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October 15, 2014
Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu
Muay Thai, Petchrungruang Gym

Solo Morning Sessions with Kru Nu – The Talk of Muay Thai

Mornings with Kru Nu

The kids at Petchrungruang train before school, so they’re running at 5:30 AM and out the door for school by 7:00.  Morning training for me is at 9:00 AM, after Kru Nu has gone back to sleep for a little while. But I’m usually the only one there in the mornings.  There have been some stretches where there’s one more westerner – there was a Ukranian guy, then a Frenchman, and some UK fellows, followed by an Italian – but those have been the minority for sure. The mornings are mine. Many times at Lanna Muay Thai I was the only one training in the mornings, although there are more trainers at Lanna so there was some milling around by those of them who didn’t hold pads for me.  A kind of unexpected morning off from work during the low season in the summer.  Often times Den, my main trainer at Lanna, would chat with me about any number of things, usually having to do with his son or promoters.  Then he’d hold pads for me and we’d continue the conversation or joke about something that had happened at the gym the day before or something. Our causal talking was a big part of my experience of those AM Lanna sessions, a kind of lazy cocoon around very hard, killing work.

Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu and Kru Nu at Petchrungruang

At Petchrungruang there’s only Kru Nu who holds pads in the mornings. Because I’m usually the only person training in the time slot after the boys have gone to school, it’s basically a 0ne-on-one, private lesson every day.  I come in through the gate to the gym that’s under a little garage area attached to the family house.  There are mama cats and tons of kittens hiding under and behind the various vehicles and objects in the garage.  On the far left is a restaurant that’s no bigger than the back of a van, run by a lady who lives in one of the 6 or so rooms that line the edge of the gym.  She’s got a couple little kids who terrorize the area – they don’t train Muay Thai in earnest but they fit in with the little kids who do.  It’s all playing at that age anyway – just put some gloves on it and it counts as training.  Just through the gate, which is chain-link and has a sliding door that says in Thai “please keep the gate closed” with three different signs, is a small ring with a really cushy canvas.  That’s the kids’ ring with very loose ropes. It’s soft when they fall and it’s like running in sand if you shadowbox in there.  Once you pass the kids’ ring the floor quickly slopes up about a foot and there are tires for jumping, then the over-sized and elevated main ring.  It’s huge to allow many people to train in it at once and it’s the center of everything.  All the various bags are hung around it and the roof above it is like a barn roof, with rafters and gaps between a few different levels of tin roofs where light comes in. The light in the morning is absolutely incredible.  It’s like an art movie.

Sometimes I greet Kru Nu in the weight room, which is behind yet another gate past the main ring and a completely enclosed space.  On the far end of the weight room is a series of windows that look out over a chicken coop where a single rooster hangs out.  His red cock’s comb is very notable on his silhouette as he clucks around the windows.  Some mornings Kru Nu is doing a weight routine, listening to music through the stereo speakers that are plugged into his phone.  I love his music.  He says it’s “old style” but it’s not that old.  The Thai music I listen to is old, his tastes are probably just called “old” by his son.  If he’s not in the weight room he’s in the house, which is attached to the gym through a sliding glass door that says “welcome” in Thai and has a request to take your shoes off, also in Thai, which doesn’t help much because Thais already know to remove their shoes and westerners can’t read the sign.  There’s a washing machine that’s always running in the mornings on the gym side of that glass door, so Kru Nu’s wife or mother is always appearing and disappearing in short intervals throughout the morning.  Sometimes his father comes in to adjust the water tank under the ring, or just to sit and watch me train with a really sweet smile on his face.  I love him.  About a month and a half ago Kru Nu’s wife gave birth to their first baby together (Bank has a different mom but was raised by Kru Nu), so the sound of Nadt is about as common as the sound of the chicken farm in the back.  And sometimes Kru Nu comes out with his shinpads and gets his equipment ready to get in the ring and then has to hurry back inside to help his wife with the baby.  I’m literally training in someone’s home and the wall between the two is sliding glass.

