The last session

Pompoy (thai for fatty)

So again I think a quiet session in the morning makes you want to work harder in the afternoon to catch up.

Afternoon Session

4km run
150 knees
100 teeps
70 knees
100 punches
2 rounds shadow
1 round muckaround with kids
3 rounds bag work
2 rounds thai pads (kai)
1 round break
1 round thai pads (kai again)
big break
2 rounds bag work
100 teeps
4 rounds shadow with hand weights

No clinching to ice the cake! I don't think I would have lasted a second though. Funnily enough its my last session here at Keatkhamtorn and despite the worst heat I've experienced I'm finally satisfied with the workout today.

The first week was a warmup, the second working through injuries and sicknesses. The third was time for action. I'm happy with the development in technique and fitness gained over the past week. Everything that has been taught has really sunk in. Working with Kai on the pads has been great, despite the little time to learn his style/requests.

Overall despite the negligible weight loss I think the past three weeks have definitely improved myself as a Muay Thai student. For anyone thinking about taking the trip to either start Muay Thai, improve their current skills or prepare for a fight, I highly suggest coming over.

In addition I strongly recommend if you are in Bangkok to spend time training at Keatkhamtorn Muay Thai Gym. No this is not a plug, no there was no discount but echoing everyones experiences at various camps and information & reviews from www.muaythailand.com that your time & training at Keatkhamtorn will be an authentic experience. Nestled in the suburb of Khannayao, its close enough to Bangkok and the airport for anything you may need.

More importantly is the people here. The dynamic and integration of the family, local thai fighters and falang nak muay (foreign muay thai students) is probably what makes this place the way it is. Most of the students & trainers live on site sharing rooms you as a falang do the same. You eat the same food and you guessed it do the same training.

You build good relationships with trainers and fighters alike. Whether it be top rated thai professionals such as Nopparat, Detsuriya, Tof and Eui or up and coming youngsters like Eck, Bia and Mam, not forgetting various falang that trained here during my stay such as Steve Wakeling & Andrei Kulebin you share experience ,learn a wealth of knowledge and definitely make some good friends here. You do feel like part of the family.

The crew that pull everything together are amazing. Jakae the owner stops at nothing between his job as police officer and studying law to help you with your trip here. His wife the same. Wan the chef as well cooks excellent food every night monday through saturday. Kit, Jakaes brother in law always pitches in to help out with his great english skills. Also whenever he can, carts all the falang around to dinner or weekend trips to Nakhan-ayaok.

All in all its an amazing experience, enhanced by all the good things here at Keatkhamtorn. I hope you enjoyed reading the blog and I hope I could pass on as much information about living and training in Khannayyao, Bangkok at Keatkhamtorn gym.


Where to from now?

Phuket is on the map next for some much needed rest and relaxtion and also to actually enjoy my holiday. I may be training a session or two at Sinbi just to keep up my fitness.

After the week at Phuket is over I fly home to Sydney and will hopefully be fighting in June. I'd be 6 weeks out which is enough time to prepare and exceed my goals and hopefully my trainers goals of fitness and technique to fight.

On that I may keep you posted.

Damn Carpet

Yep the carpet has done it again. Re-opened up one of the blisters on my foot. I really think it'd take a few months to get the conditioning the thai's here have on their feet. Its fairly dissapointing as the bagwork I've been doing hasn't been including too many roundhouse kicks and also been at a lower intensity.

So this is my second last day and my session was cut fairly short. I even tried to train with shoes just doing some boxing work and it didnt help too much. Hopefully i can bandage it enough to do some padwork but that might make the surface a little bit to slippery for kicks.

All I can do to make up for eat is eat plenty of delicious fruit and get a $15 aud massage for an hour hmmm maybe a two hour massage.

Morning Session

150 knees, 100 teep kicks, 100 punches
3 rounds shadow
3 rounds bagwork
break to put on shoes
3 rounds uppercut block.

