Logo
  • Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • Forum
  • 100+ Fights
  • Master K
  • Store
  • War Face
  • My Record
  • Best Posts
  • Phetjee Jaa
  • Overtraining
  • Gendered Exp
  • Sylvie's Tips
  • Sak Yant
  • Contact
  • Supporters
  • Donate
made withby essence labs
© 2015. All Rights Reserved.
December 25, 2013
Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu
Camp Experience, Gendered Experience, Lanna Muay Thai, Muay Thai, Muay Thai Clinch

The Male Nature of Thai Clich – Play, Dramatization, and Domination

Thai Clinch - Lanna Muay Thai - black and white

The Inherent Nature of Thai Clinch

This video was shot about 25-30 minutes into a clinching session at the tail end of afternoon training.  Initially, everyone jumped in to help Big with his clinch because he has some fights coming up, but by the time we get to this video everyone is working with “Godzilla,” who is significantly bigger than all the other boys and Den.  They’re doing a “round robin” type drill with “last man standing” rules, so that two men are clinching and whoever gets thrown is “out” and whoever is still standing is still in, so the next guy just jumps immediately into the clinch.  Godzilla had been undefeated for at least 10 minutes. It’s exhausting, but it’s also a game. It’s training and it’s a drill, but it’s also performance and the dramatization is based on very real dominance.

You can read all my articles on Thai Clinch here

This kind of play is fundamental in gyms all over Thailand, because it is fundamental in the performance of Thai masculinity and that’s what Muay Thai is, in many ways.  Before we started filming Godzilla had withstood one of Den’s very tricky throws which can land a larger farang easily, managing to turn Den and put him on the ground with Godzilla on top.  That’s dominance for Godzilla, landing completely on top.  You see this in Thai fights, landing on top of someone (or taking their back) has a vague, sexual connotation to it. Not sexuality in sensuality, but sexuality in dominance. So in a later attempt Den had to get that back, so to speak.  He turned Godzilla into the ropes and threw himself, full body, with his hips against Godzilla’s bent body in a very unmistakable, over-dramatized pelvis-thrust gesture of domination.  Den threw a few of these thrusts with loud vocalizations for added measure, and everyone laughed.  But Godzilla didn’t go down, so the clinch continues and that’s where the video kicks in.

As the video continues you see Big get the impression that a throw is imminent and he jumps up to ready himself for his turn.  He springs up on the corner of the ring and splashes water over his arms, chest and face – like a mini-shower to prepare for his entrance into the clinch.  But once Den gets Godzilla down, they both collapse and everything comes to a lull.  It’s Off who goes over to Den and, slightly out of frame, actually pinned Den’s head between his forearms and dragged him up off the mat for more clinch.  Den has just bettered Godzilla and has basically been led into another round by Off, so he has to maintain his position. This is the game of continued hierarchy adjustment or expression. It doesn’t just happen in the ring. It is woven, quietly, into nearly every Thai social exchange and social milieu. A Thai gym is structured and run by it, often unseen by westerners who just see autonomous people and not the bonds between them. The struggle for hierarchy in clinch, in a society where there is not a lot of social shifting, is maybe why the clinch (and fighting) means so much to a Thai audience.

Den is exhausted, so Off gets some pretty good pressure going, somewhat with Den’s allowance landing a far greater quantity of knees while Den is still able to stick in a few sharp belly shots.  Den’s actually getting dragged around a bit but when he finally gets serious he pulls Off’s head down to a position that Off is pretty helpless in. He is helpless in more than one way though. He is in a weak position physically, but also socially this has to end one way, with his elder and superior on top.  He can either drop to the canvas and give up, or he has to just take whatever Den throws at him – which in this case is pretty much everything Den has without actually hurting Off, dramatically, playfully finishing him again and again, and then pushing him between the ropes and sitting on top of him.  That’s the domination equivalent of “overkill.”  Big kind of goes over to turn it back into a joke by grabbing Den and dramatically kneeing him until he peels off to the floor, but you can see that Off is genuinely submitted, and then everyone is done for the night. High and low is restored.

