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

Starting on February 15th, through March 15th 2019, Dieselnoi will be staying at my home gym in Pattaya (Petchrungruang) for the entire month. That’s 30 whole days! I’m truly excited for this. In December of the last year he was the “main event” – so to speak – of the Muay Khao Summit hosted at my gym, a chance for women to learn clinch and knees from Golden Age Legends who brought much of themselves out through the technique and heart of what Muay Khao is. But Dieselnoi is...

There is a phrase in Thai for what we call “unconscious,” usually for long stretches, like someone in a coma. Kao nohn dae mai roo, “they lie there but don’t know.” In a literal sense, our word also conveys “not knowing,” because what the Thai means by “know” is the conscious mind; and without it, you’re just meat. As I sat in the backseat of our rented car, my heart thumping through my chest in panic as I tried to relay directions to Kevin from the map on the phone,...

above, a nearly 2 hour discussion on the spread of Muay Thai This video is an unscripted, free-form discussion between myself and Timothy Micias who is writing his thesis on the problems involved in the western appropriation of Muay Thai. How do we affect and change a foreign thing, when we make it “ours”. He is using the sociologist Bourdieu’s concept of “habitus” as his guide (you can watch this short video below to get a good grasp of where habitus fits in Bourdieu’s conceptual constellation). This is a...

Guest Post – A Husband’s Point of View This morning Sylvie left for her 3 day meditation retreat here in Pattaya. She had assembled her things the night before, bare minimums in her little bag, and in the am woke me to tell me she was going. It is 3 days of just sitting in a small room noting two things: states of the body, states of the mind. The morning air around us felt so peaceful, sunlight cutting through the edges of the curtain by the bed, the...

There’s a phrase, “it’s 90 percent mental.” I’m coming to realize that the more experience you gain. the more time you spend on a single, focused endeavor, the closer that 90 percent goes toward 99.9 percent. Or maybe it’s even all mental and we can escape the body in some kind of Nirvana-state of Muay… I don’t know yet. The other day an Instagram post from Mental Coach, Kara Loewentheil came up on my feed. I needed it. I have needed it: yesterday, today, probably a bunch of tomorrows. It’s an important...

guest post by Josephine Kim, on her experiences at the 2018 Women’s Muay Khao Summit which brought women from around the world to train in the Muay Khao style with top Thai female champions, and legends of the style from the Golden Age – a Preserve The Legacy project. Defining “感覺” at the Feet of Legends Street view of the Petchrungruang boxing gym. The founding family’s warm hospitality made this refurbished pineapple farmhouse feel like a second home. Photo taken with Jojo’s iPhone. Preface: I have come across many...

This is my interview with Tara James, an Australian fighter who also was a Women’s Muay Khao Summit attendee this past December. After the Summit finished, she went and trained at a gym she had really liked on a previous training visit, but found that – at this time – it was unexpectedly busy, and that the training she had hoped for wasn’t present.  So she decided to fly back down to Pattaya and join me at my much smaller gym, Petchrungruang, which is where the Summit had been...

Guest Post – Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu This is my interview of Sylvie on what was an extraordinary event that happened this week as Tara, a student at the gym and an attendee of the Women’s Muay Khao Summit fought a male opponent. I wanted to get some perspective on what Sylvie thought about the fight as fights between the genders are rare, and almost symbolize something almost ineffable. As we mention in the interview we can only think of four other adult women who have fought men in an...

Above is the fight video with commentary, my 230th fight and as it turned out, my 2nd fight of a single day. In the afternoon I fought in the center of Thailand in a televised Kard Chuek fight, and then drove to Chiang Mai for this one, with my hero the legend Karuhat Sor. Supawan in my corner all along the way. You can see my first fight of the day detailed at bottom in an edit Kevin put together. These are some awesome photos by Walt Zink from...

Sometimes I’ll see a picture of myself, or catch a glimpse in the mirror, and just think, “is that me?” There is a genuine non-recognition, maybe like someone you haven’t seen in a really long time and you aren’t quite sure. But then there is the opposite, when you see a drawing or painting of yourself and it is so immediately recognizable and somehow feels more “you” than you do. What is that? It’s hard for me to look at myself, I just don’t like doing it. Kevin will show...

– We’re right in the middle of the Muay Khao Summit – if you don’t know what that is you can read about it here, or follow it all through the Muay Khao Summit Facebook Group – so we are a little behind on our Patreon content. Don’t worry, we’ll catch up! But I wanted to take a second and write to all our patrons and fill you in on what we are doing beyond...

