The Weight of Sadness - Tongchai and Kru Nu (Patreon Magazine) (Patreon)

Bank, or Tongchai as he's called when he's fighting, stepped over the ropes into the ring and the blue satin robe around him slithered in after him. His gaze was on the floor, but his eyes didn't seem to register anything. He was lost inside himself; the fabric against his skin might as well have been on the rafters for how deep inside himself he was, even as he smiled at the referee who was checking his gloves. I looked to my left, where Kru Nu was standing, watching his son enter the ring the way he always does, the same arms-crossed and hips forward position of outward Stoicism, the same furrowed brow of quiet concern; but Kru Nu, too, was somewhere else. Their bodies were here. Their bodies were doing things that bodies do when you take your fighters to perform at Lumpinee... but neither of them were here.

When I fight, I do get nervous before I enter the ring. But it's just part of the routine. The way you get sleepy before you go to sleep; it's normal. In the ring, however, I'm not nervous. I get cut, okay, no problem. Watching Bank, however, my whole body is on edge. This is every time he fights. I don't know if it's because he's like a little brother to me, or because I'm sensitive to Kru Nu's energy (which appears calm, but if you know him well it's quite unnerving), or just because I care way more about the outcome of his fights than mine, but I basically stop breathing for the duration of his rounds. Tonight, however, the moment the bell rings Bank is just a live wire, thrashing from its own electrical pulses. From the very start, he's fighting like he's got his heart in his fist and he's trying to beat his opponent's face with it. Usually, part of the tension I feel watching Bank is because he's very conservative in how he fights, which is not how he is as a person; so it feels constrained. All of that is gone in this fight. It's not "free" in a liberated way, it's "free" in a way that a flash flood is free. Bank's pain has just taken control of his body and it's an avalanche of emotion. It's fucking beautiful.

Between rounds, Bank's face hosts a combination of focus and absence. His expressions flip through a kaleidoscope of sadness, softness, anger, and numbness; sometimes more than one at a time. Dieselnoi rushes over to me and his hands ship around us in gesticulations as he leans down to whisper-yell into my ears that Bank isn't doing what he and the corner are telling him to do. He isn't here, I tell him. He can't think, he's fighting from pain. Just let him rage. Dieselnoi's arms fall to his sides, a slight bend at the elbow the way they always hang, almost as if he's a bird that has to dry its wings. He wrinkles his brow and nods, chewing on his lips and standing upright to watch the start of the next round. He nods. Dieselnoi knows pain. He knows loss. He knows violence that moves like the tide into one's self and out of one's self. How much he knows these things, I can't know; but I know he feels the meaning of having that monster in the ring with you, and you either fight it or you fight with it. Better to fight with it.

It's razor close until the middle of the last round, and then it's clear Bank has lost this fight. He rages on, but our corner goes quiet. When Bank comes down the steps from the ring after the decision is read, someone else's hand raised as the victor, it's like someone has finally wrangled the electrical wire. Blood is running down his face and onto his chest, his expression is like watching your house burn. I snap a photo, but just one. I want to capture this emotion, as he finally lets himself start to cry, but I'm also embarrassed to want to capture it. Because I feel it, too. Because he's been fighting it so fucking hard and he just can't hold it anymore. I asked Dieselnoi to let him rage, and now in this moment I'm telling myself to let him break. Two days ago Bank lost his uncle, Kru Nu lost his brother. The pain is devastating and I have no doubt that Bank had mustered the power to fight by telling himself that he was honoring his uncle, Nok, who was also a fighter. To lose under that pain, under that purpose, is just as honorable as to win; but for Bank I'm sure it was crushing.

A few miles away from the stadium we stopped at a 7-11 for gas for the long trip home. I sat in the dark of the van, the seat right behind Kru Nu's driver seat, watching Bank in silhouette and Kru Nu's eyes in the rearview mirror. At the 7-11, I watched through the rolled down window as Kru Nu helped his son cut the wraps off his hands. Their heads bent toward each other in silence and Kru Nu held Bank's wrist as he worked the metal under the wet, melted tape of the wraps. I've seen this before, where drying a fighter's shoulders or removing the wraps is an action pretending to be a duty but is quietly a comforting connection. Through the window, Bank and Kru Nu both stood in their sadness, like kids who have burrowed under a blanket together. All night I've watched them move around, completely inside of themselves, like two single stars in a vast and empty sky. But in this moment they've blurred together, pulled into a single gravity.