There is no “pretend” domination among Thai men and boys in training or in fights.  Even with a padholder who is just calling for combinations, if you manage to get something in on him that counts – even abstractly – as a point or as a moment, just a moment, of dominance, he’ll work to get that point back or dominate you until it’s back in his favor.  Even tiny things.  It’s not a joke, but it is playful.  Everyone is learning and strengthening technique by actually doing, but part of that – the backdrop to all of it – is actually doing the act of dominating your opponent as well.  And it is dramatized – there’s a lot of yelling and exaggerating movements that don’t have power behind them in order to avoid hurting each other, but the dramatization is meant to imply that in a real fight all of these things would be game-enders.  Fighters will do this in a fight as well, dramatically performing a movement as a means of asserting dominance over their opponent in lieu of – or in very nasty cases, in addition to – hurting their opponent with full force.  They’re not “pulling” shots, but rather they’re winking at the audience while they throw it.

An interesting example of this dramatization was the recent Kard Chuek (“roped hands”) fight for Thai Fight on Dec. 22, 2013 between Saiyok Pumpanmuang and Sudsakorn S. Klinmee.  I won’t go into the whole mess of promotions like Thai Fight and Max Muay Thai, but they are good examples of dramatized Muay Thai – they are the soap operas of Muay Thai promotions.  But this fight between Saiyok and Sudsakorn illustrates the dramatized performance very well because I believe, indeed, a “fake fight” (in the sense that it is not a fight in how westerners see fighting as war) – and in Muay Thai, the difference between a fake fight and a real fight can be very, very subtle.  My disclaimer is that this difference is so razor thin that what constitutes a “real fight” for promotions and media might very well include this fight, but to me, watching it, there is enough of a difference that it seemed quite obviously not real.  (As a bit of background, Saiyok and Sudsakorn were both coaches on a TV show that pitted western Muay Thai fighters against each other and at the last the two coaches have a match together, much like the set up of The Ultimate Fighter with a coach vs. coach finale.  This was the fight between the coaches.)


Within only a minute or so of watching this fight on TV I felt it wasn’t “real,” but it’s one of the best fake fights I’ve ever seen.  It’s basically superb sparring, similar to what you see the boys and Den doing in the clinch video above, but with a bit more intensity and precision.  Both Saiyok (white shorts) and Sudsakorn (black shorts) are truly throwing strikes and with great Thai fighters like this they can throw powerful strikes at each other without it being a big problem – it’s still sparring.  It’s intensity without intention.  If you look at the elbows Saiyok throws at Sudsakorn at about the 9:00 mark, you’ll see that he is a) not attempting to cut but is purposefully throwing them a little “flat” with his forearm, and b) he throws one, lets Sudsakorn’s block go up and then throws his second with a bit more power into Sudsakorn’s block.  If this were a real fight, that would have looked different, even if it were blocked.  There’s a nastiness that is completely absent from this fight, but the playfulness is intact.  I’ve seen endless comments on this fight on various different media, people trying to figure out “why Saiyok lost” or “why it went to a fourth round,” and I just laugh.  There was a demo Buakaw fight, far more ridiculous than believable, on a Thai Fight or Max card a while back – I forget which – and people thought that one was real, too.  But it was ridiculous.  Which goes to show that the that the performed dominance that is practiced in every moment of Muay Thai for Thai boys and men is, to many, imperceptible from the dominance that is reserved for real fights.  To me they look different; like how tigers playing and tigers actually trying to maul each other looks different.  The movements are similar, but the intention is quite different.

