First day in Phuket

So far we have trained twice with really big classes, composed mostly of farang. Sinbi doesn’t have many, if any thais fighting but they have a pronounced and organize system to manage so many farang. I wonder if the authenticity should be questioned but mostly I am too overwhelmed with the excitement of training twice a day in Paradise. 

Amongst the crowd,  I stood out as one of the who could skip rope for ten minutes and longer,  making me feel pretty well-equipped. I am lucky to train back home with authentic trainers. The warm-up was easy. 

My experience so far has been one composed of play. Thais even in their fights will smile if someone lands something, so they play a lot in training.  We ate on the top of a mountain overlooking kata beach for breakfast this morning after training. We saw elephants just chilling nearby. Incredible. We worked on my right kick a lot. My right shoulder should be turning over, and my hip needs to be going straight in more. My first trainer called me powerful but took it pretty easy, fixing my fundamentals and not forcing any sprints. His name was Run and I really enjoyed him. My trainer back in the states says I paw instead of turning my knuckles downward, and Run reiterated this.
Afterwords, starved and ready to explore, we drove up the mountain, past elephants for some incredible views and to eat. We could see Kata Beach and the big Buddha. The air smelled so clear and was moist from all the rain.
During my second session in the afternoon, trainers approached me and immediately wrapped my hands. I stood there, like a pedicured princess sandwiched between two thai trainers as they wrapped my hands – it has been years since this has happened. Girl treatment, ftw.
And then I spent the next hour or so playing and sweating my ass off with Ann. He kept forgetting my name and was a lot younger than my first trainer and flirted his ass off. It was great fun. He rolled around on the floor when I teeped him away and punished me with kicks and pads and then over-reacted when I did something bad or good. I preferred his personality. It made time go by faster.
By the end, during clinch and technique, I was paired with a tiny Canadian girl. The trainer at that point kept calling me “Big”. I was the Big girl. Haha
Whatever.
It was sometime during clinch that I got bubble gut. I made it to a toilet in time, but the diarrhea comes in waves. (I now understand the theory of all the hoses next to the toilet because toilet paper would rape you by the end of a day like I had.) 

II have generally been pretty conservative but food as a result of my stomach.  If not for that,  I would’ve tried the roasted roaches at the night market. 

Emotions

There’s a trainer at the gym who reads people like books.  I trust his opinion for it.  When he said  “I think you’re emotional;  You’re not mean,”  I kind of wanted to hug him.  I would rather be emotional than mean. 

Cliquey Fighters

There’s this group of mean girls evolving around me.  I can’t really say I’m truly friends with any of them but they’re there. They’re turning into this ugly little clique.  One girl literally told a fellow fighter “nobody likes [you]”.

Who made you Queen-Bee and dumb committee?  This is my territory. Nobody is allowed to be a bitch but me.  And nobody gives a shit about my approval anyway so I certainly don’t go about bestowing it and/or bullying people.

Maybe I don’t know the social rules game.  I never tried to fit in when I was in high school.  Why would I start trying now?

Training

I filled my down time with new challenges. I danced and performed in two different routines in two different styles of dance in August and September.  I belonged on stage for the few minutes I performed. I don’t think I could’ve smiled bigger.

Then September rolled in October and my flights for Thailand was booked. I became a fighter again. Gradually,  my hip scarf and dance shoes spent more time in my closet,  while I spent more time digging out gloves from the locker room.

I dug into training.  I booked a series of races to stay interimly challenged and inspire more aggressive physical activity.

Running was a self-absorbed outlet to recover from all the self-induced low training self-esteem. Every training session became a source of self-criticism. I am not turning my hip in my low kicks. I don’t check on my right. My knees lack leverage from the rest of my body. I loved muay thai but hated myself doing it.

So I ran.  I ran for miles a couple days a week to undo the damage from all the over-thinking. I got a few medals,  a few shirts.  Nothing to write home to mom.  No P. R.

