Let me give you a little back story to what is going on. My name is Jordan...I am 34 years old and for the next month I will be training at a Muay Thai Kickboxing camp near Patong in Thailand (http://thailandmuaythaigym.com/). I know a lot of you are thinking “whoa...midlife crisis” but honestly that is not why I am here...well maybe a little. A very good friend of mine, Teg, is training for a MMA fight and kickboxing is part of his training. He new I had some time this summer and in May asked if I wanted to come with him to train. I said yes. I have never boxed, never kicked anything but I am trying to make sure when someone askes me to do something adventurous and out of my comfort zone then I am going to say yes. So yes to 35 degree super humid heat. Yes to two 3 hour training sessions a day, 6 days a week. And yes to learning a new skill in a completely foriegn land.
We left Vancouver August 3rd at 2:10 pm Tuesday afternoon and arrived in Phuket at 11 pm Wednesday night. We grab our bags and as soon as we leave the airport we are accosted by taxi driver after taxi driver. Teg had arranged a driver from our hotel in Patong so we find our guy and start cruising to our new home for the next month. We rip to Patong and crash out in our hotel for the night. I will describe Patong in a later blog as it is going to take some explaining.
We are up the next morning earlish....Early for Patong tourists anyway and we go rent some skooters and get some supplies. I am very lucky to have Teg with me who has done this before. He knows the town well and we find what we need and and head up the hill to the Gym. By 4 pm we are settled in our rooms and I am heading down to my first training session.
Session #1:
Its 4pm here so basically its 4 am in Canada. Teg has warned me that Ming the head trainer is by far the most feared guy to train with and as soon as I walk up on the training area Ming is on me. He asks me how long I have been training and I tell him never and he gets this half smile on his face. He hands me a skipping rope and tells me to go skip for 10 minutes. Teg is already skipping so I join him and we basically play around for the 10 minutes getting warmed up. By now I am already pouring sweat and I am really not used to the heat. Ming pulls me aside and wraps my hands and then we start shadow boxing. He walks me through the correct foot positions and we start up with jab, right cross and right kick. We are basically doing it slow at this point working on foot position and proper technique. The first thing I have to point out is that I know from grad 7 dance that I am a horrible dancer. I am an athletic, coordinated guy but most of the sports I play involve a lot of improvisation and for this sport so much of it is coordinating what my hands and feet are doing with my hips and shoulders. I am having to think a lot and I am tripping over my self. I really notice my balance and because of this I am stiffening up. We work on these for a while and then move onto the bag. For the next 2 hours we would do 10 minute rounds and then 10 push ups with a 1 minute rest. Ming is amazing because he cannot speak any English other than Jab, Kick and Elbow but he is incredible at communicating what he wants you to do. By the end I am bagged. I look over at Teg and he seems to be done and I start walking over to him but then Ming grabs me and tosses me in the ring with Derek and Nicky. Derek is a 6'9" kid from Saskatchewan and Nicky is a fit Russian. Both have been here for a month and know exactly what is going on. Ming gets us to lie on our backs and hook our legs together and we start doing sit ups....100 of them. As we are doing this Ming takes a punching pad and proceeds to hit us in the stomach at the end of each sit up. 10 times with the flat of the pad and then 10 times with the side of the pad. He does this to all of us and when we are done the 100 sit ups he has us do 60 push ups. Now we are finally done.
Teg and I hit the shower...go to town to eat and then I am out like a light at 9:30....
Session 2:
I get up at 8 am and look at my shins. They are beat down. All the kicking of the bag and Ming's pads mean that I am basically meat tenderizing them. Teg knocks on my door and we head down to the Gym. There are a lot of people there and Ming tells me to go run. I rip out about 4 kms feeling pretty good about myself because I passed a lot of the other boxers on the road. Endurance sports are all I got going for me so I might as well exploit it.
Ming sees me come back covered in sweat and wraps my hands for me. We start out with the bag and work on my kicks for about an hour. You can kick a bag a lot of times in an hour and by now my shins feel like they are tender like veal. After that we get into the ring and we do a pad work out where Ming yells what he wants me to do and I do it. Jab, Jab, Mat (right), block...We roll though Ming's English for the next hour and then back into the ring with Nicky and Derek for another hour of sit up and push up hell.
There are really only 2 things that are sore on my now and that is my shins from ankle to knee and my calves, specifically my left one with is my front foot. A lot of this sport is on your toes and I am really not used to that.
I have another training session this afternoon and then the I think we are going to sit and watch the Greek national team train right after us. Right now though all I want to do is nap.
Teg and I hit the shower...go to town to eat and then I am out like a light at 9:30....
Session 2:
I get up at 8 am and look at my shins. They are beat down. All the kicking of the bag and Ming's pads mean that I am basically meat tenderizing them. Teg knocks on my door and we head down to the Gym. There are a lot of people there and Ming tells me to go run. I rip out about 4 kms feeling pretty good about myself because I passed a lot of the other boxers on the road. Endurance sports are all I got going for me so I might as well exploit it.
Ming sees me come back covered in sweat and wraps my hands for me. We start out with the bag and work on my kicks for about an hour. You can kick a bag a lot of times in an hour and by now my shins feel like they are tender like veal. After that we get into the ring and we do a pad work out where Ming yells what he wants me to do and I do it. Jab, Jab, Mat (right), block...We roll though Ming's English for the next hour and then back into the ring with Nicky and Derek for another hour of sit up and push up hell.
There are really only 2 things that are sore on my now and that is my shins from ankle to knee and my calves, specifically my left one with is my front foot. A lot of this sport is on your toes and I am really not used to that.
I have another training session this afternoon and then the I think we are going to sit and watch the Greek national team train right after us. Right now though all I want to do is nap.
What?! I didn't realize you were in Thailand for this. And for a month! So. Freaking. Jealous. Honestly, I envy the focus. You're going to do like a year or more worth of conventional training in the time you've got.
ReplyDelete