Description: Episode 8: Musings of a Muay Thai Master OR The Emperor and I. When Adon seeks temporary shelter from the rain, he meets a calm in the middle of the storm. However, the wayward Emperor of Muay Thai finds everything in nothing when Nataya's response to his disturbing her contemplative meditation is tireless and relentless adherence to the middle path. Can Adon's irascible temperment try Nataya's patience? Maybe it just depends on what's being used.
Adon needed time to reflect. To brood. To build.
To hate.
The Emperor of Muay Thai marched through the outskirts, not quite fleeing. He was alone now. His entire entorage was gone. Joe abandoned him. Alfred abandoned him. He was utterly and completely alone now, with nothing but the circlets to his body and the boxers to his loins. The rain began to drift lightly as the lone king walked through the woods. He was on the edge, muttering to himself. He had many things to talk about. His failures. His successes. How Sagat shamed him, and how Shadaloo shamed him. He was the Emperor of Muay Thai. And for all that, everyone betrayed him.
"Why should I, the EMPEROR of MUAY THAI, put up with these TRAITORS!"
Adon strikes out blindly with a free arm, smashing his arm into a tree. There is a sharp crack as the trunk implodes slightly, splintering. Adon draws back his hand, and unleashes another punch. And then another. Upon the fourth strike, the rain was picking up more and more now. And through the gathering storm, he squinted, spotting something behind the tree he was mangling.
Shelter.
Adon snarled at this 'castle' for the king. Spitting at the ground, he felt like a vagrant. A homeless bum with nothing but a few tricks to keep his head above the water. He was lower than Sagat. He lower than Ryu. He was a KING without a KINGDOM.
But it was still raining.
The Emperor of Muay Thai marched towards the shrine, hurrying to take advantage of the shelter.
What shelter there is to be had. In all fairness, the shrine's repair has been a one-person job, which means that no matter how good the attempt, there'd always be something that fell through the cracks. Between making ends meet and spending what little off time she had available, Nataya had managed to keep the building more or less flood free, but it was more than a little drafty and it was far from absolutely water-tight.
The woman sits on the front stoop, however, seemingly heedless of the rain. The rain becomes a downpour, as if reacting to Adon's foul mood, and the skies darken with his violent thoughts. The trees cracking under the lightning of his anger produces thunder that reaches her ears all the way at the top of the shrine.
Nevertheless, she doesn't move. Instead, she lets the pouring water overhead whirl around her as she calmly eats from a cup of microwaved noodles that had been purchased from a convenience store not too far away. Hardly a feast, but she's not that big. Food's not exactly all that important.
Sheets of rain come down, splashing down on her. She doesn't bat an eye. The look on her face isn't that of a serene person at all, but that of someone that simply is, and understands the meaning of that. To her, rain is rain, and nothing more. And try as it might to instill upon her the weight of the moment, there seems to be a nothing there to bear down upon. It's as if the rain passes through her. She's soaked, but at the same time not exactly wet, like wax paper under a faucet.
Nataya never will be a king of a kingdom, but a she's a person with a place. That may not be enough for some, particularly emperors, but in the great scheme of things it's never really mattered to her one way or another.
Steam rises from the cup. A spoon stirs in the salty broth, and despite the weather and the scent of the soup and the pounding of the thunder and fists upon wood, the garish flash of lightning and the emotional maelstorm of a man angry at being slighted, betrayed and deprived of what he beleives is rightfully his, sits a lone, quiet woman in solitude that lifts her head up at the approaching Emperor of Muay Thai.
Her words are quiet, but not meek, as she sees him coming despite the rain, and seem to transcend the setting itself.
"Pardon the funny smell. I keep bug bombing this place constantly, and for the life of me I can never seem to get all the cockroaches out of here."
