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July 19, 2012
Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu
Camp Experience, Lanna Muay Thai, Muay Thai

Balance of Inequality – Lessons in Sparring

Escalate_-_black_and_white

Twenty seconds into sparring with Den this afternoon, I’m already frustrated.  There are hundreds of reasons why I shouldn’t be: Den has 300 fights to his name and  that doesn’t happen without countless hours of training, of trying and retrying until “moves” become movement; he’s bigger than I am, faster than I am, has reach advantage and can see everything I’m thinking of doing while I’m still thinking it; and he’s laughing the whole time, reminding me each time he takes my breath away with a punch to the gut or a kick to my ribs that this is fun.  It is, no matter how real my mind and body make it, just a game – it’s not a fight.

And so my tactic is to stay calm, dead-pan and non reactive to the ten kicks he’s landed on me and the punches that are causing my eyes to water in just the last minute of this first round.  I’m trying to relax, to not think my next strike but just to throw it.  I’m trying to maintain my balance and stance so that I’m at least ready to throw a punch or a kick even if I don’t actually get to it in the time it takes Den to hit me again or dance away.  I’m pressed into the corner and can think of a dozen ways out but not one of them is actually happening.

Part of my petrified mind – a large part – comes from anticipation of increase.  What the hell does that mean?  It goes like this: when I was a kid I was the youngest, smallest kid in the family.  My brothers picked on each other in the proper pecking order of their ages, but the younger brothers grew larger than the older brothers and eventually the possibility of evening the score worked out.  I didn’t grow bigger than my brothers and my age gap was such that there was no way that my single-digit-aged body could cause damage to my pre-teen or teenaged brothers.  If, at some point, I got in a Hulk-like rage and managed to hurt one of my brothers, the return was terrible and unfairly hard.  My rage increased the energy of the altercation and it became scarier, more painful, more unfair in favor of my tormentor.

So I have this same fear when I’m sparring with a man who is making me feel impotent while he’s taking it easy on me.  There is a beautiful thing in Muay Thai and the culture of Thailand and its particular masculinity that all “points” (meaning demonstrations of dominance, landed strikes, etc) must immediately be neutralized or matched – even in play, even when no one is watching.  If I decide to just come forward and eat as many kicks or punches as it takes to reach Den and land something on him, there will be a quick and explosive response to bring the score back to Den’s favor.  Every time I try to kick him I end up on the floor from my standing leg being swept; so I’m hesitant to kick.  I get blasted into the ropes every time I land a punch on his arms, let alone to his body and I’m being conditioned to know that whatever dominance I show will result in a greater display of his power to correct the balance.

The lesson, then, is to know that you have it coming back to you and go anyway, while being prepared to launch a counter to the counter and so on.  And just as the return of a blow is quick, the return to a neutral plane where anyone can score is equally fast.  My dog is an Australian Cattle Dog or Blue Heeler (she stayed in America with my parents).  The temperament of the breed is wonderful and bizarre and one of my favorite things about them is that they act first and think later; they are incredibly stubborn. If you push your Cattle Dog off the couch or accidentally kick it in the jaw because it’s following you too closely (happens a lot) it will “bottle nose” or nip you immediately to bring the score back to zero before giving you a “what was that?” look, or even an apologetic wag of the tale.

My ACD, Zoa.

In this same way the response from a Thai fighter will be immediate and too-fast-for-thought, but it doesn’t last.  The escalation of energy is just enough to even the score or pull it into his favor and then it goes quiet again.  Getting a strike in on Den does not mean the whole rest of the round is an overwhelming ass-kicking; the escalation, the increase is only enough to even the score and a second strike follows to tip the scale.  It is not so much a fall down an endless rabbit hole, but rather a ball being juggled in mid-air.

 

 

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Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu

The Author Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu

A 103 lb. (46 kg) female Muay Thai fighter. Originally I trained under Kumron Vaitayanon (Master K) and Kaensak sor. Ploenjit in New Jersey. I then moved to Thailand to train and fight full time in April of 2012, devoting myself to fighting 100 Thai fights, as well as blogging full time. Having surpassed 100 fights in 3 years here, my new goal is to fight an impossible 200 times in Thailand, as much as I possibly can, and to continue to write my experience.

