[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then, but you're, you keep haunching a little bit. Oh, it should be a break now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They're ready for it to stop. Now you initiate the clinch. Yep.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They're not mentally prepared for that. The problem is if you're a clinch fighter like how you are a specialist, they are just waiting for you to grab them and for them to resist you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, they like face mush or something like that. And now you're fighting for position in the clinch. And will the ref come and stop?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If they're already with water to their nose when you initiate the clinch,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is the interesting thing, is to use striking, punching, in this case, as the way to like, burn up some of that pattern anticipation, so that when you're ready to start, they're ready for it to stop. And then it doesn't stop. And people go into fucking panic,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right away, because it's like when you're swimming and you come up for a breath of air and you're ready to take that sip and then someone puts you under the water.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're ready for the breath. And so I think, I feel like in watching this, what he's teaching you, it'd be a very nice thing to add into the development of what you want to do, and what other people want to do if there's Moikau fighters out there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know, it's kind of crazy, like we were talking in the hotel how Yodwicha


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was a clinch fighter, uh, nightmare clinch fighter, but wasn't a puncher at all as a Lumpini, uh, champion.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And now he's retired from Lumpini, he's a great puncher. Could you imagine if Yadwicha had brought his, brought, could bring his boxing and his clinch together in Lumpini? It would have been unfightable.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Amazing boxing. There's not a lot to find though. Like, Charchai Sasakun is the best boxing coach in Thailand. He's in Bangkok. If you're in Chiang Mai,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you want to sharpen up your hands? Come train with Nung.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's like a huge resource of just sitting there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, so if you're listening to this on iTunes, that means you're a patron. Because patrons get the iTunes version of all our podcasts. And that means this is going to be followed with Sylvie's audio commentary of the session.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you're watching on YouTube, and the YouTube's just been up, uh, our session will probably be put on, uh, in the Muay Thai library on Patreon.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where you can watch the video in about two or three weeks, we're thinking. Uhm, but if you're watching this on YouTube, become a patron. You can, there's over 80 hours.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 80 hours worth, but it's the most ambitious documentary project in martial arts, ever. There's no fighting sport martial art that's ever been this, uh, documented, ever.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, which is, this is gonna be something that's very valuable.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because a lot of these techniques are being lost and some of these people, these great fighters won't be teaching. So at least we have a documented hour, two hours, three hours, so. Okay. Thank you. Cue music.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So library coffee is a way to digest the library, which involves either directly after filming for my patrons and doing one of those sessions or after voicing over one of those sessions. We kind of give our immediate impressions of that session.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And beyond just the technique, which is not a just the technique, the technique is incredible, is that the men who carry this technique are personalities and styles to themselves.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Whether you, you know, put your foot like this or like that on a block.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Becomes relevant within the context of who these people are and how they express their moi. And this is actually a perfect example of that Sagat, Huantui, uh, Payindi Jim. Oh, he is a personality.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think that it's kind of like the way in which I talk about how


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cool rematches are, and Thailand loves rematches.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, because it forces you to adapt and change and like you can't fight someone the same way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It has so much technique and knowledge of Muay Thai.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The more you go to them, the more you get, instead of it being like, just a pattern, same thing over and over again.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But all of them are a reinforcement of his very


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] His foundation of this like, efficiency of movement, maximum power, and his... I don't think I ever...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They may have had a trainer in common, their ages are not as close together, so they were maybe at different times, but uhm, the, I don't know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Looks and feels different in the same way that someone who's popping and locking is technically doing the same things as someone who's doing fluid.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Involved in like getting your body to feel those balances and weight transitions in a flow state. Uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's his, like, symmetry, and anytime he moves, there's no, like, oh, the elbow popped out. It's like if you drew a frame around him, his limbs never blow out the lines, or color outside the lines, or whatever the thing is. Uhm, and Sagat is like that, but in a tighter frame, uhm, that kind of moves differently.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You have to be able to feel it, and some people won't feel it, which is fine, like eventually you will. But it's, in learning Thai, Thai is a tonal language, one of the hardest things is you can't even hear the tone.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So being able to feel what he's doing is like being able to hear tones and then you have to train yourself to be able to imitate them. So.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When I was feeling, because this time training with him, I really felt those movements and that proximity.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yes, he has this three dimensionality to him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That I, and most fighters, definitely lack.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I think that in the way that you can stay in your lines, like stay in your frame and deliver so much power, is this three dimensionality. And he rises as he comes forward the same way Karahat does. Karahat like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Lifts out as his kick is coming. And I was thinking it's kinda like, uhm...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Baseball bat swinging or cr- I don't know much about cricket, but there's this kinda like, pop.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But if, if you're two dimensional, you're like, a kick goes like this, like it only goes this way. But you cannot break your frame by being like Karahat and having it come up, like, like forward. And I think that,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How upright he is when he's doing his really tight, close movements. And so I brought that to my gym and I've been trying to do this hook. I think I was most inspired by his hook.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In this session, where like I'll throw my cross and then float forward and stay so tight to bring that hook around to the bag.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, except with Sifu, he's covering a lot of distance for that one hook.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sagat is already so close and Cha Cha is already so close and creating space as they come even more forward to like clip to the side. It's totally like how Cha Cha has that like clipping the bag.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're saying like you're countering me, but you're actually saying what I'm saying, which is that I'm working on the feeling more than the mechanic.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, no, no, no, I felt this this time. This was not two years ago, this was like-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't think I felt it the first time that I, I saw it, but I didn't feel it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the last quarter, where I actually just start imitating him. Like I actually just look like Sagat.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was like my power inspired me to be like, yeah, I can do that. I'm going to fucking come after you because that's my power. And he is born out of his power. His power is punching and elbows. So when we're doing punching and elbows,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm like, yeah, let's do punching and elbows. And it's, it feels good and I'm trying to get the proximity and stuff. But then when we go to my power source, I'm like, yes. It like, the well springs.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So it got so scary, I don't know, I think maybe there was one point in the session where I surprised him with like a pop-up and an elbow, that the surprise was his like, yes, that's like me, but I never invaded his space the way that he does. So I have the benefit of having felt it, and if you can feel it, then you can try to recreate it, but if you're, if you're watching it,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And how do you learn that feeling is you just watch the like whole