When someone keeps a place, that person must offer to the Emperor. Everything is tribute to Adon. And as the Emperor notices the inhabitant of the shack, his composure changes to prepare for the gifts. Twisting his nose up, he suddenly flashed a smile. Looking down upon the girl, he marched closer and closer. She was alone. And had food. It looked like Adon was very fortunate tonight. Immediately reacting to her quiet words, Adon shows his unique talents in volume control with a quick bark. "The EMPEROR of MUAY THAI will TOLERATE your VERMIN, if ONLY because he has NO WHERE ELSE to stay." He announces. And then, he stops cold.
"But OF COURSE! I have not introduced myself!"
Swinging his arms wide open, he presents himself in all of his glory. Grinning, his hair stuck high in a battle against the rain, he calls out to the world about who he is. "I am ADON! The EMPEROR of MUAY THAI! I have JOURNEYED HERE to SOUTHTOWN with NOTHING but GOODWILL to the POOR PEOPLE of SOUTHTOWN! And in that, I have SOUGHT SHELTER! YOU! GIRL! Have OFFERED FOOD and SHELTER to the EMPEROR of MUAY THAI! And for this, you shall be rewarded WHEN the TIME COMES!"
And to that, he forces himself by Nataya, shoving her carelessly as he stepped on the stoop. "Now WHERE is my ROOM!?" He snarls, still smiling that hollow, self-assuring smile.
Well, someone turned this one's volume knob up past eleven. Nataya blinks a moment and finishes slurping up the noodles in her mouth. There's a lot of stuff going on in that short weird half scream, half bellowing tone that Adon seems to be eager to inflict on the rest of the world.
She makes no real motion to introduce herself. For what reason is likely her own, but she stands, performs the proper wai, pressing her hands together and bowing her head slightly as befitting a person of Thai descent when dealing with another.
If she seems concerned about being shoved around, it doesn't appear on her face at all. "Well, there aren't really any rooms. It's just a big empty space with support beams. I haven't had much time to put on the drywall,"she explains as she steps onto the porch proper, the water rolling off of her like off a duck's back so that she's every bit as pristine as before she got caught in the rain.
"There's some rice straw mats over in the corner. You might want to shake them out first because they seem to attract spiders," she continues, sticking a pinky in her ear to stop the ringing from Adon's screaming.
"Otherwise, make yourself at home." Not really a committed statement, but then again the place isn't really hers either. Any claim or stake in the place is through her own elboe grease, and most of that's pretty much just pure charity work for the sake of nothing at all. The fact that she sleeps in the place is pretty much altogether incidental.
"Adon," Her memory dregs up some stuff from days passed when her dad and brother would watch the matches on TV. "I thought Sagat was the God of Muay Thai," she says offhandedly in the proper language as she assumes the man is from the same country.
The shack shudders when the fist pounds against it. The Emperor was partially in the door when Nataya made that shot about the God of Muay Thai. And to that, with a hair trigger, the Emperor smashed a fist against the wall of the building. Adon had mixed feelings about his fellow countrymen. On one hand, he was better than them. On the other hand, they were better than everyone else. There was gold standard that he always held though.
"I'M the EMPEROR of MUAY THAI. SAGAT is... an OUTCAST! A MONSTER! And a FOOL!" Adon snarls, his entire face warped and beet-red from the rage pouring from his lips. "I AM the GOD of MUAY THAI! I DEFEATED him FAIRLY and THROUGH the RULES and LAWS of MUAY THAI! YOU should KNOW THAT BETTER than ANYTHING ELSE!" Adon narrows his eyes. "Unless you WANT him to BE the EMPEROR of MUAY THAI!"
And to that, he laughs. "KYEE HAA HAA HAAAAAA!" Was the high-pitched cackle as he threw his head back. "RIDICULOUS, of COURSE!" Adon quickly marches to the mats, and just kicks them a few time. When content, he lies promptly down on them, reclining on his side in a Budda-esque stance. "So. GIRL. You have opened up the EMPEROR of MUAY THAI to your DOMICILE. A FELLOW COUNTRYWOMAN. You SERVE our COUNTRY WELL! What BRINGS you to this SHAMEFUL HOVEL in this SHAMEFUL COUNTRY, then?" Adon inspects the girl a bit, eyeing up and down her body. She might be good as a personal servant.
