Kaimuay Diary - Episode 1 | Maintenance Mode (29 min) (Patreon)

I’m trying something new and very different, which is slowly starting a video diary of life at Petchrungruang Gym in Pattaya. I just passed the 4 year anniversary of training and fighting out of this gym, and in that time I’ve watched these young boys grow into young men, and spent long enough there to see the slow patterns of a Thai kaimuay (fight gym) show themselves. One of the things I hear most about the Muay Thai Library is how it helps people feel transported to Thailand, so this is a part of that effort, to bring Thailand and the kaimuay to you. But there’s no “highlight reel” in the daily grind of a Thai kaimuay; there’s no montage that turns the real work and slow repetition of the fighters into champions in a 10 minute stretch. It’s just real time, real work, real people, and what Kevin and I call the “slow cook.” I want you guys to see the true life of a kaimuay, in all its endless variety and endless routine. One falls in love with a place, with a family, with a community through the process of becoming entwined with it. I’ve been in Thailand for 6 years now and many of the things I see on a daily basis aren’t “exotic” to me anymore, so I don’t think to share something because you’re waiting for something special, whereas the details you’re overlooking because you’re used to them might be very special to someone who’s never seen it before. So, I thought, why not show the place and people and community that, in its entirety, has captured my heart? Why not show it in its entirety, because that’s how I love it.  

In this episode I just quietly film the three main Lumpinee fighters of the gym Bank (almost 18, the son of the owner Pi Nu), Dtee (22, who grew up training and fighting for the gym since young), and Alex (an Italian boy, almost 17, who has grow up at the gym for the last 4 and a half years as Pi Nu's ward). There's no fancy editing here, just the camera and my thoughts trying to steer the way. You aren't going to find secrets that will help you win in sparring, or a new way to hold do "x", but you will see the pace of training, and the feeling of training, and hopefully a part of what makes Petchrungruang what it is. The gym is one of only two remaining kaimuays in Pattaya that have retained it's license as an official "kaimuay", meaning that it makes most of income through raising young Thai fighters rather than through the Muay Thai tourism business. Western fighters like myself have been coming to the gym for decades, but it's a small family gym and relatively unchanged. It goes through seasons and "classes" of fighters who come up together, and Alex's example is incredibly rare in Thailand, to be basically raised as a Thai fighter for many years, in a Thai family gym.

This is a very light training day, none of the fighters have fights coming up so they are in maintenance mode, they don't even do bagwork for some reason which they usually do. But, you get to see the slow rhythm of work. The work I put in is very different than this. Because I always am fighting, I'm always preparing for a fight, and because I'm crazy driven to be much better than I am, I'm always training myself on "high" - I even train at multiple gyms, especially when Petchrungruang slows down too much, but you get to see the context and the atmosphere in which I train, and the gym as I see it too.

So this is a diary. I’ll be just pointing the camera and shooting at what’s going on in the gym. Life isn’t a highlight reel. Being a fighter isn’t a highlight reel. It’s the flow. This is the flow.

This is not the usual Muay Thai material one sees on the internet, so I'm not quite sure how much people will enjoy it. It's just something in addition to the Muay Thai Library project and the other videos and articles I produce, an additional thank you to my patrons. So if you get something out of it let me know in comments or privately. If I get positive feedback I'll push to do more of the diary, more often.