5 Comments

  • John Byron Gassaway, PsyD
    July 19, 2012 7:54 pm

    I really appreciate this balance, Sylvie. As an older brother who used to play “relativity” with you [meaning that with as much effort as you put into a punch or jab from your small frame I would put in my relative effort with my larger frame in return], it is wonderful to read about your understanding of balance and the mental game played out within the situation.
    I’ve told many people about the relativity game we played growing up. I also tell them all that I would not care to play this game with you today. I love you and see you as the warrior you are.
    Training your body to automaticity is something that takes countless hours of effort. Many times, training others, I see the mind take over the movement – making it choppy and mechanical. Helping athletes to stop their mind from commanding their movements and allowing their reactions and “sense” awareness to take over turn their movements into grace and precision. I witness this from something as simple as ladder drills (quick foot movements that you can do without a ladder easily but with a ladder become increasingly more difficult with thought) to something as complex as balancing on two separate balls (one for hands and one for feet) for pushups and planks.
    The more frustrated you become with these situations, the more you begin to think about what just happened, how unfair it is, how difficult it is, etc. All of these thoughts are distractions from the moment – they take you away from the “now.” When Gabe and I used to fight, I didn’t care if he would hit me while I moved in. I was in the “now” and he didn’t understand it because he didn’t want to get hit. This was the only way that I knew to move through the thoughts and barriers that kept me from getting the “even strike.” I just wanted it to be even, I didn’t want to get ahead.
    Wow, reminiscing.

    Reply
    • Sylvie
      Sylvie
      July 20, 2012 5:32 pm

      I was trying to explain “relativity” to Kevin a while back; your description is more concise.
      We just watched a Muay Thai fight on TV with one of the best, most entertaining current fighters: Saenchai. He is amazing, completely joyful in his movements and basically looks like he’s playing while completely taking his opponents apart. The guy he was fighting was actually really good, a guy from England with solid technique and really very tough. But against Saenchai’s relaxed confidence, he looked brittle. The contrast made the fight appear like a blow-out.

      There’s a basketball player, I think Kevin Garnett, who runs up sand dunes as part of his training. While that practice is absolutely physically grueling, the physical result is not the true purpose. Rather, he says, the point is that it’s impossible to make it to the top at full speed. Your legs burn out, your lungs get drained and you start sinking; the point is that it’s impossible. It’s mental training, to keep going despite the impossibility of it. I like that very much. Reminds me of an anecdote about how Olympic Wrestler Dan Gable would tell his students “one more round” and then make them just keep working these two-on-one drills for round after round (well beyond his promised “one more”) to see who would break.

      And in the end I think that’s what Den is trying to teach me. That if you can stand in there and keep coming back at someone who you have really no chance of bettering – if you can lose repeatedly without losing your will – then you can fight anybody, or endlessly… or both.

      Reply
      • Shane Gassaway
        July 22, 2012 5:18 am

        This is really interesting, Sis. I had been thinking (wondering) about your fighting lately in terms of control of the body. Hannah Arendt once (not altogether accurately) attributed to Socrates the discovery that one must rule the body despotically in order to become virtuous. It seemed to me that the excellence of a fighter especially gives evidence for this, as you undergo so much physical toil in preparation for that critical moment of contest. Within the limits of what is good, there is nothing that you will not deny your body or cause it to undergo in order to bring it into the best condition possible.

        I had been imagining that when you stepped into the ring, the contest might be described in terms like these: to the fighter who can best control her body goes the victory; and perhaps this superiority is decided by which fighter can best control not only her own body, but in so doing can also in a way control the body of her opponent.

        But now, reading your comments above, I understand better how you can say that you have despaired more at some victories than ever you did at some defeats, and rejoiced more at some defeats than ever you did at some victories. If now I understand correctly, the contest is not about dominating your own body and that of your opponent, using both however you wish; but the contest is rather about knowing that you yourself are at the top of your game, that your will and your body are as one – neither failing the other or falling behind. If you can feel that way, who cares whether your opponent gets in more hits?

        Well, perhaps I should not presume to understand what a fighter feels, but if I err I hope that you will be so good as to teach me – endlessly.

