(Entry #5) I have never felt this old

I had an epiphany this morning. I realized why old people are always so ornery. Other than the fact that they must get annoyed watching young people doing stupid things, they are most likely experiencing some sort of pain in their body. The more they try to live among the young and do young people things, the more pain they are probably experiencing. I hurt in places I didn’t even know I had.

To say that I am sore from yesterday’s training session would be an understatement of monumental proportions. When I went to bed last night, I couldn’t find a comfortable enough position to get to sleep. I thought about walking down to the Family Mart and buying some ibuprofen, but that would have meant walking up a flight of stairs. Needless to say, it was another night of little sleep. I think I watched every Muay Thai documentary on the web though, so it wasn’t all a waste.

When the sun came up, I was able to muster the energy to get out of bed, and my Muay Thai high, got my blood flowing enough to make it to another session. I call it a Muay Thai high, because there is something about it that touches my heart in a way few other things could. I love Muay Thai. I love being around it. I love hearing it, watching it, and nothing makes me feel more alive than getting punched in my face.

I was definitely moving a little slow during the run to start class. There were a couple of ten year-old Thai kids from the competition team that were out on a run as well. They would run past me, then, when they got out of sight of the trainers, they would walk so I would pass them. As we came back around where the trainers were, they would run past me so the trainers would yell at me for getting passed up by little kids. They got a good laugh out of it.

After warm up, I got paired up with the Goliath-sized German for drilling. Apparently, his name is Mustafa, not Lucifer as I wrote yesterday. He is just that big that I couldn’t hear what he said way down where my ears are. He is a good partner to drill with though. I got chatting with him a bit. It sounds like we are going to be here about the same amount of time, so we will be seeing a lot of each other.

We also got paired up together for sparring. It was clinching sparring today, so it’s all inside work. He was a strong as he looked. I just had a lot more experience than he in clinching. The rounds would go like this. He would move in with strength, and I could get angles and score on him. Then I would get tired, and he would brute strength me, and rag doll me until the end of the round. All three rounds went pretty much the same way. If it were a fight, I hopefully could have ended it early, because if not, he would have kneed me into next week.

During pad rounds, I got to work with a trainer I have never worked with before, but had always wanted to. He looks like a curmudgeonly old man, but he is strong as an ox. I have seen him hold pads for giants, and they can’t move him. He pushes you beyond your limits. I’ve seen him knock the piss out of Thais when he is training them. He accepts nothing than your best. He pushed me to the brink of puking today. I literally had to stop the round and go dry heave over the wall. When this happens, all of the other trainers give props to the trainer that made the ‘Farang’ puke. I could see them all over my shoulder giving him thumbs up. Aside from that, the rounds went amazing. When I came back after puking, I had a burst of energy that I finished the round with some of the best Muay Thai I have ever done.

I’m super sore again today, and am headed to get a Thai massage. Without them, I don’t think I could make it through this. They are my slice of heaven in a week that feels like hell. Aside from Muay Thai, Thai massages are the thing I miss most about Thailand when I am in the states. I have been to a few massage places that claim they do Thai massage, but it has always ended up being like going to McDonalds for good Thai food.

The lady at the chicken hut stopped me on my way back from training. She invited me to go to a Buddhist ceremony next Tuesday morning very early, and then asked if I would help her feed the monks when they came to bless her chicken hut the following day. Apparently a lot of them come, and she wants to make sure they are all well taken care of. I’m pretty excited to be included in something so important to her.

Next Thursday is Songkram, the Thai New Year. Here is a little information about it. http://songkranday.com/songkran-2017-dates-when-is-songkran-2017/

Basically it is a nationwide water fight. Tiger is closed that day, and everyone will be squirting each other with squirt guns or lobbing water balloons. Everyone around here is super excited for it. It sounds like a lot of fun.

Day 2 of training in the books.