I have been slacking on writing big time. The two and a half to three weeks before my fight were basically nonstop training, which left me with literally zero energy for doing anything other than collapsing into bed. This is going to be a recap for the month of March.
Weeks One and Two
I fought on March 12th. In the few weeks leading up to the fight, my daily regimen (Monday-Saturday) looked something like this:
Wake up between 5:30 and 61
Drive to the gym
Run 5k
Hang out for 40 minutes or so before class
Morning training session: 8 to 10 AM
10 mins skipping
some jogging
sprints
stretch
shadowboxing
padwork - 3 with a 4th ‘burn’ round, e.g.
10-10 continuous kicks each leg, followed by 5-5 kicks each leg, 3 kicks, 2, and then a powerful 1. Depending on my energy levels/the day, catch breath and finish with 10/10 and/or alternating 20 kicks RLRL continously2.
Bagwork for 3 rounds- My ADD makes staying focused during bagwork difficult, so I usually try to make a concerted effort to focus on specific facets or combos, and keeping my hands up although I’m usually exhausted after the padwork.
On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays there are partner drills, working specific combos and counters.
Sparring, usually boxing in the mornings
Conditioning, consisting of power kicks on the bag, teeps, and skip knees.3
100 sit-ups
cool-down stretching
Go home, drop off gear
Protein shake4
Chat with Stacie
Shower
Lunch
Nap, ideally at least an hour and a half, but on occaison as long as three hours
Afternoon Session: 4 to 6 PM
Same general format as the morning session, usually with Muay Thai sparring and clinching rather than boxing sparring, usually going a round or two with the trainers. Two weeks before fight week we clinched for 15-20 minutes straight a class, and doing that for 3 consecutive days made my neck and back very sore.
Finish training with 2-300 skip knees and a 2k run.
Go home, shower
Grab some food
Talk to Stacie
Go to bed between 10 and 11 PM, depending on when we were running the next day.
The training reached peak intensity the week before fight week, and by that Thursday evening I was dead. I had blisters on my toes from running 7k a day, my feet hurt, and my energy during training was at an all time low. Kru Big saw that I was dying and made me take Friday off, telling me to run in the morning, get a massage, and relax the rest of the day. I did so, and felt like a new person on Saturday. I’ve never trained as long or as hard as I have in the past few weeks, and I’ve found that a day off to recover, even if it’s in the middle of the week, can be invaluable. I actually noticed the most tangible fitness gains on days after I’d had a break. It feels like my body, after having some time to recover, is then able to apply all the hard work I’ve been putting in. Without some breaks, the general fatigue makes noticing progress a lot harder.
My fight was on a Sunday, and the week of the fight my training gradually tapered off in intensity. I drilled a lot of combinations with elbows in padwork, and generally tried to sharpen up the combos that I had in the arsenal. I ran and trained Monday through Friday, and went in on Saturday during the afternoon session to get my first legit Thai liniment oil massage5. I absolutely love both the smell and sensation of the liniment oil, but I had never before been coated head to toe in the stuff, and it was certainly an interesting experience. I expected the burning, of course, but after a bit my entire body felt cold, and then numb6. It wasn’t altogether unpleasant, honestly, but being covered in a burning-cold sensation and then made to shadowbox in 85 degree heat was certainly novel. I quickly worked up a sweat, which Kwanchai seemed to be pleased with, noting that the way my sweat was beading up through the oil was apparently a good sign7. After shadowboxing, I was told to shower off and go home. After nearly a month of training 30+ hours a week, having two days off that weren’t caused by sickness or injury was weird, but very nice. I tried to eat well and chill, mostly.8
I’m not usually a super anxious person, but part of the general chaos that comes with fighting on less serious cards in Thailand is often not knowing anything about your opponent, even until the last minute. I don’t think I knew who I was fighting until either the evening before or the day of the fight, and my last minute attempts to find record of a random Belgian dude named Luca who trained at Revolution Muay Thai were futile. I didn’t even lay eyes on him until I had already been wrapped up and rubbed down with the liniment oil. I looked over to where he was putting his gloves on, saw that he was wearing MMA shorts and a Muhammad Ali T-shirt, and my first thought was “I’m going to beat his ass”. Not with any kind of personal malice, but my immediate impression was a gate-keepy sort of “this kid is a poser”. It was as if my brain had decided for me that I wasn’t going to lose to some rando in an Ali shirt.
