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Published: September 11th 2007
Hong Kong Airport
View out the window at Hong Kong Airport.Alright, now that I'm settled, you're going to get a better blog entry. Sorry about that last one. Stop complaining, you're lucky it's there at all. I went on 38 hrs without sleep. 15 hrs to Hong Kong, 3 hours to Bangkok, 1 hr 45 mins to Phuket.
I met some interesting people on the way. I sat next to a Chinese guy on the flight to Hong Kong who told me that Thai transvestites are better looking than Thai women. On the way to Bangkok, I sat next to a business man from Dubai with the worst suit I've ever seen. Don Cherry type stuff. He asked me what he should do to lose weight because I had a nice body. Then on the way to Phuket I sat in front of a baby that cried with a grown man's voice. Then I slept when I got here. Of course I woke up at 3am wide awake. Not quite on Thai time yet, but it's definitely not as bad as I thought it was going to be.
Just got through my first session. It's like training in the shower. Today is 31 degrees and humid.....at 630 in the
Phuket
Welcome to Phuket (pronounced "Poo-git" with more emphasis on the "poo" part) morning. I'm used to training in Guelph, so during the winter, during breaks, you can step outside and get a breath of cold air. Not so much here.
So I'm not in the worst shape of everybody here. That's to say that I'm not in bad shape, but I'm not exactly in good shape either. I got stuck in the beginner group for now, so instead of skipping for an hour, I only had to skip for 40 minutes....
Lession 1 was elbows. Lesson 2 was knees. Lesson 3 was Thai clinching. One of the coaches was like "For this you need strong neck. So every day we do neck strength exercises." I got through those exercises, but they were brutal. My neck will be 1000X stronger when I get back.
Then two rounds of throwing non stop jab-crosses. One guy puked. I didn't because I didn't have anything for breakfast. I thought the little restaurant here would be open, but it didn't open until 7am and training started at 6:45. After the training session was over I ate two full size lunches. Food here is really good. Although, interesting enough, I haven't found any Pad Thai
Thai road
Road to Tiger Muay Thai anywhere. You'd think it'd be here. Huh.
An interesting thing that I noticed about the training here is the sparring. Nobody goes hard. Not even the trainers when they spar each other. I mean it's not karate point sparring, but it's definitely not hard. I asked somebody why, and they said "Well it's because they fight every 2 weeks, they don't need to practice getting kicked in the head". Fair enough.
The atmosphere here is really cool. The trainers seem really laid back. They're always joking around with each other and with the students. They make fun of everybody for anything. It was one guy's birthday yesterday, and he had a few drinks. But he was just fine today, if you ask me. But the coaches were all giving him a hard time, "Where's the power?! Where's the power?! Too much Singha (thai beer)!! Hahaha!!" If you commit any cultural faux-pas, they don't get angry. Instead of getting all uptight, they laugh, smile and tell you what you did wrong. And they're really badass. The biggest trainer is maybe 150lbs. And he takes guys 3 times his size and throws them around the ring. He's a pro-boxer too,
Welcome to Phuket
Another sign welcoming me to Phuket. I feel so welcomed here. held some major title at some point.
I was expecting the music here to be really annoying Muay Thai music like you hear in fights on TV. Well it is, except with dance music beats in the background. So it's doubly annoying. Plus there's some hip hop that I recognize, but with Thai lyrics, sounds really funny.
Anyway, I recon I'd better have a nap before the second training session today. They happen twice a day, 2 hrs 45 minutes in the morning, 4 hrs 15 minutes in the afternoon.
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Matthew Mittler
non-member comment
Right on!
Wow, Patrick, it's sounds like you are already having a great experience. You see what I mean about Thai beening good natured people eh? What an intense training schedule. You are going to be even more leathal when you get back.