Gao yod, the nine spires
เก้ายอด
A column of nine spires, placed in the centre of the upper back and running a little onto the neck. At Wat Bang Phra it is the standard first tattoo…
The ceremony
The headband, the armbands, the dance, and the four instruments playing under all of it.
Kru Tony Moore · CC BY-SA 4.0Two halves. Wai khru is paying respect to the teacher — kneeling, bowing three times toward the corner. Ram muay is the dance that follows, which is the fighter's own and belongs to his gym.
Wai khru is not a boxing ritual. The Thai article on it lists the same ceremony for school teachers, for shadow puppetry, for krabi-krabong, and for writing poetry: the form belongs to apprenticeship in general, and boxing is one of its borrowers.
What the fighter is doing in the second half is more specific. A ram muay is taught, it is a gym's signature, and a Thai watching can often name the camp from it. It also tells the other corner something: a man who takes his time in the dance is making a statement about his own composure while the other man stands there in the cold.
Inference — the reason the ceremony survived professionalisation intact, when the rope, the bare feet and the open-weight matchmaking all went, is that it costs the promoter nothing and fills four minutes of a television slot.
Full record — The dance before the fight
Sak yant
NaN · Taken at Sak Yant Chiang Mai, used with permission · CC BY 4.0One practice, four surfaces
Yant on skin, yant on the cloth at the arm, yant rolled in metal at the waist, yant braided into the cord on the head. A fighter walking to the ring is usually wearing three of the four.
The ceremony
The headband, the armbands, the dance before the fight, and the tattoo under the shirt.
The rules that come with it
ข้อห้าม
A yant is conditional. The bearer accepts precepts and taboos with it, and the power holds only while those are kept.
The mongkhon
มงคล
The cord headband worn into the ring and removed before the first bell. It belongs to the gym, not the man wearing it.
The armbands
ประเจียด
Cloth or cord tied round the upper arms, worn through the fight.
Sak yant
สักยันต์
A tattoo that is a working object: geometry and syllables in an old script, applied by a master, carrying protection, fortune, charisma or fear — and…
Suea phen, the leaping tiger
เสือเผ่น
A tiger in mid-leap, usually one on each shoulder blade, for strength, command and the turning away of an attack.
The band
Four instruments play every fight in Thailand, live, and they speed up when it matters.
The time
ฉิ่ง
A pair of thick bronze cups on a cord, struck together. Closed, they say *ching*; let ring, they say *chap*, and the two syllables are the name and…
The drums
กลองแขก
Two long double-headed drums played with the hands, one pitched higher than the other. Thai names them *tua phu* and *tua mia* — the male and the…
The victory drum
กลองสะบัดชัย
The Lanna war drum, beaten going out to battle for good fortune and to hold the soldiers' nerve. Three old melodies are named: *Chaiphaeri*…
The oboe
ปี่ชวา
A double-reed pipe in two pieces — a bored body with seven finger holes and a thumb hole, and a flared bell — with a reed made of four folded pieces…
The band
วงปี่กลอง
Every stadium fight in Thailand is played live by a small band: an oboe, a pair of drums and a pair of hand cymbals, sitting at the ring apron.