I have three videos of the fight on Youtube. The first one is from my friend Jojo, who was the receptionist at Yak Yai when I first started there, and took a step back so that he could film more fights9. The second one is from the official Bangla Youtube channel, and is titled “Farang10 Muay Thai War: Luca 🇧🇪 Revolution Phuket Vs Adrian 🇺🇸 Yak Yai Muay Thai”. The third video is the uncut link from the live stream, which is the same footage as the second video, but without any cuts11. Jojo’s footage is taken from the corner, and the different perspective is probably my favorite, since there are a few moments that the stadium camera missed, and Jojo’s perspective is more immersive, in my opinion. I’m going to write up a longer, more detailed analysis of my fight, but I came out (perhaps too) aggressively12, put a high pace on him, stayed in his face, and he retired in the corner after the third round. I was visibly tired by the end of the third round, but I felt well conditioned, and could have definitely gone all five rounds. The outpouring of support I received both before and after the fight was amazing. My opponent was super nice after the fight, and everyone I talked to from Revolution was super respectful and complimentary.
My immediate emotional feeling after getting out of the ring and catching my breath was one of gratitude. I felt viscerally thankful for my trainers and training partners, Kwanchai and Caroline specifically. I felt at all times during the fight like I was in better shape and more skilled than my opponent, and that wouldn’t have been the case without the team I had behind me. This was also my second fight since I dislocated my shoulder in the ring13, as well as my first full-rules Thai fight, and to win in what felt like fairly convincing fashion was amazing. I wasn’t too banged up after the fight, which had been one of my secondary goals going in. I had a sore jaw, a bit of swelling at the bottom of my left shin, and a medium-sized hematoma on my left hip, probably from catching one of his kicks early in the fight without stepping enough to mitigate the impact. This was fortunate because two days later I flew up to Bangkok to welcome John and Z, my training partners (and corners in my previous fight), who came out to Thailand to visit me and train.
Weeks Three and Four
It was super nice to have friends from home come visit, partially because it’s cool to do the more touristy things that you otherwise wouldn’t, and also because there’s a ton of backstory conversation that you get to skip when you’re hanging out with people you already know. I feel like the expat social experience in Thailand, especially around Muay Thai gyms, is a constant rehashing of the same few conversations: your name, where you’re from, what you do for work, etc. It’s not exactly tiring, per se, but there’s a repetitive superficiality to the experience that makes everything feel a bit less authentic than even the conversations I’d have with customers at the bar. Having a couple of my good friends from home come see me was refreshing.
I flew from Phuket to Bangkok on Tuesday and picked the guys up from the airport. We only had a couple days in Bangkok, which consisted mostly of showing them around the major tourist hotspots like Sukhumvit and Khaosan roads, as well as some shopping at MBK and a visit to Action Zone, my favorite little Muay Thai shop in the world. On Wednesday we grabbed dim sum on Yaowarat Road14 with Justin Troy, owner of Two Bridges Muay Thai in NYC, who I’d trained with at Yak Yai. He introduced me to Josh Lai, a super cool guy and great fighter out of St. Paul, Minnesota15. Due to a scheduling error on my part, we discovered that instead of flying out at 7 PM the following day like I’d thought, our flight was booked for 7 AM16. Upon arrival at the airport, we also found out that the tickets I’d booked for John and Z were for the wrong month, and so they had to book a last minute flight on a different airline the same day.