The Clinch and Women

This is why it’s difficult for women, and even for western men as outsiders to Thai culture, to really learn the Thai clinch.  We don’t perform in this way.  We don’t play in this way.  When I watch this video of Den and the boys clinching, I’m inspired by how much I love this kind of thing – how much I love the practice and the performance of Thai masculinity – but I’m also saddened by it because I am excluded from it.  Even if I were incredibly skilled, more skilled than any of the men in this video, adding a female element to the mix would change it.  This is true also of western males, although in a different way.  It’s a demonstration of the relationship men have with each other, and moreover a relationship that these men have with each other, as teammates, friends, etc.  Women don’t have that relationship inside a brotherhood or inside Thailand – not yet – and I don’t think it’s easy to find in the western world either.  To use an extreme example Den’s theatrical pelvic thrusts into Godzilla cannot be performed with the same meaning against a woman.   The way the boys can lay on each other and humorously pretend hump each other to demonstrate dominance would still demonstrate dominance when performed on a woman, but the meaning would be very, very different.  One is sexual mocking, the other, however, is sexual miming. It may be hard to explain, but there is a significant sexual linking in much of Thai Clinch display. Taking someone’s back in a fight is a sexualized position in how it draws excitement and “oooh’s” from the crowd. Throwing someone down and standing over them has a “top” dominant component. And what few western women may realize is that the Thai common word for “clinch” (plum ปลํ้า), is also complicatedly the colloquial word for a kind of rape in which a male forces himself on a woman he knows (a common scenario in Thai soap operas, apparently).  What goes for gestures of theatrical dominance runs through the entire coded action of clinching itself and is part of its natural pedagogy, it’s play.  This pedagogy necessarily changes when training with women.  For example, the standard position for many men to protect themselves and have control over their opponent is to bury his face in his opponent’s neck.  The burying of the face in a woman’s neck is an erotic act, something western women may not even realize when they are subjected to it.  As such, if men are training with women, they either have to perform this highly sexual/sensual act of nearly “sniffing the neck” and try to distance himself from the culturally erotic act, or he has to change the way in which he clinches to avoid it.  This can be done.  I learned clinch over a period of days with Sakmongkol WKO in Colorado and he was adroit in omitting all sexual innuendo from our training; but we definitely weren’t playing.  We were learning technique, as one might learn rules of grammar without actually conversing.

Women are locked out of this kind of play.  We could, obviously, perform like this with each other in an all-female clinching or sparring situation, but women don’t generally play like this.  We don’t perform masculinity like this because we are not, in fact, men.  Even the Toms I fight in the ring, and I’ve fought quite a few, are not woven from this fabric. The Art of Thai Clinch and it’s gestures of domination are to some degree essentially alien. And in the gym I’m twice removed from this kind of practice, first by being a westerner who is not on the “inside” of the relationships these Thai men have with other Thai men, and then by being a woman and having to attempt to perform Thai masculinity from outside of Thainess and outside of manliness.  And to be sure – and it may be a surprise to some – most Thai female fighters don’t know how to clinch well, certainly not anywhere near the level of an average lightly skilled male, because they don’t have access to this kind of practice. The best of them have likely learned from family members, in relative isolation. (Even in my own experience with Master K, he would use body padding to separate our bodies and only clinch at distance; with Daeng at Lanna Gym, he straps on a belly pad when we clinch to offer a kind of “buffer” between us, something he would never think to do when clinching males.) When I clinch with women in fights, we are absolutely using real dominance against one another, but we haven’t trained it in the same way.  We haven’t internalized it through play in the way that men have; the way men do.

You can support this content: Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu on Patreon

Related

Share this


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.

1 Comment

  • Jeandro
    February 19, 2016 6:17 am

    That piece is absolutely wonderful.

    Never thought a simple technique could have so much psychological meaning. Fascinating. I’ve discovered yourblog yesterday, and as someone who’s about to take the same route as you (i.e. leaving the western world and training full time in Thaïland), I must say I’m amazed by your story. Cheers from France.

$35 – Symbolic Sylvie Shirt

Journalist of the Year – 2014

Fighter of the Year – 2015

Lessons from Legends – Pledge $5

connect with me here

Official Sponsor of 8limbs.Us

Official Sponsor of 8limbs.Us

No Tricks or Combos – Deep Techniques

Featured Posts

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

Sarah Conner - Sacrifice - Body Muay Thai

Sarah Conner & My Egg Donation: The “Sacrifice” of Body For Muay Thai

In the world of athletics and motivational memes, the word “sacrifice” gets thrown around a lot.  All the things that one must sacrifice in the name of greatness, the hardships of waking up to train, missing out on nights of drinking with friends… whatever.  I know people use this word without truly dissecting the concept, it’s just part of sport-speak.  But I don’t use this word because it means a lot to me. When I think of the word “sacrifice” I think of giving up something of immense value – sacrifice is painful, not unfortunate or just hard.  Abraham willing

calling time

15 New Techniques That Will Improve Your Muay Thai – From My Training in Pattaya

I learned a ton training with Sakmongkol in Pattaya for 7 weeks, as well in my time at Petchrungruang Gym. You can see my daily blog posts of my time with Sakmongkol here if you want to dig into the evolution of my lessons, the posts are pretty detailed with lots of video. Below are the lessons I learned, in particular the lessons or techniques I’m going to consciously work into my training at Lanna, now that I’m back in Chiang Mai. I’ll try to tell you why they were important for me and maybe they could help you, too.

