[Kevin writing]

If you go to festival fights in Thailand, which are something like fairs where a whole community comes together, with live music and food stands and games and shops, and all the fighters spread out amid the color and noise, on mats which really like islands of families, you'll see this. Two kids, usually one big, one small, which just start half-shadowing, half-striking each other standing around bored. It's like a Muay Thai game of tag. It lasts like 10, 15 seconds and falls away. We've all seen this, kids playing tag. Believe it or not, I think this is close to some important secrets to why Thais in the Golden Age fought like nobody else. It comes from the gearless sparring they did for years, in crowded gyms with little space, not far from the play kids might do at a temple fair, between the mats. Its foundation is play, quite far from the affects of aggression and even anger that many think characterize ring fighting.

One of the secrets we found in all our years of filming with legends and great krus is that space matters. And timing matters. These are some of the most difficult things to teach. You can copy techniques, biomechanical move for biomechanical move, but most fights aren't determined by techniques. They are won in the battle over space, and by the fighter who controls the timing of engagements. And, we've come to suspect that gearless sparring was one of the informal, but really hidden shappers of Thailand's Golden Age timing and space management. When we look with some awe at Golden Age highlights one is mostly just struck with how much calm they have in the pocket, in proximity, how much "ning". When fighters of other heritages are usually muscling up, or blasting through with combinations, Thais are still, and the weapons come out with ease. Defense follows out in nature. I strongly suspect that these unique qualities came out of close-pressed gearless sparring.

And fighters sparred without gear...because nobody had gear. They often spared withoutu space, because there was no space. Once you add gear the whole emphasis on impact and power starts to climb. Once you add gear you stand further away, you no longer are that fish in the close-pressed water. Power goes up, fighters spread apart. Fighting radically is changed.

The above is a little video Sylvie put together, having introduced shin-guardless sparring into her regular sparring with Yodkhunpon, who she's sparred with mostly every day for years now. They know each other very well. This isn't any sort of "demo" video, its not edited especially to "show something" or clip out moments. It's just keyhole into everyday, fairly average training, with some idea of contrast. Sylvie sometimes records her rounds so she can see things from a different perspective. They have sparred without gloves for months and months just to take down the head impact, but now they've taken off the shinguards too, for about half their rounds. Sylvie put together a few clips from both shin guard and shin-guardless sparring, to show some of the differences she has noticed. This definitely is a work in progress, and she's only noticed bigger changes, but, it is very different.

What she's seen:

• Because there is fear of pain, control goes way up. Thais are masters of control.

• Distance radically changed. Sylvie, who as a Muay Khao fighter already wants to crowd her opponent, is sparring much closer. By crowding an opponent you take opponent kicks off line. One of the things we learned about Sylvie fighting in Thailand so much is the "don't stand there" rule (taken from the movie Red Belt). Thais have spend YEARS training in padwork. Don't stand at padwork range, that's where their sight picture is strongest. Sparring wihtout gear puts you inside padwork range, cuts off opponent rhythm and power.

• Her checks and kick defense has gotten much faster, even in a short time. She's seeing kicks and is on balance more. This even has showed itself in her shinguarded sparring rounds now too, but it came from taking the guards off.

• Yodkhupon has always been mystified why Sylvie doesn't really kick in fights, and also why her kick in sparring has been wonk, for years now. The distance has been all wrong, and with guards the shape of the kick isn't right at all. Too much emphasis on overturn, too round. He's amazed at how much her kicking form and willingnes to kick has almost immediately changed. Its not there yet, but it has already improved. We don't know how this will effect fighting itself, after months or even years of this, but it already has moved Sylvie much closer to The Golden Kick which we've covered a lot in the Muay Thai Library.

• Yodkhunpon also just loves sparring like this himself. He had never noticed how much shin guards ruin things, and as a developing fighter obviously sparred without gear a lot. He'd prefer to spar without shinguards all the time, and will probably be bringing this to his students.

The Muay Thai Library and Process

We're posting this as a little insight into Sylvie's process. One of the most fascinating things about the Muay Thai Library project is that it was never a "content" project. It actually grew out of her own passionate desire to improve as a fighter, and come in contact with as much of the genius of Thailand's Muay Thai as possible. Everything in the Muay Thai Library has been FOR fighting, and is meant to affect training. This is some of that.

My hope is that Sylvie will eventually just ditch the shinguards altogether, as nothing good comes from them. That's my opinion. They're use is aligned with many of the Power and Knockout chasing fighting that characterizes ONE and other aggression models of Muay Thai, and they take away from the very spatial and timing qualities that actually made Golden Age fighters dominant in all fight forms, even those outside of Muay Thai, including quick transitions to World Championship level Western Boxing. When you control Space, Time and the Pocket, you control the fight.

On the other hand, if you are going to try this, Sylvie has said that going half and half in rounds has been incredibly helpful, as you can warm up your timing and feel with shinguards, so that when you take them off you are already in a groove. And, it helps you notice the differences between them. The first time she only sparred 2 rounds without gear, and then gradually increased.

The truth is that thoughts for us about moving to gearless sparring really accerated after our MTL session with Takrowlek (linked below). In that session he started gearless sparring in the most controlled and beautiful way, and also like it wasn't a big deal in the least. He showed Sylvie how to kick in gearless sparring (do watch it) in a straight up manner, that is key to kicking in The Golden Kick form, but just over emphasizing the vertical control. And though she had done gearless sparring with other legends, like Namsaknoi, with Takrowlek something just clicked. This is EASY to do...and it builds great technical habits.

Of course, we're not sure where this will go, its only been 10 days, but we can already see big changes. And because it aligns with some of our bigger missions of reclaiming and preserving many of the aspects of Thailand's Muay Thai that are being lost or eroded thorugh its Westernization, it feels meaningful as something to invest in. Alot of what the Golden Age was, as a fighting art, is found in the ways it was trained and the way knowledge passed. And I think that if you get in the ring and spar without gear, at least a little bit, you are getting in touch with some of the past excellence and tradition of the sport.

Resources For Further Study

Kicking Vertical: The Golden Kick

read Sylvie's article on The Golden Kick, with lots of video study, explaining how one of the most common Golen Age Thai kicking forms is different than how a lot of people have been taught. This kicking action is very amenible to gearless sparring, and control. I suspect that one of the reasons why "the Thai Kick" has been somewhat incorrectly taught, or copied, has something to do with the pervasiveness of shinguards, but that's just my pet theory.

How to spar without gear, in the Takrowlek session:

#143 Takrowlek Dejrat - Master of the Low Kick (90 min) watch it here 

One of the great low kicking fighters of the Golden Age teaches his squared up, pressuring, Muay Beuk fight philosophy which uses an extremely fast, vertical low kicking technique that keeps the opponent exactly where you want them. This punishing style, built on defense and ring control is extremely effective, using techniques that are not often taught. Study the low kick in a way you haven't seen before.

Namsaknoi and Gearless Sparring

Here is a public article we did, plus video, on how the legend Naksaknoi uses gearless sparring to instruct and develop fighters:

Gloveless Sparring

If gearless sparring is too much of a change, Sylvie wrote about gloveless sparring with Yodkhunpon 8 months ago here:

Adding this in, Yodkhunpon talking about what he likes about sparring without shin guards, see it here.

Training Insights: Sparring with and without shinpads (read free article) (YouTube)