Documenting my journey as a female Muay Thai fighter in Thailand, sharing techniques, culture and personal perspective - over 250 fights fought

above, a photo of the legendary Dieselnoi Chor Thanasukarn advising Sylvie before her fight A husband’s diary. I cannot, and really should not hide the pride I feel for my wife, seeing her fight her first World Title fight just a few days ago. But, what I really wish to communicate to you, to everyone, is the source of that pride, what it is that makes me just expand, to feel more worthy, more complete as a person – the notion of pride. A certain privilege comes from being...

There’s a phrase in modern gold mining that I find profoundly poetic: clearing the overburden. Practically speaking, it means moving dirt with giant machines to reveal the gold-rich bedrock underneath. Move the worthless dirt, find the worthy dirt. I’ve adopted this phrase for my own evolution as a fighter and development through mental training. There’s a lot of useless dirt to dig through to get to the meaningful bits, the valuable bits, the core morals of your being. A lot of what we do, for years and years and with...

July 22, 2016 – Grand Thai Boxing Stadium, Hua Hin – full fight video I had a big fight scheduled for August 12th, the Queen’s Birthday, against Loma Lookboonmee. I really wanted to get a fight in before that, as it seemed like adding a (for me) long period without a fight to all the other elements that made that fight difficult for me was just one thing too many. So, booking this fight down in Hua Hin was a bit of a scramble, but it was also the...

above is about 7 minutes of 60+ minutes with Karuhat Sor. Supawan, legendary terror of the Golden Age at Lumpinee – you can see the full hour, as well as get immediate access to over 6 hours of training with Legends by supporting the documentary Muay Thai Library. If you are already a patron you can watch the whole hour with Karuhat here Two things included in the video above: Parrying the Teep The GIF above is a bit of the overall technique he was teaching me, which involves a...

https://8limbsus.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/episode-7-Two_Ladies_in_the_Kingdom_on_the_Road_-_Sylvie_Solo.mp3 It’s been a few months, but we are back! For loyal “Two Ladies in the Kingdom” podcast listeners, Emma and I are expanding our format. Previously our podcasts were with Emma Thomas and myself Skyping together to discuss the latest in what’s happening with ourselves, and what’s happening in Female Muay Thai in Thailand. We are still going to be doing this kind of cast together, but we are also adding solo podcasts too; so you can get to know each of us better. This is my first solo cast, and...

As someone who was gifted with having nearly no interest in fashion, my relationship with clothing has been a steady and straightforward one, allowing me long-term and monogamous relationships with T-shirts and jeans long after they should have been retired. But there’s a kind of sentimentality in clothing that you keep for a long time. Like Garth says in Wayne’s World, “at first they’re tight and restrictive; but after a while, it becomes a part of you.” My clothes as a kid were all hand-me-downs from my brothers – every...

Order your Miss Gangster Knee t-shirt here! While I’ve thought for a while it might be cool to have a t-shirt made, and readers have asked if I would make one, it just hadn’t yet been the point of my career when it seemed right to have a t-shirt. Having now passed 150 fights in...

Below is what I’ve written for my Patreon Supporter’s Library where you can find the full 28 minutes of this video, if you are already a patron you can watch it here (become a patron for a suggested $5 pledge). All I can say is that Namkabuan is simply incredible, and learning from him has been a once-in-a-lifetime kind of influence. If you don’t know who he is check out some of his fights at the bottom of the page. I had never heard of Namkabuan. He’s one of...

First off, let me say it: weight, its not that big of a deal. There is a strong caveat to this, which is that it is a definite advantage, but so is height, or knowing the scoring system, or fighting since you were 10, or having a fight on your  home turf, and so many other things. So while weight is always a potential advantage, it is just one among many possible advantages. You can beat people who have the weight advantage over you, just like you can with...

I don’t have female role models. I don’t look at other female fighters and think, “I want to fight like her.” But I have strong examples of both that are men, and intellectually that makes me feel a little guilty. As a Feminist through and through, as someone who believes that women cannot afford to not support one another, that’s a shitty thing to admit: that I don’t look up to women as idols, people I want to be like. And if I’m being completely honest, I never have. I admire...

This is an expansion on two previous posts: my husband’s guest post Precision – A Basic Motivation Mistake in Some Western Training then my follow up post How to “Train Like a Thai” – Why Many Get it Wrong and then lastly Training with Hippy Singmanee – With Relaxation Comes Power. It’s part of an informal relaxation series.   One of the hardest things to learn is how to relax in contact sports. It’s also one of the most important things and something that separates “good” from “great.” This is by...