Above is my interview answer to a great question from Lucca on Patreon: watch it here When Should You Worry About What Muay Thai Style You Are?. Kevin helps me out with an short interview on the subject. I personally had a long path in finding my style, and for a pretty long time I was pointed in the wrong direction. Several years ago I wrote about Muay Thai Style in The Art of Choosing Your Muay Thai Style, which was right when I was realizing that this is...

above is the full fight video of my Kard Chuek fight, fighting with ropes in a knock out or nothing, no-points, rule set. The fight is with my commentary. And, a there’s little bit of a video diary of my travel to the fight with Karuhat, my personal hero. This fight was also insane because I had in a scheduling miscommunication booked myself for two fights on the same day, so I tried at hard as I could not to get cut in the Kard Chuek fight so I...

This is a 40+ minute vlog and discussion on the Muay Thai fighting style known as Muay Khao. Muay Khao literally means “knee fighting”, but the term is often applied to describe fighting approaches that go well beyond knees. Samson Isaan described his style as Muay Khao, even though he was a world title holder in western boxing, and would often use devastating uppercuts and crosses. It’s more an ethic, a spirit of fighting, that takes it’s place opposite the much more celebrated Muay Femeu (technical or artful fighting)....

My Last 4 Fights With Commentary Below is my most recent fight, fight #228, facing Hongmorakot Liangprasert, and experienced and tough opponent. Readers have been telling me that they love my fight commentary so I’ve started publishing my most recent fights with voiceover again, trying to give perspective on what I’m doing, and what it feels like for me. If you enjoy this, there are more commentary fights below too, including my fight vs World Champion Thanonchanok ( champ up 3 weight classes), and two successive fights I had...

The Live Streamed Seminar and Clinch Bootcamp Filled With Legends For the past few months I’ve been dropping breadcrumbs about this incredible event, celebrating and supporting the Muay Khao fighting style. In December I’m bringing together women from around the world to train with the great Thai female fighters who specialize in knee fighting (World Champions), and the greatest Knee and Elbow fighting legends Thailand has ever known: 3 Fighters of the Year in Dieselnoi, Langsuan and Samson Isaan, two Lumpinee champions who were so impossible to defeat they had...

Above is an excerpt of episode 3 of my Kaimuay Diaries documentary series which takes a fly-on-the-wall approach to capturing the real (if you can’t see the embed above, watch it here), often very casual nature of the life of Thai fighters in a traditional “kaimuay” (Thai camp), in this case my 3rd generation gym Petchrungruang in Pattaya, which is one of the few remaining recognized kaimuay in the city which do not get their priority of its earnings from western students. In this 46 minute episode you get...

46 Minute Fight Commentary Video Above is the fight footage of my two last fights, with my commentary voiceover. It’s a chance for you to see how I see a fight, what tactics I’m using and working on, how I attempt to steer fights to my advantage. I made this a pair of fights because I faced the same opponent two weeks apart, so there is a lot to learn in the contrast between both fights. You can also learn about small things that experienced Thai opponents do to...

We are doing a Muay Thai Mental Training Reading Group, together. On Facebook for everyone – you can join here – and on Patreon in live video conference call with my supporters – you can see our first session here. We’ve covered the first two chapters of the book The Inner Game of Tennis, and on Friday morning (Thai Time), we’ll meet and talk about chapters 3 & 4. This is a small, short book that changes people’s lives, as it teaches us to quiet down our Inner Coach,...

Read Sylvie’s Post on the Mental Training Reading Group: LIVE edit: We’ve started an Open Group to discuss themes that come up As Sylvie’s Patreon has expanded, we’ve taken on new projects, all the in vein of increasing the awareness of legendary fighters, and their techniques – for instance in the Preserve The Legacy – Muay Thai Library project – and then by creating a new website sylviestudy.com which hosts in-depth study of Intensive Series with single legends, one at a time. I’m writing this to give a little...

Guest Post This is something of a series of quick meditations sewn together into a larger idea which has really captured my imagination. Be prepared, it joins together diverse topics like ancient hunting techniques, Golden Age fighting styles which have fallen out of fashion, the ketogenic diet, and the metaphysics of human Time. For a very long while I’ve pondered on the things that make Muay Thai in Thailand so very different than fighting aesthetics (and knowledge) found elsewhere in the world. I wrote some time ago about how...