[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's not, I'm gonna think this dart into the center of that board. And so, because it's difficult and uncomfortable for me, it shuts up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Eye contact or not, like there's- this is why I'm saying it made such-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When I'm talking to somebody, I look at that person, I make eye contact. It's polite where I come from to make eye contact. In some cultures, it's not polite. It's you need to defer. But uhm, for me, there is an engagement in making eye contact. And so by making eye contact, even though it was awkward, I was suddenly engaging.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, looking away because now I'm trying to think of what technique I want to do, what move I want to land. I'm actually having a conversation where I'm engaged and I can see what they're trying to do. Uh, I can see where they're moving, I can kind of like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Be in the flow of two persons instead of I just wanna say what I wanna say and then be nervous about what it is you're gonna say and whether I have an answer to that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is the thing about, like, training techniques as though they're the only, like, eye contact to me is a technique. This is a technique.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But the like, only training combination technique kind of thing, and looking away so that you can just be internal to yourself and not engage with your actual opponent, is you wanna have a fight that's like, I'm gonna do my techniques really well.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And hopefully they're better than the techniques you want to do really well instead of actually having an engaged interaction of like a singular fight.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, when I look away, I'm coming back into myself, for sure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and listen, people, again, I talk a lot about how, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Effort or concentration on your part is better because it's natural. Your personality is fucking shit natural. It's not natural at all. Personality is just a collection of habitual traits. They're the grooves that have been worn that you tend to go in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Performance to this, I get like, I need like a chill out. Yesterday when we were doing this live stream, I hit like a wall of like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Panic mode getting almost like a blood sugar drop kind of thing that was like, this is really exhausting.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It is exhausting for me to be in my own head and criticizing myself for the 20 minutes of sparring. It is exhausting for me to


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Engage in eye contact and force myself to, uh, do things that are uncomfortable for these 20 minutes. They're both exhausting.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Do you figure out how to navigate?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah. I'll always remember that kid Shane, uh, who was training out of the Watt.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The first time I ever sparred in my life, we went to the lot and it was like two weeks before my first fight ever. I had no sparring experience. And there was this very sweet young man, uh, named Shane who they were trying to be more aggressive in sparring and he's like, I'm not a naturally aggressive person.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, Phil Nurse was like, this isn't ballet. Like, you need to learn how to be aggressive in a fighting sport. And at the time, it didn't mean that, but in the


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I understand what people mean when they say that, but it's like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It would be if you did it more often. Like, it could be. I could totally be a, like, extroverted, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which is like, I'm having a hard time being aggressive and sparring. Okay, well the reason you're having a hard time being aggressive and sparring is because you're not aggressive in your life. Like, so uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you want to become magically aggressive by going into the ring and now it's time to spar, you need to practice that in not the context of that moment. Like you can't just turn something on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's where it comes with the eye contact is, hey, turns out in my entire life, I use averting my eyes to diffuse tension and discomfort.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So there are days I go to the gym that I don't feel very good, like I'm very critical of myself or it's like mentally a hard day and I've


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On occasion realized I am not looking at anybody, like I'm just staring at the floor all the time, which means that I'm, when I'm doing that in the ring and I'm like, God, why am I doing that in the ring? It's cause you do it in your life. And if you are doing it in your life and you're trying to fix it, they're doing it under the pressure in the ring is great. Like you, you basically don't want to have.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] that little baggie, you g and the fish tank and hav different temperatures. Yo


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, he's just doing this in Moikau, whereas Fimur is like, oh my god, it's...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Point out that it is our observational belief that there's less Moikau among


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So for instance- Well, diesel noise is very tall and thin and fucking moe cow like, amazing. It's the opposite.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Whereas, Karahat, who is one of the most


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, this is the thing that I've been, uhm, waiting to interject.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just the timeline in terms of like how much experience you can get, how young you start in Thailand, like all of these things. Westerners start later, fight opportunities are much less, like we're just behind the, the ball in like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Out-arting the artfulness of a dancer who's been dancing since she was five.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When you started when you were 18, it's not that you're not talented, it's not that you're not good, it's not that you don't love it, you just do not have the time, investment and experience to make that fluidity.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So last night when I was talking to Fanny after her fight, Fanny is not Moikawa, Fanny is, uh, Fumur. She fought a fighter who had a very similar style to hers, and it ended up coming down to the clinch, and I was laughing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, during the fight and after the fight saying, Fanny, it's so funny you tell me you don't like to clinch, that this came down to the clinch. And she was like, I knew I could not out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Again, Sylvie's gonna make comparisons, right? So Kevin and I watch a lot of MasterChef Australia.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's hard. We watched a fight last night that was so exciting and so good that was a much smaller evasive


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She, she picked going backwards so well, but she was totally the matador, like 100% the matador, and then-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then her opponent, Ho Sam, was taller, uh, forward, knee fighter, good at like, in the first few rounds, good at catching her and abusing her in the ropes, which is totally great for Moekow's style. But it was an amazing example, because at the end of the fight, uh, Nong Earn, the smaller one, the evasive one, had


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So knowing how to do that, how to perform like that, coming from behind in the West, where we do not have the practice of that performance, even until we get here, really. It's very hard to outdo.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You are affecting your opponent by basically being the one pulling on the lead, like you're, you're fighting at my pace, you're fighting at my range, you're just getting tagged as you're trying to come in, you look ridiculous as I dodge off to the side. You wanna look like you're controlling your opponent.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As a femur fighter, fucking best thing you can do is make your opponent look desperate and mad. Like, look like you've emotionally affected your opponent.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, as the forward fight, as the Waikawa fighter, you want the, I'm just slipping away from you all the time to suddenly feel, to look like to the judges and to the audience, holy shit I'm trying to get away from you. Like, I'm just trying to tread water here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so if you stay too far away from your...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So are you, are you saying that uh, the prevalence of


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Western female fighters who have had success being Moikau.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's a reason why there's this spike, because that style works really well against the Mwafimur, or are you saying that people actually gravitate towards it?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She could fight much bigger westerners because of being a knee fighter.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like a counter kicker who's good in the clinch, so she has two ranges, but she's not a knee, she's not a forward knee fighter.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I think, uh, Sylvie Charbonneau, who you mentioned as the first, uhm, having come before me and being a knee fighter, I think she was amazing in the clinch and was a puncher.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] More difficult, like I've had to change. Even within my own time period of fighting in Chiang Mai, I've had to change a lot in my own life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, I don't remember. I remember, uh, Meng Xingqiu the first time I fought her, and she's not from Chiang Mai, but she came up to Chiang Mai to fight me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One of the things that makes me shy away from or not want to...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Answer such a big question.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is that, uhm, one, I don't think that I can speak completely authoritatively in an encyclopedic, this is where it comes from and this is what each of the movements mean, because there's actually a huge variety of Ramoy that have become more homogenous over time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You'll see them, I think, uh, like in super banks.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So like, in special performance Ramboi, you'll see...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Stuff that probably used to be more, yeaah, that used to be more, uhm, that used to be more unique I think.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, disclaimer, I can talk about what the Ram Moi means to me and where I learned mine, but I can't speak authoritatively on what is the Ram Moi and what does each thing mean.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] From what I've read, uhm, came about as partially a way to warm up and partially a way to feel around the actual ground that you were going to be fighting on. So there's a, there's a symmetry to it where you like actually go all the way around everything so you could


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And if ever you're on a promotion in Thailand that's like shortened or eliminate the Ram Moi part because we don't have time for TV, you never eliminate the Y crew ever, ever, ever. That part is always, there's always time to seal the ring and there's always time to do the Y crew.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, my runway comes from my very first trainer, Master K.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who, uh, when I started training with him was about to turn 70. He's now in his 80s. So.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he learned it from his uncle, so it's older that way too.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I cannot tell you how many times I've been doing my ramboy and the announcer in Thai says mai kamara, which in Thai means like unusual. Uhm, it's not, it's not a criticism. Uhm, it's,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It kind of means extraordinary, uhm, but also unusual, like, oh, this is unexpected, this is interesting. Uhm, crowds tend to really like it. Mine is an abridged version of Master K's, probably because when he came to America and was teaching his students, he, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One, he abridged it because to an American audience, you can't do a five minute ram-moy. But two, he said he forgot some of it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so it just became like this kind of abridged version.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But interestingly, I've also augmented it. So what I do is not purely what Master K taught me. It's like how you have the Monkhan that came from your lineage, but then you add