Nit Noi

Morning Session

100 knees
100 teeps
100 punches
2 rounds shadow
3 rounds bag work
3 rounds thai pads
2 rounds uppercut block
2 rounds technique with mam (my shins were destroyed after this)
stretches

Afternoon Session

4km jog
50 knees
50 teeps
2 rounds shadow
2 rounds muckaround sparring
3 rounds thai pads
1 round bag work
3 rounds hard sparring with bia
rest
10 mins clinching with thai kid (vicious knees)
5 mins clinching with adam (6'4 90 kilos, pretty impossible matchup)
50 situps
100 teeps

Good session, the pad work is getting alot better even though I was out of gas really easily. The technique is coming through and I'm actually blocking most kicks thrown at me.

I think today after three weeks practice I can wrap my own hands without it being loose or putting too much pressure on. Considering I never used wraps due to always using 16oz gloves I'm pretty happy.

On the downside I've maintained my weight of 79 kgs the whole three weeks I've been here. Its due to a few factors

- Eating too much. Much better than starving, the chef here at Keatkhamtorn always cooks up delicious food and there is always more food than you can eat. Also the odd pepsi or sports drink I'm sure hasnt helped. Also the fruit lady every morning gives us all that additional dose of fructose that we don't need but can't refuse.

- Laziness/Sickness. I've either been too lazy to run (1st week) or sick/injured and couldn't run (2nd week). Now I'm up to speed I'm still skipping the odd session of running. This is probably my best hope for losing weight as the sessions here don't quite have the same intensity of the one hour classes back home.

Am I dissapointed? Slightly, but I think I've managed to adjust to the very difficult training schedule here without comprimising my health and enjoyment of my stay too much. The weight however should be easy to lose back home. I have 6 weeks before I plan to fight and need to lose either 3 kilos or 7 which would be quite ideal.

heres some photos from yesterdays fights at ratcha stadium

Epp and the rest are of Detsuriya








-

Ratchadamnern!!!

Morning Session

4km wait no 200m run. My knee felt like it was going to collapse. Excuse or injury prevention it was best not to go any further.

3 rounds bag work
2 rounds uppercut block
break
1 round muckaround sparring with kids
1 round focus mitts with Kai
1 round till tired as above.

Afternoon Session

No run
Warmup of 100 knees, 50 teep & 100 punches.
2 rounds shadow
3 rounds bagwork
3 rounds thai pads with Kai
break
1 round uppercut block

The afternoon session was quite brief as Detsuriya was fighting at Ratchadamnern and I was keen to go.

Now I have been training with Kai for several days in a row, I'm starting to learn his rhythm, style and understand his requests. We have even worked out a number system for different counter attacks such as sweeps, block and return, dodges, catch and knee. This helps immensely as the language barrier is not necessarily a huge problem if you have prior experience in Muay thai. However making the workout more technical and complex is where it presents any issue. Feedback and asking questions are something you have to miss out on, again this is the reality of training in Thailand, it isn't your home gym.

So this was the first time I have been to Ratchadamnern and even for a fairly quiet wednesday night the stadium was packed. The atmosphere was pretty electric with hundreds of thais scattered across the stadium laying bets on the next fight.

We entered and got to see all the fighters preparing backstage in the change rooms and it was interesting to see the difference. Its typically thai what can I say. There are a few showers, toilets, benches and some lights. Nothing fancy, no clean surfaces, very minimalistic. I took a few photos with Epp and Dets and proceeded out to the ringside seats.

I sat with Jason and Ling and watched a number of very exciting fights. The talent amongst these young, light weight fighters is incredible. Coupled with old thai ladys shouting in your ear, promoters and managers screaming for life and death and the hundreds of gamblers it creates an unforgetful experience.

I'll leave the fights with a spoiler that Epp won and Dets lost both via decision as Thai fights are hard to explain why one fighter loses and another doesnt. Also its now 23:19 and I need to be up for morning training so the pics and video will have to wait.

Still trying to organise my phuket trip so hopefully I'll get to watch Bens match at lumpini on Saturday. Sadly my days at Keatkhamtorn are numbered so I'll try and do as much training and take as many photos as possible.

Until tomorrow.....

morning

4km jog
100 knees
2 rounds bag work
1 round uppercut block
2 rounds pad work with Kai
100's (100 straight, 100 uppercut, 100 low punches)

afternoon

4km jog
100 knees
50 teeps
2 rounds shadow
2 rounds muckaround
3 rounds bagwork
3 rounds tech sparring top
2 rounds bagwork
2 rounds tech pads with kai
15 mins clinching
60 situps


It was a good day, thighs are still sore. Plenty of linament used!

