Training Day 3: The Essence of Toughness (Part 1)

Today was a day of radical ups and downs.

My eyes flipped open at 3AM and I could tell it was a waste of willpower to try and close them again. Yesterday’s run assured full body ache rather than just upper body soreness. I lay in bed and tried to imagine what it felt like to not hurt. This sort of forgetfulness has played a constant role in my life. When I fall ill, I soon forget what it ever felt like to feel well and I quickly resign myself to a life of feeling how I do in that moment. Conversely, no matter how many times I do it, I can never remember how horrible it feels to fall out of shape and have to work my way back into shape until I’m fully submerged in ache.

My knuckles had calloused nicely during the night so I rationalized that it would be beneficial for me to start the day with a technique session. I hopped into the ring with the four other students and tried to follow the instructor’s lead. I was paired up with a kind-hearted but mildly overzealous Englishman. We started working on leg blocks and quickly moved to the right-uppercut, left-hook combination. What the Englishman lacked in speed, he made up for in power, pounding the palms of my hands. I tried to avoid touching his hands entirely since I was worried about the calluses on my knuckles. But the minimal contact and the sweat soon revealed the open wounds.

Despite having bloody knuckles again, I felt good. I felt fast and my form had certainly been better than that of my opponent. I figured it would be OK to move from technique to the Muay Thai class as long as I bailed out before we had to wrap our hands. We started skipping rope and moved into the circle run, stretching and calisthenics, all of which felt great until the pushups. After the third pushup, my pecs felt like they were on fire. Having been in good shape during periods of my life, struggling on the fourth pushup was as frustrating as it was humiliating. Then one of the instructors came over and put his foot on my back.

I dropped to the ground with a wet slap. Blood rushed to my head and I flipped over to jerk the foot away. There was even a brief thought of hitting the person responsible for pushing me to the ground. As my hand reached the instructor’s foot, my fingers recoiled. Did I really just think about hitting a Muay Thai instructor in front of 20 other Muay Thai instructors in a foreign country where I had no ability to explain myself, while being so weak I’m struggling on the fourth pushup? I finished the reps and excused myself from the class.

The experience shook me a bit. I sat at the concession stand and drank a protein shake while thinking about what I’d almost done. I was pissed off, almost entirely at myself for not being in better shape. Why was I such a lazy bastard before I got here? At the very least I could have run a bit or done some pushups before wasting my day. I was so angry about not being able punch because my knuckles were raw and my pecs were sore that I just wanted to hit something. Instead, I sat and brooded over my shake and watched the other students. My eye caught a new guy working the heavy bag. I’m hesitant to say that he hit the bag at all. It was more like a push. He looked like a giant shaved de-clawed panda cub pushing playfully at an equally giant ball on the string. I immediately imagined two things: first, I imagined seeing this student through the eyes of the instructor and then I imagined what it would be like to get in the ring with this guy. I stuck with the second thought and giggled myself to sleep.

I started the second half of the day with a run and was hoping for something more challenging than the 10k shuffle. I had anger to work through. I was relieved when I saw the same set of instructors who had led the last run. Surely they wouldn’t take us on the same loop. We headed in a different direction and I struck up a conversation with one of the other students. He’d hurt his foot two weeks into training and this was the first time trying to run since. This was his second month at the camp.

The pace was still at a shuffle but I was giddy to see us heading towards the mountains. The other student and I spoke about the pros and cons of the camp, the working elephants on the roadside, the practicality of Muay Thai, how to train most effectively while here and of the fight caliber of the various trainers. One of the trainers leading the run fascinated me the most because of his build—it was exactly like mine.

If a person is watching an athletic competition in which s/he has no emotional investment, that person will most likely root for the person or team s/he can most easily identify with. While watching MMA competitions in the States, I’ve noticed that people who don’t know anything about the fight will most often root for either the underdog, or more commonly, the fighter with whom the viewer shares the same race. But sometimes the viewer will choose a physical attribute to root for like hair color, a full set of teeth, the fighter who doesn’t have “Condom Depot” printed to the ass of his shorts; or as in my case, the tall skinny dude. I’ll routinely root for Nate Diaz, Corey Hill, Kendall Grove and a bevy of other fighters even though I might not like that fighter that much. But it’s also a question of training.

Tall, thin people have to train much differently than shorter, stockier people. And as much fun as it is to be told to turn my hips more and increase the speed of my kick by a five foot two inch one hundred pound trainer, I’d much rather glean insight from someone built like me.

We stopped at the base of the hill and the trainers asked if we were ready. I looked at the other student and we nodded. With an “OK” from the trainer, we started up the hill. I tucked myself behind my physical doppelganger and mimicked his stride. The grade of the hill increased and we loped along. I watched the tall thin trainer during several training sessions. He delivered upwards of fifty devastatingly hard body kicks in a row to a pad holder while screaming at each one. “HAICH, HAICH, HAICH…” The power and speed he displayed was intimating. He switched quickly to the left leg and delivered fifty more. Then he switched to combinations. And now he was behind me. I picked up my pace from a lope to a jog and eventually to a bound. As I approached a turn in the road, I heard the trainers screaming for me to stop. I turned around, befuddled, and thought to myself, “But we’re not at the top yet.” One of the trainers sat on the road while my physical doppelganger put his arms above his head and was heaving for air. Had the last run not been easy on purpose but out of necessity? Can these trainers really be this tired? On the jog back the camp I asked the other student what he thought and he casually replied, “Oh, all of the trainers smoke like chimneys.”

I skipped Muay Thai and went straight to the weights. They all smoke? I’ve seen these guys throw more kicks in a row than I can throw in a day. I’ve seen them power through pushups, sit-ups and burpies for more than an hour, but they can’t jog? What is it that makes these guys so tough?