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's an important detail, but to get the whole picture is, uhm, not the way we look at things.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In this session, he talked about Tyson. He's like Tyson Small. And so he just stayed close. I've talked a million times, if you guys have followed anything of me, about how closer is safer. When I talk about close, I'm talking about like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To be like Sagat, to bring Sagat to my training.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is so close. Like that range probably is perfect for me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it's hard to be in because I'm, I don't have his...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you don't understand how to create space within a phone booth, which he does, and Cha-Chi does, you snuff yourself.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But when you know how to create space at close range, you're snuffing your opponent, but you're all like, I have all this space. It's like you're in different space zones, even though you're...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And this is the third one, so there are three Sagat sessions to watch, you should watch all of them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, if you're this first time seeing us, uh, 200 fight fighter, plus fight fighter Sylvie and her husband Kevin.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, we do these podcasts, driving back, usually driving back from a fight that Sylvie's had as we drive across Thailand. We are usually driving, uh, from Chiang Mai to Pattaya. That's what we're doing today.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So we're kinda in, well into our journey.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, Muay Thai is incredibly deep. There's so much detail to the kinds of things that can be talked about, and hopefully the podcast reflects that. Uhm, we try to have a lot of variety in our conversations, so if you're not into what we're talking about,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At any particular moment, just jump ahead 15 minutes and it'll probably be something else interesting.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We wanted the, on the topics that we went over, one of the,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The first one we think maybe is the best one. Usually we talk about technique in Muay Thai towards the end of the podcast, but we're going to start with technique conversation in the first part. What we're.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay. Tell me the, tell me what an awakening feels like or what we're talking about in terms of an awakening.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well what's the Rosetta Stone? The Rosetta Stone was, uh, a stone...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, that contained languages that had not previously been...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, translatable, and once they broke the language code,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Suddenly lots and lots of texts, ancient texts, were readable.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And as some backdrop for people who are just not that familiar with your story.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Why, why pursuing clinch? Why becoming a clinch fighter in the first place? It's a kind of interesting little side story. If you would allow me to like, let's take a little loop around on this. You're a very physically small,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Fighter. And, uh, as you came to Muay Thai, uh, because you were small, you were told by many knowledgeable people that you should be a little like evasive, hop around, don't hit me, hit and don't be hit. Fighter.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yes, but with Muay Thai, which he doesn't, he's not really a Muay Thai fighter, but in the Muay Thai world, this was really thought of as like, this is how women should fight. This is how small people should fight. Is this Muay femur, which is artful, kind of a slightly evasive,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Identity to discover that Muay Kow is an alternate form of Muay Thai.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, but alternate in the sense that it's often included, hit it against. It's the nemesis of Mueifinger.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Muay Kao and clinch fighting is its own art form. And then the more interesting discovery is you can use it to beat really good Muay Thai fighters.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of becoming a clinch fighter has been part also like this journey of discovering this style that's close to an identity for you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, in realize, in pursuing this technique,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, and this art form we kind of discovered because of the Muay Thai library. For those that don't know what the Muay Thai library is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Patrons pledge every month and they get access to a lot of exclusive content, but one of the big things, the big project is driving across Thailand and filming with legends of the sport.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Through this, you've actually been exposed to an incredible number of high level masters of clinch fighting and knee fighting.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A knowledge base that I think is unprecedented in the history of the sport. Just in terms of exposure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When you're developing a technique, usually, usually you have one dominant coach.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So your coach is teaching you his style. If you're in the West, it's maybe even more the case like this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You need to learn your coach's style. A really good coach would be able to like, maybe give you versions.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of his knowledge that would be good for you and not good for someone else.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So part of the challenge that you've faced is


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Digesting all these influences.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Maybe we're talking about your vocabulary increasing. A part of the reason why your vocabulary is increased is that all these years you've been taking on vocabulary.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] These people literally taught you their...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think of it in terms of dialects, like a language has dialects. You've learned, you haven't learned Italian, you've learned Italian and tend dialects in Italian.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So you're saying do whatever the teacher in front of you is telling you to do.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's why I compare these, these variations in clinch and moickau fighting and all fighting styles to dialects. Because a dialect is not an independent language, but it's


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And in some languages, you can push the dialect so far that people outside of it can't even really follow.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's what's kind of interesting is that you've kind of been studying dialects of


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Technique and styles in the Moikau tradition with great variety.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, and just to interrupt real quick, uh, Long Clench was developed with your study of Tonadette.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Up here in Chiang Mai, and there's a Muay Thai library session of that. It's an incredible branch of


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You started, if I understand it, you started experimenting and moving from...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Tonadette, a northern, it's a northern style clinch. It's a Banks-like. Fuckin'.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Bank, locked, uhm, like a safe house, locked, an unmovable kind of freezing of your opponent.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the interesting thing to me is, is that Banks a lock fighter, he doesn't do a lot more than that. Tonadette is a long clinch fighter, he doesn't do a lot more than that. But you are, because you're studying in both those styles, you're able to move between them and kind of creatively move between them. Whereas you can build, you can actually build


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You can discover what are the natural transition points between a lock fighter and a long clinch fighter.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, this is what also is interesting to me, is in lock fighting, it depends on your opponent, but in lock fighting,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You can get to it, if you really hit the lock right, you can get to an inescapable spot where you will just destroy in the round.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In long clinch, same thing. Like if you really hit the long clinch in the right way against the right kinds of opponents, you can get to an inescapable position. What's really kind of interesting to me is,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because in a fight, everything is high stress and high tension, it's very hard to hit techniques exact.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like you're not going to hit the sweet spot in it. Which means that, and sometimes you'll get opponents that can kind of manufacture escapes. But what's really interesting is that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's answers, especially if you can't get the exact positioning that you need.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the same thing with the, same thing with the long clinch. Just using those two examples.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you are in a lock for four seconds and your opponent's working on solving it, you just move to a long clinch and you give them a new puzzle.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Before they break it, before they break the code. And as your vocabulary increases,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you're not just moving between lock and long clinch, but you're also doing the arm loop or you're throwing in low clinch or you're throwing in trips, you can keep changing the puzzle before the code is cracked.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's what I see what's been happening in fights recently is you're moving between puzzles.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, what do you mean by that? It's a good thing to bring up. What is a move? And why is it not a move?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, so if you're a tripping fighter, it's not a trip. But it's like, you're gonna have to deal with the fact that I can trip you at any time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that becomes a mode of fighting, which is tripping fighting.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you're a locking fighter, your opponent is like, holy fuck, I gotta stay out of the lock.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This goes to a larger philosophical, well, maybe philosophical too strong a word, but,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The difference between a move and the context in which that move gains life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And this is kind of a struggle that Muay Thai has with its, uhm...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Exportation to the west and probably Japan and other countries is that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Much of it is taught by people who are not in the Muay Thai culture. People come to Thailand, study, train, fight. They learn the techniques, but they haven't stayed long enough to absorb the entire style of them. And then they, then it gets exported, they become coaches or trainers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and also you, you've done, you've done this kind of like clinch immersion. This is like seven years now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 100%. And we, and I guess what we're talking about is that you've hit a new level of thinking in clinch. Maybe it's like, now I dream in clinch.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so, I don't know, can you talk a little bit more about what you think brought on


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At Petron Rung, High Boys, Stadium Fighter. He had just gotten strong and big.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And this is what happens as the Thai boys come through, Sylvie clenches with them and they just outgrow her. And suddenly she's facing somebody who not only is as skilled, if not more skilled, but also physically


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You can still muscle the technique if you have the strength to do it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So your tolerance, when you're facing someone stronger than you, the tolerances by which you can lose become wide.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like your opponent, your, your clinch partner doesn't have to hit the right technique in order to overwhelm you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You got incredibly conservative with your clinch. You became a dead still lock fighter.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because you were just trying to survive against the-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, so you'd fight for your position, and then you'd get a very fucking, like, pit bull lock on, and just hold on for dear life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Fighters that were bigger than you, but not as skilled as you, you had developed this pattern, this habit of locking hard and not moving. Yep. And what was happening was, because the way that a lot of Thai female fighters fight you, is they basically try to neutralize. Alright. Battery change, as we do. Uhm, so we were talking about,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How, like the things that might have led to this sudden vocabulary increase, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Change of partners, you starting to concentrate on fluidity and movement between positions, like not


