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Published: October 2nd 2007
Tournament Competitors
The 8-man tournament competitors. Saohin in the yellow trunks.I apologize for the delay in blog entries, the internet at the camp has been down for several days. I actually wrote this last thursday, so just imagine that is when I'm talking about:
Alrighty, not much terribly new recently. Just lots of training. On tuesday, there was an 8 man Muay Thai tournament that happened at Bangla Stadium in Patong. Saohin entered into this tournament. It was his second time fighting Muay Thai in 14 years (But he'd had 60 some odd boxing matches). Before that he'd had 13 years of Muay Thai experience. And he's only 34 years old. Do the math.
Saohin caught an elbow 30 seconds in to the first round of his first fight, which caused a cut under his eye that would swell into a nice black eye. Otherwise he remained relatively unscathed. He knocked out his first opponent early in the second round. He took his second opponent to a dramatic decision, which he won dominantly. He knocked out his third opponent 30 seconds in. For winning this whole event, he won approximately $1,500, a big trophy and a ceiling fan. Andrew came to watch the fights and was thoroughly entertained.
10 Man Wai Kru
You can't make this stuff up. He said he enjoyed it more than Lumpinee, and I would have to agree. Entertaining from start to finish. Fun time.
The nice thing about this event was the fact that the matches were only 3 rounds long. So the fighters got to work right away. Regular Muay Thai matches are 5 rounds, but they may as well be 3 because the first 2 rounds don't count on scorecards, and the clinch is broken up right away. So for most experienced fighters, the first 2 rounds are essentially a warmup that looks like sparring, and the 3rd round is when the intensity shows up. Plus the fact that knees are worth the most of any technique, followed by elbows, then kicks, then punches counting as the least, you could land 10 punches and I land 1 knee, and I win the round. That's why the clinch is broken up in the first 2, then after round 3 the fight becomes predominantly clinching in an effort to rack up points. Plus if you back up, you lose points, so if I stay on the outside and jab, I won't win a decision.
Yesterday was Suzy's birthday, the camp's Yoga
Saohin's Victory
Saohin after he won instructor. It was on the roof of a tall hotel. Catered by KFC. They love that stuff here, some of the Thais eat it for breakfast. It was fun to hang around with the trainers and have them not yelling at me to kick harder and do pushups.
I'm taking this blog to upload some videos of training sessions, just so people don't think I'm only pretending to train here. Now those of you who are looking at videos with me from a technical standpoint, please reserve judgement as the videos where I'm doing padwork is around 2 hrs into the second training session of the day. I'm a little tired and somewhat sloppy. I had already done 6 rounds on the heavybag, you're lucky I'm even hitting anything. The second padwork video is also decidedly sloppier than the first. Gimme a break.
I've also put up a video of O practicing Krabi Krabong on some hanging tires. Just because it's cool. O probably has the widest knowledge of any of the trainers here. Other trainers may have a better knowledge of Muay Thai, but he is very skilled at many different Thai martial arts.
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anonymous
non-member comment
I have two questions: i) Who's the blonde, ii) Is she cute.