Day 1

We have officially made it through day 1 of our muay Thai kickboxing camp and what a day it was. Last night, I had a horrible nightmare in which there was a group of students in the class and we were all separated into 2 groups...tall and slender (everyone in the class was in this group but me) and then there was my group, the kitty kitty meow meow group and it consisted of me and a dirty old gray cat with some tiny red boxing gloves on its' front paws. I woke up screaming, as a weird buzzer bell type sound was going off intermittently about every 3 minutes or so and then every 1 minute following. It sounded like the buzzers that sounded when the Nazis called the Jews to the gas chambers during the Holocaust, but that just may be because I just finished reading a book about a serial killer who was killing Holocaust survivors (Live Bait by PJ Tracy); however, when you open the front door of our room, you look out onto the boxing rings and gym where we work out and there is a gate made out of cement pillars and barb wire...a bit like Dachau if you ask me...I really shouldn't equivocate our kickboxing camp to a concentration camp, but let me just give you a breakdown of what a day consists of...8am-10am work out and this begins at about 5-6am for hardcore fighters and randoms who just want to lose extra weight. You get a jump rope and just go for it...there is no one really directing you or telling you what to do so you kind of follow the crowd of non-Thai fighters as best you can. You basically jump rope until you are about to throw up and then a random Thai trainer calls you to the boxing ring and you just kick, knee, elbow and punch him where and when he tells you to. You do ring work for a full 3 rounds, just like an actual muay Thai fight and each round is 3 minutes, which is the longest 3 minutes of your soul! By the third round I was breathing hard man, but you just don't want to be the weak one so you just push through and when it is all done, you are left to basically figure out how to work out for the rest of the time, as that was merely the warm up. You can go to the punching bags and do some kicks/punches, do some very hard push-ups on the oldest most archaic looking sit-up benches ever (Alex has already explained to me why they are so bad to use and what other apparatus one should use when working out the core...she is such a good personal trainer) or you can shadow fight in the mirror or just stand around watching everyone...sometimes a trainer will yell at you to do something specific, but you can manage your own workout. Then, you do a 4km run from the gym to the beach and then and only then is it over...the first work out that is. Yo can spend the remaining 6 hours of your day (until your second workout) doing whatever you want and that consisted of resting, showering, resting some more, watching DVDs and running to the local Tesco for some more provisions. Then you pull yourself together after relaxing and resting, put on your stinking dirty wet clothing and do the whole thing again, only this time you are100 times more exhausted than the morning workout...so this is it...what the next 13 days will consist of and let me tell you one thing...we totally LOVE it! What a rush...fighting and working out hard and sweating like you have never sweated before...we are already talking about extending it for more weeks after we do our ridiculously tragic race up 65 flights of stairs in Bangkok...we are also looking into further muay Thai camps in Cambodia if we want to change up our location. Currently, at this camp, there are about 10 different people from different countries training for different reasons. There are 2 Americans (I know I almost shit myself too, two!) One from California and she is a bit annoying...Alex cannot stand her voice. She is a bit attention seeking and likes all the trainers to give her a lot of 1-1 attention. She has some very horrid infection on the top of her foot and I gave her some alcohol swabs for it, as I am a very altruistic and sensitive soul...am I bollocks...I just don't want her spreading her infection to me and Al, as we train in bare feet! No thank you! There is also a guy from Wisconsin and we think he is a bit autistic. He has been here for 3 months and he is staying until next year in May. He has lost over 12 kilos and has an actual fight with a tuk tuk driver in October! There are a few people from Sweden and Finland and Holland and South Africa and New Zealand...what a mixed bag! The girl from Holland has the biggest brown eyes ever...she kind of looks like a Japanimation cartoon and she is one moody lady...She just graduated from University with a degree in marketing and travelled for a year before she goes back (in a few weeks) to Holland to find a "grown up job." Then there is me and Al and there is no Kitty Kitty Meow Meow group and we are all lumped together and then meet with trainers separately. Alex has great form and is a power house so the best trainer works with her. She has the tall and lean body type that just make mauy Thai work. She loves to kick like she is kicking a football, so she has been working on that, but she has excellent stamina and is just overall a hardcore girl really! Then there is me...now I have some strength in the old legs and I kick hard and knee hard and use my elbows well, but my upper body and core strength are shocking so that is what I will be focussing on, though I do love some kicking! I am also pretty flexible, which helps, but high kicks (if done in proper form with full power) will tire you completely after only doing about 5 of them and then you are left with 8 minutes and 45 seconds of a match to get through...pacing oneself through a muay Thai match is also a challenge that I will be working on over the next 13 days,but overall this is an amazing experience and we are only just beginning. I must admit, there have been some Concentration Death Camp moments prior to beginning, but after our first day those have all been squelched so bring it on and let the games begin...hoo yaw!