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not getting, uh, to your position and just holding. Surrendering good positions, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you also had make come in who's like heavier but much less skilled.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So beyond, this is outside of Thai Boys.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's not variety, just heavy load, heavy load, heavy load.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Totally. Uhm. Boy, I lost my train of thought there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What came to my mind when you were talking about heavy versus heavy? Or being strong on strong?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's this little thing that happened in your last fight. We're driving back, Sylvie just won a world title. Uh, versus, uh, Nong Benz. Giving up a ton of weight.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's a little thing that happened in that fight you told me about where you...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He knew as telling you to like leverage out your elbow when you're in the frame and you're scarecrowing somebody.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Let's talk a little bit because that's about not using, or using technique against strength.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I have a photograph still from this moment in the fight.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, but it's not, that sounds un-technical. His frustrations are very technical.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like this is the thing, it's like, a move would be arm loop. Yes. The feeling is, how do you get to the arm loop from where you are? And this is why Muay Thai Clinch is like a full on martial art to itself. It's standing BJJ.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because there's feelings on how to get from positions to positions. The transitions are where the art is and where the feeling is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And six months ago you could have never gotten to that arm loop.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's really interesting that the feeling is starting to grow. Something that might have started with, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The feelages of, uhm, the intergame of tennis reading group we did eight months ago or whatever that was. This philosophy of moving towards the feeling. That was really cool that there was this decisive moment in the fight where you were kind of in a slightly inferior position and you just had the patience to slowly transition out against strength.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Even though you're a strong fighter, you're like, I know you can't hold that position.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't want to go too far in this one direction.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is something that very, I don't know how you even feel about this, but this is something very special about your path as a Muay Thai fighter.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That for a long time you wanted to be good. Which was just...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Have nice looking Muay Thai, like as many people do.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And instead you found yourself on this clinch-moi-cow style and you're exposed yourself to so much vocabulary, a library of techniques.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know that there's a fighter in the history of Muay Thai, Thai or Western, who's been exposed to this much high level knowledge. Because...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The way you learn stuff in Thailand, like if you're a Thai fighter, is you're taught within your gym. There might be like three technique families in your gym.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then you pick up on one, and you like that one, and you develop that one, and you're, you steal from your sparring partners a little bit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're exposed to a pretty narrow though elevated family of techniques.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because of the uniqueness of the Muay Thai library, you've been exposed to like 20.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like complete styles. And I don't know that there's ever been a fighter who


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Has had that kind of depth of exposure. And you now have an encyclopedic brain where it's like, oh, facemush? There's five ways to facemush.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's five angles to put your shoulder at. Should you stand up? Should you pull away? Like, Santinoi does it this way. Karaha does it this way. Like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To see these variations makes you be able to see into the nature of the technique.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're, you now have the opportunity to like explore.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Especially since you're moving towards feeling now a really big, this is why we talk about like Rosetta Stone. Uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, tell me about this analogy. We had a little bit of this discussion before we started the camera. The Novikov of vocabulary.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, we compared some of these decisions to Nabokov, one of your favorite authors.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's not like, oh, he throws in all these language words. His sensitivity to language because he...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Has that sensitivity in many languages, makes him an unparalleled writer in English.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, the way he uses English words is unreal. Like, oh my god, my own language can do that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right? And that's kind of what is really interesting about this Moikau development is that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Macau is thought of often as a kind of like, march forward, grab, knee, power fighting.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it really has incredible subtlety in it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you come at it with a large vocabulary.


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[Assistant] Cardio out somebody. You can't fight that way. But, like this thing you were talking about, where you just put a little pressure on her arm and waited for her strength position to decay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which led to a knockout. That's fucking unreal. To me, that's what we're talking about, this Novikov kind of concept.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But lacking in subtleties sometimes, but to be able to use it with great subtlety. That's what Navacav is kind of like. And I feel like you are heading towards this kind of Navacavian.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you continue to be able to open your pathway,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which is kind of like, and then what's interesting about it is I don't know of any fighter in the history of Muay Thai and maybe there's some slick Isan fighters where this has been the case.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Any fighter in the history of Muay Thai that has used clinch.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To defeat much, much larger opponents over and over and over again.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Clench is usually a power attack. It's not often used by smaller opponents.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You are doing this thing. We have that cool experience of watching, I think it was that pride documentary.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, Gracie documentary, there was a little, the little Japanese guy that fucking uses heel hooks to destroy and defeat giant opponents.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When you're able to use techniques to defeat larger opponents, you really are exposing the art of it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's what's happening in your career path because you're only going to be fighting bigger and bigger opponents and you're having to learn to use the vocabulary of Muay Thai.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay. One last little bit that I think has really been a huge impact on really why you've had an explosion. Well, I'll call it an explosion because I'm a dude and everything explodes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Explosions, the Michael Bay version, Michael Bay analogy. The explosion of vocabulary is the work you've been doing in Vipassana, which is very, an hour a day, sometimes two hours a day. Uhm, you've been on several retreats, but this seriousness with which you've kind of like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That is in contrast to the pressures you feel for, for performance.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the fact that every day you're stretching your mind out to these like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just for, people don't know, Vipassana is not about like, chilling out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's growing the awareness of your body, right? And mind.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I, I liken it to when, when you're under tension or in your, in your everyday states of mind, you have a diameter, like your pipe has a very small diameter and there's only so much water that can flow through that. When you are, when you are


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Moving towards your brahpasana states, your pipe has a very wide diameter and more water can flow through that. And I feel like that's the same thing that's happening with your techniques is somehow the diameter has changed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Can you talk about that at all for me? Or you know, I'm really connected.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, you just talk about this sometimes when you come home and you're like, oh, I was totally getting this great lock on make, but I can't. I wasn't locking it on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's very cool, that part of technique.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is technique not working? Like nobody thinks that. Nobody thinks that though. Everybody's like, the technique is this beautiful hip turn kick, right? You're always moving towards the perfection.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Can you real quick throw in this? I really want to get this little technical thing, how you were moving between the long clinch and the, and the lock with Banks lock and Tom, that, that experience of like how you were figuring out the root of a technique. Do you remember we were talking about that? You were saying, I understand the root of it so that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well anyways, talk about how you were moving, how these are two complimentary things.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In range control, in fighting in space, this is what you do, you change range.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You, you have close range weapons like hooks or elbows or knees and then long range weapons, teeps, head kicks and what not. And then as you change, if you can change range as a skin space fighter, you're hard to deal with because the target is never where it quite was, where it was five seconds before.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The same thing happens in Clinch. Yep. That you can accordion out space in Clinch and be unsolvable.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's kind of what's exciting to me is that you're also developing these like spatial freedoms that come in the, with the territory of those dialectics.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It feels like a new landscape is kind of opening up for you. And so what we're doing is we're


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're training with Thanadette every month when we go up to Chiang Mai to keep the long clinch, um, dialectic going. We're training with Karahat every month because he has this, this beautiful, shouldery, slippery clinch style that also has a great waist throw.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right? And then, he doesn't know he'll be back in the gym fucking teaching you knee shredding.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One of the interesting things about this topic is we actually,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Had a whole discussion of this on a past Muay Thai Bones podcast, which due to technical reasons, did not record. So,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Really? Because now we have a better, more informed, more-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] More interesting take on it because of your experiences.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And this is, this topic is a huge one and we'll probably visit it in future multi bones because it is, I don't know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We have pet peeves about it. We, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We feel like if this could be solved or improved on, the impact on female Muay Thai would be a really, would be significant, would be huge.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is the thing, what we're talking about. What do world titles mean?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And what we're talking about world titles, we're talking about professional world titles, sanctions usually by bodies like WPMF, WMO, WBC, WBO, right? Yep. In Muay Thai.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, I guess the, you wanna jump in or should I keep going?


