Muay Thai strengthens spirits
Short North woman teaches traditions, techniques of the art
The grand master presented the fighter from Short North Muay Thai with her championship belt.
Then he turned to the fighter’s coach and praised her leadership.
Hope Vitellas, one of a very few lead women muay thai teachers in the world, began to cry.
Then a second one of Vitellas’ fighters won a championship fight at the TBA Classic Muay Thai World Expo, which was held in June in Des Moines, Iowa.
Then a third. And a fourth. And a fifth.
And each time, the admiration from the grand master swelled.
He hugged Vitellas, gave her the honor of wrapping a belt around one of her own fighters, and even invited to host her at this home in Thailand.
Vitellas, who started teaching muay thai out of
her garage 17 years ago, cried harder each time.
“I have felt like the underdog for so long,” said Vitellas, who was choked up by the memory made this past June. “To be recognized like that after all these years of teaching muay thai was overwhelming. And it wasn’t just about me – it was about honoring the values and the ways of the people who taught me.”
Don’t let the tears or her 5-foot-4, 120-pound frame fool you.
Vitellas is a badass – just ask her students. One kick from the 49-year-old would crumble almost anyone.
Muay thai is a stand-up combat sport featuring two competitors in the ring throwing punches, elbows, knees and kicks. The fights usually last three to five two-minute rounds. Muay thai is the national sport of Thailand and originated centuries ago when soldiers were taught the martial art as part of defending their kingdom.
But it’s not Vitellas’ kicks or punches that have commanded the respect of the hundreds who have walked into her Grandview Heights-area gym on West Fifth Avenue.
She doesn’t say much during training sessions, and when she speaks, her stern voice echoes off the high ceiling. She guides her students with expressions that waffle between unyielding and compassionate.
They call her “Kru,” which means teacher or instructor in Thai, and refers to a master of muay thai who teaches new generations the traditions and techniques of the martial art.
Most people never get in the ring for an organized fight. Instead, thousands across the nation use muay thai gyms like Vitellas’ as a full-body workout or a way to learn self-defense techniques.
Vitellas, who lives in Victorian Village, has about 200 students who range in age between 5 and 68 and are almost evenly split between women and men. Over the years, she has had about 40 students advance to organized fighting, including 10 fighters today.
She is fiercely protective of anyone who has the courage to try the sport.
Vitellas wants everyone to feel safe – something she didn’t have growing up in Steubenville as the Greek girl who was bullied by another group of girls. She just endured the abuse as a little girl and didn’t tell anyone about it.
“Let’s just say they roughed me up,” Vitellas said. “I never really thought about whether that was connected to me being a muay thai fighter. But yes, I’m 1,000 percent sure it is in some way.”
Master Lek
When she was a student at Ohio State University in 1991, Vitellas on most days would visit her favorite Thai restaurant on Goodale Street.
The owner, a native of Thailand named Lek Tienprasid, would greet her most days, and sometimes she would see him hitting a heavy bag in the back of his banquet hall.
One day Tienprasid asked the young woman if she wanted to try hitting the bag, held together by gray duct tape to keep the sand from falling out.
She liked it.
She would learn that Tienprasid was an accomplished muay thai fighter and master-level teacher in his homeland. He even helped teach muay thai to soldiers.
For a few months Tienprasid casually taught Vitellas some techniques, with no intention of turning her into a fighter.
So Vitellas decided to do that on her own. She entered a muay thai tournament at Ohio State’s student rec center.
When she entered the arena, she was the outcast. The other fighters had coaches and fancy uniforms, while Vitellas had no coach and drowned in pants borrowed from a man who was a foot taller than she was.
She started to panic about an hour before the fight and called Tienprasid from a pay phone.
The muay thai master yelled for a couple minutes before putting on a shirt and tie and racing to the rec center to watch his newest student lose her first fight.
“I got my butt handed to me,” Vitellas said.
She walked out with two black eyes and an ego that hurt far more.
From that day on, Tienprasid would become Master Lek to Vitellas.
A year later, after intense training with the master teacher, Vitellas entered the same tournament for her second fight.
This time she was paired with an accomplished muay thai fighter who was retiring.
Vitellas was supposed to be easy prey.