After all, there was always room in his harem.
Nataya is not 'pretty'.
She's sort of short and plain looking. Overall, if you're looking for a beauty, look elsewhere. Compared to most women in the professional fighting circuit, she's practically boring.
She's bruised, battered, and pretty much filthy as a result of primarily living outside. Not by choice, but not because nothing else is available, either. She just stops wherever it's time to stop.
But most importantly, she doesn't seem to particularly care about Adon's raging temper. It's not a haughty or smug nonchalance that a lot of people would probably put forth. Adon's screaming and exhortations just don't resonate in her. It's not that she doesn't acknowledge Adon. It's actually almost like she's the one not there, just part of the background.
"I don't want anything," she replies matter of factly. "My mistake."
As for what brings her anywhere, the question hangs for quite a while. She sits back down, putting her attention back into her cup of noodles. "I haven't let anyone do anything," she eventually says, "this place isn't mine. It's not really my place to say who comes and who goes. The only things here are whatever you bring with you."
"HMPH!" Adon says indignantly. Her appearences were of limited concerns of the Emperor's plans and desires. After all, if you weren't hideous, you could wait on him just as well as the next girl. And if he had something more carnal in mind, well. It was safe to say that all cats were grey in the dark. Still leering, he holds steady, guiding his eyes over. Finally, he rolls over on his back, closing his eyes.
"I am HUNGRY. Get me food."
And to that, Adon waits, expecting the girl to obey. After all, Adon didn't see a fiery spirit. He just saw another follower. And to that, he impatiently waits.
"Happy indeed we live who are free from hatred among those who still hate. In the midst of hate-filled men, we live free from hatred."
"Happy indeed we live who are free from disease among those still diseased. In the midst of diseased men, we live free from disease."
"Happy indeed we live who are free from worry among those who are still worried. In the midst of worried men, we live free from worry."
Happy indeed we live who have nothing of our own. We shall feed on joy, just like the radiant devas.
"A victor only breeds hatred, while a defeated man lives in misery, but a man at peace within lives happily, abandoning up ideas of victory and defeat."
"There is no fire like desire. There is no weakness like anger. There is no suffering like the khandhas. There is no happiness greater than peace."
"Hunger is the supreme disease. Mental activity is the supreme suffering. When one has grasped this as it really is, nirvana is the supreme happiness."
"That's the meaning of the Ram Muay you perform before every match." She states, the words flowing from her, partly from rote memory, but mostly through wholehearted belief. "Muay Thai is more than just power of the body. Forgetting that it entitles you to nothing other than what you bring is to forget your roots."
She pauses, finishing her food. "If you want food, there's some in the back in a cooler. It'll feed you, but it doesn't sound like anything will satisfy you."
This was not the first time Adon has heard such wisdom.
From his teenage years to the young adulthood, he came across people like Nataya. Wise men and women, preaching a life away from the hard competition of Muay Thai to a more level one. A life of repose, a life of comfort. To be broken away from the endless toils of victory and defeat. That the art of Muay Thai in itself... be the ultimate goal. Back then, Adon treated them differently.
He pounded them.
Into the ground.
A fresh peal of laughter erupts from the Emperor of Muay Thai. He just continues to laugh, and laugh and laugh. There was something that amused Adon greatly about this girl. It wasn't her percieved patronizing. No, it was her deep insight into the inner-workings of Muay Thai. Beyond the body was her focus. More importantly, she cared about the Ram Muay. Adon rolled back over, and raised up to a stand. He crossed his arms, the same condenscending smirk on his face. But his mood was now more mellow. The raging intensity was gone. And for that, he began to coo.