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[Assistant] The reason why there's no rankings is it's not possible to rank.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I myself came up with a pound for pound top ten list of female Muay Thai fighters. It was almost impossible to create a top ten because so many of the fighters don't even fight regularly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's almost impossible to rank female fighters. One of the impossibilities is...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Unless you're closely connected to the living scene,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You don't even know who the best female fighters are. If you're on the WPMF board, let's say, just picking a board in Japan, like you're helping organize


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and, and if I was, we were given the task of structuring it, I'm not even sure how you could.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If there's no sense of the top five fighters in the world at a particular weight class, then saying it's a world title with mixing two fighters together is just making something up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's when you actually get close to knowing how these fights are matched. Because Sylvia is often contacted as somebody who...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Many times they're just looking for literally anybody who's a Farang, a Westerner, to face a tie.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Really like this tie versus Westerner as a title fight of an event.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, let's not go to that point yet, because first let's investigate the other point, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who do not have insight into how world title fights are organized.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Disorganized again, but also there's also so many fewer competitors. Like, uhm, if you're thinking about


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To give a more concrete example, there's these all-women's shows often that happen in Bangkok, maybe two or three times a year. I haven't seen one for a while, but... Mandatorialy, they will have three world titles on the line.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's a way to add juice to the show.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who is fighting for those world titles is really like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Contact the top gyms in Thailand.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And there are particular gyms that have very strong mainline connections. Uhm, so Santai right now is a very hot gym with very good connections. Their fighters will fight for world titles.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Kyosamrit, which also promotes a lot of fights, used to have a lot more females, but it used to be the case that if you were training at Kyosamrit for a year, you'd fight for one or two or three world titles.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, Teresa, you just interviewed Teresa Wintermere when she was at Symbi many years ago.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The thing about it is there's nothing nefarious about this. Like, if a promoter


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wants to put on a show and wants world titles. They're very limited in who they can even draw from.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, how do you do this? You call the people you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I guess what we're really talking about here is not world titles are meaningless. They don't mean what we think they mean in terms of the boxing model, which itself is no longer the case and even maybe in boxing, except in some, it's much has less esteem even there, but they,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] These two fighters were drawn from a pool, this pool.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of active female fighters that are within travel distance.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the matchup in that title fight is a matchup that also could have just happened in a local stadium.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like that matchup is not extraordinary.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's a good fight. It would be a good fight in Thailand.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What, the only difference really is is because there's a belt on there, there's a different atmosphere of pressure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right? So there's something a little special about what's happening.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I guess part of what we're discussing here is a deflation and a concern about world title belts and how sometimes, sometimes the people in the, in the matchup shouldn't even be there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There was this incredible, incredible example.


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[Assistant] There's a boxing, lightweight boxing champion in Thailand. A Thai girl.


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[Assistant] Who's been world champion in I don't know what organization. Every year she fights for her belt.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She, she, I don't know if she has to, they want her to. She's a very good fighter. There's very few small...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Western boxing people in Thailand. Every year there, they look for someone for her to fight.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so he gets contacted every year. There's a big bonus that goes to whoever can find this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One time they got so frustrated, but not getting a western fighter, that they pulled Star, the Star, who's a Thai female Muay Thai fighter,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they changed their nationality to French.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they gave her a male name. Yep. Oddly enough.


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[Assistant] Oh, she's much larger. And she, I, probably her first boxing fight ever.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so, and she fought a pretty good world champion.


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[Assistant] So, I don't know. This is a structural problem. Part of the reason we're talking about this is this. I don't know what the solution is. Like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The IFMA's is a different, it's not actual Pro Muay Thai, it's a different ruleset and aesthetic, but it does have a structure built into it, into some degree.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That provides some sense of achievement, but really in pro female Muay Thai, it's very, very hard.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To actually have a world title. You could have a world title fight. There was a WMC world title fight, I think, between Iman Barlow and Sofia Olofsson. That happened to be with


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's a kind of a world title fight. Like those women when they fought were arguably the best in the world.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There was maybe four other world title fights that year with other people that were not either well matched or ended like, saw Singh just won a world title against somebody who wasn't very experienced at all.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So bottom line, what we're, what we're focusing on is if there are no real changing rankings and if you're not defending your belt,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's not really a world title, like you're calling it a world title just for hype.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If we keep expanding the number of belts and the randomness with which people become able to fight for them, we end up, it's like printing money.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You just get inflation, inflation, inflation, and then you don't really get a sense of specialness.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you, and you get people winning multiple, multiple world titles.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Drifting with belts, I understand it's in celebration of the art and the sport and there's some good qualities about it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But we really want female Muay Thai to like, richly get better. And I don't even know what the answer is to this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If there's no rankings and you're not defending your belt, it's really not.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A world title. This actually, something we covered the other thing was that we became aware of this problem when we first moved here because Kaylee Reese had just won the WMC title.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then somebody else fought for it. Two people fought for it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, it should be, but actually in reality that's not how belts work. Because of how it is. And she retired out of frustration at that time. I think she came back, but it made us aware, this is when we first moved to Thailand,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, there's problems. And we're not, it's not picking up on any one organization. All of them have the same kind of problem, which is limited budgets,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, when Kayleigh fights for her belt, and then she goes to Australia, and you want to have a world title, you can't fly her in. Like, under budget.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How do you handle that? I don't know if there's really a solution, but it's something that you should think about. And for me, I'm like, being more sober about what a world title is, is a really healthy thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's still a good fight. It's still two good fighters, generally.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, so let's stop this and go to the next moment on this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So carrying on this conversation, the other part of it, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Something else we wanted to talk about as a dimension of this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And okay, if we can't solve the rank, the ranking problem or, uh, selection problem.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's an additional problem that maybe we could solve or work towards, which is it's very difficult to even talk about this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because if there's a world title fight, and you kind of...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know, you don't have to Goku it, you just be like, well these really are not, this is just a randomly thrown fight among a pool of fighters.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All the matchups, how it was generated, uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And there's something real about that too. Like, if you're fighting for a world title, it feels hurtful to be like, this isn't a real thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because we can't even talk about it like the only polite way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To talk about world titles is to be like way to go, that's amazing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Privately, like, I don't know, there's a frustration that this is...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The dominant thought. I don't know, you- I'm gonna turn the ball over to you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But if you deserve to fight for a world title, then you should be fighting for one, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who's has an extraordinary number of fights in uh, Thailand. Uh, Sylvie was interviewing her and she was saying that when the Simi fighters were fighting for WMC, WMC were pretty organized.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, well-respected, like, at the time, was maybe the most respected, uh, organi- uh, um, Muay Thai organization, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Symbi fighters were fighting for world titles in Phuket. And she was like, they were fighting, we were fighting them at Bangalore Stadium, which was known as a kind of like tourist stadium.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And she was like, people were trashing the title fights because they were in Banglau Stadium.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, or they might not have been. Like, that doesn't even matter in the ultimate sense because the point was, people were degrading the titles before they were...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because of the context and that feels


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so, we kind of lack the ability to talk soberly about the state of world titles without being mean.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Dismiss it or uhm, there is a certain sense like we have to keep offering titles so that we can