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, in order, when I circle three times, which is how you start.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Don't put your mon con on as a woman because you have to go under the rope. But you do the part of having your trainer


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, sometimes outside of the ring they'll do this and then they do it again when you're in the ring. But there's a moment where you're connecting to your trainer or the head of the gym or whoever's going to be doing your mon con and you actually want to step out of your shoes when you do that if you're wearing sandals.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then you get to the corner where there are the little stairs. I bend down.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I say some kata that I learned from my sakyan- ajan- ajanpi bangkating. A kata is like a series of syllables that are a protective spell, more or less.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In Pali or something? It's in Pali Sanskrit, but it would be like saying a prayer before you get in the ring. Very similar to the way people cross themselves before getting in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I bend down, I say the kata, and then I put my hand on the ground to get some dust or dirt on the glove, and I rub that in my hair, which is old. This comes from this humbling yourself and acknowledging that you are


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of the ring. This is also who you're talking to when you bend down and you're like, I'm about to get in the ring. You're letting them know you're about to get into the ring and asking them to protect you and to let you in, basically.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So those spirits and the protections and maybe amulets that are around, uhm, are the reason that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Male fighters go over the top rope because they're wearing their mong khan, and so nothing should go over that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and so they go over. But because, and this is not Buddhist, uhm, because women theoretically menstruate, uhm, by going


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was. He's an idiot, but also when the baby was being, I think, passed over or through the ropes, I'm not sure which, he was like, what gender is that baby? Like, he had to ask.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yes. And while it is maintained and guarded and practiced, if you ask a large number of people who practice this where that belief comes from or specifically what it is, they may not be able to tell you what that is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So you go under the bottom rope, uhm, and then I stand in my corner and whoever the VIP important person is doing the mon con will then put the mon con on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Many times they say, again, it's like a kata or a prayer is protective. It's like asking for, uh, no injury for success, all these things, like very standard. They don't say it out loud. Generally, you might be able to hear muttering, but it's not like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, against Fa Cheng Rai, they had a local mayor or something?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Do the honorific of my mon con, which is amazing because I was not the local. Right. So to have.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think it depends on if I am connected to the person or not. I've never been offended by who's, I've never been like disconnected to who's doing it. Right. But I've, uhm, I'm not.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not particularly. I'm, I'm centering myself, and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Usually, put your mouthpiece in, give you some water, uh, splash some water on your head, blow on your head, which is part of this protective thing, and then they take the Monkhan off, and then you go into the center of the ring to like touch, oh no, before.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who puts it on and who takes it off is different. Taking it off is more honorific. So your trainer will generally always put it on, and the honorific person will take it off.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You've got it on your head, and the referee comes over and checks you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then when the music starts, that's when you turn towards your corner and start your ramboy. Mine starts, I think almost everyone starts with you bowing, you go down to the ground in your corner.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To the ground three times, which is also how you bow to a Buddha image when you go to temple.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So when you touch your head to the ground three times, you think of, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In general, uh, your father, your trainer, and the king. Uhm, but for me, I think of three very important figures to me. So often I'll think of Master K, uh, Krunu, and then


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, maybe like a, a trainer who I'm trying to embody in that fight. So, Diesel Noi or Karahat. Uhm, like someone who I'm kind of purposefully thinking of.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, or like remembering, like, this is in their image or honor or whatever.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've said this before, maybe in my voiceover for fights or something, but...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At that moment, if I'm focused on those three, I'm like, okay, I'm focused on this fight. If I'm just doing the motion and I'm like, oh shit, I did not like connect each one of those head touches to a person, I know that my mind is not right, and then I have to catch it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, most people go counterclockwise. I go counterclockwise. Right. Uh, you...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Go to each corner, and what I do at each corner, I learned from Little Noon at Lana Muay Thai when I first moved to Thailand. Uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I put my knee, my left knee into the corner and run my hand down and then up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Most people do something slightly different than the neutral corners.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A lot of other people do, but I was taught by Master K that with your left foot, you write the letter of the first letter of that person's name. So good reason to know your opponent's name.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, so you, you do that, I do that with my left foot, and then you like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Scratch it out with your foot and then Master K taught me to stomp on it after scratching it out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Didn't do it to be disrespectful in the first place.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So you finished sealing the ring and this next part I learned again from Nung at Lana, who was like 14 at the time that he taught me this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As you're finishing sealing the ring, you come off and circle the center three times. Uhm, I was never taught by Master K to do any kind of circling before bowing to the corner. Uh, when I was taught by Neng, he said that it was a northern thing and it symbolizes


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] These elephants were ridden by a king?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Over the mountains into Lana, and then he became the king of Lana, so it's this kind of like, historical piece.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Significant to Lana, which is Northern Thailand culture and history.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's where I was fighting out of, and so this was taught to me as you do the three circles because he did three circles around the mountains with these elephants.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then I get on my knees and face my corner, because Master K taught me that you're actually supposed to face the direction you were born in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When I've gotten on my knees after doing that circling, this is the Y crew part where you go down and you bow three times again.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The way I was taught to do these bows, you'll see people do them differently. Some people do the like hand down and then they like come up like this. Uhm, I bring my head down, then hands come to the lap and then they go up like this. If you watch like movies that are time period old movies in Ayutthaya for Thai culture,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The way that you lied to the king was...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The thing that I'm doing, uhm, with my hands that was taught to me by Master King.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I learned that on my own, he didn't explain that to me at all.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So you do that three times, and then you go left, right, and center with this kind of, like, beautiful bird wing, uhm, turn of the arms.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And a lot of the, um, movements that you see in Ram Moi come from the Ramayana, which is basically like this epic poem creation story. And so, um, I can't say for certain which movements are what, but you'll see people who shoot arrows into the corner.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Vishnu, uh, the Gruta thing. You'll see, uhm, people do this with their arms as they let go.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Across the ropes, that's Garuda. My thing, I'm supposed to put my foot up and like, wave my foot while I'm doing my arms and I don't have the coordination for it, so I've never quite done it that way. I cut it out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So you go left, right, center, then you get up, I get up on one knee and kind of do a similar motion with the arms again, still the bird thing. And Master K says you clear the sky like this, and then you come back with the arm and shoot through. Uhm, and then at the end of that, I added this Rahu eating the sun.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Are that they're a constant mental and visual reminder of...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Powers, qualities, characteristics, and life trajectory foci that you want.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To bring it to a more mundane example, wearing a cross does not make you a good Christian, but it reminds you of


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, so it's a tattoo of that rather than a...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know if I or you, depending on who's talking, deserve that. It's a very powerful, influential, like, heavy duty to wear.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's no like, now I've achieved having earned these tigers, I will always, when I'm a crickety old lady, still be earning the, not the right, but the responsibility to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so Rahu is this very intense figure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My giant chess piece is a very intense figure, and when I get in the ring, I have


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Again, kata and like chants that I say that are speaking to Rahu.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so I already had within my mind thinking of asking Rahu to infuse my Moi with righteous destruction, which I took from Zippy, that language I took from Zippy. Right. Uhm, and I was already thinking it, and so I'm like, hey, all of these movements are supposed to mean something, let's put that, let's make that visual


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This consumption of like, baaah. If you see any image of Rahu, he's like, baaah, eating this giant globe. Uhm, and so that was just like, if you're gonna pantomime