        Reply
        • Sylvie
          Sylvie
          July 22, 2012 1:18 pm

          I think your former understanding is objectively how fights are won/lost in the eyes of judges and your latter realization is in line with the personal experience of the fighter. Neither is incorrect or carries truth at the expense of the other. I think I’ll write a blog post to go into more detail because your reply came just after a conversation over breakfast with Kevin on this very subject.

          Reply
  • Sylvie
    Sylvie
    July 20, 2012 5:45 pm

    I don’t mean to sound flippant about it because I recognize it as an important and complicated question, but in short the major difference in fighting with my brothers versus sparring with Den are: 1) growing up; and 2) my relationship with Den as my trainer is very different from the kind of relationship one has with siblings, where the family dynamic, life-long knowledge of one another, changes in relationship as one ages and having a mix of love for and fear of older brothers is unlike anything I have with Den.

    It’s the same issue with training with my husband versus training with a teammate or coach – the personal relationship invites emotional responses to an otherwise detached experience.

    When my brothers were picking on me or taking advantage of their size/age against me, the unfairness of it was borne of our bond, a mix of expectations of both the pecking order and the tacit promise for protection from outsiders. It was inherently unfair and the life lesson of “dealing with” unfairness or taking your knocks as the younger sibling is not one that you see as a kid – you see it many, many years later.

    But with Den I know he’s teaching me something that I need to know in order to step into the ring with another fighter who is ready for me, who has done the work to meet me in there and do her best to take advantage of her advantages and point out the weaknesses I do my best to hide, as I do hers. He’s picking on me with rules, using his advantages to test my resolve not to demonstrate his dominance for the sake of defining our relationship. That’s what brothers do.

    Reply

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the-secret-to-padwork-in-thailand

The Secret to Great Muay Thai Padwork in Thailand – Get the Most Out of It

What follows is not authoritative, it is just the things I’ve gleaned in my nearly 5 years of full time training at my various gyms, and in traveling around and taking privates from some of the best in Thailand. You can get access to my growing Muay Thai library with legends for a suggested pledge of $5. I read a rant on Reddit that, despite its intense language, does open up that some people do get frustrated training in Thailand, finding a lack of instruction and padwork that be repetitive. I do believe there is no better place in the

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“This Is Business” | The Imitation Game, Playing to the Gamblers

Alex and Note are standing on opposite corners of the ring, wearing shinguards and gloves, hanging out like they’re about to do anything other than sparring. They’re totally relaxed, laughing, joking. Kru Nu is pacing around and there’s a buzz around the circumference of the ring while the remainder of the boys all takes their positions along the ropes as spectators and Goh – one of the padmen for the kids – is hollering for Chicken Man. Kru Nu squats down with his hands on the top rope, peering under the staircase and out into the chicken farm, the most likely

fighting-above-weight-in-thailand

Female Fighters | Fighting Above Weight in Thailand & How to Win

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 any of those other advantages. I know that in the West

perfect-muay-thai-technique

Precision – A Basic Motivation Mistake in Some Western Training

read my guest post articles a Husband’s Point of View A Husband’s Point of View – Consider this a working theory. I’ve written about the uniqueness of Thai style training before, in The Slow Cook vs the Hack, and this article can be seen as something of an extension of that. But as Sylvie’s husband watching her progress through very earnest training and a hell of a lot of fighting, and seeing numerous westerners come through her Thai gyms, I’ve come upon something I think is pretty important. What led me to this is a very particular quality many serious

Guide to Muay Thai Gym Etiquette - Not Offend

Guide to Thailand Muay Thai Gym Etiquette – How to Be Polite

Below is meant to be a helpful guide, something that I wish I had when I first came to training Thailand. These are just things I’ve noticed in my 4 years of training and fighting here and are not hard and fast rules to follow. If you want to be polite in Thailand gyms, in a culture that is different than your own, these are just a few things to look for. There are of course a wide variety of gym experiences in Thailand, and things that are impolite in a small, family Thai-style gym might very well be common