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hype female fights, build female champion stories, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it almost feels like, well if you don't hype the whole thing, then you're betraying the cause.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, she's a very good example. She's very good. No, but she's a very good example too because she's, uh, Kusumri connected. Very powerful connection. She finds herself in World Title fights because of her connections. She's also an incredibly skilled fighter who has a beautiful style.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I, we count her as the most decorated, like the pet moonchu thing, the most decorated female Muay Thai fighter. But part of it is just, she's connected to a promoting line, and she might even get some


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Favorable judging at times. We've seen her win fights that she really shouldn't have. You know, we have incredible respect for her.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's in the combination of real achievement, but also, I don't know, uh, things aren't what they look like either.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's very complicated. So, we want to talk about the other half. This is what I was cutting you off from early, because I wanted to set


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The left hand column and now talk about the right hand column, which is you just fought for a world title.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yesterday won the world title, it was the IPCC world title, an organization we had not heard of, which apparently is, uh, big in European fighting, and now it seems that they do it, they're connected to Infusion, and they also


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sanction east, now eastern promotions. It seems that way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know, we had a really positive experience about this and it kind of was unexpectedly positive. Cause you don't think about belts.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Part of the reason why we started pursuing numbers in the beginning, other than your spontaneous, like, I want 50, like Sylvie, the other Sylvie, was there's nothing to shoot for.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A world title or a queens cup title, whatever it was.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] is so politically structured and really does not really reflect the elite and the weight in the world that there was no way to really reach for achievement


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That meant something that would propel you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, though, are you, who did you fight, blah, blah, blah. But your numbers are so explosive it doesn't, again, explosive.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But the idea was reaching for something that really will change you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Odd, but beautiful experience of fighting for a WMC belt, three weight classes above you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know if that's true, maybe. I mean, the Fodging Rhyme Belt was


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That experience was a huge, like, so it was, could not weigh in that weight class. Ever. Like, I don't know how you could even...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Come close to it. And you fought a pretty good fighter, not the top.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, I guess what, where were we going with that?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is about how, before we were being like, belts aren't what you think they are. This is, belts are what you think they are. Like, I don't know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or you got your ass kicked and you feel like you should have lost and were expected to lose and then your hand gets raised. Like, even when you win a fight where you're like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is a social fact, it's what I'm, it's like an-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's a fact that cannot be altered. There's something about it that's really weird. Like, you can argue, you shouldn't have won, it doesn't matter, you still won. You still won.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's like even if the matchup was dubious or random or.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You, winning, and also probably fighting for, but probably more so winning. Winning a world title.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's a change of status. That is a change of status.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You don't know that because PNU might be even more invested.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In your progress. He's become very invested in the last six months. I feel like he's stuffed it up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah. He might step it up more.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And a lot of the grind is very frustrating for you. And you're like, this is not going to lift my burden. My burden is I'm going to go back in the gym and I'm going to grind.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The thing is livestreamed and she'll be able to put up a, uh, commentary on it soon. Uhm, I...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was feeling that there is, there was a tide of emotion there. It was an event.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Added a degree. Like there was a girl who had just won the belt before you got in the ring.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A thing, that there was an emotional, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sylvie was glowing with the belt on by the, by the audience while people were taking pictures. I've never seen my wife look that way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Almost like movie star type glow about you, like 1950s movie star. Like you were making your own light in your face. There were, I think it was some, it's something about


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Every fight when you like, fight hard, and there's real risk, it's a huge emotional surge, like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Fighters go into states that we don't go into every day. They're peak human states. And then to come out of the ring and to have this symbolic moment where the belt is put on you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Does something to that emotion that's in you after a fight that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Took your wraps off and, oh that was a good bite Sylvie and you got some compliments. That the, that the social fact of the belt made a,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Maybe they're not what they, what you might think they are on the world view, like giving people


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Structure, like social structure across continents.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But in the personal sense, like, for ties, belts mean a lot.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's what's kind of interesting though, I've experienced the light.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Opposite of how we generally, I, I was personally, were you surprised? I was personally surprised how good it felt.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, it was like an additional huge bonus.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In your experience of belt status change recognition, you had one amazing experience, which was several years ago, you fought Fa Cheng Rai for the 105 pound Northern Moisayam title. You fought her.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wow, you fought her in her hometown of Chiang Rai.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You, out of weird coincidence, had just fought her.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For her title, the one she held, and you won it really decisively, and it was a marvelous performance.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then, ridiculously, you guys can read about it, we'll link it in the notes, uh, it was stripped of her a couple of days later.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Technically, it was, only ties can hold this. But just fair enough.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For some reason somebody politically intervened and we're like, we're going to call this and strip the belt from Sylvie. So that was actually this amazing performance and achievement against a very, very good fighter and against all odds. And then you had the belt taken from you. So it was kind of like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It meant something to have lost it on that technicality, which means it meant something to have it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they mean something in what they are. Maybe we just hope that they, we can do something to build a larger concept of what a world title is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we're calling this Legends and Residents because now this is becoming a thing that we're doing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're now kind of creating these kind of gym opportunities.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One thing to say, Nankabun also is outside of Muay Thai completely.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Often it's the hardest part is the Thai part, where you're not quite sure how doing this will affect the culture of the gym.


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[Assistant] Signal pot on his own was like pretty remarkable.


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[Assistant] And what we're able to do with this is...


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[Assistant] We pay, the gym is not doing it. We pay the Namco Moon to be there every day.


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[Assistant] We, we basically are bringing in him as a, to create an opportunity for everybody.


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[Assistant] This energy that he has, uh, is he wants to teach


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[Assistant] I'm gonna take a taco, maybe you can see what I'm talking about.


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[Assistant] We'll see it on the replay. Uhm, yeaah, they just got a huge infusion by Dethelnoi. It was like a forward marching, do not rest, uh, tornado of energy. And now...


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[Assistant] It'll be interesting to see that layered on there and especially how he'll interact with bank who has a kind of like power athleticism.


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[Assistant] A technique that is kind of like out of fashion a little bit in Limpini style. If Namkabun can like elevate it in bank to the point where it can be used.


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[Assistant] This is part of the Legends in Residence thing that we're doing. Uh, Diesel Noi will be coming in August. Doing the same thing three days a week for six months.


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[Assistant] We're covering the hotel, but we're going to be covering Diesel Noy's expenses and paying him every day. There's let, uh, you can just come to the gym and get privates with Diesel Noy or Nam Ka Boon and he's going to be there next week. By the time you watch this, it might be too late unless you're in Thailand.


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[Assistant] We're kind of trying to create this kind of...


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[Assistant] Like you, I love your analogy of stitching the two parts of the sail together.


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[Assistant] Uh, and so we'll also try to do something like film some stuff. We're going to film a library session and maybe try to get patrons extra. We'll shoot slow motion with him and oh, we have


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[Assistant] And we'll probably put a kai moe diary together. I don't know if he can come to the stadium or not.


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[Assistant] Next segment. That was a short one. Uh, we're gonna get into a larger concept here. A little bit. How do you want to do this? Do you want to talk about the injury itself and then the larger idea or go the other way?


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[Assistant] There's moments in the fight where you probably will exert yourself to just try to neutralize size.


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[Assistant] And the possibility of injury has probably increased.


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[Assistant] And there was, there was, Corey Anderson was just on Joe Rogan, and he talked about how he like,


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[Assistant] Disjointed. He thought he dislocated a finger.


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[Assistant] He couldn't relocate it, so he just kept moving his hand over and over and over again against the pain of it, there was a great pain, and he later, he...


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[Assistant] The doctors were like, if you had not been moving your finger like that, it would have frozen.