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I do that in two directions, and then you stand up facing your opponent's corner, uhm, and you turn back.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, I'm facing my own corner. I stand up facing my own corner and I turn back to my opponent's corner and give three nods. Like this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That, uhm, usually gets a little bit of a like, stir from the crowd.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Do a big motion to turn towards my opponent's corner. So you've done this little like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, this was something that Master K made a big deal about for my first 50 fights was where my elbows were.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cause they weren't like linear enough, which meant that the silhouette didn't look right to him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, but I zigzag in galloping to like basically quarter off my opponent's corner. It's awesome when my opponent's runway is shorter than mine and they're in their corner. They get quite intimidated by it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, when they're not there, it's still kind of cool, but it's not the same. It's the same as like wiping out their name in the corners. You're doing something to the corner rather than them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is that people know to like dodge the arrow or break the arrow or like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, I get to the corner and what I was taught by Master K is to, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Flip off inside my glove the opponent's corner and then bow to it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I have never once done the flip-off.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ever in any of my fights. Uh, I think even when Master K was teaching it to me, I wouldn't do it in front of him because it would be flipping off him. Uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But, so what I do when I get to the end is something that I stole from a movie.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Called, uh, Khun Chang Khun Pen, which is a very famous Thai epic poem.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and at the very end of it, this poor woman is executed, and uhm, the executioner does the like, creeping that I have in my ramboy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I knew it was a hunter when it was taught to be my Master K, but when I saw it in that film, I went, that's my Ramoy. Like, I didn't know what that was.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It'd be like if you're not from the west and you see an executioner's big axe in a movie and you suddenly get it, whereas you've been pantomiming it before but then you see it with the hood.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and so I stole this, like, jump that he does before bringing the knives down. He has two knives to- Swords. To head this woman. They're like machetes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and then you come back to your corner and bow to your own corner, uh, and then they take the Moncon off.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If I have, and I'm sure I have, but the ways in which I have have been so gradual, I'm not sure that I could...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Articulate any of that. Uhm, I used to, I remember because I was in America fighting and they'd be like, don't do it because Americans don't know what it is or we don't have time or whatever the thing is. Uhm, I got very mad because I knew that it was important to me


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That it was important to do before the fight.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I think that the more I did it and the more fluid I became and adding elements,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, but I think that my actual experience of


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] From very early on, not wanting to mess it up, knowing that I'm not very smooth in it, like all of these things, it becomes part of the ritual process of starting. It's like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There are fighters who, uhm, do very elaborate, very beautiful Ram Moi. Fa Cheng Rai has a really beautiful one.


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[Assistant] And then there are fighters who don't do one at all, and this can mean that they haven't learned one yet because they're


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[Assistant] It's funny because in the like, lore of the Ramway, there's the like, warming up and like, feeling out the ground thing that I talked about, but there's also this like, intimidating your opponent.


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[Assistant] There is a degree to which that works. If I see that my opponent has a really practiced, beautiful ramboy, I'm like, huh.


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[Assistant] So I was saying, I was saying that there are these tiny moments of


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[Assistant] Domination and like submitting to and giving way to that take place in the ring that you would never suspect.


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[Assistant] Uhm, I was talking about how being the first one to go to your knees to bow to the corner.


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[Assistant] Uhm, and then as you're doing the Ram Moi, there are times that you might be running into each other and it's who's going to give way to the other person kind of thing. Uhm, and something that I only realized I was saying maybe 30 fights ago.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was uhm, you come to the center of the ring and you, you touch gloves as the referee is telling you don't foul, break when I say break, blah, blah, blah, all these things.


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[Assistant] your opponent's gloves. Y


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[Assistant] Or one time Kevin was sitting on the mat and I was standing next to him and I just very...


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[Assistant] I started laughing because that means something in Thailand and means nothing to us. So it was kind of this like...


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[Assistant] Uhm, and if one person goes down to their knees to do their Y crew first,


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[Assistant] Don't be the first one to go down on your knees because then one person's standing and one person is kneeling.


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[Assistant] Dominant as sometimes I do in the ring, as you are circling and your opponent goes to their knees, you can circle in front of them and they are more or less bowing to your feet. Timing wise.


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[Assistant] And probably, probably TV, where now you're seeing fights in Bangkok and you're watching people on TV doing Ram Mois this way and that way and you might even steal from it a bit.


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[Assistant] I'm just saying that there becomes this like, uh, melting as well as people.


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[Assistant] I think it's also not taught the same way it used to be. Yes.


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[Assistant] We were talking before this started, Angie, who was the first presenting trans fighter to fight at Lumpini, she was not super experienced when she went and fought at Lumpini and when she was


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Um, just starting to fight in real stadia. She had been fighting like at the bar where people don't do a ramboy. Um, some festivals, this kind of thing. She had to learn one because she was graduating to a more formal, more real, authentic,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And is a good friend of hers now, but like totally your idol, like I want, I want to do the same thing as my idol.


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[Assistant] Uhm, she just went online and watched a bunch of Nongtoom's fights and like, learned Nongtoom's Ram-Moi and abridged it and then abridged it further from that to adjust to what was appropriate for the fights she was doing. Uhm, but that's not how you learned the Ram-Moi before, ever.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To me, it's kind of interesting because, uhm, Tae-Win, who's a very fancy, very not normal, you want to talk, not my camera, Tae-Win is very strange for a Thai person. He's very dramatic, very performative, has beautiful, like, performance, brawn.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, elements of teaching in Muay Thai. He wanted to change my Ram Moi and he wanted to add things to it to make it really beautiful. And I totally resisted him on it.


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[Assistant] It's interesting that I've added from Nung and from myself because I was like no to what he wanted to add to it.


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[Assistant] Well, Jordan Koh, who was out of Lamna Moon's gym up in Assan, white dude, when he was coming in-


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[Assistant] Yeah, not Ty. He has, sorry, he respectfully, respectfully, uh, the late Jordan Co.


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[Assistant] He was very loved by Lam Na Moon, and uhm,


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[Assistant] Lam Na Moon kind of used this vehicle of a Westerner who was very into Thai tradition and technique and all this stuff and he would come in with the, the Issan Lut.


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[Assistant] It'd be like a, it'd be like a Japanese guy going to, uh,


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[Assistant] And that's the thing with the long clinch is like, if you want it to just be transitional, you can...


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[Assistant] The, the interesting thing about the way that Tanadet uses it, how he makes it like undefeatable. He stays in it and uses it as a lock. It's not a lock, it's a transitional movement. But he turns it into a lock because of where his head goes and how he folds his shoulders in. Is that, it's like uhm,


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[Assistant] Because it's all these pieces, like a combination lock, just locking into place so that it becomes this light.


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[Assistant] Every time I work with him, I'm like, this little piece is not working. Like I, I go and I learn from him and then I go home and I'm training with my training partners who don't know it. So like, it's not that they know all the secrets and they're like able to thwart it. It's that I'm like, there's a, there's a gap here.


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[Assistant] And it's, it's a different, it's a different use. It's the same thing like, uhm,


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[Assistant] Clinch? If you fight anyone who knows something about clinch, you cannot get into that position.


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[Assistant] When you get into it, you use it transitionally as this brief moment to rip someone down and try to get a throw or a knee. You get it for a second. What's amazing about how Diesel Noy uses it is he uses it to rest.


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[Assistant] If you can imagine a really good jujitsu player, they're resting all the time and then they make these moves.


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[Assistant] If you're tense, you're exhausting yourself doing things that are resting periods for like the super elite.


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[Assistant] Fuck! Teach me that! Like, that's incredible!


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[Assistant] Because if you don't know how to use your jaw, you're using all your strength to keep the jaw close. Whereas they're like, clamp.


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[Assistant] But it was about finding supplementation and like going to, we're talking about long flinch, but we're also talking about taking


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[Assistant] It's just like exposure. It's like how if you have a toddler, you have to expose them to


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[Assistant] Another gym that has all different moves. You have no idea what's going on. Like, if you've never been locked before, you're like, what the fuck is this?


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[Assistant] And you take it, and you put it here, and you're like, interesting, now I work with it, now I work with it. There is no...


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[Assistant] Unfortunately, because the breadth and depth of knowledge in the West through no fault of the West is just exposure. You know this much and things outside of it are like this blind spot. Uhm, you kind of like,


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[Assistant] It's not an A defeats B rock, paper, scissors where you're like, oh, you can't punch like this because someone will leg kick you. Like sure, but if someone leg kicks you, then you do this thing. Like there's always the next.


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[Assistant] And A defeats B, but what Jack Slack calls a trade-off.