"Sagat refused to commit to the Ram Muay in our last match." Adon began, his screeching replaced by a mocking, self-assured tone. "He broke away from the Waiku, an insult not just to me, but to all of Muay Thai. Muay Thai is so much more than being a brute. You are wiser in the heart of Muay Thai than that oaf of a man." The Emperor of Muay Thai mulled about this, before walking towards the back. The screeching returned. "TELL ME! Who is the ONE who TAUGHT YOU our country's SACRED ART!"
The woman doesn't answer right away. Instead, she stands, circling around a short area three times, kneeling and bowing the same amount of times.
Her eyes close, and she responds not with words, but with actions.
There's no music, but she doesn't need it. The tremulous ring of the reed instruments that usually accompany a Wai Khru are only window dressing and would serve to distract from the study.
It's a way to honor a teacher, demonstrating skill and control of the art. To foreign eyes it may seem rather strange, but to a practitioner it gives more than a few hints.
Nevertheless, even to a practiced Muay Thai artist, Nataya's steps and motions, coupled with the motion of her hands, would be considered almost alien. There's a lot a familiarity, but like German is to English, there's only enough there to catch the basic meaning, if that. One thing's for certain: her style, though perhaps not as polished and practiced as a true Muay Thai devotee, is incredibly old.
Her movements are simple, short, bespeaking a capacity for brutality that Muay Thai seldom reaches, but the subtle motions indicates that it runs deeper than sheer destruction. The finesse within that controls the overlying destruction indicates her style, whatever it may be, is directly influenced by a more spiritual teaching.
It's an uncompromising, unforgiving dance, requiring brief, swift motions that would normally be considered far too abrupt. There's force behind her actions, but purpose behind the force. It's neither too long, nor too short, embodying power, swiftness, posture, and intuitiveness.
Then she ends it. A soft placement of feet, and her arms pinwheel back to her sides as she settles back down, the strangely brutal but graceful display ending, answering that whomever taught her knew exactly what he was doing, understood tenets of Muay Thai that have been long gone for quite some time, and perhaps a little more.
While she's no means a master, there's more than enough to tell that she /shouldn't/ know what she knows. But she has nothing to say with words. If Adon can't tell by now, she's either unwilling, or sworn to secrecy. Or perhaps both.
Adon stops cold when she rises up. Turning his head, he wondered if she was actually treating her guest- no, her emperor- with some degree of hospitality deserving of the man. In a way, she was. Adon himself was a lover of the inner workings of Muay Thai. The dancing, the rituals, they were all part of Adon's world. A world that Adon ruled over. What Nataya was doing, however, was something more mystical than anything he could expect from Southtown.
The Emperor of Muay Thai knew about Muay Boran. Nataya wasn't using it pure, but any tinge of Muay Boran was meaningful. To Adon, it was the arrogant grandfather of Muay Thai. Older, more seclusive, more violent version of Muay Thai. But it was the most important ancestor for Adon's own art. Muay Thai's brutality was watered down by the sporting aspects, something that Adon knew to heart. Muay Boran was, in the way, the killing art of Muay Thai. It was a weapon. It was meant to kill. And killing was something... that Adon could never quite do.
But that was not what was capturing Adon. That wasn't what was entrancing him, leading him to watch Nataya with the judgmental gaze that he brought upon all children of Muay Thai. It was the fact that Muay Boran was almost extinct. A dinosaur, replaced by the more accessible and competitive Muay Thai. Those who claim to teach it were mostly liars. And those liars were often struck down by Adon himself. As the Emperor of Muay Thai, he had to keep the purity of the arts. And those who tried to demean the ancestor of Muay Thai with their mongrel techniques would be struck down. There was something about Nataya's form that ranked of corruption. And yet, it was something separate from Muay Thai. And in that, Adon lets it slide.
When Nataya stops, Adon's grin remains unchanged. But then, he slowly tilted his head back, and uncrossed his arms. And to that, he gave Nataya a resounding applause.
