Phuket / Muay Thai Training Day Six Morning Session

I skipped out on the run this morning, it was pouring outside and I got caught up with some work as I was up since 5:00 AM working. I made up for it with another 500 skips, I feel that this is actually better exercise than the running but I like the fresh air and getting out a bit.

Todays session was great again, we did the normal routine, sparred a bit again and I also worked in a bit of my bodyweight fitness routine. It was a good idea to split it up as I am already pushing the limits regarding the training.

Each session where I combine the bodyweight  with the regular training, I end up being really dizzy at the end, which just tells me that I have depleted all my bodies resources and should stop… I finished up with some solid handstand work. I can see an immense improvement, I actually can’t believe that four months ago, I would not have been able to keep a handstand for more than a second.

It just shows you that it comes down to practice, commitment and dedication. Nothing that is worth anything comes easy but people always want an easy way, a quick fix or a simple solution but the truth is that with most things in life there is none.

The guy I wrote about yesterday who ostracized himself from the group had definitely picked up on the vibes as he did the stretches and exercises with us this morning, I was glad for him, it is not fun to feel like the odd one out when you spend a month with the same group of people.

Rainy season has started, we are getting heavy rainfalls every single day. It is great as it cleanses and cools down the temperature. I actually woke up just past midnight to put on a sweater as I was freezing and I only have a fan, no air conditioner, I never thought this would happen in Thailand.

Phuket / Muay Thai Training Day Five Afternoon Session

Todays post start with my food, I am not sure exactly what I had but it contained fish,  crispy pork belly, rice and a yellow fruit like thing which I cannot for the life of me figure out what it is. All I know is, it was delicious! This set me back about 50 Baht which is $2. I will have to show them the picture to order it again.

Lunch, it would be great if anyone can tell me what the yellow fruit is…

This afternoons session was a killer! After the stretches I kicked it off with 500 skips, so that is 500 hundred little jumps, it really got the blood flowing. This was followed with hitting the punching bag and that is when the coach cornered me.

He once again handed my ass to me, but there was an immense improvement. I discovered yesterday that I have a nasty flinch reflex, which basically means that as soon as something comes at me (like a punch), I close my eyes and throw my head back.

So last night I did some research about it and there is not much that I can do about it myself. It will only improve as I get use to fists hurling at me and it is apparently very common in the fighting world as it is a natural human reflex to try to dodge an attack. Reading this made me feel way better.

After sparring with the coach, he drilled me with some fitnesss exercises, when he saw that I was about to keel over and die he laughed  and said “see you training tomorrow”. “Yes!” I thought as I started taking off my gloves, but then I heard someone call my name… It was Nic and I remembered that I promised him that we would spar today.

A promise is a promise.

I suited back up and was in the ring with Nic, one of the coaches was our referee. It was amazing! I only lasted two rounds before being completely exhausted but those two rounds were great fun, we went at each other, both landing some solid punches and kicks, but nothing hard enough to do damage.

When we finished Nic still sparred two round with the coach and did I mention that Nic is 59 years old… He is an awesome inspiration, a Scottish guy living in Portugal who trains like he is 21 but is as wise as his age.

Now I thought ok cool, time to chill, then another trainee Walter from China asked me what my core routine is, so we did the routine from top to bottom, we had been training for almost two and a half hours at this stage, handstands were out of the question. Finally I got to grab my gear and head to my room.

After training I was not really hungry but I know I have to eat so I hit the streets and found a quant little local spot which seemed welcoming enough. I love this about Thailand, there are ten restaurants on every block and eight of them are excellent while the other two are good.

I had a “spicy pork northern style salad” for dinner, almost the same as what I had for lunch yesterday but this one was better. I asked for a take away because I felt like I was going to pass out any minute. So I ate in my room, in front of the computer.

It is called a salad but you can notice the lack of greens or any vegetables for that matter. Delicious none the less. Time to get to bed, it is 9:16 PM, way past my bed time.

Phuket / Muay Thai Training Day Five Morning Session

I woke up with pain all over my body, at first I just lay completely still, contemplating what will be the most effective way to get out of bed without triggering any of the displeased muscles…

There was none.

I dragged myself out of bed and got ready for the morning run. It was hard but I did it. The run was great, I took some pictures on the way there and I finally got to measure the exact distance, which turned out to be 4.6km and not 6km.

Here are some pics from the morning run.

Notice the cows, peacefully grazing in the field.

This is the final stretch before turning around, the water around you seems to renew your energy or it could be the view.

This is the from the end of the pier.

Here you can spot two other club members, Nic and Nisha making their way towards the pier.

I am lucky to have such a beautiful route, literally right outside the club. As the weeks go by, I will keep adding some distance to the route.