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[Assistant] So you can be like, uh, yeaah, I'm gonna get hit on the way in to do this thing rather than like, you can't come in cause you'll get hit. Totally.


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[Assistant] It's not a collection of curiosity techniques that you can put on a shelf.


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[Assistant] You don't buy the figurine and put it on a shelf, you fucking rip the packaging off and play with it. Like, this is why you steal from everybody, but don't just get the visual idea, like,


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[Assistant] Hmm. This is maybe not even on the same topic, but-


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[Assistant] In the idea of like going and learning some specialized thing from someone, there's...


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[Assistant] I was training boxing with cha-chai, even though that's not necessarily what I took from cha-chai. And I think that's beautiful. It's not a like...


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[Assistant] Okay, which is a great knee fighter, teach me knees. Like, if that totally makes sense to do that, like, you would not go to, uhm,


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[Assistant] But, there is a degree to which, uhm,


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[Assistant] I have recently been helping people a lot more in the clinch as they come through the gym.


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[Assistant] These are totally principles that you should do. I'm like bringing people from who have done absolutely nothing to something, right? So it's like, these are positions you want to aim for, this is a way to keep balance, you want to try to come inside, like very fundamental principle type of things, right? In the way that you'd be like, uh, strike and don't be hit.


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[Assistant] General rule, right? But I've noticed the things that I'm teaching are not actually what I do.


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[Assistant] And we were like, teach me some clinch. And he was like, I have no idea. I forget everything. Just start moving with me.


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[Assistant] But when you clinch with him, all the body throws come out.


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[Assistant] It's possible that if you're like, just hold pads for me, what you take from him is something that he would not even know he does. Or teaches. Like-


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[Assistant] I went to Tonadette and I'm like, clinch with me. Focus on long clinch, teach me long clinch, but now we just clinch together and I can ask him something.


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[Assistant] And people are like, okay, these are some rules of English.


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[Assistant] And you're like, I don't know, maybe this language example is not a good example. I guess the point I'm making, nothing that I'm teaching people is wrong.


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[Assistant] Abilities fast and like, these are all good things that you should do. But the like, awareness of what you actually do, versus what you're teaching,


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[Assistant] Like, when I first went to Tanadette and was like, teach me the long clinch, she's like, I-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know, like, go like this. Okay, these are some corrections of what you're doing wrong. But I've learned a great deal about the long clinch in the times that it's less structured.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because it's constantly filling the bucket with water to find the holes instead of like,


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[Assistant] Simultaneously romanticizing and like...


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[Assistant] Poverty warning this, uhm, situation of exploitation to, uh,


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[Assistant] Savior, which is also super gross, but is hard to, if you're from that standing position, feel like you're doing anything wrong? Cause how could you possibly be in the wrong position to wanna like save people who are being exploited?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But from that, by positioning yourself that way, by using the same


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[Assistant] Racism and biases and honestly just white western supremacy to blanket


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[Assistant] Uhm, cast this net of everyone is exploited and, and it's my...


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[Assistant] Yeah, and we are in, we're talking about Chiang Mai mainly, which is


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I agree with you, but I don't know what your, uhm, main...


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[Assistant] Uhm, she fought a lot, she was fighting to support her family, her living conditions were not good, like, you wanna talk about poor, she was very poor, uh,


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[Assistant] This is what from the outside, if you don't pay attention, you're just like...


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[Assistant] Bryce Farmer's daughter, against her will, uh, has no other choices, whatever. She's skilled.


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[Assistant] Nang On is skilled. Like, she is a good fighter. She fights a lot. Uhm, she...


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[Assistant] She has within her career of Muay Thai an actual career of Muay Thai. It's not just a like, oh I do this for money and it's on the side and I'm just getting beat on kind of thing. Like, she is


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Dedication to love for the sport, a position in uh,


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[Assistant] Yeah. Yeah. I don't know, it'd be like seeing a, like, good...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. And there's also, uh, often a mismatch of motivation.


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[Assistant] Uhm, in that, I wrote about this a very long time ago, if you, you know, make your trip to Thailand, and you're gonna fight in Thailand, and this fight is so important to you, and for your opponent it's Tuesday, like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And even things that you would think, like this surely has a lot of importance to it.


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[Assistant] There are a lot of very good Thai female fighters who


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, the interest or their motivation is to travel abroad for the opportunity to fight somewhere else, not necessarily to win that fight. They're trying to win.


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[Assistant] It's not nearly the same as the like, I'm gonna get this belt in my hometown, like it's not.


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[Assistant] I have to check it. It's on one bar. Should we switch it for the last one?


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[Assistant] Yeah, if you wanted to like put it in a like semi-abstract nutshell, it's...


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[Assistant] This is happening with or without the Western.


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[Assistant] Uh, Kevin is, is working with this, uhm,


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[Assistant] Branding sounds too commercial, but of this like, identifying Chiang Mai as this, it is the...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Center of female Muay Thai of the world.


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[Assistant] You wanna fight, you go to Chiang Mai. It's happening all the time. It has so many fighters. It has good fighters. Uhm.


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[Assistant] Female Fight Community. Cobb Cassette, who is the, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Head of the northern chapter of Muay Thai, which is a huge publication and sanctioning body for Muay Thai in Thailand. It's important. He runs fights out of top hay, but he...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Does not put, and for years has not been putting women on cards as like the novelty of like, and we have a female fight. He's like, I want-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I want titles for female fighters. I want rankings for female fighters. I want two, if not more, bouts of female fighters every night. Like he, he literally promotes


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You feel that more than I do. A lot of, uh, when Thai women go and fight in China, the Chinese fighters are not super small, but...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean it's, it's one of these things where uhm, the, the injection of


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] More western female fighters, possibly Chinese fighters, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, so, so to have that side of it being pumped in, the existing tie side has to keep up in terms of


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's one of the great reasons for these...Sao Sing is the queen bee and tons of younger Thai female fighters look up to her to see her on these tournaments like what we saw last night where like she is just...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On fire, representing her skill, her aggression, uhm, she's older for a female, she's 23, but she's older for a female fighter.


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[Assistant] For all the girls that were at that fight and all of them who were watching on TV where they're like, I wanna win the tournament.


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[Assistant] She's not a Chiang Mai fighter. We like, we got Cao Sing in Fight City as like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, we talk a lot about scoring, uh, in the context of the actual fight, which people tend to be actually very interested in. So we got a lot of comments on that feed of people saying they really dug it and they want us to do more of this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And if you're not, if you're not a patron, it's easy to become one. We'll put the link in the description. Uhm, but as a patron, you support literally everything we do. Everything we do is through patrons.


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[Assistant] This week's episode is brought to you by Casper. Casper is an online retailer offering premium mattresses for a fraction of the price. The mattress industry has for a long time forced consumers into paying notoriously high markups, with resellers and showrooms all taking their cut along the way.


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[Assistant] Casper is revolutionizing the system by offering an obsessively engineered mattress at a shockingly fair price.


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[Assistant] Made in America, the mattresses combine two technologies, premium latex foam and memory foam that provide just the right sink and just the right bounce and come together for better nights and brighter days.


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[Assistant] And by cutting out all those middlemen, you can get a twin for just $500 or a king size for just $950. And if you've ever gone out mattress shopping, you know those are outstanding prices.


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[Assistant] And on top of all that, this is all risk free. You can try sleeping on a Casper for a hundred days, and if for some crazy reason you don't like it, you can just return it and pay nothing. They say it's a painless process, but I would know because we love our Casper and had no reason to return it.


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[Assistant] And when the time comes for the new baby to move up to her big girl bed, she's going to get a Casper just like her big brother.


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[Assistant] So if you want a better mattress and you want to pay a fair price, go to casper.com slash revolutions and use the promo code revolutions, which will get you $50 off any mattress you want. Terms and conditions apply that again, casper.com slash revolutions, the promo code revolutions.


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[Assistant] In November 1795, news finally reached Saint-Domingue of the incredible turn of events back in Europe that we ended with last week. Spain is out of the war.


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[Assistant] In the all important north province of Sandalmang, this news would change everything.