Upon arriving back in Phuket, I rode back down to my bungalow in Rawai, started packing up my things, and then met the guys out at Aussie Bar on Bangla Walking Street in Patong, because our villa wasn’t ready for check-in yet. We'd rented a really nice three-bedroom house in between the hills leading from Patong to Kathu. The location itself was less than ideal, because the road outside our little neighborhood was both very hilly and incredibly busy most of the time, which meant turning right against traffic17 almost every time we wanted to get into or out of our neighborhood, and there weren't any major corner stores within walking distance. We rented Z a scooter large enough for two, since John (understandably) didn't feel comfortable riding a motorbike, and we were off. The week we were in Patong was filled with good food, too much drinking, and a ton of fun. Highlights included a beach day with an impromptu sunset photoshoot, the trainers at Yak Yai nicknaming Z "Cowboy" because of his boots, and a trip to my local massage spot in Rawai, where the massage therapists were so enamored with John and Z that they insisted on taking a picture with the three of us afterwards. Halfway through the week, I fell victim to some gastrointestinal issues, and spent two days straight taking dozens of trips between my bed and the toilet, which meant no training for me18, which sucked. I was better enough to train on Wednesday, and on Thursday we flew to Singapore for a day because I needed to do a border run19.
Singapore is awesome. I remember being in 8th or 9th grade and having Mr. Adem, one of my favorite teachers, talk about how Singapore was the nicest city he’d ever been to, and not having any idea where Singapore was. I think at the time I’d confused it with Taipei, the capital of Taiwan. It’s pretty much exactly as he’d described; incredibly clean, spectacularly modern, but with a nice mixture of older, Chinese-influenced architecture and ultra-modern skyscrapers. It was jarring, however, to go from entire meals running me $4-5 in Thailand to $15 cocktails in Singapore. We arrived just after 1 pm, and were greeted by Z’s cousin Evon, who took us to a local mall for lunch and then to our hotel room. Z is half Singaporean, and so it was nice to hang out with his cousin and have a couple of people familiar with the city show us around. After lunch I was wiped, so I napped for a couple hours. My Thai SIM card didn’t work while I was in Singapore, and because we were only there for 26 hours or so, I didn’t feel like paying for a new one20. After my nap, I met John out for a cocktail at The Secret Mermaid, a super cool craft cocktail bar located in the basement of a huge skyscraper in the financial district. John had been there for a while when I arrived and had already befriended the bartender, Robbie21, who was absolutely awesome and hooked us up with some cocktails that he was working on as well as recommendations for the night. We stopped for some fish and chips, and then went from there to Barbary Coast, another craft cocktail bar, where the bartender Dan hooked us up. Barbary Coast also has a "ballroom" upstairs which has a neo-Victorian aesthetic, complete with wallpaper and upholstered lounges22. We went from there to the Singaporean Employees Only branch, but it was close enough to closing that they didn't let us in, so we grabbed a beer and some of the best Indian food I've ever had from a place nearby, and went back to the hotel. In the morning we checked out, hit Nuage, an amazing patisserie, and then hung out at The Jewel, Singapore's super sick luxury mall attached to the airport. Robbie also works at a bar on the upper level of The Jewel, and so we hung out with him some more before checking into our flight, hitting the massage chairs in the lounge, and flying back to Phuket.
The guys flew out the next afternoon, and so after getting up, we grabbed some breakfast in the morning, got farewell Thai massages,23 packed our stuff up and said our goodbyes. I moved into my next Airbnb, a one-bedroom condo in Kathu24, and fell back into a normal routine. There was a going away party on Sunday for my friend Stinna, the first person I met at the bungalows and an incredibly warm and caring woman. The following week, I started training regularly again, and Caroline had her first ever (!!!) fight at Bangla on Friday.
