The Virtue of Muay Thai Festival Fighting - fighting within the culture of the art, for and by the Thai people - Fight 282

Kevin writing - Sylvie's full record

above is Sylvie's most recently published commentary video, sharing her fight in Buriram earlier this year. Her 282nd fight, her 272nd in the country. In editing the piece together, which for me just involves syncing her voiced video, inserting some titling, some music, I was just struck by how beautiful the event and experience was...and how much comes through in the film. It came back to me, as I lived it, and photographed it, but also it came anew, in the incredible uniqueness of this kind of fighting as it is, for an experienced Westerner like Sylvie. Away from the tourist venues, most of them now swamped with Entertainment rulesets and fights designed for Western consumption, and to produce Western winners, at a Buriram festival where the Muay still holds cultural meanings, much of that involving local gambling passion, social sharing and the proxy struggle over social hierarchies foreigners can little follow. Therdkiat, a Golden Age legend who has taken a liking to Sylvie in the last year or more, has brought Sylvie up to his home province to fight in festival fights. We cannot really know the ultimate meaning of her victories, her performances, as he finds passion in them, but we can know that this kind of fighting is very close to the fabric of Muay Thai which is not bent toward the Westerner...not made for the Westerner. We - well, Sylvie - have fought more times in Thailand than any other foreign fighter, 17 times on broadcast television, she's fought World Title fights and won them, and I can say without hesitation, this, festival fights, are the best fight experiences in all of Thailand. It's not even close. For us, if you love Muay Thai, this is the real Muay Thai.

In this fight the size mis-match is enormous. Probably 10 kgs. Sylvie like no other female fighter in history can handle size disparities, her Muay Khao style is made for it. I believe her record giving up 10 kgs or more in something crazy like 12-2. She has this opponent because she can handle it, and because a rematch was requested. Her opponent trained to counter what beat her in the first fight (you can see that fight here), but it just wasn't enough. She's clinch has even improved, as she's changed her training in it. Her Muay Khao game is tighter than even a few months before. But the point is, this contest really could never happen in any other situation now, in the current state of the sport in the country. It's a beautiful thing, a challenge worthy of the art.

Central to the entire fight is that the clinch still lives in provincial fighting, it's an essential part of the sport, and refs shape it wonderfully with experience in the provinces. In tourist stadia, even under 5 round rulesets, the clinch has been gradually eroded. For years in those stadia refs have broken Sylvie quicker and quicker. Opponents literally drag Sylvie back to the ropes, so the ref will break the clinch the moment the ropes are touched. It changes the entire shape of a fight. If you watch this fight, with its enormous size difference, just look at the clinch. You have a very big fighter who has trained up to counter Sylvie's clinch. She is gripping and at times swallowing Sylvie, attempting to force stagnation. She wants clinch breaks. The ref is just artful in how much he allows to develop in each engagement. He sees what is going on. He sees where the battle is. Even though there is very little "action" in the clinch, it is developing, engagement after engagement. He lets it go. And then finally Sylvie gets to a dominant inside position, and breaks the fight open, almost out of nowhere. But it isn't out of nowhere. 15 fast clinch breaks, and none of that happens. There is no evolution. There isn't even much of a fight. It's a 57 kg girl throwing combos, and a 47 kg girl defending against them, nothing else. Instead, its a chess match of distances.

This is to say, this is the actual Muay Thai of Thailand, one not made for the Westerner. And Sylvie has devoted years now, learning how to fight in this manner, to speak this language.

Size and Fighting

There is a question as to how old this style of fighting is, in the provinces. I stumbled upon this account in 1975, where men in the 70s and 80s were already complaining about the degradation of the sport, something they traced even back to the imposition of weight classes and timed rounds. The muay before, in the earlier part of the 20th century, was known for its endurance, and the capacity of fighters to face very big weight differences:

source

There is in the root of Thailand's Muay Thai a dimension of gambling and the freedom of the art, wherein the art contains the possibility of beating much larger fighters. And if bets are taken, its because the possibility has meaning. That is something that is beautiful about this fight, and really festival fighting in general. It is the occasion of pure contest in the active interest of the audience, an audience that gives the fight its meaning. It isn't created by a promotion or Instagram posts. It's generated by the actual audience, who is part of the rite of fighting itself.

I've seen a lot of fights in Thailand, and I've seen Sylvie fight so numerously - this fight, and this kind of fight is just something different than what is more broadly encountered by most Westerners, and even by ourselves. It's not a technical marvel. It's not an explosive highlight reel. Its a struggle, a struggle that the audience is involved in to some degree. The ref calls it - some would imagine prematurely - but it is because he and her opponent saw what happened. The fight was cracked open. Clinch was allowed to do its eroding work. The one shot, her opponent's path to victory, was closed. Clinch positions were only going to get much worse. Her head was going to be forced down. The rematch was no longer necessary...at least on this occasion. This is knowledgeable Muay Thai.

I remember sitting at a table of old timers, including reporters from Muay Siam. They all pretty much agreed, there was no more Muay Thai as it was classically known, in Thailand. But then the Muay Siam reporter said: No, in the provinces there is still Muay Thai. And they nodded their heads. Yes it was true. It's about the culture and shape of the fight. The fight's relationship to the audience. It's about small things, the way even non-ideal matchups like this can still be expressive of the principals and values of a very old sport and art. This is the living Muay Thai of Thailand, where the heart still beats.

The Muay Thai Library project is such an immense documentation, capturing the Muay of legendary fighters and krus of Thailand's past, principally around its Golden Age (1980-1994), but it more than anything else is also the record of Sylvie own passion to come on contact with that history, and to form a dialogue with that past. And one way she has done this is through her prolific fighting, more than any Western Muay Thai fighter. In this arc of experiences really the festival fight is the most beautiful expression of what she loves about the sport, at this point in history. Hopefully this film, commentary version of the fight captures some of that, and if you come to Thailand you'll venture away from the venues and promotions that have turned their face to the foreigner, and made the sport more and more in and for our image. All that fighting is great, all fights teach, the reputations and the challenges are real...but there is something deeper to the art and sport than this. It goes to the soul of what contest in the ring means, and who it is for. Everyone of course has only a thin slice of Thailand, the keyhole of their limited experiences and connections. For us, sharing our view, we've driven across the country endless times over the last 12+ years, been in every style fight show, these are the fights that stay with us, the kind of fighting which fills us.

a version of this post was first published on my sub-forum here

if you'd like to read theory on how Thailand's Muay Thai may have possibly been developed through festival fighting and local audience gambling dynamics, read my: How Thailand's Muay Thai Has Been Collectively Created Through the Wisdom of Local Markets and Gambling

Therdkiat and His Style

Our relationship with Therdkiat actually began with filming with him in the Muay Thai Library. At the time he seemed somewhat far from promoted fights, but filming with him appeared to reconnect him with the sport. At least that was my sense of it.

You can see that session we filmed with him in the MTL here. You can see the style of muay he fought with, and the principles of fighting he advocates for:

#125 Therdkiat Sittepitak - Aggressive Femeu (61 min) watch it here

One of the most respected fighters of the Golden Age, Therdkiat's style was strong and aggressive, but still quite femeu. 4x he held the Lumpinee belt, and from 1992 on he was a part of the famed Nongkipahayut gym, training beside Namkabuan and Namphon. Learn his particular off-angling femeu pressure style that controlled the space with finesse and heavy hands.