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[Assistant] Since August 1791, the slave armies of Jean-Francois Bessoux had occupied most of the province and they had been able to maintain that occupation because of Spanish support.


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[Assistant] First the clandestine support that had seen them transition successfully from passionate insurgents to a stable and pretty well organized army, and then the official support that saw the Spanish bring that army under their banner.


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[Assistant] Now, Governor General Laveau had run some successful campaigns against these forces back when he was still Colonel Laveau, and as we saw last week, Toussaint Louboutin was making inroads of his own, but in the main, Jean-Francois and Bessoud had never been seriously threatened, but it was all premised on Spanish support, and that support was now gone.


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[Assistant] So whatever fancy plans Jean-Francois and Bessoud had dreamed up over the years, whatever that fourth option we talked about last week might have been, it would remain an eternal might have been.


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[Assistant] When the Spanish said we're cutting you off, British agents made contact and offered to replace the Spanish's patrons, but there were a number of problems with this.


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[Assistant] Logistically, British supplies could never be counted on the way that Spanish supplies could always be counted on, since they were just coming right over the border.


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[Assistant] But more importantly, the deal offered by the British was not nearly as appealing to Jean-Francois and Basu as the old deal offered by the Spanish. The Spanish had essentially left the slave generals to their own devices with little or no direct oversight. Basu was currently living like a de facto king down in this homemade palace of his.


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[Assistant] The British, on the other hand, plan to insert the slave generals into their regular command structure. They would have to take orders from British officers, do whatever the British said.


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[Assistant] So, Jean-Francois and Bissou declined to hop over to the British.


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[Assistant] Instead, the two slave generals decided it was time to get out while the getting was good. The Spanish offered them asylum as freemen, and they said okay.


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[Assistant] Each general took with him a cadre of senior officers, and they decamped the island. Forever. Jean-Francois and Bessoux are never coming back.


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[Assistant] Basu wound up resettling in Spanish Florida, where he was eventually given command of the black militia there, and there he died in 1801.


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[Assistant] Jean Francois and his loyalists meanwhile went first to Havana, but the Spanish governor flipped out when this slave general and his entourage showed up, and he begged his superiors to deport them all before they started a slave revolt in Cuba.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Spanish authorities granted this request and Jean Francois's group was taken back across the Atlantic to Cadiz. And their exile was not a comfortable one.


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[Assistant] Though the Spanish kept their word and allowed the black officers to live free, they did not grant them any sort of pension or recognize the ranks they had held during their two and a half years of service in the Spanish army.


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[Assistant] Jean-Francois himself would die in Cadiz nearly penniless in 1805.


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[Assistant] So the Grand Admiral and the Governor General and Royal Viceroy are now totally out of the picture.


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[Assistant] With their senior commanders gone, it was finally time for the insurgent army of the North to demobilize. And what to do with them all was a vexing question.


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[Assistant] Now these armies had obviously managed to hold out long enough that when their generals ditched out on them, the regular soldiers were not thrown back into chains. They were walking down into a world where they were officially free citizens. And amnesty and reconciliation did seem to be the order of the day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Tucson, for example, was happy to recruit as many of these guys as he could directly into his own forces. But those who were tired of fighting were welcome to return to work on the plantations as free citizens. Though, they would of course be subject to all the labor laws that were now going into effect.


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[Assistant] All of this proceeded with no final spasm of death or destruction. And it is pretty remarkable that the final chapter of these original slave armies of the Northern Plains is a story told with practically no bloodshed at all.


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[Assistant] Now as we have seen many times on the Revolutions podcast, the removal of a shared enemy often leads to a factional conflict on the winning side.


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[Assistant] So, with the threat of Jean-Francois and Bessoud's army removed, tensions within the French Republican ranks quickly erupted into open armed hostility.


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[Assistant] The tensions in particular were between two men who stood one rung below Governor General Laveau in the command structure. Toussaint Louverture is obviously one of these two, and the other is a guy we haven't talked about yet, and his name is Jean-Louis Villotte.


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[Assistant] Now we don't know a ton about Vallott, but he was a free-colored born in Saint-Domingue in 1751. He appears to have joined a regiment of dragoons as a teenager in 1768, and was then among those who volunteered to join the expedition to the United States in 1778, where he fought at the Siege of Savannah.


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[Assistant] After that we lose track of him, but I feel pretty confident saying that he was not in on Vossan Ogier's uprising, because most of the guys who escaped that little debacle wound up fighting with the slaves after August 1791.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The next time we see the lot pop up is when the second commission arrives and the battles over the law of April the 4th begin.


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[Assistant] When these battles led Sontenacs to create those free-colored militias who were answerable only to the second commission, Vallott wound up a colonel in that militia.


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[Assistant] Vallott was then one of the principal officers, along with Jean-Baptiste Belly, fighting for the second commission during the Battle of Le Cap.


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[Assistant] And then when the British invaded and Laveau moved his headquarters over to Port-au-Pi to contain them, he left the lot in charge of the defense of Le Cap.


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[Assistant] So, until Toussaint came over to the French side in April 1794, Vallotte was the principal Creole officer in the North Province, and he was among the very few on the Republican side not absolutely thrilled when Toussaint defected.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because right away, Laveau started to show preferential treatment for Tucson.


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[Assistant] And of course, he was a little myth that Tucson had been offered a general ship after fighting against the Republic for the last three years.


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[Assistant] In July 1795, the National Convention approved all the field promotions Laveau had doled out to his principal Creole officers. And the convention officially made brigadier generals of, in the north, Toussaint and Vallotte. And then in the south, André Rigaud, and another guy that I have not talked about yet, and that's Louis-Jacques Beauvais.


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[Assistant] Beauvais was another of these prototypical free-collared men who had struggled for dignity in the old apartheid system. Beauvais had been educated in Bordeaux, and then, along with the Lot, taken part in the Savannah Expedition, and then returned to Saint-Domingue to be a schoolteacher.


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[Assistant] When the revolution broke out, he was one of the first to take up arms to defend the law of April 4th, and then he had stuck with the republic after emancipation, and was now Rigaud's chief lieutenant in the south, and Beauvais too is now a full brigadier general.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So of the four newly created Creole generals, it was three coloreds, all born free, and then Tucson, the lone black born a slave.


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[Assistant] And Vallott was super annoyed that Toussaint was now his equal. Not only because he was a black ex-slave, but because Toussaint had spent the last three years fighting against the Republic that Vallott had put his own life on the line time and time again to defend.


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[Assistant] The lot did not trust Yousan even a little bit, but as long as Jean-Francois and Bessous were still out there, that conflict would simmer, but never boil over.


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[Assistant] Now that Jean-Francois and Bissou are departing, it's time for Velat to boil over.


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[Assistant] But his anger and frustration with Laveau is really what got him going. Especially after Laveau moved his headquarters back to Le Cap after having spent the better part of a year in Port-au-Pi.


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[Assistant] Now probably some of the lot's anger comes from being the boss because the boss is out of the office, and now that the boss is back in the office, it being kind of annoying that you're not the boss anymore. But there was more to it than that.


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[Assistant] Like, the first thing Laveau did upon his return was release a whole bunch of black prisoners that the lot had been keeping locked up, which possibly implied a continuation of Laveau's growing preference for the blacks over the coloreds.


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[Assistant] After this initial slap in the face, Laveau then proceeded to really offend Vallott and his allies.


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[Assistant] Over the past year, the collards in Le Cap, under Vallott's protection, had been busy rebuilding the city.


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[Assistant] As I mentioned in passing, Le Cap had been built mostly out of brick and stone. So though everything flammable had burned in June 1793, the core structures all remained.


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[Assistant] And the colored citizens spied a golden opportunity. They laid claim to all the abandoned white property and built it back up.


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[Assistant] But when Laveau arrived back in the city, the governor and his treasury secretary were like, wow guys, this looks great. But just so you know, according to Republican law, property abandoned by emigres automatically reverts to the state. So you can keep occupying the property, but we do expect a small rent. This came as an abrupt and pretty obnoxious shock.


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[Assistant] But the thing that was really grating is that Governor General Laveau just wasn't one of them. And it wasn't that he wasn't collared, but that he wasn't creel.