"As the EMPEROR of MUAY THAI, I must judge all of my children in their Waiku: Their honorable dance to all that brings about Muay Thai. You have transcended that. I know what you are now." The Emperor Of Muay Thai stopped his clapping, and inspects his arms. His circlets were almost a fixture of the emperor. It was part of his image campaign with the Southtown expedition. This girl was special. She deserved a gift. A reminder of who she was now a vassal of, whether she wanted to be or not.
Silently, he removes one of the circlets. "You are marked now. Your form is inferior, and you must train. As the Emperor of Muay Thai, I must personally ensure you carry the art to future generations." The Emperor tosses the circlet at the girl's side, and briskly cracks his neck. "Muay Boran is rare to come across. When it is found, it is usually nothing but a lie, a deception playing off a more intense Muay Thai. You lack the graces of Muay Thai, yet hold the words of it's ancestor." Adon began to step towards the door, something burning in the back of his mind. Not the sense of vengeance, nor the sense of pride. It was the sense of duty. He was the Emperor of Muay Thai. He must handle the affairs of Muay Thai. And now, the affairs of Muay Thai became all too relevant.
Looking out at the rain, he takes a long breath in. He doesn't look over his shoulder when he speaks again. "I will return here, strange girl. I will not tell you when. I will fight you. We will test your abilities. If you are truly part of Muay Thai's ancient history, then your value to Muay Thai is worth more than that jewelry. If not. Well. This is a good home to be forgotten in, isn't it."
And to that, Adon lets loose another high-pitched squeal of cackling.
The woman is quiet. It's clear that she speaks only when there's something important to say when the matter is important. Like the rain outise, she lets Adon's words of judgment roll off of her, catching only the meaning behind the words rather than the wrds themselves.
Nataya's eyes narrow out of concentration.
"He who endures undisturbed criticism, ill-treatment and bonds, strong in patience, and that strength his power - that is what I call a brahmin."
"Without anger, devout, upright, free from craving, disciplined and in his last body - that is what I call a brahmin."
Even though she speaks them, it's almost like they're not coming from her mouth. Instead they seem to come from within her, placed directly into Adon's head not as a terrible intrusion, but as something that rings like a universal truth, at least to anyone that beleives in the faith.
""He from whom desire and aversion, conceit and hypocrisy have fallen away, like a mustard seed on the point of a pin - that is what I call a brahmin."
"He who utters only gentle, instructive and truthful speech, criticizing no-one - that is what I call a brahmin."
But if she desires to use these words as a lash or condescension, it's not there. They come as simple truths, and no more and no less. Like this shrine, the only thing taken from Nataya is whatever you bring to her. She makes no motion to stop Adon, nor does she make any motion to pick up the ringlet. She's motionless, contemplative, collecting truth while sifting away the chaff.
Then finally, Nataya speaks words that are truly her own, and not rote platitudes drilled into her by men far wiser than she could ever be. "I've never sought to be remembered. Should I have?" Not a challenge. More like an acceptance in it's tone.
And if Adon decides to look back, she'll be gone, the only think to mark her existance being the emptied cup of noodles and the other things that she left behind.
Because that's what she brought with her.
Adon doesn't look back. He only listens. Brahmin, brahmin. Buddhist, yes. Her roots were being revealed to the emperor. And yet, he had to let her go. She wasn't part of Muay Thai, or she might be. She wasn't to be destroyed, but to be fostered. She was sacred to Muay Thai.
And when she stops, he finally speaks. "Yes. You may not seek to be remembered. But I, the Emperor Of Muay Thai, must remember you." And to that, he steps outside. The words, and yes, the technique swirls in his mind. Beauty in the purest art. He would enjoy fighting her some day. To dance with the ancestors was a great honor. To recall an art more than just an art. One that is purely martial.
Adon knew he would return. As he marched out into the rain, his haughty arrogance fell through to what little maturity he had. Muay Thai must be made strong. And nothing would make it stronger than the presence of a true Muay Boran teacher.
Log created on 23:29:31 04/09/2009 by Nataya, and last modified on 02:53:37 04/12/2009.