LEARNING MUAY THAI FROM ITS BIRTHPLACE
Sports organisations and promoters are hoping to add to the small but steady stream of practitioners who visit Thailand to immerse themselves in the sport.
The World Boxing Council Muay Thai, for example, has teamed up with the Tourism Authority of Thailand with the aim to get more people to visit the country.
“(For instance), you have a child learning Muay Thai, we want to convey that at least once, come to Thailand to learn it in its motherland,” said WBC Muay Thai executive secretary Thanapol Bhakdibhumi.
“But the child cannot come alone, so the parents will come along and that doubles or triples (the revenue). So we have a lot of activities to show that eventually you have to come to Thailand, bringing it all together directly and indirectly.”
Mrs Sylvie Von Duuglas-Ittu from the United States is one such fighter who has travelled to Thailand to learn more about the sport.
She has since chalked up more than 270 fights, the most recorded number of fights by a foreigner in the country.
Mrs Von Duuglas-Ittu started her Muay Thai journey 12 years ago, after watching the Thai martial arts film Ong Bak. Fascinated by the action, she soon took up her first classes under a Thai master in the US.
But she soon realised that to fully understand the sport, she would need to soak in the culture behind it.
“I think that there’s a folly to the people who only want to dip their toe in and then go home and call themselves ‘kru’ (teacher),” she said.
“People who really love Muay Thai, who really get hooked by it and see it for what it is, understand what it is to fall down that rabbit hole, and to come here, and to feel like you’re constantly learning. You are forever a student.”
And even if the sport is included at a future Olympics, international Muay Thai fighters such Mrs Von Duuglas-Ittu recognise that it is still a Thai sport.
“If I were to go fight at the Olympics, I would represent America. But I’ve learned everything from Thailand,” she said.
“I will be representing what Thailand has given me, not what America has given me – I was just born there.”