Quality Time from Quiet Time

Solo time in the AM at Petchrungruang has given me some of the best instruction I’ve ever had. Kru Nu is a born teacher. A Lumpinee fighter for a long time, he now concentrates on the life’s blood of the gym, raising Thai kids to be Lumpinee and Rajadamnern champions. His continual work with kids gives him both an open-ended patience, and an incredible eye for detail and technique. And he just KNOWS how to add one element onto another. The way he holds pads is like no other. It is simultaneously exhausting (the most tiring of any pad holder I’ve had), but also free and flowing. He leads you through combinations that are incredibly fight-real. What some westerners may not realize is that lot of times in Thailand pad holding (for fighters) is really just conditioning, the building of power or what Kaensak called “charging the battery”; trainers are building, but also weighing the available power of a fighter before a fight, it often is not instructional at all. But with Kru Nu it is both conditioning and pedagogy, perhaps because he works so much with pre-teens: you can feel the intelligence in the patterns of what he calls, and in how and when he attacks back. He is drawing the Muay Thai out of you, leading you through higher levels. And I’ve been really lucky because as the only person in the morning he has come to really extend our work, like variations on a poem, sometimes running 10 minute rounds, just working and working the Muay Thai, as if he is polishing something under slow pressure.

But aside from this very good work, there’s something really lovely about being in a quiet gym.  Just like with Den, Kru Nu and I do most of our talking in the morning.  The afternoon’s are just too busy and he doesn’t hold pads for me at night, so our interactions in the evening are mostly when he’s scolding or cheering me in clinch practice with the boys.  But in the mornings we talk about a lot of things, although him asking me why falang like something or do something a particular way is pretty common.  Yesterday morning was a really nice example of what these one-on-one conversations can provide, as far as a glimpse into the changing world of Muay Thai goes. On Saturday Kru Nu brought three young fighters to Lumpinee: Bank, Lomchoi, and Alex.  I asked how that went and he said Alex hadn’t fought at all because the show ran out of time; Lomchoi had won; and Bank had lost.  Bank (his fighter name is Tongchai) is Kru Nu’s son, so he started telling me about that fight.  Kru Nu didn’t think the decision was right.  He said Bank had dominated rounds 1-3, putting this kid on the floor almost every time the opponent kicked, then in round 4 Bank tried to turn the kid to the floor from a waist-grab position in the clinch and the referee had caught them before they hit the canvas.  This is Bank’s specialty.  He can get me turned onto the ground any time he grabs around my waist – every damn time; he’s so strong.  But it’s also what Kru Nu seemed to see as the defining point by which Bank lost the fight.  By not allowing the boys to actually land on the canvas, it seemed that either the point was never credited to Bank or it was indicative to Kru Nu that the referee was disfavoring Bank’s skills.

He complained that the gamblers were betting on the other boy, that the eye for what is wanted was not in his favor either.  He also explained that at big stadia like Lumpinee, sometimes “they believe the big gym,” meaning they favor well-known or powerful gyms.  Petchrungruang is a recognized gym and has a top-level fighter named P.T.T., but I reckon it’s still small potatoes compared to gyms that have the A-list fighters and title holders at those stadia.  He said Bank’s opponent came from a very big gym in the south.  With all that said, however, Kru Nu was very accepting of the favor not going his way. It’s like he acknowledged that it’s never fair and sometimes it tips toward him and sometimes it tips away.  His final statement was, “I think I have to change Bank’s style.” I watch Bank train all the time.  He’s a very strong kid.  He weighs maybe 46 kg and fights at 42 or 43 kg, so he’s smaller than I am by a little bit, but he’s just so fucking strong.  He’s not very active and definitely not evasive, but he’s very persistent and doesn’t go backwards.  Bank’s clinch is really strong, but he doesn’t throw a lot of knees so he doesn’t really score in clinch so much as that he wears his opponent down or takes their spirit by throwing them around.  I said as much to Kru Nu, that Bank has incredibly strong knees in training on the pads but he doesn’t throw them even when clinching with me, so likely he doesn’t do it in fights either.  He’s kind of lazy about knees, like he’d rather just tie up and crush you with death grip.  Kru Nu squinted his eyes and then wrinkled his nose, saying, “no, he knee a lot.”  Okay, I haven’t seen Bank fight, so I can’t say whether he does or doesn’t; but if 90% of the time he’s not kneeing in training I think it’s safe to say he doesn’t overwhelm his opponents with knees when he gets to fights.  That’s not the point.  The point is that Kru Nu was acknowledging that what he likes is not winning fights, so he has to make adjustments toward the demand of the stadium, or the gamblers, or the contemporary “eye” for Muay Thai.