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[Assistant] He was a Frenchman. France was his home, not Saint-Domingue. So why should he order us around in our own home?


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[Assistant] And this gets to the heart of the newly forming conflict that we're about to see.


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[Assistant] Because back in 1791, it was the whites who wanted self-government, and the coloreds allied with the Metropole.


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[Assistant] Well now that the whites are gone, it's the coloreds who are now chafing under French authority, and the coloreds who will start agitating for self-government.


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[Assistant] Now, Vallott did not make his move right away, though. In fact, much to Toussaint's great annoyance, Vallott was doing a bit of careful planning.


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[Assistant] He sent agents out into the camps under Toussaint's command, asking if Toussaint's men were happy with their situation. They said, life in Le Cap has been great for us, Falat pays us more, and we are treated way better.


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[Assistant] According to letters sent from Tucson to Governor Laveau, we know that at least some of Tucson's men began to transfer their allegiance over to Vallott.


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[Assistant] He gathered a company of armed men, pushed into Laveau's headquarters and arrested the governor general.


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[Assistant] Then he said that because Laveau had lost the support of the people, that Balot was declaring himself Governor General.


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[Assistant] To help solidify his position inside the city, Vallott then spread the rumor that the principal impetus for the coup was news that ships had arrived in the harbor and that they were literally carrying chains. That now that the Spanish were gone, Laveau had new orders from Paris to re-enslave all the blacks.


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[Assistant] Now one thing we do not know is how much of a role colored leaders down in the west or south provinces, and Andre Rigaud, we are looking at you, had to do with any of this.


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[Assistant] But we do know that there was no simultaneous rising on their part or ready declaration of allegiance to Vallott, so it's entirely possible that he was just out there acting on his own. But it was also over so quickly that it's tough to tell if it was supposed to be a part of a broader colored insurrection.


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[Assistant] So men loyal to Governor Laveau managed to get word of the coup spread to nearby army camps, camps that were run by men not allied with the lot, particularly the one led by Pierrot. You remember him? He was the first slave leader to come over to the Republic.


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[Assistant] He'd been fighting alongside Laveau for years now, and raised his men to prepare a defense of the Governor General.


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[Assistant] But Pureau was just one stop on the messenger chain. The final destination was Tucson.


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[Assistant] Toussaint was in Gonaïve on March the 20th, but when he found out that Laveau had been arrested he immediately raised his army and sent word back to Le Cap saying, I have raised my army.


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[Assistant] Meanwhile, Vallott appears to have recognized that whatever careful planning had gone into the coup was not enough.


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[Assistant] Because just as he had spread the rumor that the French wanted to put the blacks back into chains, allies of Laveau spread the rumor, a rumor they might have actually believed, that Velotscu was just the first stage of a plan to hand the city over to the British. It's not like colored leaders haven't done it before.


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[Assistant] So, Vallott was unable to muster unified support for his coup inside Le Cap, and he realized that if Toussaint really did come marching down out of the mountains that there would be no opposing him.


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[Assistant] So on March the 22nd, Vallott let Laveau go, and as Toussaint's army did indeed start approaching, 10,000 strong by some estimates, Vallott and his principal conspirators fled the city.


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[Assistant] Vallott's failed coup was so incredibly beneficial to Toussaint Louverture that it's practically like Vallott was in on some convoluted plan to bring Toussaint to power.


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[Assistant] Because Tucson's army, being the reason the coup failed, meant that Tucson was now the savior of both Governor General Laveau and the Republic.


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[Assistant] If there was any doubt that the one man in San Domingo Laveau could really count on was Toussaint, those doubts were all gone.


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[Assistant] As a reward for his service, Laveau promoted Toussaint to deputy governor. Second in command of all the French military and subordinate only to Laveau.


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[Assistant] Technically this elevated Tucson even above Andre Rigo.


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[Assistant] So in less than a year, Toussaint had gone from the third-ranking general of a Spanish-backed slave army to second in command of the French colony of Saint-Domingue.


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[Assistant] And that Spanish-backed slave army he had abandoned no longer existed. Tucson has very good timing.


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[Assistant] So Toussaint was now in a prime position to do what it's pretty clear he was now aiming to do. Become the master of Saint-Domingue.


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[Assistant] He enjoyed the loyalty and support of men across the board. The whites in the north certainly found him to be a man they could do business with.


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[Assistant] And though Vallott had attempted to paint Toussaint as anti-colored, it's clear from his actions over the past year that Toussaint wasn't anti-colored at all. He just wasn't exclusively pro-colored, any more than he was pro-white or pro-black.


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[Assistant] So, there were a lot of coloreds who also found Tucson to be a man they could do business with.


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[Assistant] And then you've got Laveau writing letters back to Paris now saying, this is the guy that you can count on more than any other. So the government back in France supports him.


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[Assistant] And then of course, with Jean-Francois Mbassou now out of the picture, there was no one who could challenge Toussaint's claim to be the natural leader of the black majority of the population.


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[Assistant] So in April 1796, there wasn't anybody in Saint-Domingue with more authority nor commanding more loyalty than Toussaint Louverture.


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[Assistant] Except, at that very moment, a man was stepping onto a ship back in France who could very much challenge all of that authority and loyalty. Especially within the all-important black community.


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[Assistant] Because Leger Felicite Santanax is coming back to Saint Domingue.


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[Assistant] So as we discussed last week, when it came to colonial matters, the Directory had come to power with two key principles.


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[Assistant] First, liberty and equality would be upheld. No more slavery, no more racism.


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[Assistant] Second was the theory that the colonies were now simply a part of the French nation, one and indivisible.


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[Assistant] The colonies did not require nor did they deserve special laws, special treatment, or special restrictions.


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[Assistant] And to ensure that this new theory of liberty, equality, and unity were upheld, in January 1796, the Directory created a five-man commission to transmit this all to San Domingue and make sure it was obeyed.


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[Assistant] This is the third commission. And yes, I know the Haitian Revolution loves a good commission almost as much as the French Revolution loved a good coup.


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[Assistant] So just to remind you, the first commission was sent by the National Assembly in 1791 to confirm the right of colonial self-rule on internal matters.


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[Assistant] The second commission had then been sent by the Legislative Assembly in 1792 to enforce racial equality, but also defeat the slave uprising without freeing all the slaves.


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[Assistant] The third commission is now being sent by the directory in 1796 to guarantee both racial equality and emancipation, and then also officially fold the colony into the French nation, one and indivisible.


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[Assistant] The most prominent of the new commissioners was, of course, Sontanax. After being fully vindicated for his work on the second commission, he was now being put on the third commission to continue his job.


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[Assistant] Next was the man that Brousseau had so badly wanted to put onto the second commission, Julian Raymond.


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[Assistant] Raymond too had been fully cleared of any lingering political charges in the wake of Termidor and was now returning to Saint-Domingue for the first time in 12 years.


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[Assistant] Raymond had started his career in France lobbying the Royal Ministry to undo its apartheid system. Then he had lobbied the National Assembly for Colored Equality, then the Legislative Assembly, and then the National Convention, and then he had gotten thrown in jail, and now he was lobbying the Directory.


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[Assistant] And through it all, he maintained a laser focus on racial equality. And never really paid more than lip service to the idea of maybe general emancipation of the slaves at some point down the road.


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[Assistant] But with emancipation now settled, Raymond accepted it and was ready to move forward.


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[Assistant] Now the third guy I'll mention is Philippe Romme, who had been one of the first commissioners, and who will be returning to the colony for the first time in four years, no doubt hoping and praying that when he stepped off the boat in Le Cap this time, there wasn't some new revolt to deal with.


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[Assistant] The commission was rounded out by two other guys who do nothing of any importance, so I won't trouble you trying to remember their names.


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[Assistant] The third commission got on a ship in April 1796, and when their convoys sailed, they brought along with them some military reinforcements led by General Rochambeau, who we last saw taking up a post in Martinique.


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[Assistant] And when we last saw Rochambeau, I mentioned that he would return to Saint-Domingue with the Leclerc expedition, which he does, but I totally forgot that he also makes this little interim return to Saint-Domingue with the Third Commission. So Rochambeau brought with him 1200 men.