But with Tienprasid watching in her corner, Vitellas controlled the fight. It was called a draw, but the tournament would award her “fighter of the night.”
Vitellas would go on to fight in 13 organized fights, including competing in the world championships in 2001 for the U.S. National Team. She would lose a tough fight ending in a split decision (she feels like she was penalized for her counter-attacking style).
Aside from the first fight at OSU, it was the only fight her beloved Master Lek couldn’t attend and the only other one she lost.
When asked if he saw similarities between his now 30-year relationship with Vitellas and that of Mr. Miyagi and Daniel Larusso in the famed “Karate Kid” movie, Tienprasid wasn’t offended. In fact, he said the comparison was an honor and it was his favorite movie.
“Because she is sweet and little and a girl, she was underestimated her whole life,” said Tienprasid, who owns a gym in Bexley called Master Lek Muay Thai. “I was very overprotective of her, and I worked her very hard. She has honored and respected me in many ways. I’ve worked with many fighters and teachers, but few have the heart of a champion like Hope has.”
Kru Hope
The four-car garage attached to the apartment complex Vitellas owned in 2004 could have been condemned when she first started teaching muay thai in it.
She swept out the rat waste in one of the four garages, hung one heavy bag, set up a timer and invited one friend to train. The next week her friend brought a couple more people. And the next week, that group brought more friends. Soon Vitellas had to use all four garages and had over 100 people, who paid $10 when they walked into the garage to learn or practice muay thai.
It got so big, Vitellas had to quit her job as a personal trainer.
The gym became so popular, police suspected she might be using the garage for drug dealing or prostitution instead of a martial arts practice.
She said she received a phone call
from the city in December 2005 ordering her to shut down the business for not operating correctly. The garage was a separate structure and technically not part of her residence, so it couldn’t be considered a home business under code.
So about a month later she formed the Short North Muay Thai gym in a new space on West Fifth Avenue near Grandview.
Jackie Bean has been training with Vitellas since the garage days.
Bean, 43, is one of the five fighters to win a national championship belt in June. She credits Vitellas, who she calls Kru Hope, with transforming her life physically, emotionally and spiritually.
Bean never will forget a moment at a tournament in Virginia in 2014 when everything leading up to the fight had gone wrong, and another fighter from Short North Muay Thai already had lost.
Standing in a windy hallway with a storm raging outside, Kru Hope calmed her fighter.
And just before the fight she again embraced Bean, this time forehead to forehead, and brought a sense of peace that Bean had never felt before.
“I immediately moved into a place of sheer presence and felt a warrior spirit,” said Bean, who owns a business called Wellbean that provides personal training and wellness coaching. “I was filled with love in that moment. That embodies who Kru Hope is and the place within her that she trains us all from.”
Bean went on to win that fight. Due to delays, she had to fight for the championship just 20 minutes later. She won that, too.
Vitellas, who holds a communications degree from OSU and a master’s in Chinese medicine, has no way of knowing for sure whether she is the only woman to serve as a lead muay thai coach in the United States or around the world. But if there are more, she believes there would be “just a handful.”
Now not far from 50 years old, she isn’t sure she’s done fighting herself. Her last official fight was 18 years ago, but Vitellas said she “hasn’t closed the door on it.”
Either way, to those who know her, Vitellas isn’t measured by kicks, fights, championships or belts. She’s measured by her spirit.
The spirit that encourages her to bring homeless people into the gym, provide a safe haven for women who have been assaulted or harassed at other workout facilities, or care for a man with autism who was abused by those who didn’t understand the ethos of muay thai.
The spirit that propels her love for music; she’s performed around Columbus in bands and has recorded five albums.
The spirit that compels her to raise money for sick children and crusade for social change and political causes she believes in.
The spirit that makes her a passionate spouse of seven years to Orlie Benjamin and mother to 6-year-old kindergartner Mihali Vitellas.
“I don’t want anyone that steps into my gym to feel like an underdog,” said Vitellas as tears of pride swell. “I just try to honor the values that were handed down to me.” mwagner@dispatch.com @Mikewagner48
“I immediately moved into a place of sheer presence and felt a warrior spirit. I was filled with love in that moment. That embodies who Kru Hope is and the place within her that she trains us all from.” Jackie Bean, who has been training with Vitellas since it was in a garage