Muay thaii
Trip Start
Jun 03, 2008
1
19
23
Trip End
Sep 22, 2008
Phuket,
Thailand
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Having dabbled in a bit of muay thai when I was younger, I decided that I wanted to spend some time training in Thailand. Muay Thai is Thailand's national sport. It differs from western kickboxing as elbows and knees are legal and fights feature only groin protection. I wasn't too keen on going to Phuket as it's "too touristy" but the gym was recommended to me. There are some gyms that I have been advised not to go to, as they can have 60+ tourists who aren't very serious in their training and are more just there for sex tourism and the trainers are just in it for the money
camp
. The gym I'm at is totally different - all the trainers are previous champions with years of fighting experience, and really make the effort to teach you their techniques and point out mistakes. The students training here are pretty long term, so are at the camp for months or even years, and many are training for fights or intend to fight.. so yeah they're pretty serious about it. I'm renting accommodation at the camp, and its real good - cable tv, fridge, aircon, daily maid service, so luxurious compared to what I've been used to, and for the same price, less than 4 quid a night. Most people rent mopeds to get around, but considering my budget (and safety) I've rented out a normal bicycle which gets me where I need to. The camp is in between two beaches - Rawai and Nai Harn, both are only a 10 minute cycle away and not as touristy as other beaches in phuket. The first two days were hell. The previous two months in south america involved little exercise, plenty of food and plenty of beer.. so the training was a big shock to my system. I was also used to cold weather, and although its rainy season here - its still humid and very hot. I'm literally sweating buckets whilst training, and go through at least 3 litres of water a day. Each training session three hours and involves shadow boxing, one on one pad work with a trainer, bag work, weight training, and either clinching or sparring
phuket
. The training is hardcore and intense, although we do get a fair amount of 'breaks' which involves doing situps or pushups. They say that a month at a Thai gym is equivalent to a year back home, and I can definitely see why. A typical day consists of wake up at 6, do some skipping before morning training, go back shower grab something to eat, then lots of free time to sleep/watch tv/go to the beach/internet/ etc. then afternoon training at 4pm, then get something to eat, then just relax before an early night. Sunday is a well deserved rest day to do whatever (though for most people its recovering from a heavy saturday night as well as the week's training).It took a few days before I started getting the hang of things, and I'm really enjoying it. The training here is very different to back home, what was hardest was trying to relearn the techniques as everything I knew from back home was 'wrong' and it took a while to remove old habits... everything from stance, kicking angles, if you should be on tip toes, if you should pull toes back or forward etc. was done in a different way. Saying that, I guess it's the particular preference for the style of how to do things, as I often found differences between the trainers themselves.. which can sometimes be frustrating.
On Saturday it was great seeing our resident Thai fighter, Dee, fighting live on channel 3
1-phuket
. It was a great 5-round fight and it was great seeing someone that I saw train every day at our gym in action on television. I didn't understand any of the thai commentry, except the occasional mention of our gym's name. We all sat around the TV in the gym in support of Dee and wached him deservedly win. The following Friday I went to Bangla Stadium in Patong to watch two guys from our camp have their fights. I hadn't been to Patong but it was immediately obvious that this is the proper touristy side of Phuket and I appreciated how different it was in the part of Phuket that the gym is located - in the middle of nowhere, no distractions, and nowhere near as touristy. From our gym, Joe, my roomate from San Francisco and Jackie, the Korean Champion, were fighting against local Thais and there were 6 other fights between Thais from other gyms. The first couple of fights were between young'uns around 9 years old, but damn they were good. One of them vomited during the fight, all you see is his gumshield shoot out of his mouth followed by a load of sick.. but he got back up again and continued the fight (but didn't win). In another match, the clinching got so hardcore that one guy was clinched so hard that he went over the ringside and fell out of the ring. It was an entertaining night, Jackie and Joe won their fights by technical knockout (TKO). The fighting was quite raw since the Thai rules allow elbows and knees, but it definitely seemed more for sport rather than a late night brawl outside a bar
2-phuket
. What I was most impressed with was the face that the competitors were such good sports, touching gloves and even hugging after a fight, unlike the kind of agression or grudge you might see in other fights. We sat in the stands where the view was better, while most people sat ringside, and the stands were full of Thais, most were gambling on the fights, they all had weird hand signals to each other when placing bets with each other.. and the odds seem to been constantly changing as the fights went on. Traditional thai music was played by a band during the fights, which gave the fights some kind of authenticity. I was definitely getting into shape after two weeks at the camp, though training everyday with little time to recover in between meant I had my fair share of aches and pains, especially in the little minor muscles. The camp is great for everything - cardio, conditioning and technique.. a lot of students at the camp were training for fights and some even had a fighting career going for them. We also have some of Korea's top fighers training at our gym and they are real good - and friendly too.
Apparently Tuesday night is the best fight night for muay thai, so I was back at Bangla stadium, and damn right it was much better than the last I went to. The fights seemed more fairly matched and had a lot of action going on. I also really wanted to watch our Korean fighter, Woo Young, who has fought (and won) 11 times in Thailand already - with 11 knockouts! Unfortunately he got caught by left elbow and lost by KO round 2... and his injury didn't look pretty. On the way home from Patong, Mark's moped had a flat tyre so I ended up running a bit of the way back to the gym and hitching a ride with some Russians, which was definitely an experience in itself.