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[Assistant] It had become clear to everyone that sending more European reinforcements was a waste of resources, and also I suppose lives, and that one of the biggest practical benefits to emancipation was that all those new black citizens would become patriotic soldiers of the republic.


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[Assistant] So the third commission escorted the armaments necessary to create a black army.


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[Assistant] A black army full of soldiers who knew the terrain and who would not just drop dead and who would then go beat the crap out of the British. This is what Danton meant when he shouted, this is the death of the English after the national convention approved general emancipation.


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[Assistant] The third commission arrived in Le Cap on May the 11th, 1796, and discovered that since they had departed, there had indeed been a revolt. But not a mass black uprising. Rather, Vallott's aborted coup.


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[Assistant] So the aftermath of that coup defined the new political environment they stepped into.


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[Assistant] And that new environment is a weird through the looking glass version of the political environment we've seen thus far.


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[Assistant] Because as I just mentioned, ever since the French Revolution had hit, the whites had been the ones agitating for self-government, while the coloreds had been the staunchest supporters of the Metropole and then the Republic.


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[Assistant] Well now that's been flipped. The whites who remained in Saint-Domingue were way off of home rule and welcomed full integration with France. It is now the colors who are agitating for self-government and possibly even independence. So why the switch? Well that's easy.


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[Assistant] The whites are now way less powerful than the coloreds. And where the coloreds had once looked of France as their protector, they now did not need a protector.


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[Assistant] And the Metropole represented merely a check on the power they believed they had fairly won for themselves.


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[Assistant] Now nowhere was this through the looking glass version more apparent than in the attitude of Santanax himself.


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[Assistant] Remember, he had concluded as soon as he arrived in San Domingue back in 1792 that the only people he could really trust were the Colards.


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[Assistant] Well, since emancipation, he had changed his mind completely.


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[Assistant] The slew of colored defections to the British had really ticked him off. And then stepping off the boat to find that General Vallott had just staged a coup against Laveau.


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[Assistant] Santanax now identified the Coloreds, not as the Republic's best friends in Saint-Domingue, but their worst enemy. Well, aside from the British.


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[Assistant] The third commission had been sent to keep Sendomeng free and keep Sendomeng French, and the Cullards now clearly stood in the way of that mission.


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[Assistant] So if not the coloreds, then who does Saunton X now see as his potential best friend in San Domingue? Well, the blacks.


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[Assistant] And there is no doubt that the black community was 100% ready to be Sontanax's best friend.


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[Assistant] They all knew Santanax. They all loved Santanax. He was the emancipator.


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[Assistant] A rival who had freed all the slaves and then fought for the republic that had guaranteed that freedom at a time when Tucson wanted nothing to do with it and was in fact fighting against it.


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[Assistant] So Tucson met with Sontanax and said all the right things, but I have to imagine that from their very first meeting, Tucson was trying to figure out a way to get Sontanax the hell off the island.


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[Assistant] Now luckily for Tucson, with the Cullards identified as problem A1, there was no need to rush into a confrontation just yet. And the third commission did indeed begin with the problem of what to do with the Cullards.


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[Assistant] So right away, they ordered General Vallott, tracked down and arrested, which they appeared to have done in very short order, because Vallott was then put on a boat and deported back to France for trial.


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[Assistant] Now I can't for the life of me figure out exactly what happened to him after that, but obviously something about the constantly changing state of revolutionary politics back in Paris led Vallott to not be convicted of anything.


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[Assistant] Because he's going to return to Saint-Domingue as one of the rehabilitated Colored Exiles, accompanying the Leclerc Expedition sent by Napoleon to take back control of the colony from Toussaint Louverture, but now I'm getting ahead of myself.


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[Assistant] After dealing with the lot, the third commission then turned to the problem of Andre Rigaud in the south.


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[Assistant] Aside from Tucson, Rigo had been the most important ally the French Republic had in the colony.


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[Assistant] And Paul Verrel certainly trusted him enough to hand over a kind of emergency absolute authority in the South to Rigo.


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[Assistant] But now that the third commission had arrived it was time to cancel that emergency authority and restore normalcy. And what the commission meant by normalcy


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[Assistant] Was military officers not having independent authority to just do whatever they wanted? They would have to answer to the commissioners.


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[Assistant] So, Santanax put together a small delegation to go down to Lecai and investigate the situation as a first step towards winding down Rigo's emergency dictatorship and restoring normal government.


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[Assistant] But curiously enough, for this mission, not one of the five commissioners went along.


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[Assistant] Instead, Sontanax picked some locals to go, and specifically some white locals who turned out to be really bad men for the job as they are about to make a giant mess of things.


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[Assistant] Now, I suppose it's credible that Sontanax wanted to stay in La Cap, where he had spent the majority of his life in the colony. And you obviously don't want to send Raymond down there if your intention is to reign in the coloreds.


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[Assistant] And then the other two guys had no ties or connections or special knowledge whatsoever.


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[Assistant] Now I don't want to get too deep into these guys, because they're gonna come and go very quickly. But one of them was a guy named Andre Ray. And in 1791, Ray had been one of the most vocal pro-white anti-colored agitators in the whole colony.


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[Assistant] Rigo actually suspected that when the white-colored civil war broke out in 1792, that Ray had tried to assassinate him.


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[Assistant] Meanwhile, one of the other guys was known to be nothing more than an opportunistic con man.


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[Assistant] So if the third commission thought these guys were gonna do anything but bungle the job and provoke a major crisis, well they thought wrong.


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[Assistant] But accompanying this little delegation was also a senior French military officer named General Desforneaux, who was ordered to bring Rigaud's Legion of the South into the regular army command structure.


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[Assistant] This delegation arrived in the south a few weeks later and started stirring up trouble immediately.


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[Assistant] Before they even entered Le Cay, they first went round on an inspection tour of the plantations of the south, and everywhere they went they intentionally stoked black resentment of the coloreds. They told the black cultivators that they were all being exploited by the coloreds, and that these rules and accompanying punishments were not what France wanted for them.


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[Assistant] That Rigo and the boys are planning on restoring slavery the first chance they get. And I'm sure you've noticed by now that from here on out, everyone is going to be telling the blacks that the other side wants to put you back in chains.


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[Assistant] When this delegation then got into Lakai, they made an inspection of the city's jail, and discovered there 900 prisoners, 898 of whom were either white or black.


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[Assistant] It would appear that in Rigaud's regime, Cullards did not go to jail for anything.


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[Assistant] So with very little tact or diplomacy, the delegation began to assert a new governmental structure.


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[Assistant] And then Desforno told Rigo that the days of running a truly independent command without oversight were done, and you now have higher ups you need to be taking orders from.


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[Assistant] Rigaud and his colored allies were not going to take this lying down, but to prevent them from organizing any real resistance, Nesforneau announced that Rigaud and the Legion of the South were to undertake an immediate offensive into the mountains of the Grand Nantes surrounding British-held Jeremy.


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[Assistant] Now I am totally willing to believe that given the nature and attitude of the delegation, that this offensive was not just meant to distract Rigo, but discredit him and his men. The offensive had very little chance of success.


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[Assistant] If you look back to episode 3.40 on the French Revolution, we are now at the point in the war back in Europe where the British have elected to abandon land action on the continent and focus entirely on the naval war.


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[Assistant] Well part of that new focus was booting the French out of the Caribbean for good.


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[Assistant] So when Rigo attacked, he was attacking fortifications as well manned and well armed as they had ever been. When the assault failed,


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[Assistant] That's for no, put the blame squarely on Rigo's incompetence and the lack of patriotic resolve in the Legion of the South.


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[Assistant] Desforno then ordered the arrest of a few of the principal colored leaders in Lekai to complete the hostile takeover by these agents of the third commission. And this was all finally too much for the coloreds.


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[Assistant] With Rigaud still on his way back from the failed campaign, Collard's in-and-around lecai, led by Rigaud's brother by the by, rose up in armed rebellion.


