Lumpinee and One Day Fighting There - A Story (Patreon Magazine)

We're at Lumpinee Stadium. Bank is tipping his head forward, his gaze on the floor, as he listens to Dieselnoi's instructions on how he should approach his fight. Bank is "on deck," sitting next to trainers and cornermen from our gym, waiting for the fight before him to finish before entering the ring. He's shrouded in a royal blue cape, made of a kind of shiny satin material that is always too hot. With the Thai Oil and Vaseline all over your body, you feel beads of sweat run down your chest, your arms, your back. Dieselnoi is an intense energy, any time, but before a fight when you're already overthinking the importance of your performance, the pressure can be very real. 

A man in a dark blue uniform walks up to the row of men seated around Bank and wais in greeting to Dieselnoi, addressing him as "Pi," which is informal. It means an older sibling, but is used among acquaintances and friends. He touches the Legend on the arm as he talks to him and Dieselnoi reaches back in return, placing a few of his long fingers on the man's forearm as they chat. Bank glances over to me, an expression of relief on his face and I laugh in sympathy. He grins at me and shakes his head; I can feel how nervous he is. He's on a winning streak, this opponent is very challenging, and it's the first fight that his first girlfriend will be attending. He has a lot of reasons to be nervous. But he's also fought at this stadium dozens of times. He's been a regular fighter at this famed stadium for probably 4 years already. It's not the same location that his father fought at, or that Dieselnoi held the 135 lbs belt for, undefeated - the Old Lumpinee was torn down, then moved and remodeled toward modernity - but the esteem and tradition of being a "Lumpinee Fighter" has carried over with the name. I've sweated under the same fabric that Bank sweats under now, but I've never fought under the lights he's about to dance under. Women aren't allowed to even touch this ring.

The referee turns his attention to Bank and Bank turns his attention away from me. The referee checks Bank's gloves and says something about mouthpiece and groin guard. He's checking both fighters before they enter the ring, and he has a kind of informality in the way he smiles and speaks, like he has refereed for Bank many times. He's a man deep in the sport, decades of it. His eyes meet mine and I smile, to be polite, and much to my surprise his expression is one of recognition. He takes a few steps over to me and asks me, in Thai, when I'll be fighting at Lumpinee. I smile and tell him that if he referees for me, I'll get in the ring tonight. We both laugh and he touches me on the arm, saying something about the 15th of this month, then pats me on the shoulder and strides over to Bank's opponent, sitting just a few meters away with his team.

This isn't the first time I've been asked by someone at Lumpinee when I'll be fighting there. The first couple times I heard it, it was clearly a joke. A sweet joke, but definitely with a teasing tone. This time, it was far more of an invitation than a joke, even though I'm quite sure this referee is more than aware of the prohibition of women fighting at that stadium. The first time I heard this joke - the time it was teasing - I went back home to Kevin and told him I want to be seen at that stadium as often as I can be. A joke is funny at first, then it becomes more serious; and ultimately it becomes real. 

Not long ago I was lifting weights with Kru Nu at the gym. It's something we do together after training, a kind of "quality time" together where he can vent to me and I usually am struggling to hear his voice through the music he blares through his favorite, expensive, portable speaker. But I kind of like having to focus and pull his voice out of the din, as all the various noises bounce around the concrete room and the chickens screech from behind the glass of the windows to the outside. This time, we were on either side of the dumbbells. Kru Nu had just put down a pair of 15 lbs weights that I reached to pick up, as I was following him in a pyramid on the weights. I had one hand on one dumbbell and he had kept his hand on the other one as he put it down, because he was thinking as he spoke and was gesticulating with the free hand. "Okay," he said, and he just casually mentioned that people (I don't know who, but probably similar to this situation) have told him that I could fight at Lumpinee - I think they mean capable of in terms of experience and skill, not being allowed to, though I'm not completely sure - which means this is being said somewhat casually even when I'm not around. After dropping this piece of gossip, or whatever you'd call it, he immediately continued on to some things that he hears that he doesn't like (this is always other people taking credit for me, which drives him crazy; that's a whole other post) as his hand lifted from the other dumbbell and I picked it up. I stared at his back as we each began our next set, facing the mirror on the far side of the room. Kru Nu looks at himself in the mirror and I stare down at the floor, turning this off-handed comment over and over in my mind. The way he said it, it hasn't been said to him only once; the way he said it, it wasn't a joke or a tease... and I wasn't even there.

That's fucking incredible. Here I am at Lumpinee, standing at the end of the row of people from our gym: one of our fighter's fathers, Kru Den, Bank, and Dieselnoi - the Legend of all Legends, honestly - as they sit in a state of mundane boredom before the fight. Well, not Bank, he's nervous. But all of them have done this a million times. Bringing Dieselnoi to be my own corner for fights, and then have Dieselnoi be Bank's corner, that would have been a joke at some point.  But now it's very real.  Kru Nu never imagined Dieselnoi would ever talk to him, like, meeting in person and calling each other "Pi" like brothers. Me, I only hoped he would take a picture with me the first time I saw him. Now we are all a growing family. I've sat in the back of the car with Dieselnoi riding shotgun, shouting into his phone about how I'm "the only farang who comes to Thailand and fights bigger opponents, every time," as his standard description to whoever is on the other end of the phone, asking who Dieselnoi is with. "Sylvie (insert description of the crazy little fighter," but described with total love in his voice. Standing in this space, at Lumpinee, my hips tipped forward in a Muay Thai stance as they tend to do through force of habit, which is something that I once observed in my very first Muay Thai teacher - Master K - and wished to some day imitate, has become my natural stance. And I'm standing like this in Lumpinee, with the King of Knees smiling at me as he glances up from his phone. Jesus, would he corner for me if they let me fight at Lumpinee? Of course he would. He'd sit right there in that same seat and make me nervous as hell, just as he is for Bank. At this moment, I can absolutely feel how real that possibility is. Out of nowhere. 

I can feel my own hands inside the gloves Bank is wearing. The way they're too tight and too round, how they slip off of each other as they rest in your lap and you can't quite find a comfortable position for them. I can feel the Mongkol around my forehead, the weight of the flower garland looped around the neck. My eyes go up to the stands where the gamblers are starting to gain in number. Bank is the main event and they've been amassing from a sparse group to a rumbling hive over the past 2 fights. I picture myself in Bank's place and it doesn't feel alien. It doesn't feel unreachable. And maybe when the referee and promoters and newscasters look at me and ask me when I'm fighting there, it doesn't feel unreachable to them, either. Maybe, like my hips pushed forward in the Master K stance, it will become the new "natural" for women to enter that ring.

I have written how my goal is to one day fight for a Lumpinee Belt, which means not just a single one-off fight, but making a big enough change for female fighting that women, and most importantly Thai women, can and will fight for a Lumpinee belt, regularly. The first, and incredible step though, is for there to be one single fight that opens the door. I aim to be that woman, who with a Thai female fighter, breaks that ceiling.

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. At least one is published a month, if not two.

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