2 weeks in.

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Hello everyone,

My experience over the last two weeks of being in Phuket has made me a more confident, achier, a little less flabby person. I am getting used to the heat and the training. It appears I’m not as strong as I thought I was. My wrist hurt from all the punches, my hips hurt from all the kicks and foot still hurts from a bad kick. I am covered in extremely itchy and large mosquito bites and find it very hard to sleep at night. Being here is great fun and you feel so good after a workout but dread going to sleep and waking up with more annoying bites. I have been blessed by being able to change rooms which should help with the mosquitos and for sleeping at night for it has air conditioning. I am extremely low on cash and have very little to eat so the training is becoming more intense. I knew what I was getting in for I suppose and as my cousin Luke told me “tough times, make tough people” which inspires me to carry on. I miss my girlfriend more and more everyday which kills me inside but do this to make her proud of me and show her that I’m not a quitter. I’m doing this to make myself a better person for the people I love and I hope that I become that person when I’m finished. The training is definitely getting harder due to lack of decent food portions which is making me a little fatigued but I am still enjoying pushing myself till I possibly cannot go on and I am on the floor in a pool of my own sweat panting like dog after a four hour walk. I wish I could do more here but because I’m limited on the money front I have no way of getting around apart from walking and the sun can really damage you if you walk around for too long. I have never felt such a heat not even in Africa. I would definitely like to say that I will come out of this a completely different person and will continue to push myself until I can’t go on. That’s the plan anyway. I really hope that I can get to school when I am home and get studying and prove to myself that I can do something even greater with my life. There is only one thing I want from this life and in order for me to be able to hold it I must try my best continuously when I am home and work to achieve such a dream. I will. I am in love with this training and would really like to carry it on when I am home but I think it would be very hard to do so. The training starts off with a 10 minute stretch on the mat. Then you shadow box for 10 minutes and a trainer walks round a gives you a ring number and you go over to the ring and put your gloves on. In the ring you have 5 rounds of pad work. So practising your punches, kicks, knees and elbows with a trainer. In between rounds you get a two minute break where you have to do 10 push ups and 10 sit ups and can just squeeze in a quick gulp of water before putting your gloves back on in time for the bell. I forget every time you are about to do any kind of work on the bag or with your trainer you have to bow. After being in the ring you have five three minute rounds on the punch bag just practising combinations at full whack. Again in between each round are 10 press ups and 10 sit ups just to keep you warm. When you are done with those you go over to the mat where you are taught to do something called clinching which is grappling to you and me. So you pair up and practice getting in and out of holds and learning different take downs. You have to breaks in between where again you have to do 10 press ups and 10 sit ups. After clinching we go back to the bags to do 300 front kicks and 300 knees. Today I didn’t do the clinching and ended up doing 700 front kicks and 700 knees non-stop. When finished with the bags you head back over to the mat to stretch and thank your trainers. I consume around 3 or 4 litres of water each session. Each session is the same only small things change such as different clinches and sparring opponents. I am having a great time. I’m meeting great people. In my downtime I cannot really venture. We are quite a walk from anywhere and the sun is blistering. So eventually pretty photos will come. Thanks for reading

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