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[Assistant] And to build up their ranks they marched around the plantation surrounding Lakai and told all the black cultivators, you guessed it, the delegates have lied, France means to reimpose slavery, and these delegates are here to put you back in chains.


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[Assistant] Soon they had raised an army nearly 4,000 strong and marched into Lakai.


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[Assistant] On August the 11th, 1796, they entered the city and let loose their fury on any white they saw, unleashing a full blown massacre.


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[Assistant] Andre Ray and General Desforneaux managed to get on a boat and they sailed over to Santo Domingo, but the other delegates were not so lucky.


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[Assistant] Though they were able to seek refuge with General Beauvais, who put them under his quote-unquote protection.


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[Assistant] Then Rigo came marching back into Lakai with three or four thousand men of his own.


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[Assistant] He met with the delegates and they begged him to stop the killing and restore order by any means necessary. Rigaud promptly stopped the killing.


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[Assistant] And when it was done, about 300 whites lay dead in the street.


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[Assistant] When these guys made it back to Le Cap, Sontanax in particular was furious and denounced Rigaud's actions, but there was very little he could do beyond stomp his feet.


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[Assistant] The principal enemy in Saint-Domingue really was the British. And without Rigo, there would be no expelling the British. And it certainly would be insane to try to break Rigo by force at this point. That would be a disaster for everyone. So, for the moment,


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[Assistant] Rigo holds his little de facto dictatorship.


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[Assistant] While these events unfolded in the south, the third commission busied itself restoring normalcy in the north.


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[Assistant] The third commission, broadly speaking, adopted Tucson's vision for the future of San Domingue.


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[Assistant] The three races must all have a place, but the plantation economy must also be maintained, and the blacks must be the principal laborers.


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[Assistant] That truly abandoned plantations that had reverted to the state should be leased out to private individuals.


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[Assistant] It seemed to provide the best incentive to get them back up and running, and provide the government with a revenue stream. But unlike in the South, where connections to Rigo were key, in the North, public auctions would be held.


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[Assistant] Now obviously, this still means that men with money are going to dominate the auctions. But Sontenac's had hopes that in the end, Saint-Domingue might become a mixed blend of Toussaint's vision for the future and then that fifth option we talked about last time. Blacks living and working for themselves.


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[Assistant] Santanax hoped that black cultivators and foremen might be able to pool their resources and put in collective leases on property.


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[Assistant] But when the bidding started, none of those collectives had the resources to compete with the real men of means. And who were the real men of means now in the north?


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[Assistant] As I'm sure you've noticed by now, the difference between being a slave and being a cultivator isn't that huge. And the money you made was never going to be enough to really allow you any kind of upward mobility.


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[Assistant] If you were a cultivator, there was a 99% chance you were going to remain a cultivator until the day you died, and then your kids were going to become cultivators after you.


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[Assistant] The only institution in San Domingue that offered a black man any chance of bettering his law in life was the army.


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[Assistant] If you showed some talent, you could rise to be an officer. Bigger share of the plunder. Better opportunities for economic and social advancement.


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[Assistant] And it's right here in mid 1796 that we really see the fruits of this begin to be harvested.


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[Assistant] Toussaint himself acquired the first of many plantations he would come to own in his life, then his chief lieutenant, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, who I swear I'll introduce more fully when the time is really right, started buying and leasing property all over the colony.


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[Assistant] Their fellow officers then joined them in property acquisition, and by the end of the year you had your first batch of ex-slaves vaulting into the ranks of the planter class.


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[Assistant] Julian Raymond, ever the pragmatist, couldn't resist a deal when he saw it and acquired extensive new holdings at this same time. And if you remember from way back when, the Raymond family fortune had been built by acquiring abandoned plantations. So this was all right in his wheelhouse.


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[Assistant] Adding to the slow entrenchment of a new elite in Saint-Domingue were the rules of who would have a political voice in the new system.


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[Assistant] The third commission had orders to hold elections to select San Domingue's delegates to the Council of 500, and there were now property requirements to be a voter.


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[Assistant] Remember, when the directory came to power, they brought with them the old, active, passive citizen distinction.


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[Assistant] In 1796, maybe 5% of the population of Saint-Domingue could actually meet those requirements. So acquiring property was not just about economic advantage, it was about political advantage.


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[Assistant] When the elections got going in the fall of 1796 to elect delegates back to the Council of 500, Toussaint Louverture canvassed hard for his two favorite candidates, Governor General Laveau and Commissioner Sontenacs.


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[Assistant] You know, the two guys who stood in the way of his own upward trajectory.


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[Assistant] Now Laveau, for his part, was perfectly amenable to being elected.


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[Assistant] He was coming up on his fourth anniversary in command of San Domingue, and not one single day of it had been easy.


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[Assistant] He had fought in street riots against angry whites and pitched mountain battles against black insurgents and he had fought the British and the Spanish. He had been the target of a coup.


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[Assistant] Laveau was probably pretty tired, and I would not blame him.


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[Assistant] But Toussaint also pitched his candidacy in terms of making sure that there was a voice back in Paris who could defend Toussaint's tri-color future for Saint-Domingue, a vision of the future shared by Laveau.


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[Assistant] So Laveau said, alright, let's do it. And he was elected.


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[Assistant] Also elected on this slate were Louis Dufay and Jean-Baptiste Belly, who were already, of course, still in Paris, ready to just roll into their new offices. And then, yes, Santanax was elected.


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[Assistant] He had just gotten back to Saint-Domingue and believed that he was essentially coming back to complete his life's work. Going back to Paris was the last thing he wanted to do.


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[Assistant] But Toussaint was able to convince enough voters that Toussaint was the best man to have back in Paris, speaking French to the French government on their behalf. Leave Creole business to the Creoles back here in Saint-Domingue.


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[Assistant] So, against his will, Sontanax was elected a delegate to the Council of 500.


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[Assistant] He said, I am going to stay and complete my term as commissioner.


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[Assistant] So in October 1796, Governor General Laveau boarded a ship to go back to France, and took with him Toussaint's two sons, who were to be educated in France, but Sontenecs did not join them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But though the rivalry between Tucson and Santanax was now growing, on the surface they remained allies.


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[Assistant] And so when Laveau left, Sontenac named Toussaint commander in chief of all the French forces in Saint-Domingue. And I mean, who else could he choose?


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[Assistant] Any other candidate likely would have provoked a whole new rebellion.


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[Assistant] Toussaint is now commander-in-chief of all the military forces in Saint-Domingue, but he still has to contend with Sontenacs.


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[Assistant] Andre Rigaud is still running the South as a personal dictatorship, and the reinforced British continue to occupy territory across the West and South provinces.


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[Assistant] And I sure hope nothing happens back in France to upset this new balance of power.


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[Assistant] ...of the Muay Thai Bones podcast. That is available for patrons. Link to that is in the description below. If you become a patron, you have tons of content to look at that's just for patrons, and you can subscribe to the Muay Thai Bones podcast through iTunes. Check it out.


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[Assistant] Can you take a second to explain to people who might not be familiar with this that there's a difference between saying it's Buddhist and it's Buddhistic? What's the difference between those two?


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[Assistant] The Muay Thai judging aesthetic in Thailand is about impassively responding to conflict.


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[Assistant] It's about putting yourself under the duress of attack and not showing or responding with anger.


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[Assistant] Emotional aggression is actually penalized in Thailand, all other things being equal.


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[Assistant] It is considered ugly fighting and one reason why western fighters often look foolish or lose fights in Thailand that they think they should have won. When you attempt to fight in a Thai style,


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[Assistant] Other martial arts and fighting styles have elements such as these, but Thai scoring aesthetic embodies this emotional component perhaps more than any other sport fighting art.


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[Assistant] I'm an English-speaking Westerner, so the times I've seen this online is from other contexts of Western English-speaking people, so I don't know that there are people within Buddhist cultures


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[Assistant] Meditating and beating the shit out of someone also. Cause that's not where the art meets the culture. That's not what it is.


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[Assistant] Um, he knew has said that his son bank, but who sta


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[Assistant] Inspiring, and what he means is he got really upset and was trying to hurt someone. And he's like, this is training, you don't try to hurt someone here.