Sataanmuanglek - high level Muay Thai clinch technique-w1400

Breaking Down Some Elements of Awesome Muay Thai Clinch Technique

Sataanmuanglek Numponthep – Magician A few days a go a clinch video swept across Facebook, featuring the young fighter Sataanmuanglek Numponthep just looking incredible in “man in the middle” training. This kind of training is very common in Thailand, and often can go for 40 minutes or more (rotating out the man who is in the middle) – it’s one of the reasons I moved to Pattaya to train at Petchrungruang, this kind of work. But Sataanmuanglek just looks spectacular in this clip. The very best clinch throw techniques are those where you almost can’t see where the trip came

Treating shins for injury, bumps and bruises, swelling - Muay Thai Sylvie-w1200

Treating Shins For Recovery: Knots, Bruises, Bumps – and Training Injured – Muay Thai

above, my how to video for warm water massage for shins [update: for longer lasting shin swells you can try this] Subscribe to 8limb.us articles for free here Anyone who has kicked anything knows that the occasional bump, knot or “mouse” on the shin or foot is inevitable.  You can get them on your forehead or face from an elbow or punch and on your shins or feet from kicking knees, elbows, heads, etc.  They kind of feel like badges of awesomeness, but they can also keep you from training and that feels lame. I always have something that hurts,

Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu - Waiting Before the Fight - Muay Thai

What the First Year of Fighting Means – a Husband’s Point of View

this space is Sylvie’s space, where she writes her record. But with the first year of fighting completed I felt I wanted to add my thoughts, as a husband. In part because Sylvie is fighting for all of us, a family.    guest post, Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu I’m a pretty quiet guy around the gym and at fights, so much so people tend to not get past the exterior. But when they do one of the things they ask me is “Do you ever get worried when Sylvie goes in there?” This is such a natural thing to ask a

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 80 Percent Fight - female Muay Thai in Thailand

The 80 Percent Fight – A Hidden Story Behind Western and Thai Match Ups

Any westerner fighting in Thailand has an interest in portraying their Thai opponents as being the best and fighting at the top of their capabilities.  And, to be fair, we assume and hope that this is true in our own minds.  We come here to train hard and fight hard, and from our understanding of fighting in the west we assume quite fairly that our opponents are doing the same.  But in Thailand, things are very often not what they seem; perhaps especially when gazing with western expectations. My experience of fighting in Thailand started over 5 years ago now

Saenchai vs Jongsana - Choosing a Muay Thai Style

The Art of Choosing Your Muay Thai Fighting Style – Some Jongsanan

there is a lot of GIF media in this post, so you may want to give it time to load.  Isolate any GIF by just clicking on it. The Post Last week I put up a Jongsanan Fairtex fight on Facebook I had found on YouTube that really seemed to demonstrate where I have been going in the evolution of my fighting style lately, counter to much of the direction many of my loved and respected teachers had been trying to get me to go in since the beginning, basically.  I have been blessed with great instruction by very special

Boxing in a Mirror - Sparring Out of Control

Brain Science: Why Sparring Gets Out of Control – Neurology and Muay Thai

We all know the bro (or the female version) who says “Let’s go light” in sparring, and then whacks you. Or, when you get a hit in they suddenly step it up two notches in a way that seems inordinately ego-driven, like they’re trying to “win” at sparring. What’s up with these people? Don’t they know how to spar? It turns out that although there indeed may be all kinds of psychological reasons why people just hit back harder than they are hit – not understanding their own size, or just being a jerk – there also may be a

Lewish Pugh by Terje Eggum

The Myth of Overtraining – Endurance, Physical and Mental for Muay Thai

This piece flowed out of my experiences that led to writing The Fragility of Western Masculinity, and responses to this post lead to me writing Endurance is a Skill. Read All My Articles on Overtraining Preface – I’ve been meaning to write this post for a long while and two things happened recently that have allowed me to finally pull it together. The first thing was writing to Lewis Pugh, who is an incredible athlete and ocean advocate who swims in extreme conditions in order to draw attention to the effects of climate change on the earth’s oceans.  (Picture swimming