Pitbull - Fear and Agression in Muay Thai

Fear of Escalation in Sparring and Training Aggression as a Skill

A lot of us feel that aggression comes with an “on/off” switch, and that we should be able to flick it back and forth based on context. Many of us who are learning Muay Thai struggle with aggression, perhaps because we don’t feel that we are “naturally aggressive,” and it’s frustrating to watch those who are seemingly naturally gifted with aggression succeed in ways that we don’t see in ourselves. But aggression isn’t natural, even if it does seem innate in some more than others. I contend that aggression feels natural to some due to having spent years cultivating it before they

Dracula Guard position - Muay Thai

Padwork with Daeng at Lanna – Dracula Guard (Long Guard Variation)

First a Little Bit About Daeng Daeng is one of the most fight-focused trainers I’ve trained with. When I was training at Lanna Muay Thai in Chiang Mai, it was Daeng who invested the most in diagnosing and fixing weaknesses in my fighting. He wasn’t my main trainer, but he’s a very good teacher and has a keen eye for finding how to improve on existing strengths and correct errors. I’d initially gotten a bit stuck with a technically brilliant but lazy and unmotivated trainer – that guy was a great trainer for some, just not for me – and Daeng

Arjan Surat - Dejrat Gym in Bangkok - Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu

Arjan Surat of Dejrat Gym – 1 Hour Private | Coach of the Thai National Team

Join and Study my Muay Thai Library of Legends This is a full video of a private I took with Arjan Surat, Head Coach of the Thai National Team, and owner of the esteemed (but lesser known to the west) Dejrat Gym in Bangkok. I did a short review of the gym when I interviewed female fighter Kaitlin Young, and it was then that I met Arjan Surat for the first time: an absolutely extraordinary teacher and life-force of Muay Thai. The man is Old School-Old School, telling me that he’s been holding pads longer than I’ve been alive (he’s

The Gendered Experience

nadia

Playing to Type – the Sexy Exchange Student and Muay Thai

– This is part of what is likely a series of articles on western female sexuality in Thai gyms – it’s a big topic and I’ve been thinking about it for a long time, and this seemed like the best place to start. This view comes from my personal experience, and reflection, but also from conversations I’ve been having with women who have trained or are currently training elsewhere in Thailand. How Are You Drawn? There’s a stereotypical role that is in male-driven teen comedies – you know, the kind that are about the conquest of losing one’s virginity or

Soidao and Jaeda - Rangsit Stadium - May 2000

Women in Lumpinee, Thai Female Fighters in the 1990s, Rangsit History

One of the more limiting things as a female Muay Thai fighter is that we have no real history, no archived past to attach ourselves to, to anchor our passion and propel us to greater achievements. We have the names and photos of western women with lots of belts, in recent times, and very few videos, but reach beyond a decade or so and the record of female Muay Thai just falls off into mist. And in terms of Thai female fighters, anything prior to 1998 is extremely obscure and subject to the dubious or incomplete aspects of oral accounts.

The Beauties of Muay Thai - Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu

The Beauties of Muay Thai – Female Muay Thai Image, Culture and Market

(aired 4/23/2013 on Thai television – translation & subtitling is mine) Sud Suay Muay Thai I first became aware of this video the day after it aired on Channel 7 by a British woman who trains and fights in Bangkok sending me a link on my facebook page, letting me know that I’m in the commercial.  The video had been uploaded to the fan page of another fighter in Bangkok, Jade Marrisa Sirisompan who is also featured in the video and has become the first featured fighter in what I understand to be something like a TV program called “Sud Suay Muay

Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu - Chiang Mai University Library

Chiang Mai University (CMU) Main Library – CMU Post Office – Gender Studies

Where is the Chiang Mai University Library? When I first arrived in Chiang Mai, for whatever reason – maybe it was the language barrier as I had not yet progressed with my Thai, or maybe it was a mismatch between my Googling skills and everything not being available on an English search engine – but I could not figure out where exactly the Chiang Mai University Library was, despite the fact I live only a 15 minutes walk from CMU.  I really wanted to locate the library because there were several gender studies books that I wanted to delve into