Below is over 17 hours of high level training video – more than 4 hrs of it public –  with some of the best trainers in Thailand – sixteen different trainers. You want to learn knees from legendary Dieselnoi, jab counters and evasion from Rambaa M-16, kick counters from Burklerk (highest win% in Thailand history), clinch entry from Fighter of the Year Yodwicha, a wicked upper cut from “Street Fighter” Sagat, sneak elbows from “The Elbow Hunter” Yodkhunpon, explosive kicks from Hippy Singmanee – this is the place. If...

What can I say about Master K that isn’t an incredible understatement? To me, he’s a legend in his own right and the man who gave me my Muay Thai heart. We found Master K at the start of my Muay Thai path and really everything – all of this – started in the “basement sessions,” as people who have followed my YouTube from back in the day 8 years ago call them. Master K is very, very Thai and an Old School gentleman to boot – but to...

Join & Study: my Patrreon uncut training videos with analysis When I go and train private sessions with these legends from the Golden Age of Muay Thai, or even just retired fighters who experienced highly competitive fights in the National Stadia of Bangkok, there’s something very unique about each of them. I’ll hear the some of same things from a few of them – how you follow the movements of someone trying to turn you in the clinch and that’s like dancing, you just let them lead; or how...

The phrase “train like a Thai” is so legendary that it is literally scrawled into the cement at the famous Lanna Muay Thai camp in Chiang Mai. The romance of the notion is, of course, that Thais train harder and from earlier in their childhoods than anywhere else in the world. For many Thais, Muay Thai is a way of life. From the outside, however, actually training like a Thai is, I think, largely misunderstood; or perhaps misinterpreted by our gaze. When you first arrive at a camp where...

About the Fighters: Candy vs Fah This fight on October 28, 2016 was a big test for both of these fighters, but in different ways. Fah Yokkao is the daughter of the famed trainer of Saenchai, Manop, and has been perhaps excessively celebrated by Yokkao.  Saenchai and Manop both work for the Yokkao Training Center in BKK now and have been together for years. Yokkao promotes her as one of the best female fighters in Thailand – you can see some of that here. But despite winning a Fighter of...

Ranked 1st and 4th in my Best Fighters in the World at 48 kg and Under On the 14th of November, 2016, the much-anticipated and highly-negotiated Female Fight of the Year (maybe many years) is taking place at Thepprasit Stadium in Pattaya, not far from where I live. And I’ll definitely be there to film it and Live Stream it on Facebook. The phenom “girl who fights the boys,” Phetjee Jaa O. Meekhun will be facing off against multi-time Gold Medalist Loma Lookboonmee at 45 kg and for a...

Sparring is not always “light and technical” in Thailand, read about that My chest already feels like it’s being squeezed by a fist from taking a nearly full-power, flying knee to the sternum as I was up against the ropes yesterday from my partner in clinch training. He’s maybe 16 years old, 2 kilos (5 lb) bigger than me, and can get very aggressive. Every time my ribs are touched is pretty painful. But he’s is turning up his power with every exchange, again, and now I just got slammed by...

Watch the full hour and a half session as a $1 supporter here Gen and Joe are twins and were fairly well-known fighters in Bangkok in the early 2000s. Their fight names were Hongthong Noi (Joe) and Hongthong Lek (Gen), hence naming the gym for both of them: Hongthong Muay Thai. The brothers were working at Team Quest Thailand, an MMA/Muay Thai gym in Chiang Mai, when I first moved to Thailand, and before that Joe was at famed 13 Coins in Bangkok. They opened this gym, their own...

June 28, 2016 – Loi Kroh Stadium, Chiang Mai This was the 3rd fight in 4 days, the previous two had been KO victories for me, so I felt tired, sore and pretty good. The afternoon before this fight I’d gone up to the Phettonpung gym in Mae Rim (all-female gym) to clinch with two of their fighters. It turned out that my opponent for tonight had once been a fighter at their gym and Khun Yai, the head of the gym, told me she was about 60 kg....

In the video below some of the techniques being worked on: blade of the forearm lock to create leverage turns on the knee, waiting until on one foot small jerks to off balance, instead of continuous pressure moving forward and back to off balance inside thigh trip to turn and trip steering by the inside of the elbows the bounce to hide moves Spreading the Technique of Clinch This is a follow up post on my Passing Some Clinch Knowledge post on my visit to the Pettonpung gym about...