8limbs.Us Pages

  • A Short Bio – Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu
  • Complete Fight Record – Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu
  • Kumron Vaitayanon “Master K”
  • Legacy Blog – Read Chronologically
  • My 8limbs.us Supporters – Those Who Have Lifted Me and this Site Up
  • Reach Me Here
  • Sylvie Store
  • Women’s War Face: the Bloody Female Fighter Face – New Beauty
  • Youtube – Over 2000 Videos

Sylvie’s Tips – Muay Thai Techniques

Sylvie's Tips - Muay Thai Tips, Techniques and Helps from Thailand

Sylvie’s Tips – Muay Thai Tips, Techniques & Helps from Thailand

  This is a new feature I’m going to try my hand at. I’ve got a lot on my plate out here, but it feels like it would be a shame to waste some of the small technical Muay Thai know-hows I’ve run into, so I’m going to try to stop and film them in short segments when I come across a new one. Sometimes it will be something I’ve discovered in my own struggle to synthesize all the amazing technique that is surrounding me, but mostly I hope it is short pieces of instructions or help from those teaching

sylvies-tips-working-on-your-teep

Sylvie’s Tips – Working On Your Teep

We got a question on the Muay Thai Roundtable forum the other day that I reckon is a pretty common issue. When I first started taking Muay Thai from Master K, he described the teep as the “electric fence” around every other technique. Teep comes first, basically – the first line of defense and keeping your opponent out of your space until you want them there. And I sucked at teeping for a really long time. It’s only fairly recently, in the last 1.5 years maybe, that my teep has become a favorite technique, and it didn’t become that way because

Sylvie's Tips - Training the Long Guard on the Bag

Sylvie’s Tips: Training Long Guard on the Bag | Firming Up

above, my short Sylvie’s Tips on how I’m practicing Long Guard on the bag lately Everything little thing we do on the bag is repetition, even unconscious things can be “trained” into you. Simply taking a time out and walking back from the bag to reset during your rounds is that kind of small element. The further I get in my Muay Thai journey, the more I’m examining my bagwork (and shadow) for unconscious elements that I’m accidentally, or even non-efficiently training. It’s about awareness, so that I can figure out how to get my training into the ring with me

Jatukam showing the Matrix style Muay Thai

Sylvie’s Tips – Train the Matrix on the Bag – Jatukam Petchrungruang

  Just a little bagwork drill/game that I ran into in the gym by one of my favorite young fighters, Jatukam. Jatukam is 14 or 15 years old and just crushes his competition at Lumpinee and Rajadamnern.  He’s one of the best fighters at 40 kg (88 lbs) and has a really clever, muay femur style, which is the tricky and evasive style mostly associated in the west with Saenchai.  He’s Southpaw and has a nasty teep, but that doesn’t stop him from getting in close and smashing my face with solid left crosses when we spar.  He’ll smile the

Sylvie's Tips - How to Close Distance - Hop In-w1400

Sylvie’s Tips – A Simple Way To Close Distance – Hop In | Muay Thai

This is a deceptively simple way to close distance. I get interesting communication from readers and fans. When it’s brief, I’ll answer directly. Mostly I try to get folks to post their questions on the Muay Thai Roundtable forum so it can help others who might have the same questions and more people can chime in to help with answers; but in this case the question was one I’ve not only worked hard to develop a strategy on, as a smaller fighter, but it’s also one that I’ve heard a few times. So it makes sense to do a Sylvie’s

Low Kick Counter - Round Kick Counter - Dieselnoi

Sylvie’s Tips: 2 Wicked Dieselnoi Knee Counters to Muay Thai Kicks [GIFs]

The Sylvie’s Tips feature is a collection of techniques and tips I’ve picked up in my time in Thailand, from some of the best trainers in the world. I’ve never seen these exact counters before, and they come from the greatest knee fighter in history, Dieselnoi, during my filming of a nakmuaynation.com private. You can read about that private here. Unique Knee Counter to Round Kick I’ve actually been on the receiving end of this knee to the hamstring a number of times, but only from my trainer, Pi Nu, during padwork. He thinks it’s hilarious and usually calls out boran!

thanadet and the shape of the Long Clinch-w1400

For Clinch Purists – The Technique of Tanadet’s Long Clinch and the 9th Limb

This post is in the spirit of this site, showing things in progress, as if passing reading notes so others can think along (and even train along) with me. I’ve thought a lot about this clinch since first witnessing it about 3 years ago. I’ve finally gotten myself to the position where I can teach it to myself. I first wrote about Tanadet (Poda) 2 years ago.  The extended film clip below Kevin made as a study film for me, so I could figure out just what it is that Tanadet was doing. If you want a very good sense