Angie Kathoey - Muay Thai Fighter - Pattaya-w1400

Interview with Angie, a Transgender Nakmuay Facing Her First Muay Thai Fight

Part 1 – The Interview with Angie Above is my interview with Angie, a Kathoey (commonly called “Ladyboy”) who is about to have her first Muay Thai fight. Angie started training at Petchrungruang a few months ago. At first it was just once per week, on Sunday afternoons, which is a slow day at the gym. But she quickly got stronger – I could see it from afar, even before we really started interacting with each other, other than a smile of recognition back and forth – her passion for Muay Thai is evident. In a short amount of time,

JR at the gym

Revealing: I’m a Muay Thai Fighter

  There’s a street vendor cart right below my balcony (well, many floors below my balcony, but a direct fall/jump) that sells the most delicious fried chicken.  Sometimes I step out and look over the railing to see if they have a good selection and then go pick the pieces I spied, because I love food and the deliciousness of this chicken is just beyond mortal resistance. It used to be a lady and her husband with their chubby daughter running around everywhere, but then the daughter had to go to school and now they seem to have brought in

record book

Training At O. Meekhun Muay Thai Gym with Phetjee Jaa – Pattaya

I was very excited and shocked to learn that my Muay Thai hero, the 12-year-old phenomenon Phetjeejaa O. Meekhun, trains at her family gym just a 30 second walk through a chicken farm from where I’ve been training every day for the last month here in Pattaya.  I got to visit their gym and meet PJJ and her family a few days ago and got to actually go and train with the kids this past Monday. While en route on the big highway that runs through Pattaya and connects my two gyms, I was weaving between cars to sneak up

Muay Thai and Text

Academic Muay Thai Articles in English | Scholarly Essays

In addition to being very committed to training and fighting in Muay Thai as much as I can in Thailand, I also have a deep academic root in me and I revel in exploring abstract concepts and concrete facts that help to better understand one’s place and one’s meaning in the world and the liberties awarded and denied through inclusion and exclusion. Unfortunately there is a dearth of academic study of Muay Thai and even less that is produced in English; the articles that have been written are somewhat dispersed and at times hard to find, so below I’ve compiled

20-minutes-of-clinch-with-pettonpung-gym-mae-rim

Sharing Clinch Techniques | 20 Minutes Clinching with All-Female Gym [video]

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 a month before this, where I showed my lock and a

Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu - Muay Thai

1 Year Completed in Thailand – 28 Fights, Just Starting

Anniversary – 1 Year April 6th was the one year anniversary of our arrival in Thailand.  It feels quite monumental, which is perhaps both strange and ordinary since I don’t really pay a great deal of attention to anniversaries (ordinary) but this one feels like it marks the accomplishment of both goals and dreams that seemed at a time unattainable (strange).  What is most peculiar about the feelings I have surrounding this anniversary is how fast it seemed – it’s like the calendar is lying to me that it’s been a whole year and yet when I look at how

First Kathoey Fighter at Lumpinee - Angie Petchrungrung 2

Making History: Angie First Transgender Fighter at Lumpinee Stadium

Email subscribers, see the interview here Almost two years ago I interviewed Angie in anticipation of her first Muay Thai fight, after only a few months of training in Muay Thai. Remarkably, two weeks from now Angie will be having her debut fight at the legendary Lumpinee Stadium in Bangkok. A historic fight. She will be the first kathoey (Trans) fighter to enter those ropes. The famed Nong Toom “Beautiful Boxer” fought at Lumpinee and was a kathoey, but she didn’t fully fight as a “kathoey fighter”. She fought to afford sexual reassignment surgery, would fight wearing lipstick in the ring, but fought

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My Interview with Loma and Chommanee at Lookboonmee Gym

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 Muay Thai Fighters I’ve Interviewed Loma Lookboonmee and Chommanee Taehiran are

the oppressed majority

Oppressed Majority – Powerful Short Film on Sexism Through Reversal [vid]

OPPRESSED MAJORITY (Majorité Opprimée English), by Eleonore Pourriat I just watched this short movie (10 min) on YouTube, in which the everyday sexism against women is expressed through a reversal in which men are the “oppressed majority.”  I write about gender a lot and I suspect a lot of men have a hard time appreciating on a deep level what women experience on a daily basis, mostly because men simply don’t ever experience it.  And I do mean on a daily basis – while this movie includes a sexual assault that is not in the day-to-day life of every individual

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