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It's subtle, but the piece does seem to be taking a stance against it. Were it football, no one would blink an eye, I imagine.
If westerners want to even be remotely competitive against the top Thai competition, this is exactly what has to be done I think. Many Thai camps start these boys at 4-5 years old to train and fight. Yodsaenklai and Buakaw started relatively late at 8 years old.
It's kind of odd. When adults fight, it's seen by fans as not a streetfight fueled by malice or anger, merely a competition of sportsmanship. What changes that with a kid?
The one real problem I see are the types of pathetic parents that need to live vicariously through their children and thus would force them to do something they do not want to do. Definitely wrong. Personally, I would have loved to have started training that early in life. Parents could neither afford it nor did they want me to, unfortunately.
Still, I can understand people feeling strongly against this.
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