Sylvie's Tips - Control your Muay Thai Kick - Floating Block - Sakmongkol

Sylvie’s Tips: Gaining Control of Your Muay Thai Kick – Floating Block

Sylvie’s Tips: The Floating Block Sakmongkol was the first person to tell me not to turn around on kicks.  He was adamant about it.  It’s very awkward when you first try and your kick can be really flicky and horrible, but the more you get it under control the more you realize how much this increases power.  Basically you want to have confidence that you can control your kick at any time, so if you miss your target you’re not going to spin all the way around.  Honestly, you’ll seldom if ever see this in a Thai fight and when

Muay Thai Low Kick - Where to Kick the Thigh - Sylvie's Tips

Sylvie’s Tips – Low Kick: Where to Kick the Leg – the Sensitive IT Band

Kick Where it Hurts This is another installment of Sylvie’s Tips where I seek to share some of the things my Thai trainers are teaching. The other day Kru Nu landed a couple leg kicks on my right (back) leg during padwork.  He’s got a good low kick and his Thai students have really whippy, nasty low kicks as well.  The first one hurt and all, but the second one – which was a good 10 minutes after the first – landed on just such the perfect spot, with just enough force, and while my weight was on it that

How to Crush the Head in the Thai Clinch - Crush the Head

Video Tip: The Hand Position in the Muay Thai Clinch Lock – Bank Petchrungruang

How to Crush the Head and Neck Kru Nu’s son Bank has a terribly strong squeeze in the clinch, and ends up just crushing me most of the time when we practice. He just turned 14 and earlier this year began his Lumpinee career. So today I asked him to show me the hand position he uses, and learned that all this time I’ve been doing it backwards, leveraging with the wrong arm, and wrongly using the face of my wrist instead of the blade of my forearm. You are basically crushing the opponent’s forehead into your own shoulder, with

How to Practice Muay Thai Knees on the Rope - Sylvie's Tips

Sylvie’s Tips: How to Practice Knees on the Rope: Goh Teaches His Daughter Bai

The real instruction doesn’t come until minute 1:40 but the thought to record Bai jumping in to practice knees with the boys was simply because it was pretty cute.  Then her dad came over to correct her form (she was imitating the boys, mostly one who is a few down in the row).  Bai is 9 years old and has a few fights; this drill is something all the kids do at the start of training as a warmup and conditioning drill.  I’m pretty sure they do a thousand repetitions.  As Bai first starts out, her father Goh (who is

calling time

15 New Techniques That Will Improve Your Muay Thai – From My Training in Pattaya

I learned a ton training with Sakmongkol in Pattaya for 7 weeks, as well in my time at Petchrungruang Gym. You can see my daily blog posts of my time with Sakmongkol here if you want to dig into the evolution of my lessons, the posts are pretty detailed with lots of video. Below are the lessons I learned, in particular the lessons or techniques I’m going to consciously work into my training at Lanna, now that I’m back in Chiang Mai. I’ll try to tell you why they were important for me and maybe they could help you, too.

Sylvies Tips - Clashing of Knees

How to Avoid Kicking Knees or Elbows in the Basic Muay Thai Kick

This above is a little video help to Benjamin who wrote me about a basic problem he was having in sparring. It seemed like the best way to answer him was in a quick video. I try to help people who write in to me as best I can. Once I filmed it I realized that this is something a lot of others are probably having issues with. I know I still run into it after 3 years here, so I thought to turn it into a “Sylvie’s Tips” video. Hopefully it helps others. Benjamin asked about how his knee

Some of My Best Posts

Violence in Muay Thai

The Importance of Violence in Muay Thai

I’ve written before about how Muay Thai and fighting, to me, isn’t “violence.” My argument was that I have experienced real violence, the above is the story of my rape as a child, and that the consent and preparation involved in fighting isn’t the same. There is, however, a flavor of violence in Muay Thai – it is, as my old boxing coach Ray Valez would say, “the hurt business” and ultimately any fighter pushing for the highest form of the art of Muay Thai has to embrace this. Yesterday there was a young woman at my gym, Petchrungruang, who

