Tiger Muay Thai, Day 4
Mixed day today. I was able to get up and fully commit myself to the morning training session, and many things came much easier to me than they have been before.
During warm-ups, however I was kind of taken to task by one of the trainers (Trainer Mu). When running, I mimed kicking Trainer Dahn in the head, just joking as we had been. Trainer Mu made me sit on the floor, and said, "He teacher, you student. OK?" It wasn't condescending or anything, but I felt bad about it. Many of the trainers are trying to crack down on me a little bit for joking around too much during class, and generally doing things half-assed, and while I'm glad for it, it also fills me with Deep Shame.
I'll really credit the trainers though . . . I mean, of course he was right, you have to show your trainer the proper respect, and I wasn't. But even so, Trainer Mu was working with me later during shadow boxing, and would smile and say, "Relax!" when I got flustered.
In all though, I felt very good about what I was able to do, and how able I was to keep up. Trainer Sohn worked with me on pads one-on-one, and said "Good!" much more often than he said, "NO!!" which is a decided improvement from two days ago. I was also surprised at how much muscle memory I had for certain things.
It's really the cardio aspect of the classes that I can't seem to get through. I lose my breath, my muscles just seem to stop. Part of it is the heat, it's like working out in a steam bath. It's incredibly frustrating how difficult getting through a five-minute session on the weight bag can be. It's so much harder than any gym exercise I've ever done has been, and this even includes the couple of Tae Kwondo workouts I had, and even everything that I did at NYU. All my movement and dance training, and nothing compares to trying to spar against a wiry Thai guy for five minutes at a time.
At the end of the day though, when I add up my accomplishments from each session rather than what I wasn't able to do, it's pretty remarkable. Each session, we're doing maybe something like 200 push-ups (today, 250, since we were all being punished for being WEAK). Before each water break, we have to do push-ups. Usually it's ten, but if one of the trainers is feeling frisky, it will be "11 push-up!! 12 push-up!!"), and we just have to grit our teeth and get through it.
(As a side note, I'm typing this from the little grill at the camp where we get our meals-- I purchased a plan-- and there are a bunch of little kids playing in one of the rings. They are better at Muay Thai than I will ever be. This is both cute and disheartening)
Anyhow, so I only went to one training session today, and that was really lame. Particularly because I had plans tonight with some of the people from class, and they weren't in the morning session, so now I don't know what plans are. Obviously not that big a deal, but part of this experience should be about pushing myself to do adventurous things socially as well as physically, like make new friends, and instead I stayed home and attempted (and failed) to download the latest episode of BSG and slept.
Sundays we get the whole day off, and one of the trainers was going to take me to the beach, but I don't know where he is or how we'll meet up, so we'll see. I'm thinking of heading over to Ko Phi Phi or something. See some sights. I might rent a motorbike but seeing as how I have not driven in 10 years and roads in Thailand can be dangerous, we'll see. It would help things a lot. I could at least see the sights of Phuket when I'm not training. I don't want to spend too much money while I'm here, but it would be stupid to come all this way and not even make it to the Big Buddha.
Anyhow, I'm getting eaten alive by mosquitos and STILL my Battlestar Galactica is taking forever to download. I feel truly bad for not going to the second session today, but I really think it was necessary. We'll see.
Day off tomorrow! Phuket awaits!!!
During warm-ups, however I was kind of taken to task by one of the trainers (Trainer Mu). When running, I mimed kicking Trainer Dahn in the head, just joking as we had been. Trainer Mu made me sit on the floor, and said, "He teacher, you student. OK?" It wasn't condescending or anything, but I felt bad about it. Many of the trainers are trying to crack down on me a little bit for joking around too much during class, and generally doing things half-assed, and while I'm glad for it, it also fills me with Deep Shame.
I'll really credit the trainers though . . . I mean, of course he was right, you have to show your trainer the proper respect, and I wasn't. But even so, Trainer Mu was working with me later during shadow boxing, and would smile and say, "Relax!" when I got flustered.
In all though, I felt very good about what I was able to do, and how able I was to keep up. Trainer Sohn worked with me on pads one-on-one, and said "Good!" much more often than he said, "NO!!" which is a decided improvement from two days ago. I was also surprised at how much muscle memory I had for certain things.
It's really the cardio aspect of the classes that I can't seem to get through. I lose my breath, my muscles just seem to stop. Part of it is the heat, it's like working out in a steam bath. It's incredibly frustrating how difficult getting through a five-minute session on the weight bag can be. It's so much harder than any gym exercise I've ever done has been, and this even includes the couple of Tae Kwondo workouts I had, and even everything that I did at NYU. All my movement and dance training, and nothing compares to trying to spar against a wiry Thai guy for five minutes at a time.
At the end of the day though, when I add up my accomplishments from each session rather than what I wasn't able to do, it's pretty remarkable. Each session, we're doing maybe something like 200 push-ups (today, 250, since we were all being punished for being WEAK). Before each water break, we have to do push-ups. Usually it's ten, but if one of the trainers is feeling frisky, it will be "11 push-up!! 12 push-up!!"), and we just have to grit our teeth and get through it.
(As a side note, I'm typing this from the little grill at the camp where we get our meals-- I purchased a plan-- and there are a bunch of little kids playing in one of the rings. They are better at Muay Thai than I will ever be. This is both cute and disheartening)
Anyhow, so I only went to one training session today, and that was really lame. Particularly because I had plans tonight with some of the people from class, and they weren't in the morning session, so now I don't know what plans are. Obviously not that big a deal, but part of this experience should be about pushing myself to do adventurous things socially as well as physically, like make new friends, and instead I stayed home and attempted (and failed) to download the latest episode of BSG and slept.
Sundays we get the whole day off, and one of the trainers was going to take me to the beach, but I don't know where he is or how we'll meet up, so we'll see. I'm thinking of heading over to Ko Phi Phi or something. See some sights. I might rent a motorbike but seeing as how I have not driven in 10 years and roads in Thailand can be dangerous, we'll see. It would help things a lot. I could at least see the sights of Phuket when I'm not training. I don't want to spend too much money while I'm here, but it would be stupid to come all this way and not even make it to the Big Buddha.
Anyhow, I'm getting eaten alive by mosquitos and STILL my Battlestar Galactica is taking forever to download. I feel truly bad for not going to the second session today, but I really think it was necessary. We'll see.
Day off tomorrow! Phuket awaits!!!