he never said a word about women and cocaine

The only way to begin is to begin... so here we go

I've been boxing (on and off) for a year and 3 months, fighting muay thai (on and off) for about 3 months, tying Japanese-style rope bondage (on and off) for 10 years, and partner dancing (VERY on and off) for 13 years, but only whenever I can get the chance, which has probably added up to about one-fifth or less of the hours I've spent boxing.

Today at muay thai we worked on clinching, a first for me (not hard 2 do when you are so nü), which professional fighter and amateur muay thai historian Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu writes about in her alarming article "Women, Clinch and Sexuality in Thailand – Perils of 'Bplum' and the Eros of the Neck." But that's beside the point... what the point is, is that (from my itty bitty baby learning mind) gaining control in clinch sparring is about keeping your body relaxed.

I was thinking erroneously of the tension of clinch as comparable to partner dancing. You have the "frame," which is the clasped hands on follow's right and the shoulder/ribcage hands on follow's left, and the arms spread and lifted to make a circle between the dancers. This circle shouldn't move when the dancers move; they hold it between them. The frame can be softer or firmer, but as a follow I really like when a lead has a strong frame that indicates where I should step or turn next, especially on my ribcage—it feels like they're literally steering my ribcage to put me where I should go. Or, in rope (as we will abbreviate it*), the tension of the working ends is what "ties" the communication of the top to the understanding of the bottom. Let the ends go slack, and it feels like abandonment. Which may be the feeling you want to generate, but you shouldn't be doing it carelessly or without awareness. In both: tension maintains control and communication, and looseness leaves your partner wondering what's happening.

So in muay thai... unlike in regular sparring stance (staggered feet), clinching starts face to face, feet squared, hips tucked in, hands cupping the backs of each other's skulls. We were doing the basic step-1 balance drill, where you push and swim off your partner's arms to regain control of their head with your other arm. I was maintaining a strong tension in both arms—pushing hard against my partner's bicep and pulling against his head—thinking of a partner-dancing frame, of course. But the coach was like, keep your body loose so they can't use your tension to control you. And did a quick demonstration, being easily thrown and submitted when stiff by the student who was going against him, vs. fluidly slipping out and regaining control when any part of his body could move freely to react to a grapple. You only get strong when you have to get strong: relaxed muscles until the moment of the strike. Boxing is the same—you stay loose because a tension or "loadup" makes your motions easier to read and shows your opponent where your next strike is coming from. You keep to the end of your range like someone putting a rubber band around two fingers, and opening them just far enough to hold it up without stretching it—when you're far enough away that the rubber band stretches, you come back into your distance and don't let the other fighter escape enough to stretch the rubber band again.

And, like, of course! Partner dancing and rope are collaborative, building one thing together. You want your partner to read you and understand your intentions, so you maintain a wordless communication. Boxing and muay thai are competitive, building your own "thing" of offense and using it to tear down your opponent's "thing" of defense (of course they're collaborative too on a meta level, but in the sheer moment of encounter, no). In the latter, you literally want your partner to wonder what's happening and not be able to understand you, because that gives you the advantage.

Crazy huh? Tension sends a legible message. Looseness defies the reader's interpretation.

*I don't even like saying I tie "Japanese-style rope bondage" because it seems so value-loaded with a weird Western orientalism and I'm really a dilettante and don't follow any particular school, but strictly speaking it's the most accurate taxonomy. I also hate saying "rope" but that's inside baseball that IDK if this blog is ready for yet.

Yet another funny comparison I thought of: the corny/cringe moment of Americans getting really obsessed with "authentic" Japanese rope bondage or "authentic" Thai muay thai, making a big deal about following the school of this or that instructor, and if and when they actually travel to those countries to study, promptly getting culture shock about gender norms, expected teacher-student dynamics, the way that Japanese/Thai master practitioners think of their practice themselves vs. orientalized perceptions of them from the outside...

(Okay, now we grapple with all the little settings at the bottom... The throwback mood marker?! O-B-S-E-S-S-E-D. We need to get everyone on Dreamwidth so they can live the "reading" "listening to" Myspace life again. Oh, the indulgence.)

TTFN!