Caroline’s fight was amazing. Jojo’s version of the fight can be found here, and the stadium’s live-streamed perspective is available here. Caroline is, in addition to my running buddy, my favorite sparring partner at the gym. She and I are roughly the same height/length, and her use of push kicks and knees to establish range is sublime, which is an area of my game that I still need to improve. I was probably more anxious waiting for her fight to start than I was for my own, but within 30 seconds of the opening bell it was clear that she was in control. She used the aforementioned teeps to keep her shorter, stockier opponent at bay, and punished her with knees any time she tried to step in to throw punches25. Caroline dominated the fight for all five rounds, and won the pink belt that Bangla uses to promote its higher-skill women's fights26. I'm super proud of Caroline, and it's awesome to see a friend you punch in the face on almost a daily basis absolutely outclass someone else in a full-blown fight.
While hanging out in the trainer/fighter area waiting for Caroline to get her hands wrapped, I was approached by the promoter, who asked my trainers a couple of questions about me and then offered me a fight for Sunday, two days later. I felt like I was in decent shape and didn’t have any nagging injuries, so I accepted27. I didn't train on Saturday, only to get a text from Henry in the mid-afternoon that my fight had been pushed back to the following Sunday28. I then got a message on Sunday that the promoter was asking if I was instead available for Wednesday, April 5th, and as of now (10 pm on Monday night), that's where I've landed. Kwanchai and Songkom29 are also supposed to fight on Wednesday, which is both exciting and a bit intimidating. I understand intellectually that winning and losing is not nearly as big a deal here, especially at Bangla, as it is in the states, but the pressure to perform when two bona-fide killers from your gym are fighting on the same card is high. Nobody wants to be the one to let the team down.
I’m interested to see how this next, short notice fight (opponent still TBD) goes, since there was a significantly less thorough lead-up for this one. I like the idea of being incredibly active while I’m here, but have still retained some of the Western ideal of being perfectly prepared for a fight, which is in and of itself an impossibility. I have faith in my skills, and I’m in close to the best shape of my life, so I hope it’ll go as well as the last one. Stacie comes to visit a week from today, and I obviously don’t want to be too banged up when she arrives.
After my fight I’m expecting a relaxing month or so. I haven’t seen Stacie in over two months, and so I’m planning on treating our time together like a vacation, still training periodically but significantly less frequently. We’re going to be moving around Thailand a fair bit, so expect more travel blog type stuff and less Muay Thai specific stuff for the next while, although I will be reviewing gyms that I stop by. I’m also going to make a concerted effort to not go another whole month without an update, sorry to anyone who has been wondering what’s been going on with my lack of posting. I want to thank everyone who has supported me, whether by reaching out to wish me good luck before my fight, by following this blog, or by checking in with me in general. I truly feel blessed to be where I am at this point in my life, surrounded by a community of people who love me and want to see me succeed. It’s surreal to be doing the things I’ve always dreamed of, and to have the support of everyone I talk to. I love y’all.
Depending on what time Caroline, Kwanchai and I were supposed to run that day.
This kills the Adrian.
Because I was training for a fight I either got 200 continuous or 3 sets of 100 skip knees, as opposed to the usual 100.
There’s a smoothie stand around the corner from my bungalow that does a ton of different fruit shakes. I ended up getting like 3 scoops of whey protein per shake, and literally every flavor I’ve had from there was delicious, although the banana-pineapple-coconut milk-lime combo was probably my favorite.
For those of you who are unfamiliar, liniment oil is a pillar of the Muay Thai community. Namman Muay is the OG and most popular brand, and consists primarily of Menthol, eucalyptus, wintergreen oil and alcohol in an oil base. This combination creates a burning and numbing sensation. Think IcyHot on steroids, with most of the emphasis on the ‘Hot’.
Allegedly, the Menthol and various other ingredients irritate the skin in such a way as to increase blood flow to the area, producing an analgesic effect.
I’ve discovered that I’m really good at sweating. Even having mostly adapted to the heat, I still lose a net kilo of water weight a session, despite drinking at least 2 liters worth of water a class.
The fights at Bangla generally fall into the “not so serious” category, and so there are no formal weigh-ins. The two fighters agree to a certain weight and try to stay in that range, based on a sense of mutual respect. I have seen fights called off the same day because one fighter showed up much larger than the agreed upon weight.
