Dealing with Fragile (Male) Ego: A Response to Sylvie’s Post, “KO’d My Clinch Partner in Training – And it Was a Good Thing”

I still give new training partners the benefit of the doubt. I never initiate doing anything with power. If they go hard, I first ask that they go lighter. If they still don’t go lighter, then I’ll pick up my power a bit and see what happens. Sometimes people don’t know their own strength until you show them what it feels like. It’s obvious it’s an ego issue with their fragile masculinity when they have to “outdo” me, someone whose max power output is already significantly less than theirs. If they lighten up, it means it wasn’t intentional and just needed someone to tell them. Do other females try to outdo me as well? Absolutely, but it’s not because they feel threatened that I’m a female and that they can’t “lose” to me because of that (thank you, social norms /s).

The worst that has happened so far is that after I trip a dude, they’ll immediate come charging at me full power, “accidentally” kneeing me in the crotch/chest/hip bone (which fucking hurts, if you didn’t know already), scratching, poking in the eye, and having my sore spots exploited repeatedly (such as my weaker knee). There were a few attempts to knee me in the face but that has yet to succeed (fingers crossed that it never does).

It’s so frustrating and unnecessary to have to put up with this behavior. It’s one thing if I have a fight coming up and they HAVE to outpower me (in a controlled manner) to get me stronger. It’s a whole other thing to want to HURT someone.

The trainers at the gym will carefully watch when this happens, and if they feel like I could handle myself, they’ll just let things go and look the other way when I’m the one doing the damage, similar to Sylvie’s trainers. If they see that I’m in a situation where I could get seriously hurt, they’ll warn them to go lighter, often telling them “20-30%!” (and will insert “she’s a lady!” *eyeroll* another post for another day) and if they don’t, the trainers will immediately put them with a highly experienced fighter, Thai or farang, or someone who has an ego like them, to let them go as hard and uncontrolled as they want, but really also to teach them a lesson.

Although Muay Thai does teach many people to either control their ego or let go of it in the gym, it’s unfortunate that people still let their fragile masculinity get the best of them instead of acknowledging that they can learn something from everyone.