Cross training in long distance and muay thai is counter – productive.  The long distances destroys anaerobic, fast-paced cardiovascular endurance required for boxing.  But it was my outlet.  I’m not sure that I loved muay thai in October.  Out of duty,  I began challenging myself.  I trained harder and more often.

November I trained harder.  I woke up early and ran or drove to the gym.  I did 2 separate two weeks stunts where I didn’t take a break.  Sunday’s were sacred.  On my single day off from muay thai,  I ran. And it broke me a little.

Resentment

I really resent the time I spent training six days a week for years in muay thai.   I could’ve been living.  I could’ve been happy.

So much of that time I was tortured,  unhappy,  unfulfilled.  How much was being challenged worth?

I had such shitty self-esteem.  People wouldn’t train with me because I was a girl and they still say they hold back because I’m a girl.  Why stick around such shitty,  shitty people who give me such shitty feelings?

Alex made the most condescending remark about his agility drill.  I asked him the point and he condescended that it makes the difference between a professional and amateur fighter.

 

 

Today,  I shimmy.

TKO by way of common cold

The last 96 hours have been a blur maybe due to the impending cold.

I survived the divas in the dress rehearsal and the nerves of the beginners.

I’ve learned that under stress,  I withdraw and focus on breathing.  Don’t talk to me about your nerves.  I am busy being calm.

head, shoulders, knees, and toes

We did the full run through for our belly dance performance. All day today, I could barely lift my hands to ask patients how many fingers they see, but I’ll suck it up when there’s a crowd of people watching. Motivation.

gassed

I haven’t taken training seriously in months and it shows. I see so many openings and I am too big and slow to take the shots. My combinations aren’t flowing. An impending training trip to Thailand isn’t inspiring the urgency nor motivation. I might be in trouble come December.

Maybe, after all this dance, I’ll be more committed to training.

On a lighter side, my lack of levity makes me a bit of a ham in training. I’m admitting fatigue, lack of physical fitness, and inspiring a chorus of singing during conditioning. Happy Birthday, Kru. I didn’t buy you a present but here are your push-ups.

My life and attention span is being pulled a couple different directions, and I still haven’t figured out my underwear problem.

Trouble shooting trouble sleeping

I returned from vacationing in Asheville, NC with a case of insomnia. I’ve resorted to blogging.

The perils of a vacation for an adventuresome person is not the adventure-having but the relative gloom upon return.  I could’ve died climbing steep rocks near intense rapids, but that’s not the problem this first world person is facing. I survived – Now how am I to cope everyday-life? 

The obvious/unhealthy answer is by inducing anxiety. There’s so many good reasons for insomnia (world hunger, war, racism); My work schedule is not among them. Yet, I stared at it tonight dreading it. It’s a job I love in a field that’s captivating. But it’s work. I won’t go on about it, but I have so much shit to do.

Thinking of said work-related shit reminds me of all the non-work related shit on my schedule. The first and most pressing issue is underwear. I have to figure out my undergarments for my first bellydance performance in less than a week. A girl can’t have her cups under-filled or an exposed cookie when she’s dazzling on stage. (This isn’t THAT type of dance.)

Fixating on flashing isn’t my only appearance-related concern. I may as well forget looking presentable for dress rehearsal and photos – I have to run 6 miles in a race that morning. I haven’t run 4 miles since a trainer kicked my knee in training. It’s been months. 

Then there’s the choreography and the performance of said choreography to dwell. Anxiety.

It’s just shit. This is a hobby and I am putting an unnecessary amount of pressure on myself to look good. I started belly dancing because it felt good just to jiggle. 

None of this is literally climbing mountains. Maybe that’s why I feel guilty about my relative despondency. It’s such stupid shit to complain about. When I was hippy-dipping up mountains, down rivers, and through breweries I was conscious. I wasn’t so self-involved or over-whelmed by stupid first world problem bullshit.

The perils of vacation? Ha! My life is a vacation.  Does blogging with my thumbs absolve me of my stereotypical narcissistic sins? Can I do some Hail Marys and call it a night? I am sorry, reader. I used to have real problems to write about. Now, you’re just stuck with these.