Capture2

The Fighter and Unconscious Tension – Recognize and Release

I just had to do my annual visa run, which requires sitting in a van full of total strangers for the 11 hour drive up to the border with Laos, an overnight stay, then the 11 hour drive back down to Pattaya. It’s grueling. Sitting in a car or a plane for this number of hours takes a toll on anyone. It’s astonishing how tired sitting on your ass makes you. I’m not very social, so I always put as many hours of podcasts and audio books as possible on my player so I can leave my headphones in the

Mental Training - People Pleasing and the Fighter

How Many Fucks? Zero. The People Pleaser and the Fighter

Apologies to my younger readers, this post is laced with profanity. Sometimes profanity has a special power to describe things in ways other words can’t. The plastic stool underneath me is too far out from the actual corner and my body kind of tips backwards as my cornermen lift my legs into their hands and rub icy cold water on my thighs and shins. I try to balance myself on the ropes but it’s more awkward and I reposition my forearms to the tops of my thighs; the cold water is going over my head now, which feels nice because

Chiang Mai Best Female Fighting in the World

Why Chiang Mai Has the Best Female Muay Thai Fighting in the World

This article is about the flourishing Muay Thai of Chiang Mai, in the north of Thailand, becoming the best female fight city in the country and very possibly in the entire world. No other city boasts such a complete native female Thai fight scene: it’s fed by side-bet (gambling) fights in the outlying provinces, stabilized by Sports Schools, hosted at a large number of local stadia (all of which allow women to fight in them) which hold fights every night of the week, and supported by the Thai Muay Siam media coverage. If you are a female Muay Thai fighter, this

interview-with-ifmas-stephan-fox

Interview with IFMA’s Stephan Fox | Muaythai in the Olympics and More

Stephan Fox is the General Secretary of the International Federation of Muaythai Amateur (IFMA) and the Vice-President of the World Muaythai Council (WMC).  He is a huge figure in the recognition and development of amateur Muaythai in Thailand, as well as international competition with both the IFMA and WMC. After 20 years of work, the International Olympic Committee has just given provisional recognition for possible inclusion in the Olympics – let me repeat that: 20 years of work for that, and Mr. Fox’s response is, “right on schedule.” above, the full 30 minute interview with Stephan Fox We cover a range of

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

14601100_1330811343619659_1577492697585906845_n

“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

Emma Thomas Female Muay Thai Fighter - Interview-w1400

My Interview With Female Muay Thai Fighter Emma Thomas

Surfing the Chaos I’ve known Emma for a few years now. We actually met through online communication and I forget that we didn’t actually meet each other in person until a little over a year ago. I really like Emma and recently I was scrolling through a feed of our private messages on Facebook in order to show something she’d sent me to my Thai friend and my friend remarked, “wow, you write so much! It’s like a book!” Yeah, we talk a lot. Which made me realize with surprise that I’ve not yet interviewed Emma. I’ve certainly thought to

Thai Clinch - Lanna Muay Thai - black and white

The Male Nature of Thai Clich – Play, Dramatization, and Domination

The Inherent Nature of Thai Clinch This video was shot about 25-30 minutes into a clinching session at the tail end of afternoon training.  Initially, everyone jumped in to help Big with his clinch because he has some fights coming up, but by the time we get to this video everyone is working with “Godzilla,” who is significantly bigger than all the other boys and Den.  They’re doing a “round robin” type drill with “last man standing” rules, so that two men are clinching and whoever gets thrown is “out” and whoever is still standing is still in, so the

Fight Like a Girl - Female Boxing Movie

Fight Like A Girl: My Review of Jill Morley’s Documentary on Female Boxers

This is something of a personal response review of Fight Like a Girl, written as a female fighter. Jill Morley’s film “Fight Like A Girl” opens with a bare-bulb lighting figures as they spar in a ring.  Their white gloves and headgear swing and bob out of the darkness as a voice-over initiates the thesis of the film: people always want to know why female fighters want to fight.  Throughout the rest of the documentary, Jill Morley points her camera at her training partners, her family and herself as they all shadowbox around that question.  Nobody ever seems to hit

Ronda Rousey - Game Face - Female MMA - UFC

Rousey and Women in the Big Cage – Fighting for Image

The Way She Walked Liz Carmouche came out first and the announcer stated that she would be the first woman to enter the octagon – ever, as “the octagon” is a trademarked title for the UFC cage – and I started crying right there.  To me there is something really beautiful about the fact that any woman fighter who is being heralded as the first whatever because it necessarily means there is another woman involved.  Want to be the first woman to fight in the UFC?  We’ll then you’re automatically bringing a second woman with you.  It’s amazing.  So Carmouche

