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September 5, 2015
Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu
Muay Thai, Sylvie's Tips

Sylvie’s Tips – How I Wrap My Hands – A Muay Thai Wrap With Padding

Above is a little video of how I wrap my hands. I think it’s good to experiment with different kinds of wrap techniques as they have different strengths. It took me a while to settle on this one. Hand size, punching style, the wrap material itself can make a difference – I’ve been liking the longer, softer wraps of Top King and Punish (an Australian company). This wrap technique incorporates an extra padded layer made of a fold of the wrap placed on the knuckles first (for torn up skin, I’ve actually added a cut kitchen sponge for a few weeks of extra padding instead). When you first come to Thailand the extra humidity may add to the abrasion. I struggled with torn knuckles my first year here, mostly from bagwork.

This wrap technique was taught to me by Neung at Lanna Muay Thai, a WBC western boxing champion. In the beginning the mechanics of the fold and thumb can be a little tricky, but with some repetition it is pretty easy to do. I wrap my hands really quickly, even with the fold.

Muay Thai Wrap with Padding - How to Wrap Hands
You can read about the Sylvie’s Tips feature here in my first post:

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

See all my Sylvie’s Tips articles.

Or go to the Sylvie’s Tips Playlist here.

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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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Featured Posts

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

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

When are you ready to fight Muay Thai - sylvie

How Do You Know When You’re Ready to Fight Muay Thai?

A few months ago I wrote post titled Game Day: Why You Should Fight Muay Thai in Thailand.  This is a follow up or “part two” to that post on the subject of how you know when you’re ready to fight, in Thailand or otherwise. When Are You Ready? Not long ago a fellow who I met through my Facebook page and who made it out to Thailand to train at a gym that is also in Chiang Mai came by Lanna to train with us.  After a full session including sparring he started talking about how he expected to

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

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.

A Day of My Training - Love the Grind - Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu

short film – A Day of My Training – Love the Grind

above – our short film on a typical day of my training here in Pattaya (25 min) – วิดีโอซ้อมมวยกิจวัตรประจำวันค่ะ อยู่ที่พัทยาค่ะ We’ve been wanting to do this for a while, making a full day of training in video format. But things get pretty busy and shooting it all and editing just always got pushed back. At first we wanted to shoot it because I was training in an unusual way, back in February of this year, training both at Petchrungruang (2x) and once at WKO with Sakmongkol – training at two gyms in Thailand is rare and socially complicated, something I

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

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

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

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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

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

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

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

Sylvie's Tips - Improving Your Muay Thai Elbows Using a Wall

Sylvie’s Tips – Improve Your Muay Thai Elbows Using a Wall

Making Your Elbows (Hooks & Crosses) Fast, Direct and Accurate This is a pretty simple technique and you can find a wall anywhere, so we can mark this down as one of the most accessible tools there is. Basically, I have been alerted to the folly of how my arms launch away from my body when I throw strikes, which is detrimental to both power and control. Sagat is the one who really explained trajectory to me [<<watch that session to see what this philosophy of strking is about], showing how a wind-up is just wasted space, energy and time,

Sylvie's Tips - Counter to the Wall of China-w800

Sylvie’s Tips – Counter to the Wall of China Block and More

n Sylvie’s Tips I try to capture on video various small techniques that I run into while training. The way that it happens in Thailand, things are seldom taught to you in the form of formal instruction, rather they come up suddenly in training and then are gone. I’m pretty shy, so it’s hard actually go around and request these things; I don’t want to stop everyone and have them repeat things for the camera. In this case though we arrived at O. Meekhun gym to find organized instruction being given to Phetjee Jaa and one of the boys named

How I Wrap My Hands for Muay Thai - Fight Wrap

Sylvie’s Tips: How I Wrap My Hands with Muay Thai Fight Wraps – Gauze Linen

The cloth training wraps that are so common in the West aren’t necessarily all over the place in Thailand. You can buy them at virtually any shop that sells equipment, sure, but they’re not used by all the Thais training at the camps. A lot of Thai boys don’t wrap their hands at all. Those who do, in my experience, often favor these cloth “fight” wraps that are more like gauze-linen and don’t have a thumb loop or Velcro. The western boxing style training cloth wraps we’re used to are expensive and, the more I’ve trained, the more they seem

Four Block

Sylvie’s Tips: Den Demonstrates the “4” Block for Muay Thai and Boxing

Den Shows the “4” Block  A Little Break Down of the “4” Block Den taught me this block a short while ago and it’s also very well utilized by Neung, who is a WBC boxing champion.  Basically you use your back arm and fold it across your chin, so your elbow is right at the center to protect your nose and chin and your glove is at the opposite side of your head, protecting your ear and jaw.  Then your front arm is the leg of the “4”, shooting straight out to jab or push on your opponent. Den isn’t

