I’ve been training Muay Thai in Thailand for over two months now. My first day training started on October 20th. I figured with a new year I should reflect on my time here and how much I have progressed.

For those reading who don’t know much about Muay Thai I’ll quote a quick intro of it here:

Muay Thai or Thai boxing is the cultural martial art of Thailand. The origin of Muay Thai dates back several hundred years, and was, essentially, developed as a form of close-combat that used the entire body as a weapon.

Essentially it is like Western boxing except there is kicking, kneeing,  and elbow striking. Some people call it the art of 8 limbs because it uses all parts of the body as a weapon.

Some people are probably wondering what would make me want to do this. Not really sure entirely. It’s one of those things that if I never tried I would never know. I have always been drawn to combat sports. When I was around 10 I spent a couple years learning Tae Kwon Do. That was more of a fitness class and method of developing discipline and self control rather than seeing what type of physicality and fighting ability your body is capable of.

Socrates explains it better than I can when he says,

“It is a disgrace to grow old through sheer carelessness before seeing what manner of man you may become by developing your bodily strength and beauty to their highest limit.”

Coming from a Tae Kwon Do background and a wrestling background there is something very addicting about a sheer struggle between one man and another; with no teammates, no timeouts, no one to blame but yourself. In these type on competitions you are often stripped down to just the bare essentials. Wrestling shoes to protect the feet and a single to keep yourself decent. In Muay Thai it’s just gloves to protect your hands and shorts to keep decent. It doesn’t matter the background of either person or the struggles one might have with work or school. Each person is exactly the same in the ring. They are just one human versus another and it’s as simple as that.

When you are out on that wrestling mat or standing in the ring you have no choice but to be fully 100% present and I think that in itself is a rare thing in a world with so many distractions. Nothing really compares to the feeling of competing like that. In the end you gain a lot of respect for the other fighter because, like you, they stripped down and submitted themselves to their basic human form and put their skill and training on display for the whole world to judge, just like you have to. In the end you learn more about yourself than anything else. Anyone who has ever competed like this knows exactly what I’m talking about.

Training

The picture above is the lone ring at the gym. Team Quest, you can see the sign in the background of the picture, is where I have been for the entirety of my training. When I first came to Chiang Mai I toured around and tried to find the right place for me. I initially like the vibe of the Team Quest gym, but I still went and looked at other places. In the end this gym was the closest to where the church was and that was an important factor.

Fortunately, after training a while I realized I had made the right choice. There isn’t a lot of ego at the gym and everybody is friendly and likes to help out. The trainers are funny guys and speak decent enough English, but more importantly they care about helping you improve. They teach good technique.

The gym does have a handful of Thai students, but being here for over 2 months I’ve seen that a lot of their business is from foreigners coming to train for a couple of days up to a couple of weeks. There is only one guy here, not on the pro team or the local Thais, that has been here longer than me. It’s been nice meeting so many people, but it can be sad when a good training partner is ready to move on. I do get to experience a lot of different fight background, however, which is always a good thing.

I have been training twice a day, six days a week since getting here. The only exceptions are my week off for my concussion (you can read about that story here) and my week off traveling Korea visiting friends (there are a couple of recent posts about that as well).

My typical training day schedule looks like this:

6:30am	WAKE UP	I typically read for a half an hour and brush my teeth and that good stuff
7:35am	ARRIVE AT GYM	Get in early for around a 20 min. run through the neighborhood
8:00am	TRAINING 1	This is the actual training time and morning is technique work
10:00am	POST TRAINING WORK	Depending, this is a 30 min stretch to an 1 hr workout
11:00am	BACK AT APARTMENT	Shower and make lunch. Then a lot of Netflix and reading
3:45pm	ARRIVE AT GYM	A little early for a stretch and 10 minutes of jump roping
4:00pm	TRAINING 2	This is a more intense bag work, pad work, and sparring session
6:15pm	BACK AT APARTMENT	Shower and dinner. More reading and Netflix
10:00pm	BED TIME	I like to get to bed early so my body can recover

..and that’s how it goes Monday through Saturday. In some of my reading and Netflix time I run errands like grocery shopping and made go to the mall or movies. I live a pretty independent lifestyle. It can be lonely, but it keeps me regimented and strictly adhering to my budget and training plan.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bc9_wWSFUhi/?taken-by=wild_boom

There is a video taken in late November of me doing some pad work. When I first started I was way worse than that, and now, even only after another month, I’m a little embarrassed how bad I was in this video. It just means I’m progressing every day!

Next post should be about some New Years activities and some other updates. God bless!