After the run, we did our morning stretch and I noticed something about the human psyche…

So there is one guy training with us, who has decided that he will not run, stretch or partake in any of the group exercises, he just spars with his coach. His reason is, he is saving his energy for the boxing, this means that while everyone else is stretching and doing some fitness exercises, he is off alone sparring with his coach in the ring next to us.

Today I notice that a whole lot of members were shooting him dark glances and some openly spoke about if you are here to train for Muay Thai, you should do the whole package, all while looking at him… Anyway is comes down to him ostracising himself from the group and people don’t tend to like it.

I cannot concern myself with the actions of others, although I do feel that it is kind of a waste to only spar for 30 minutes when there is an entire routine of +- 2 hours specifically created for trainees. Some of the more senior members feel that they should condemn and comment on his behaviour.

Play time is over…

I seem to have attracted the attention of two of the younger coaches who have made it their mission to summon me as soon as the stretching is over, they then proceed to unleash all their frustrations on me but in a good way.

Training is getting harder and harder each day and that is how it should be, I never want to feel complacent, I want to feel like I am going to die or vomit at least.

So this mornings training involved a combination of elbows, punches, knees and kicks, focusing on delivering several fast combinations of the above.

We ended the training with pull ups, push ups and  several rounds of air sparring. I did not have energy for handstands as I only got six hours of sleep, due to work, I can feel it is not nearly enough, I was very weak throughout the training.

Thats it for now, I have only had a banana after training, time to go and look for some food 🙂

Phuket / Muay Thai Training Day Four Afternoon Session

There is an old saying “be careful what you wish for”. Today I experienced just that… So yesterday I complained about my trainers being unenthusiastic. Today I experienced the exact opposite, I was paired up with a younger trainer who normally works with the more senior trainees.

He did not take it easy on me, I literally got my ass kicked. I took several punches to the face, my legs were swept out from under me and as the above says, I got kicked, a lot.

I am not complaining, it was one of the most exciting session that I have had and it really had me questioning my fitness. I mean I was out of breath, in one minute, after defending myself against his continuos blows, kicks and elbows. After three minutes the bell rang and I felt like I was going to die but that was not enough, we still had to do 10 pushups.

We went five rounds like this, all followed with pushups, several times I made hard contact with the ring’s floor and my ankle has also swollen up from taking a knock whilst defending myself against his kicks.

He had no mercy, which is cool, I like it this way. Just when I thought that it is finished, he called me back in to the ring for some more sparring, this time we both wore all the equipment and their were no holds barred. But this time I also got a few kicks and punches in but it was basically when he was taunting me and I was like “enough is enough!”.

After the session with him, I still completed my bodyweight routine, I actually thought of abandoning it as I do a lot of push ups throughout training but I have been working it for about four months with great results, so no reason to abandon it. I will just have to man up!

There is no food pics in this post as I was starved and just got the same delicious egg fried rice with chicken as yesterday because I also had a meeting with a client over Skype, which went great! To compensate, here is a handstand pic at the Dragon Bridge in Da Nang, Vietnam 🙂

Phuket / Muay Thai Training Day Four Morning Session

Woah, this mornings session was a blast! Once again we kicked it off with a brief run, which has been said to 4.5km and not 6km. I will measure it myself tomorrow.

The Australian guy won the race this morning, but I finished right behind him. It was good to run at my own pace, I finished the run in 25 minutes and 30 seconds, which is not too bad, but it makes a huge difference whether the distance is 6km or 4.5km.

After the run, I dived right in to the dynamic stretches from my bodyweight fitness routine. Just this alone is normally enough to break out into a sweat. Before I was completely finished the coach rounded us up for a 15 minute stretch session. I really want to record the next stretch session, to watch the exercises again, once I leave, as I can really feel my body opening up.

The coaches seemed to over compensate for yesterdays lack of enthusiasm and I was drilled like never before. We focused mainly on punches, jabs and footwork but I was also introduced to a new move today, the backhand.

Sometimes I think that if you were to land one of the above mentioned moves you will do some real damage to someone’s face! I have gained a lot more respect for fighters of all kinds, since the start of this journey. It is one thing to see it on a television or from the ringside but knowing the impact, that a perfectly landed punch, can have on its target changes the whole picture.

After the official training I went back to my bodyweight routine and did several core exercises followed up by some skill work, namely handstands and holding the dip position on parallel bars.

At this stage I was pooped, so I decided just to do one set of pull up and dips, three reps of each and I will leave the rest of the routine for this afternoon. I think that doing it this way, is a better way of distributing the load between the two sessions because when I did the full on Monday, I almost passed out.

Nutrition wise, I switched things up a bit today… I had my BCAA’s upon waking up and my shake before the training instead of after the training. I found that I had a lot more energy and I was also not completely shattered after the training. Surprisingly I was not hungry either…

So after training I went to look for a local market to buy some fresh fruits and vegetables but I could not find one and ended up buying it from a supermarket. Great quality produce but on the more expensive side. I will find out from one of the locals where I can find one of these markets.