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[Assistant] They are also like, I don't even know how you're moving your finger because that tendon is the thing that moves the finger. That's like the pulley.


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[Assistant] But that our experience has been that move towards the pain.


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[Assistant] And sometimes it involves moving, finding the edges of the pain.


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[Assistant] This is not without risk. Sylvie, after she had broke her hand.


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[Assistant] We didn't go to the doctor, we knew it was probably broken and Sylvie just trained through it and fought. I think you took like a month and a half or two months off.


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[Assistant] But there's this thing where you're always exploring, you're toeing the line of what is possible and maintaining a relationship with the pain.


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[Assistant] This goes towards the like, deeper philosophical thing about, you talked about what are you willing to suffer for. Right?


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[Assistant] So, it's really not, uhm, whether you're going to suffer, but what are you going to suffer for?


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[Assistant] Eight kilos on top of you. Like she was a huge opponent physically. I just want to throw that in there.


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[Assistant] And it seems that in suffering, you give meaning to them.


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[Assistant] It's like, uh, the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of revolution. I don't know what the quote is.


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[Assistant] Yeah, it's the founding father of America, but basically, basically you have to go to war and suffer and die to have liberty. The blood of that war.


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[Assistant] We didn't want to cancel a fight, and if we cancelled the fight, we would...


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[Assistant] You fucking made- you suffered for the ability to fight frequently, and you made fighting frequently worthy. Like-


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[Assistant] Like a lot of people work very hard at all kinds of things in the world. And there's a feeling like, oh the grind is this like,


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[Assistant] Forgotten, nobody knows but me, what happened kind of thing. And it's true. But in you knowing that you devoted that, you give great gift to the meaning of that action.


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[Assistant] The argument we had the other day about your shoulder was like, I wanted you to suffer for clinch. I wanted you to donate to that dark god so that your clinch development, which I think is going off the fucking charts,


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[Assistant] Gets that, that sacrifice. Like, I won.


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[Assistant] I'm inspired by your own history of devotion. That's kind of how I was coming from it.


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[Assistant] You do remarkable things when you, when water finds its way with you.


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[Assistant] You just find this way. It doesn't mean that there's no pain, there's no boulders. You just find your way around pain in a really inspiring way.


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[Assistant] Not just physically, but emotionally. And now you're like, I got a bad shoulder.


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[Assistant] To create these narratives for yourself. Long term.


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[Assistant] And I, the way that you responded to your broken hand, even though you have problems with your wrist now too, and wasn't the smartest, and put it on to the doctor if we had no funds at the time.


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[Assistant] Not something we were going to do, but the way you kind of like worked your way around it, the way you started elbowing on that side instead of punching. You're like, I'm not going to punch with that hand for six months or whatever. It was like really cool to see you kind of like hunt for the spaces that were available to you.


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[Assistant] As a person and as a fighter, that, it was very inspiring and so, to me, that's where, that's where you're at with your shoulder.


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[Assistant] This could be with you for five years, I don't know. But maybe this hanging thing will... gift you.


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[Assistant] Like there's a lot of testimonials that this is kind of a miracle.


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[Assistant] So maybe this thing will gift you with a way to prevent shoulder injury for the rest of your career.


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[Assistant] Anything else on what you're willing to suffer for in fighting?


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[Assistant] Well you can be, a lot of fighters avoid risks.


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[Assistant] Then you, once you're in the ring, how you expose yourself to risk.


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[Assistant] But, I don't, we were just seeing this, uh, losers, Netflix, losers episode where some guy was like, fighters are the bravest people because every time you throw a strike, you risk getting a strike. And that there's like a, there's a risk, kind of like,


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[Assistant] Even people who seem like very accomplished and together people.


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[Assistant] There's always dark, especially driven people have very dark sides to themselves.


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[Assistant] And that loots three fights in a row and those, those demons start riding.


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[Assistant] To me that you're on something really, really interesting and beautiful because people are driven


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[Assistant] They find the idea of fighting of healing for very different reasons. Yeah. And...


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[Assistant] Ultimately, they're really making the decision, like calculus, what am I willing to suffer for?


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[Assistant] And maybe some of the reasons that people have are not worth suffering for that much.


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[Assistant] It's like, what are you willing? Like it might go sideways on. Yeah. Okay. Let's go to the next. I think of the next and last, last segment. Okay.


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[Assistant] Maybe the final segment we never really know. It might be a favorite joke section at the end. Uhm.


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[Assistant] So, we wanted to talk about earlier in the podcast we were talking about.


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[Assistant] Okay, I feel like we're blowing through topic bullet points.


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[Assistant] Let's start. Let's enter it this way. Larger concept. One championship.


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[Assistant] Dimension of this was their adoption of stamp vertex, uh, into the fold.


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[Assistant] Our perspective on Sam Fairtex and what this one championship opportunity for her was, uh, she was a good, I would say a B to B plus level fighter. Like, she was not the best in Thailand at her weight.


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[Assistant] Uh, she lost a patchy jaw in a way that people were like, she can't even fight her. I thought it was a good fight.


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[Assistant] Barely with a couple of kilos on you.


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[Assistant] Which is typical of a girl her age. She'd spent much of her life fighting.


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[Assistant] Her career was going where so many Thai female fighters career go. It was slowing down and about to end.


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[Assistant] By stamp Fairtex being, uh, uh, by stamp being taken in by Fairtex and then being given this one championship pathway, which is a promotion she could fight on for pretty significant fight pay.


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[Assistant] And promotion, promotional like into a person with highlights and storytelling about herself. This is something that no Thai female fighter would have had.


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[Assistant] Izzy was a higher level talent than Stamp, I would say, when she was a fighter. She's like, she's arguably...


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[Assistant] The best or one of the best female fighters in the world when she was fighting in Thailand, uh, as a Muay Thai fighter.


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[Assistant] She transitioned to MMA. Invicta.


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[Assistant] Uh, extension of a career and if you compare the promotional


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[Assistant] What one is doing is kind of amazing. What's happening with Stamp.


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[Assistant] Not to even denigrate what's happening with Loma. That's it's own path as well. It's more, let's like, let's talk about what's going on with One Championship. Like, so.


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[Assistant] An additional story. So that's one great story, right? I don't know how many Thai female fighters are going to be pulled over to one. I know that Cheri Set Yodong, who was not


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[Assistant] And Janata went over there and fought and gave her all she could handle. Stamp pulled out the fight in a really, uh, to me in a way that impressed me about Stamp's skill and let me know how much she's progressed as a fighter since we knew her as a TIE fighter.


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[Assistant] Like the whole fair techs thing has really elevated her, um, on many levels, not just technically, but also confidence wise and her aggression in space.


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[Assistant] But this is really interesting things. Janet Todd, we were like, she had just turned pro, I don't know, a year ago or something like that. She had a long time amateur fighter with lots of success. And when she turned pro, we were like, what is going to happen?


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[Assistant] What you're speeding into the point, go ahead, describe it in slower motion.


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[Assistant] Well the big question is, what is she going to do?


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[Assistant] Coming out pro party against Stamp who was kind of the...


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[Assistant] The promotions girl. Yep. And Janet does so well, like her style was really kind of like beautiful, aggressive.


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[Assistant] That she finds herself then being flown by one out to a...


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[Assistant] One does MMA, kickboxing, and Muay Thai. Like they really want to create a mixed martial art, like a true mixed martial art brand impression. Yeah, platform. So.


