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

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...

above, the first time in print Thai press gave me a fighter’s nickname Thai fighters have many names. There’s the given name at birth, then the “play name” that is universally used, then a fight name (those are the names we know, like Buakaw, Saenchai, Dieselnoi, Yodwicha), and then there’s a kind of “tagline” name that most of us don’t hear but is used in Thai language media around these fighters. These nicknames are descriptions of style, more or less: Golden Age greats like Dieselnoi had “Sky Piercing Knees,”...

June 27, 2016 – Chiang Mai Boxing Stadium “the Roadhouse” – full fight video I saw Pi Daeng at Lanna the morning before this fight and he said he’d never seen this opponent before. When we were actually at the venue, he’d taken a lap through the stadium and come back to where I was having my oil massage (I’m always the first fight, so there’s this weird rush-and-then-wait thing) and laughed while shaking his head, “she very tall,” he said. No shit. When I got in the ring she...

I have never seen this before in my four and a half years in Thailand. One of my favorite moments ever in the gym. This kid stands about 3 feet tall, barely as tall as Pi Nu’s waist, as he climbs into the ring and presents himself in front of our trainer.  It is late in the evening session and all the other training has finished, save for a few of the smaller kids getting padwork in the background. This little kid has been bouncing on the tire for...

June 25, 2016 – Chiang Rai – full video above This was the first of 3 fights in 4 days up in the North. I had no idea who my opponent was and when we got to the venue I saw a pair of young women who could be my opponent. One looked quite big and the other was a tall Tom. For whatever reason I assumed it was the Tom out of the two, but I didn’t pay a lot of mind to either of them. I found the...

above, a walk through of Burklerk’s Gym in Lampang – filmed in May 2016 A Video Tour of Burklerk’s Gym Burklerk’s gym is located down a neighborhood street lined with gated residences. His gym is not much different from those houses and he lives right there – most of the neighborhood is his extended family – but his gate is wide open and there’s big sign at the front to indicate it’s a Muay Thai gym. Once you’re standing at the driveway you can see the ring, the shrines...

This was my second time training with Dieselnoi, so it was a continuation of some of the foundations he laid out for me last time. He focused more on strategy and tactics in this session. The first time we met he showed me how to use kicks and teeps in the middle of the ring to cut off space, get your opponent in the ropes, and then grab in the clinch and go nuts with the knees. If you’re a clincher or knee fighter, you want your opponent on...

When we first moved to Thailand I was constantly in awe of how many beautiful things there were to look at. The plants are all so different from what I grew up around (Colorado); the colors are the kind I’d see on those iconic 1990’s binders and folders for school, with pastel and neon dolphins on them, but they’re real life colors on flowers and birds and insects that probably can kill you. The trees are different, with these enormous blossoms that look made out of wax or fondant, or...

above, video interview with Loma and Chommanee One of the things that is surprising every single time I witness it is how humble, kind, and open fighters are outside of the ring. Even the superstars. I remember early in my career being thrown off by how nice my opponents seemed to be before a fight, I thought maybe they were tricking me by smiling and being sweet but then kicking my ass in the ring… but it’s not a front. That’s just actually how people are. The 16 Female...

Just watch these two fights between Namkabuan Nongkeepahuyut and Matee Jedeepitak from 1994, the Golden Age of Muay Thai.  Just watch and then don’t sleep for a week because you’ll keep watching them. When I had a private session with Namkabuan a few weeks ago he was goofing around and trying to do this Saenchai, jumping soccer kick thing. It’s where he just levetates into the air and flicks his kick out as like a jumping leg kick. He laughed and shook his head after not quite nailing it...

I wrote recently about my 22 years of experience as a musician, growing up playing the violin since about age 2. The post was about deliberate practice and what all those years of learning the violin taught me – how that can be applied to Muay Thai and learning a new skill (or honing a skill) now. After writing this post I kept thinking about my years as a violinist and how I could graft that onto my path in Muay Thai; I was not a diligent student of...

A guest post from my husband, part of his series: A Husband’s Point of View New York and New Jersey 2007-2012 The Edge – NJ (classes) Master K’s Basement – Patterson NJ (privates – Master K) The Wat – Manhattan NY (sparring, class – Phil Nurse) Church Street Boxing – Manhattan NY (classes, sparring – Jason Strout) Sam DeJesus – NJ (sparring) Chok Sabai – Manhattan NY (fight coach – Natalie Fuz) Tiger Schulmann Headquarters – NJ (boxing classes – Ray Velez, w/ Robyn Klenk) Mendez Boxing – Manhattan...