'Chicks' get their kicks in Thai boxing ring: Once considered a deadly, illegal sport, Muay Thai is now embraced by women who are tired of yoga and Pilates, writes Misty Harris.

Misty Harris
July 18, 2005
The Ottawa Citizen

What Hollywood envisages as a deadly underground sport is fast becoming about as countercultural as spin class. Although Muay Thai -- better known as Thai boxing -- has long been marginalized, illegal in many places and haunted by its reputation for brutality, recent years have seen it morph into a mainstream activity embraced by women for body building, not bloodletting.

Chicks that Kick, Canada's first all-female Muay Thai collective, is in the vanguard of the movement to promote and create opportunities for women in the misunderstood sport.

"In many ways, it's answering the call of those girls who are tired of yoga and Pilates," says Sarah (Tank) Thompson, a 28-year-old business professional by day and Muay Thai fighter by night. "Even if women don't ever want to fight, the conditioning element alone can change your entire body, it can change your entire being, it can change your entire direction in life."

Toronto's House of Muay Thai, Canada's first and largest Thai boxing school, describes the sport in no uncertain terms as "the deadliest, most effective and efficient of the martial arts." Its practitioners use a series of "powerful kicks, punches, knees and elbows that devastate an attacker within seconds."
But Ms. Thompson insists the sport is primarily about finding your inner power.

"It has been misconstrued as two big, behemoth men in a ring beating the tar out of each other while people place bets," she laments. "It's really something much more beautiful -- the beauty coming from these fighters being confident in what their bodies are capable of and how much they can take."

Fellow proponents of the Muay Thai, such as Chicks founder Sofia (Hurricane) Ramirez, describe it as a deeply spiritual practice. "Buddhism is about being in the moment and so is fighting," says Ms. Ramirez, who works in public relations at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children. "You're not allowing other thoughts to come in and there's a pure strength that comes with that."

Clifton Brown, Muay Thai's 2004 world cruiserweight champion, likens the sport to a game of chess.

"Your biggest opponent is yourself," says Mr. Brown, who has trained all of the Chicks. "Every time you go in the ring, you face your own fears of inadequacy and strength and courage."

Because the majority of women in Muay Thai are beginners, those with more experience struggle to land fights at their skill level. Melissa Missuda, for instance, is the sport's Canadian middleweight champion but hasn't had a fight in two years -- and even then, she had to pay her own way to Thailand to secure the match.

"Once a woman gets to a point where she has gotten very good as a competitor, it becomes very hard to find competition," says Mr. Brown.

To a lesser extent, he notes the problem also exists for men; Mr. Brown himself hasn't had a fight in Canada since 2000, and hasn't had a fight in his home town since 1998.
"The only way (women) are going to get onto the world scale is to have something at home," he says.

Chicks that Kick ( www.chicksthatkick.com ) was created a few months ago to address this problem and potentially act as a touchstone for other Canadian women looking to expand the sport. The non-profit group of Ontario fighters so far consists of Ms. Thompson, Ms. Ramirez, Ms. Missuda, Yiola Cleovoulou, Annalisa Hill, Jueane Ji, Ruthie Wilson and Lucy O'Neill.

Photo: Malcolm Taylor, CanWest News Service / Sarah Thompson, left, takes a swing kick from fellow Muay Thai boxer Annalisa Hill during sparring practice at a boxing academy in Eglinton West village in Toronto.