After the shopping expedition, I had a spicy pork salad with a side of sticky rice for lunch. This is one of my favourite Thai dishes as it packs immense amounts of flavour, like Guy Fiery would say, “Welcome to flavour town!”.

The rice just soaks up the sauce and they crush the herbs and spices on order making the flavours insane!

The funny thing is, I always ask for spicy but they are afraid to give it all that they have, when a Westerner orders, so I always end up adding extra chilli and they are like “what, this guy can handle spicy food!?!?”

Phuket / Muay Thai Training Day Three

So today I was awoken by my own alarm and not the gyms blaring rock n roll music. I got up at six, to meet the team for a brief run, only to see that  the designated meeting point was deserted.

I waited for fifteen minutes and returned to my room. I spent some time reading and at seven I heard a commotion, I learnt that we run at seven and not six.

In total we were four who started together but I paired off an Australian trainee who is about double my length tall, which meant that every step he took, I had to give about three…

Long story short, the two of us sprinted ahead and it really took a lot out of me to keep up, eventually he shot out in front but as they say “the tortoise always wins the race”, I caught up with him near the end and took the lead.

We did a 6km run in about 30 minutes, not too bad…

After this, it was time for the actual training. I almost did not make it there, after the run, my bed seemed like the logical place to be, it took everything to stand up and join the rest of the trainees. Luckily they were busy with stretches and I needed me some stretching.

The club is filling up, I see new faces everyday. Which means we have to share trainers, this suits me 100%, as I like to combine some calisthenics into my work outs.

So the morning basically went as follows, group stretches, handstands, my own stretches, sit ups, handstands, handstands, sit ups and then when the coach cornered me, the same coach I later caught dozing off, I guess him forcing me to kick me punching bag 2000 times really tired him out 🙂

We proceeded the daily practice of punches, jabs, kicks and elbows. The coach is not really fluent in English, so when I have to jab, he says “jabba jabba”, at one point I just started laughing. Maybe that is why he tried to kill me with all those kicks… Mind you it is not the coach kicking me but him demanding right kick after right kick followed by a right kick and then another right kick, I think I counted 22 in a row before I lost count. I am sure, I am  going to tear the skin on my foot/leg soon.

Then I thought I was done but suddenly another coach roped me and few other guys in, for knee kick practice… This entails walking up and down the gym kicking with your knees as you go along. I could not really get the technique down but it all comes down to time, commitment and practice. Rome was not born in a day. I finished the session off with some more handstands and some explosive core exercises, I really want to focus on my core as I realise that it is behind so many of the calisthenics exercises.

After training I almost passed out, I felt extremely light headed and felt the need to sit down, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, I recovered but immediately went to the nearest restaurant and ordered some fried rice with chicken and a fried egg (notice the chilli, I added that). I could not finish the meal, I needed to bag it up for take away.

I will have to make a plan to get some food in before training, I seriously think that I am burning way too much fuel without really having any fuel… I do drink a serving of BCAA’s which should at least prevent the degradation of muscle and I also have a protein shake after training, but I think I need actual substance.

I will have to buy some fruit, oats, milk and foods that will allow me to make my own pre training breakfast. Resources in my room is just super limited as I do not have a fridge or a kettle.

The afternoon was super chilled, met up with my friends again and spent some time just lazing by the pool, I almost fell asleep but then we went to have some lunch.

Lunch was great, it was kind of do it yourself noodles. They provide the base and you choose your ingredients and it is huge! I Tom Yum soup with rice noodles, muscles, squid, egg and mushrooms. The combination sounds weird but it tastes great.

Oh and here is the pool where I was lucky enough to hang out at. Well actually the pool is behind as but you kind of get the best of both worlds.

So this afternoons training was a battle, I think my body needs to get use to this intense training because I really have to dig deep to find the energy to get myself suited up and on to the gym floor.

I am starting to become a little self conscious as I was juggled between two coaches today, neither of whom seemed really interested or pleased to be training me… It might just be my imagination or it might just be that after two days of training the coaches has decided that I am untrainable…

I will see how it goes tomorrow and the rest of the month. All jokes aside, training was great, a lot of time spent on my core. I am going to be doing a lot of research about exercises as I have certain goals I want to achieve and I want to focus on the type of exercise that will help me achieve them.

Here are a few of the top of my head:

• The human flag, I mean who does not want to be able to do a human flag, that will be like the coolest party trick ever.
• Handstand push ups, just like the name says, basically pushups in the handstand position.
• A slow rise into a handstand on bars, so basically slowly raising yourself up into a handstand position and eventually I want to be able to this on a trolly in a super market.

Thats it for today!