Achoooo

Still got a cold after the weekend in Nakanyaok and Ayyuthaya. Training still went ahead given that and all the bruises from paintball. We missed the morning session due to coming back and walked in just as it finished.

Afternoon:

4km run after half a bottle of linament over both legs
100 knees
2 rounds of bag work
1 round muckaround technique with little kids
3 rounds of thai pads with Kai
2 rounds of bagwork
1 round break
2 rounds uppercut block
2 rounds technique with Tof (thai pro)
3 mins fast skipping
2x50 knees
10 mins grappling with 60kg thai
50 teeps

Pretty good session considering how stiff and bruised my legs are. Didn't really want to train for too long as it was getting cold and I still have a cold!!!

However I was absolutely sh*t on the pads as far as defense is concerned. It was due to a few factors but no real excuses. I usually train & spar with a southpaw so my right leg is very lazy when it comes to checking kicks.

It is just a little bit hard to get used to exactly what the trainers want. Now that I seem to be doing padwork with Kai consistently I think give it a few days and it will be fine. An example would be I'm used to checking a kick and returning with the same leg. Kai seemed to get me to counter with my right leg (strong leg) every time. Makes sense as I'm noticing that the Thai training has everything in perfect form and keeping it simple.

The real reason is I'm just lazy and not looking at Kai's chest to predict his body movement. I get lazy and look at his head for the next command to kick,punch or whatever it maybe. Now that my feet are okay and I'm in decent health I'm starting to think an extra month now would be perfect. I guess I'll just have to come back to Thailand again!

Also this time I wasn't grappling with kids anymore. There was a whole group of new thais so this time I got to clinch with a thai who was about 60kg. Granted theres a 20kg weight difference, this guy would most likely have 8 - 10 years experience over me and over 100 fights. This time I did alright and even managed to work out his game, using no strength I countered his takedown and he landed on the matts. Did I get a video? Nope! Did the thai have me completely exhausted due to superior technique and conditioning yep.

I still walked away with a smile knowing my clinch has improved and I could last a few rounds with a thai from a gym known for its clinching.

Tomorrow is going to be hell, my legs are completely exhausted. I think a massage will be in order soon....

Ooohees Fight

Was a pretty average day for training. I woke up around 1am wanting to spew for some unknown reason.

Once I got up I decided to go for a jog but only made it half way and walked back. I stopped several times, felt like dying but slowly made it home. I sat down for around 20 minutes but Kai wouldn't have that so I let him know I had a jep tong (painful stomach).

Still not having it Kai chucked me in to do some sparring with one of the younger kids which is now getting quite easy. I'm not using my weight anymore and practising my form alot more. Time to start sparring some of the older Thais and get my ass kicked.

I slept for a few hours and tried to think what made me sick. Everytime I eat Pad Thai from the roadside stall near 7-11 I get pretty ill. Theres a decent amount of prawns and various seafood in it, somehow I don't think its all that fresh and my stomach doesnt cope too well. I guess we are spoilt with fresh seafood back home.

The pad thai in question



Come 1:30 we all hopped in the minivan and drove to the local stadium where oohee was fighting.

We stood around for abit and watched the fighters getting prepped, taped up and linament applied. Was pretty good to see how the local Muay Thai scene works. For most of the fighters it just seemed like another fight and another day for most. We found out Ooohee has had over 300 fights already so that rings true.

Before we know it, the robe goes on, mongkol (blessed headband), shoes off and a few photos, we are invited into the corner to show our support.

The 5th round finishes and Oohee's the winner by points, everything is quickly unpacked and we go home. The atmosphere ringside is pretty electric and to be sitting cornerside with all the falang for free was pretty good too.

The most interesting part about the day was the fact it was an outdoor arena. The fighters were sitting outdoors the whole time and are then expected to go the whole 5 rounds. What was the weather like? Well I have a permanent singlet tan now due to it being probably the hottest day of my whole trip. I'm just not sure how anyone could cope performing your absolute best given the heat.









After the victory