He started to complain to me that Muay Thai was more complete before.  He said that 20 years ago (when he stopped fighting) fighters had many techniques that they used in fights and they all scored in different ways.  Now, he said, gamblers only want to see a few techniques – the same techniques – and don’t care about anything else.  He mimicked pushing the face back in clinch and then pulled his elbows in to show controlling the arms in the clinch.  “Only like this,” he said and shook his head.  This is the first time I’ve ever heard Kru Nu wax poetic about the way Muay Thai was before.  In fact, he’s actually previously told me that he thinks contemporary fighters are better than the fighters from his day.  He said that before fighters took too much damage, just walking through kicks and punches (my favorite fights, actually) and now they’re more clever, fight less, take less damage.  That’s definitely something he tries to manage in his own fighters and coaches them to be forward moving but only to really go hard in the scoring rounds, 3 and 4.  Kru Nu, as it were, changed his own style back when he was a fighter.  He was very defensive but a promoter told him he was boring – “nobody gets excited to watch you back up,” he’d said – so Kru Nu decided he’d become a forward moving fighter and that’s what he teaches his students now.  He made adjustments for aesthetics.  Talking about the scoring of Bank’s fight, he said to me, “I only know Muay Thai, all my life; but I don’t understand.”  He really has done Muay Thai all his life and it’s his family’s way of life and livelihood for two generations now.  But he’s acknowledging that these changes in Muay Thai, whether he likes them or not and whether or not they’re any good, have to be adjusted to or you will simply lose.  He is, yet again, adjusting to the game.

The Big Thing About Small Talk

Mornings like this are precious because they play a big part in developing my relationships at these gyms.  Not only because I enjoy the time spent with Kru Nu or with Den but also because the “social game,” to steal a term from Survivor, is an important element in who I am at the gym.  Both Nu and Den chat with me in the morning and exclude me from their mental catalog of fighters for the same reason: because I’m not a guy.  Den wasn’t interested in improving me as a fighter, but he was very supportive of my fighting.  Kru Nu is the opposite – he’s concerned with making me better but he’s not really interested in me fighting.  Both of those are not entirely, but largely, to do with the fact that I’m a woman (and that I’m not young in Muay Thai standards).  But also because I’m a woman these men will talk to me about their families and probably dissect elements of Muay Thai as a “culture” in a way that might not be as open to discussion between men.  They’re able to invest in me through a connection that has nothing to do with my merit as a Muay Thai fighter – the thing I always want credit for – but rather as a friend on the periphery of the “real” Muay Thai at the heart of a gym, which is all male and generally young and Thai.  My value as a person to my trainers comes at the expense of not being what they consider to be real Muay Thai, but it is value; and it’s a currency I’m gradually learning to appreciate.

 

If you liked this post, you may enjoy this one:

My Review of Petchrungruang Gym – Pattaya – A Small, Authentic Family Muay Thai Gym

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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.

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

Lobloo Female Protection Groin Guard Review - Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu 8 limbs-w1400

The Lobloo Aeroslim Female Groin Guard – A Review | My Amazon Strap

The Lobloo Aero Slim Female Groin Guard inexpensive very well designed – light weight, simple, effective, comfortable could improve technique – groin confidence in clinch, kicks, knees free shipping, arrives fast I love the Lobloo female groin guard. For the most part, I think women don’t even wear groin protection because there are so few options for us – my friend Emma Thomas wrote about these nightmares here – btw, she’s getting one now too – and of those available very few are functional and/or comfortable…but the Lobloo is both. While I obviously like that this groin guard protects me

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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Of Modesty and Men – Thai Manners In and Out of Camp