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[Assistant] I don't know, we don't know enough about the Janet Todd story in terms of what really happened, but it is so cool that she won got the opportunity to fight.


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[Assistant] And she leg kicked this girl to death, apparently only saw a highlight. But she looked like she totally owned that fight.


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[Assistant] I guess the thing that excites me and that's important is, uhm,


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[Assistant] This is creating an avenue of female fighting that just did not exist in any way, shape or form before. Uhm, and I'm not sure how many fighters it will affect, hopefully a lot, but


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[Assistant] Thai female fighter, 19 years old, been fighting since she was 8. Her career is about to die.


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[Assistant] Right. She has a lifetime of experience at 19 already. What's gonna come of it? Nothing. Like a few belt fights maybe if she has the connections. Instead, ascending


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[Assistant] There's no opportunities for these wonderful fighters. And then...


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[Assistant] Devoted amateur, successful United States fighter, turning pro, who is she going to fight? The same problem.


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[Assistant] And then not only do they get to fight each other, but then that leads to another opportunity for Janet to fight quite a Chinese opponent who don't know.


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[Assistant] And there's something really cool going on here, uhm.


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[Assistant] Okay, that's another thing. Palma, I would say, is one of the most exciting young western female Muay Thai fighters on the planet.


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[Assistant] Who did she beat? I forgot who she beat. She beat somebody unexpectedly.


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[Assistant] Is she the explosive dynamic fighter that throws with combinations but not like a memorized fighter? Uhm, and now she's going over, again, one is grabbing a young talent that they can maybe build a promotional thing. This is something that you wanted to talk about.


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[Assistant] Which is not just that they're giving her the fight, but they're, they're actually...


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[Assistant] They invest in the storytelling around a female that this is our fighter.


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[Assistant] Well, can you talk about that a little bit? What it feels like to you, because you've been in the fight game for a little bit now.


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[Assistant] That was very interesting how off of a loss, opportunity.


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[Assistant] Like that is unusual in female promotions.


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[Assistant] Not only do they not promote her, but they don't promote anybody around.


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[Assistant] Totally, and the same thing kind of happened with Amy Pirney. Amy Pirney fought with, uh, fought for Yoko and they got this, fed her a European fighter I think, but nothing really came of that.


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[Assistant] Yeah, exactly. But nothing, there was no embrace of...


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[Assistant] Female fighting in the concept of how one is displaying it, right? Where the loser gains opportunity.


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[Assistant] But it also seems like a different mindset. Amy Pirani finally goes and fight and fought in Lion Fight and got a big title, uh, in America, but that's not, that wasn't under that promotion, under the Ocal promotion. And it was like, it was very, it's interesting to see the difference.


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[Assistant] The Yokawa approach is maybe more of a traditional kind of promotional approach. The one championship approach is this.


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[Assistant] Holistic embrace of female fighting, and I can't imagine, like, what they're gonna do, because...


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[Assistant] And also to build them into, uhm, great storylines.


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[Assistant] Like where are they going to find 4, 5, 51 kilo? We know all the 51 kilo wonderful fighters.


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[Assistant] And so I'm not sure that the whole thing can develop. Uhm, who's I'm only gonna fight.


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[Assistant] There needs to be three more badass 54 kilo girls. I don't know, maybe they have a deeper plan.


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[Assistant] But man, what they're doing already is totally on the right path.


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[Assistant] As a side note, one championship people are like, uhm,


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[Assistant] One is because, just speaking from my perspective,


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[Assistant] One is a promotion basically has its interest in heart. So its driving decisions are about itself and.


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[Assistant] You get pulled into their gravitational pull, which are those interests. We are, what we generally do, and we've been doing it from the beginning, is we're like,


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[Assistant] No belts, probably fought for one. It was like, Sylvie, you want to fight? And we're like, yeah, why not? No big promotions. Everything is Tyson and the Catskills.


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[Assistant] Lots and lots of fights moving towards a really, really high level of feeling and fluency that only comes from lots and lots of fights. Avoiding the traps.


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[Assistant] Yeaah, totally. So, we're like...


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[Assistant] Wow. That one is pretty, pretty, pretty awesome, but we've always had this recipe, which is really, I'm going to speak for Sylvie on this.


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[Assistant] It's aiming to be a certain kind of fighter that cannot be defined or captured by a belt or a promotional, like a promotions promotional material, like the


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[Assistant] The competence you are pursuing in clinch fighting is to me off the charts. Like it's never been done, never been attempted by a female fighter, maybe not even a male fighter because of the kinds of influences you can have, uh, from all the legends that you are training with and not even also unknown gem crews of the library. And I'm like,


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[Assistant] I'm gonna keep running after the 100th yard, right? Is it not like that? I remember that, I was like, uhm, you fought some, uh,


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[Assistant] Western fighter, and it was just like, yeaah, we'll throw that in.


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[Assistant] On two days notice or five days notice or whatever. And then I'm, all I don't, all I want is to not get cut so I can fight three days later. And it was like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] People are just not con- have no- are not used to the concept of thinking of fights in threes and fives and like this kind of throwing yourself forward


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[Assistant] Like, people are like, well Sylvie, when are you gonna retire and teach people? And you're like, I'm thinking of 10 more years. I'm not even halfway in my fight total. Like these are...


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[Assistant] I have to say I'm impressed by the Alma signing. It means that they're just really reaching out. I don't think Alma can get down to a stamp.


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[Assistant] And uhm, we'll fight down, I don't know how far down uhm it can go.


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[Assistant] Active aggressive combination fighters, which will sell to a mixed martial art audience.


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[Assistant] Okay, so what else can we, we're gonna wrap this up with what we were going to a favorite joke section, is that what we were doing?


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[Assistant] Oh, we can just beep it out at the end.


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[Assistant] I like things that are kind of open. It's about being very focused towards open openness.


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[Assistant] There's all kinds of content reasons to, uh, become a patron supporter. Uh, there... Yeaah. There's nothing...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's nothing like what we produce has ever been produced. One piece of a documentary or a Legends thing. There's nothing ever been done like it. And we do hundreds of hours really.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's not even the most exciting thing that is produced with Patron, because Patron is what makes Sylvie able to fight, and I'm telling you,


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[Assistant] You're looking at a change in female, and maybe in Muay Thai in general, in what Sylvie's doing. She is...


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[Assistant] The entire, that's why we pull up the, honoring the history of the great legends of Muay Thai 2, is like, sewing that sail together, like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The arc of this fighting path is just...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Mind boggling, but not mind bogglingly big. And as a patron, you support that. And even $1 a month is an awesome like wind in the sail.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, I guess we should go, but thank you for those who are already patrons already, and we're just going to keep going with this podcast. It was fun to do, and everybody seems to like it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Lynda.com is the online learning platform with over 3,000 on-demand video courses to help you strengthen your business, technology, and creative skills. For a free 10-day trial, visit Lynda.com slash revolutions. That's L-Y-N-D-A dot com slash revolutions.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So if you're looking for the perfect gift this holiday season, lynda.com is the gift that keeps on giving. It's for problem solvers, for the curious, for people who want to make things happen.


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[Assistant] Lynda.com might help somebody master Excel, learn negotiating tactics, build a website, or build their digital art skills.


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[Assistant] With Alinda.com membership, you can learn from passionate experts who stream thousands of video courses on demand, and you can always learn at your own pace.