Filming Muay Thai fights is his passion, and he’s back and forth between Phuket and Bangkok on almost a weekly basis for various fight cards, which makes it hard to man the front desk. You can find his YouTube channel here.
Farang is Thai for foreigner, and is generally used to refer to Westerners, specifically. Muay Thai is often used as a bit of soft propaganda in Thailand, and the Thai vs Farang matchup comprises probably 75% of fights in Thailand outside of the (much more competitive) stadium level. Due to my weight, I’m probably going to have some difficulty finding Thai opponents around my size, and so I won’t be surprised if I fight primarily foreigners while I’m here.
This allows you to see me hyperventilating in the corner after they pour freezing water over my head unexpectedly. Legitimately the least enjoyable thing about my fight, and that includes being punched in the face.
There is a Thai cultural preference for effortless dominance, which views balance and composure as the ideal display of superiority. This is at odds with the Western idea of dominance equaling aggression, and it’s sometimes hard to rationalize the two aesthetic preferences. My friend Helene and I talked in some depth about this in reference to her fight that I saw in Hua Hin, which I wrote about in my first article. She steamrolled her opponent, earning a first round knockout, and Jao (her trainer) criticized her afterwards for “fighting ugly”.
During my second amateur fight in 2015, a super traumatic experience.
Bangkok’s Chinatown, which is super cool and somewhere I hadn’t been before.
Josh ended up coming down to Phuket and training at Sinbi for a couple weeks, winning his fight at Bangla on Wednesday the 29th via elbow KO.
Turns out my calendar was still in EST.
They drive on the left side of the road in Thailand
This was a miserable experience, and resulted in me losing 2-3 kilos of walking-around weight, which I guess is a bit of a silver lining, albeit not one I would ever sign up for voluntarily.
The multiple entry tourist visa I’m in Thailand on requires you to leave the country every 60 days, and day 60 ended up being in the middle of the week and a half the guys were visiting me, so we made a trip of it.
It’s interesting, if unsurprising, how much easier it is to be immersed in a new place when you don’t have a phone to distract you.
Dude is a genius. I absolutely love hanging out with bartenders who live and breathe their craft. He tried us on a cocktail that’s now Secret Mermaid’s April signature cocktail, comprised of a home-infused coconut rum, Pedro Ximinez sherry, and clarified lime juice. Give him a follow at @just_bobbert on Insta if you want to see wizardry in action.
John and I paid like US $20 apiece for two Hendricks Orbium and tonics, which are $9 at Al’s, the bar I work at in the States.
No pictures this time.
A kind of catch-all name for the municipal area in the lower-middle of the island. It’s where a large number of the non-tourist population of Phuket live.
Huge respect to her opponent, who continued pressing forward despite being outclassed technically and taking a great deal of kicks and knees.
There are two belts that Bangla uses to hype up fights for literally every card, so despite this being Caroline’s first ever fight, and her opponent’s first full Thai rules fight, there was a belt in the mix, which Caroline had to give back shortly after leaving the ring.
Yolo, amirite?
There could be any one of a thousand reasons for this. I’m in a weird space, matchmaking wise. I’m on the upper end of weight classes that have readily available talent, and I’m new/inexperienced enough that I shouldn’t be fighting guys with more than 5 or so fights. I’m also slightly too experienced for an absolute novice, and so (especially now that there’s footage of me winning a fight) other gyms may not want to put their new or less skilled guys in there with me. There’s also just a ton of missed and dropped communication between the promoter and gyms, and so the whole thing comes across as barely-functional chaos most of the time.
Caroline is Songkom’s favorite, and so he wanted to fight on the same card as her, but apparently when he showed up on the night he was recognized, and neither the guy he was supposed to fight originally, or the two other guys at his weight on the card wanted any of that smoke, and so there was no fight for him. I can’t blame anybody for not wanting to step in there with at 2 weight class Raja (the most prestigious belt in Muay Thai) champ for less than $200.