When I developed these photos a few days later, I could feel that energy of Kru Nu and Bank from that night. It was its own story, one that words maybe could only approximate. But I saw it in the images. I saw it in Bank's face, in Kru Nu's body language. We cremated Pi Nok this afternoon, as a final goodbye after 7 days of funeral rites. In a way, Bank's performance in that ring was the most truthful of all the rituals. You cannot rage in a temple, but there is rage within the pain of mourning. It is a natural state of the heart. It is a Truth. I'm happy to have seen Lumpinee become a sanctuary for that part of Bank's sorrow in this process. I'm happy it's not the only part. But grateful to have felt it, too.

Thank you for supporting my writing, and my photography, part of finding richer expression of the Muay Thai I love. Photos attached are hi-resolution, be patient when zooming in.

ARTICLES - Patreon Magazine

• Patron Only Articles - These articles are written specially for my patrons and are my attempts to expand as a writer. They are full of richer descriptions, and take on themes not always talked about in the experience of being a fighter.  I try to published one a month.

Lumpinee and One Day Fighting There - A Story  - One of my deepest goals is to bring about enough change in Thailand that women will be able to fight at Lumpinee, and for one day for me to be a part of that. In this story I tell how that change is already happening.

The Power of Touch - A Family of Men  - Thai men touch each other a lot as part of their bond. As a female in a male space I have to spend a lot of time cutting myself from almost all physical contact, the two come together in this story.

The Jade Dragon Set - The Nature of the Boys  - My favorite fighters in the gym may be the Jade Dragon Set, a group of young boys that come trouncing through the gym after school and just being amazing kids. Read about their wonderfulness here.

Pi Nu's Hands - What is Good? - My meditation on the lesson I learned about the nature of being "good", as taught to me by my trainer Kru Nu. It was one of those Kung Fu master moments that you might see in a movie, when the teacher explains something so profound, yet so simple. This can change your life.

Little Blue Champion - The Next Generation of Fighters - I'm just taken by a little blue fighter at a local fight in Chiang Mai, round, pudgy, a complete visual underdog. It speaks to coming of age as a fighter. read it here 

Alley Tears: The First Time I Cried After a Fight In a Long While - it had been years since I had cried after a fight, maybe even ever, but something in me broke down after a loss to a World Champion several weight classes above me. read it here 

The Storm That Overtakes The Boy - Giving In | The storm within us, the storm outside of us. It is our choice. Or, this could be called "Learning to ride the donkey, and not look for the donkey." read it here 

Insisting On Left - The Space Between Pi and Kru | The story of how it is a delicate balance with my Kru when insisting on changing my stance to southpaw read it here 

Arjan Surat: The Unbreakable Breaker of Bangkok | Maybe the toughest, hardest man in Thailand. Arjan Surat is 63 and made of the stuff that feels like it's from 100 years ago. The unbreakable breaker. read it here 

When I First Met Dieselnoi: A Giant in my Soul | The powerful impression the legendary Dieselnoi made on me right from the start, a resonating impact that has made on me as a person. read it here 

The Perfection of Festival Fights in Thailand | A trip to the clinic to receive a boosting IV leaves me drifting through thoughts of belonging, as I listen to my kru talk about me to the nurse. read it here 

Cheet Yaa - "if there were no cuts it wouldn't be Sylvie" | A trip to the clinic to receive a boosting IV leaves me drifting through thoughts of belonging, as I listen to my kru talk about me to the nurse. read it here 

The Hurting Game - The Psychology of Hurt | Even though I've fought over 200 times being the one who hurts others, that the game is hurting, is still a psychology I need to embrace. read it here 

A Girl and Her Bag - the Intimacy of Work | Every fighter who has spent a long amount of time in the gym has to fall in love with their bag - how bagwork contains its own beauty. read it here 

Jai Rohn - My Story of Blood, My Pride and Stitches | My heart was racing, I was upset at my performance, and then there was the pain of stitches, more painful than any stitches I've had before. read it here 

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The Muay Thai Library