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[Assistant] You can create and save playlists of courses you want to watch. You can customize your learning path or share with friends and colleagues or other team members.


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[Assistant] Your lynda.com membership will give you unlimited access to training on hundreds of topics all for one flat rate.


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[Assistant] So whether you're looking to become an industry expert or you're just passionate about a hobby or you just want to learn something new, I want you to visit lynda.com slash revolutions and sign up for your free 10 day trial. That's L Y N D A dot com slash R E V O L U T I O N S.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Welcome to the beginning of our fourth revolution together, and one that is a bit different from the rest. The English, American, and French revolutions are all regarded as huge turning points in history, often studied, often discussed, and at least moderately understood by the general public. They at least know that it happened. But the Haitian Revolution is not like that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For a variety of reasons the story of the collapse of the French slave colony of Saint-Domingue and the eventual declaration of an independent Haiti


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[Assistant] It's little known, and even those who know that it happened know almost nothing about the details. If anything, you might know that it was the only successful slave uprising in history, and that indeed it was, but it was so, so much more than that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And as we trace the history of the Haitian Revolution from the initial revolts of 1791 through the Declaration of Independence in 1804, hopefully you'll walk away appreciating how much the Haitian Revolution deserves to take its place alongside its more famous brethren as one of the most fascinating and important revolutions in world history.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So today, we're gonna cover the early history of Saint-Domingue, talk some basic economics and geography, and then move on to a discussion of the three main groups who inhabited the colony and who will serve as the main players in the revolution. The whites, the free-coloreds, and of course, the slaves.


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[Assistant] With the building box in place, we can then spend next week talking about the insane web of tension between and within these groups as we approach the beginning of the French Revolution back in France, which will put into motion a parallel revolution of Saint-Domingue that will fully erupt in 1791.


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[Assistant] Before we get going, I'd like to start with my usual disclaimer about how I am about to butcher the holy living crap out of French, but I'm also just gonna keep on trying because, you know, what else am I going to do?


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[Assistant] Seriously, it does. Columbus' fleet of three ships arrived in the New World in October 1492. After exploring around the Bahamas and then Cuba, Columbus sailed over to the Big Island southeast of Cuba in December 1492.


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[Assistant] The native inhabitants of the island, the Taino, called their home Aiti, but Columbus promptly dubbed it Hispaniola.


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[Assistant] It was while anchored off the northwest coast of the island, inside the borders of modern Haiti, that the Santa Maria ran aground on Christmas Day 1492.


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[Assistant] With permission from the local Taino chief, Columbus built a little settlement using salvage material from the ship and called the settlement La Navidad in honor of the sunken Santa Maria. He left 39 men behind and sailed away.


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[Assistant] When Columbus returned the following year, he found all 39 men dead.


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[Assistant] The local Taino chief blamed a raid by the rival Carib people, but nobody knows what actually happened to them.


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[Assistant] After Columbus's initial voyages, the Spanish continued to explore and settle the New World, and in the early years they used Hispaniola as their springboard.


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[Assistant] In 1496, they established the port of Santo Domingo on a deep and protected harbor on the southeast side of the island. Santo Domingo became the capital city and Hispaniola was often referred to amongst the Europeans as simply Santo Domingo.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As the Spanish were primarily on a quest for gold, the native Taino Indians of Hispaniola were systematically rounded up and put to work mining what limited precious metal the island contained.


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[Assistant] They were subjected to this forced labor under the encomienda system, whereby the Spanish protected natives in exchange for service and it was slavery in all but name.


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[Assistant] The regular order of Taino life was destroyed and replaced by brutal slave gang labor.


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[Assistant] Along with looking for precious metals to extract, Columbus and the men who followed him also brought with them the critical crop of our story. Sugarcane.


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[Assistant] Sugar originally came out of the Middle East, migrated over to Western Europe, and was now being imported into the Caribbean in the hopes that it might be a lucrative cash crop.


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[Assistant] By the 1530s, there were more than two dozen sugar mills in Hispaniola, all of them on the east side of the island near Santo Domingo.


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[Assistant] But though the Spanish were ultimately correct about the future profits of sugar, the further development of Hispaniola was arrested by Spanish gold discoveries on the South American mainland.


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[Assistant] The draw of Inca and Aztec gold led the Spanish to virtually abandon Hispaniola.


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[Assistant] And by the late 1500s, the island was a complete colonial backwater inhabited only by an array of small cattle farmers.


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[Assistant] But just as Hispaniola was slipping off the Spanish radar, it was showing up on the French radar.


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[Assistant] In the beginning of the 1600s, both the French and the English started making forays into the New World and challenging Spanish and Portuguese hegenomy.


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[Assistant] Their first move was to sanction privateers, both officially and unofficially, who preyed on Spanish treasure ships.


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[Assistant] The British set up their first major foothold in the Caribbean in Barbados. The island was claimed in the name of King James in 1625, and then his son, Charles I, established it as a proprietary colony in 1627. Hey, look, we know those guys. Hi, Stuart. Long time no see.


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[Assistant] The French meanwhile claimed Martinique and Guadeloupe, and pretty soon every rocky outcropping in the Caribbean was claimed by some European power or another. The native population was of course annihilated.


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[Assistant] Right around this same time, the mid-1620s, a coalition of French and English pirates who became known as the Brethren of the Coast set up a base on the small island of Tortuga.


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[Assistant] Tortuga lay off the northwest coast of Hispaniola on the opposite side of the island from the Spanish capital of Santo Domingo.


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[Assistant] Although the Spanish had massively deprioritized Hispaniola, and only sparsely settled the west side of the island, they were not too happy about the appearance of these intruders.


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[Assistant] Especially when some of them started setting up shop on mainland Hispaniola, supplementing their pirate income by hunting the wild cattle that now roam the island, smoking the meat, and selling it to passing ships.


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[Assistant] This smoked meat was called bukhan, which is how these guys became known as buccaneers.


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[Assistant] The Spanish and pirates battled for the next few decades over control of Tortuga. I think the island changed hands at least four times. But the pirates always wound up coming back.


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[Assistant] In 1665, this independent little pirate colony on Tortuga asked the French Crown to appoint a royal governor to give their settlement official legitimacy.


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[Assistant] The request was granted by young Louis XIV, a royal governor arrived with 400 additional colonists, beginning the transition of the region from pirate base to more settled colony.


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[Assistant] By 1680, the community numbered some 6000, with planter colonists now far outnumbering the old pirates.


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[Assistant] Finally, at the conclusion of the Nine Years' War in 1697, the Spanish officially ceded the western third of Hispaniola to the French, and since the island was now generally referred to as Santo Domingo, the French colony took the French version of Santo Domingo, Saint-Domingue.


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[Assistant] It was one of the last European colonies to be established in the Caribbean and from its humble origins as a mere pirate base, it would soon rise to become literally the most lucrative single colony in the New World.


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[Assistant] As the French took possession and started settling plantations, a pretty even mix of African slaves and white indentured servants were imported to provide labour.


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[Assistant] French indentured servants were only bound for three years, whereupon they got a chunk of land for themselves.


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[Assistant] In the early days, these small planters focused on tobacco, since it cost very little to get a tobacco farm off the ground. But by the early 1700s, North American tobacco was a well-oiled machine, and there was no way some small planters in San Domingue were going to compete. So tobacco was quickly abandoned.


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[Assistant] Another early crop that did wind up taking root was indigo, which was used to produce dye for the growing textile operations back in Europe.