Training at Tiger Muay Thai in Phuket, Thailand
“After all, a man who has to achieve great things must have the courage to do them and must have confidence in himself. He should not be cowardly or abject, though he should be modest in his words, presuming less of himself than he achieves…”
— Page 60, The Book of the Courtier.
I have three goals I want to accomplish in Thailand.
First, the Muay Thai sessions last two and a half hours and there are two classes every day — mornings and afternoons. So before getting on the plane I figured I could feasibly train for 100 hours in one month — like some kind of mini-Malcolm Gladwell theory dreamed up by a young man with delusions about his body and its current condition. On my first day training, I regret this goal intensely. But I wrote it down, and once a goal has been written down, I think it should be attempted.
Second, I want to make progress and improve beyond the “beginner” stage of Muay Thai. Although learning a martial art, or any art at all, is full of intangible lessons, I hope to quantify my progress in some way. This way of framing it — “beginner” to “beyond beginner” — seems reasonable.
Finally, I want to learn something new. What exactly? I have no idea.
What I do know is these goals feel far off as my shin explodes into the heavy bag, my shoulders burn, arms ache — and all I’ve learned so far is Thailand is hot as the dickens, heavy bags aren’t stuffed with feathers, and my shins, which in this sport are supposed to be weapons, are soft as kitten paws.
I’m also relearning a lesson I learned many years ago running sprints at the end of long basketball practices. Sometimes you only have two options in life — quit or don’t.
I trudge, groan, and moan my way through the first workout, but I don’t quit, and when the whistle blows, or rather, the instructor Dang snaps a thin stick against his palm and says “Fiiinished” in a voice that’s rough and rhythmic, I stretch out on the mat like a corpse, exhausted, soaking in a puddle of my own sweat deep enough to drown a mouse.