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

Den's kick

Sylvie’s Tips: How to Cover Distance on Muay Thai Round Kick

After 45 minutes or so of sparring with Den yesterday he finally broke down for me what I was doing wrong with my attempts to land kicks on him.  (I landed maybe 5 in that time, although I was able to affect him with my punches when I charged in with flurries; I’m much more comfortable with punches because of my balance, I think.) Den has told me before to shorten my kick because the loping round kick is too slow and easy to see coming, so he just moves out of the way of the kick and then counters

Sylvie's Tips - How to Drill Caught Kick Response-001

Sylvie’s Tips – How to Drill Caught Kick Response Without a Partner

I’ve never really had opponents catching my kicks in fights, but that’s partially because I don’t really mid-kick.  So, the reason I know that I suck at responding when my kick is caught is almost entirely through padwork, where I topple over like a kicked-over bicycle. Which is to say that I don’t really practice against this and only get reminded of how unpracticed I am when my trainer occasionally wants to mess with me. I do know how to handle the caught kick – I’ve been shown techniques from various sources – but I never drill them. When I visited

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

Muay Thai Kicking Form - Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu - Kaensak

Sylvie’s Tips – Using the Wall to Correct Kicking Form

This is a quick Sylvie’s Tips on something I’ve rediscovered for my training. The main tip actually comes from when I trained with the great Kaensak Sor. Ploenjit at AMA in New Jersey several years ago. He would have me get close to and kick the wall, instead of a bag or a pad, in order to force my whole shin to line up in a parallel fashion (perpendicular to the extended kick angle some use striking the side of a target, and not the 45 degree landing angle that is common, instead flat against the target, knee bent). It

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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

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

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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

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

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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

Freedom and Personal Power - Muay Thai

Body Conscious – Finding Freedom and Personal Power

After struggling out of my wet sports bra, I stood in front of Kevin who was lying on the bed and waved my hands around animatedly while regaling him with the stories of evening training. I slipped off the rest of my clothes as I laughed about clinching, probably with a string of cuss words flowing out as I recounted the events. “Jesus,” Kevin said, looking at me, “I should take a picture.” I was feeling pretty good, do it, I said and kept talking. So Kevin snapped a few photos of my body before I disappeared into the shower, just

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

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

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

zipper head

Risking Your Beauty – Female Muay Thai, Brutality and the Beauty Aesthetic

Preface: I wanted to write on this topic right after reading the Lion Fight interview with Tiffany Van Soest prior to her fight with Caley Reece on the Lion Fight promotion.  It ended up taking me longer than I’d expected to make the time to actually sit down and write it.  Female fighter and blogger Natasha Sky also was inspired by this same interview (the question of risking beauty was also posed to Caley Reece, facing Van Soest on that card) and she wrote a piece on her blog, including questions to other female fighters on their opinions on this

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

Clinch Technique with Phetsilaa Phettonpung - Sylvie

Passing Some Clinch Knowledge to 13-Year-Old Phetlilaa Pettonpung

I’m a big fan of the all-female Pettonpung gym in Mae Rim. I’ve fought a few women who trained there over the years I was in Chiang Mai, but it wasn’t until I went to visit them that I realized it is all female fighters. The trainer there, Khun Yai, appears to really like me. He remembers me from fighting one of his top fighters, Nong Ying, who is a beast – she now lives and fights in China – and he probably likes that I fight a lot, which his fighters do as well. When I dropped by after

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

loma-and-chommanee-interview

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

colorado field

Leaving Trails – Leadership and Following in Muay Thai

Growing up in Colorado had innumerate perks that I only came to appreciate long after I took them for granted.  City kids in New York and Philadelphia learn how to handle themselves on public transportation from an early age and kids like me in the wilds of mountains and deserts learned how to “pack out what you pack in” with equal diligence.  The first rule of backpacking in the mountains of Colorado and deserts of Utah is to leave no trace of yourself, the foremost lesson being to preserve the world you’re exploring. When I was maybe 12 years old

chiangmai_women_barebreasted

Keep Your Shirt On – Another Read on Thai Modesty

A few weeks ago I posted an entry on Thai modesty and the issue of bare chests (on men) within and outside of the camp, titled “Of Modesty and Men -Thai Manners In and Out of Camp”.  In short, it is considered impolite for men to go bare-chested in public but it is completely acceptable (and encouraged) to be shirtless in the gym.  Some men at the camp bend the limits and go shirtless into a convenience store that shares a driveway with the gym, but this is considered (by my eye-witness and personal understanding of Thai manners) out of

crying in muay thai

There Is Crying in Muay Thai – Emotional Training

  I had lunch with Alicia Nowak yesterday, a young Polish woman who lives and trains Muay Thai in Vienna. We met through my Muay Thai Facebook page and I was surprised as we sat together across a table how easy it was to talk with her, to relate our experiences and struggles with training. It shouldn’t surprise me, as I honestly believe that no matter how different two people are who are training Muay Thai that a great deal of their experiences will be the same, but it was a delightful surprise. I mentioned – almost casually – that

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

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