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

Nong Toom - the name nong

Ruminations on Gender, the Name “Nong” and Diminution in Muay Thai

Below are some ruminations on things I’ve picked up on in Thai culture These are suspicions I’ve arrived at through my various experiences and observations of Thai culture and should be taken as that, rather than claims of unarguable fact. I’m not fluent in Thai, neither the language nor the culture, but these are opinions I’ve formed through my experiences, observations and some academic research thus far. If anyone has further insight into or perspective on the language, gender and subculture I’d be glad to hear it. Thai Fighter Names and Gender Bias You can almost immediately spot female fighters

Masculine Physique - Female Muay Thai - Sylvie

ฺBody as Evidence – Masculine Frame and Status in Muay Thai in Thailand

I write a lot about how having a female body and female identity in a male-dominated sport and alien culture places limits on my possibilities as a fighter.  There are also ways in which my anatomical build and a general physiognomy work to my advantage, (I use the word “physiognomy” throughout because none fit better, despite it not being exact):  Namely, the ways in which my body isn’t stereotypically feminine create some new possibilities of perception and opportunity, not just drawbacks. I have just written about status and how near invisible behaviors, can affect it: The Mitt And the Joke. This

DSC04294

Women’s Power in Muay Thai Families

Last week Kevin and I arrived at the gym at 8:00 PM, after evening training, in order to hitch a ride down to Wung’s fight at Kalare Stadium.  It was as it always is at that time: relaxed disorganization floating through a quiet, darkened gym.  After a long while of waiting it became clear that nobody else was coming to the fight and Wung even laughed and asked us why we wanted to come see.  “Because we love to watch you fight,” was the most direct and honest answer. With only Den, Wung, a student of Wung’s from Hill Camp

Lindsey Newhall - Fightland - Muay Thai

Gender and Class – Muay Thai for the Masses in Thailand

photo credit above: Lindsey Newhall Fightland There is a great article by Lindsey Newhall “Muay Thai for the Rich” (Fightland) on a trend I’ve been following in thailand of a growing middle-class interest in Muay Thai, largely by women. A little strange that this particular corporate gym is in Isaan but Buriram is seeking to associate itself as a sport destination, so tje stadium and financing makes sense in that light. Do read the original article which spawned some interesting comment from James Gregory on my Facebook Page. He talks about his personal experience of training with Namkabhuan, the trainer

meme - Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu

Can Bleed Like a Man – Lumpinee, Muay Thai, Culture, Sexism and Meme

Feb- 2014 – Here are a few thoughts on the Muay Thai meme that grew out of a photo a follower made of me from my last fight on Yokkao 7, about the meaning of the meme, the nature of the Thai exclusion of women at certain rings like Lumpinee, and what it meant to me. Let me also say that this from my limited perspective as having lived and fought here in Thailand for nearly 2 years now. Farang notoriously don’t get the whole picture. But more of the picture is better than less, and this is what I

Angie Max intro

Bravery | Angie’s 4th Fight – A Transgender Fighter

You can watch my video interview with Angie here. I’m watching Angie smash the pads with Pi Nu. She becomes very still when he tags her legs with kicks – they don’t look hard from here, and they’re definitely not full power, but I’ve been on the receiving end of them and they fucking hurt – but she stays strong. She pauses after the strike, the expression on her face becomes hardened and she comes back with a full-power strike and a grunt, almost a growl, in return. She’s preparing for a fight and she’s serious. Her last fight was

Bloody Fight Image straight on - Fight 145-001

New Stage Feminism Through Muay Thai? Non-Comparative Struggle

Earlier in the day I had fought on the day reserved for honoring the 18th century Father of Muay Thai, Nai Khanomtom, amid the sacred ruins of the former halcyon capital of Siam, Ayutthaya. I was cut in the fight and bled profusely in late rounds, and the fight came very close to being called off by the ring doctor. As the doctor inspected me, during a timeout forced by the ref for my own good, the fight was held in the balance; with blood streaming down my face, I begged in Thai for the doctor to let me continue: “I

Find My Posts by Date

February 2019
M T W T F S S
« Jan    
 123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
25262728  

Subscribe for Free