  Power in Modesty? I just read an online article on the topic of Evangelical clothing stores popping up “all over” Brazil. The author is quick to note that Brazil is “known for it’s tiny bikinis,” so there’s some kind of shock expected from the popularity (in number as there is no note on the sales) of these modest clothing stores. The author raises the question, mostly in the title of the article, of whether there is power in modesty. If focus is taken away from the body and how “hot” it looks, can women accomplish more, go farther in

Female Boxing - Muay Thai Elbow

Training Women In Muay Thai – Roxy Richardson Point and Counter Point

There aren’t a great number of professional female Muay Thai fighters in the west and fewer still in the USA.  I came across Roxy “Balboa” Richardson just as she was preparing for her retirement fight this past year against Elaina Maxwell in Lion Fight Promotions’ “Battle in the Desert 4.”  I’d fought on Lion Fight Promotions “Battle in the Desert 3” and probably a year earlier had interviewed Elaina Maxwell (who fought Gina Carano in the first female MMA bout for Strikeforce in 2006) for Alias Fight Wear’s newsletter.  It’s usually only two degrees of separation in the world of

Feminism and Thai Traditional Culture

Navigating Western Feminism, Traditional Thailand and Muay Thai

There is a natural division in western feminist thinking, and in some way this post is about that divide. But much more it is about the situational ethics, the principles we may want to protect and forward, when visiting or even living in a traditional culture like Thailand; when coming to a different culture as a western privileged woman. This post is a single-person deliberation about how to best do so in the context of Muay Thai and its unique traditions in Thailand, how I am attempting to do so. Hopefully this resonates with others. Not all women from the

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Muay Kathoey (transgender) – Angie’s Second Muay Thai Fight Here in Pattaya

Some people have shown interest in following the story of Angie, the kathoey fighter at my gym Petchrungruang in Pattaya. I interviewed her just before her first ever fight and last night was her second time in the ring. Her first fight ended very quickly in a TKO, when her opponent fell at an awkward angle on her own elbow and was unable to continue. So, a bit of a disappointment in not being able to have a full fight, but for her second fight Angie would be facing a very experienced Thai woman. (Her first fight was against another beginner, who

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Interview with Female Fighter Chocolate of Onyx MMA – Singapore

my interview of Chocolate at Petchrungruang in Pattaya (above) Chocolate lets out these “oh-hoy!” exclamations when I land a good knee or give her a quick turn in the clinch. They’re similar to the “oi!” of calling out a point in the Thai habit, but there’s a small hint of protest in the sound as well – it’s joyful, but it’s got this wonderful, “oh no you didn’t!” hint to it as well. And she’ll get that point back, no doubt. Chocolate doesn’t stop. We were in the smaller ring at Petchrungruang, where the kids tend to gather and just

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Body Language – Clinch, Thailand and Gender

There are complications to being a woman - or more specifically, having a female body - in a male dominated sport.  As a fighter you are using your body to perform an art and you must use it, hard, on a daily basis in order to insure that it will take care of you in the ring.  There is no room for half-hearted efforts; it's just too frivolous when every mistake has so high a cost.

First Female Boston Marathon Runner 1966

Women Making History and the Selfish Endeavor – 1966

There’s a wonderful quote by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, “Well behaved women rarely make history.” While this conjures, for me, an image of brazen women steeling themselves against injustices to act out in defiance, this also includes any women who pushes against limitations. Even quietly. Even in secret. To behave means to do what is expected, to obey the rules and color inside the lines. Some women make history not by trying to make history, but simply by trying to take part in what makes them happy, before history has decided that was the right thing. That’s what Roberta “Bobbi” Gibb did when

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

Aurora - video Game fitness

Muscle Power – Aurora, Sophie and Flex Candy Changing the Female Body

When I came home the other day my husband Kevin was interested in how I would view this promotional video (above), shot to highlight fitness model, Muay Thai practitioner and lifter Aurora LZ – who I’ve followed on Facebook for a long time – and lifter and fitness model Sophie Arvebrink, who I previously didn’t know. Kevin said: I have never really seen female bodies portrayed in this way before. So, I sat down for a look – video above I included the movie poster for “Bad Boys” because this whole slow motion walking sequence, looking badass, comes out of

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

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