decades of experience cannot, or do not care to manage. The retreating, scoring fighter. Where does this come from? How does this get communicated in such a basic, beautiful way to a little girl? What is the method of transference?

This Sense of (Defensive) Space, I suspect, is buried deeply in Thai culture, perhaps in it's Buddhist roots. One of the earliest accounts of Muay Thai, and the first account of a Farang vs Thai match up (Thai Fight 1788!), resulted in the westerner becoming infuriated at the retreat of the King's champion, Mun Phlan, selected to face a Frenchmen who challenged the court:

1788-Thai-Defensive-Fighting.jpg

 

Now of course there are forward fighting styles in Thailand's Muay Thai, many of them, and renowned fighters who owned them. But there a thin golden thread that seems to stretch from the late 18th century all the way to this little girl who preternaturally has absorbed the art of space.

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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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