I’m often asked by both long-time friends and during interviews how I discovered Muay Thai, how and why I started training/fighting. I talk a bit about my childhood and how I organically came to train Muay Thai (and eventually fight!)
Fighting once in a week is already a challenge for any Muay Thai fighter, but fighting three times in four days is a whole different story. That’s what I did when I went to Buriram and stayed at Wor. Watthana, a Muay Thai camp founded by Frances and Boom, located in the Isaan region of Thailand.
As fighters, it’s natural to “leave no stone left unturned” and do things that we think can give us an edge. But over time and countless mistakes, I’ve learned that some of these practices were unhealthy AND counterproductive to my performance.
I have been living in Thailand now for 2.5 years. I’ve been working off and on during this time, part-time and full-time. I had some fight camps where I trained full-time too, so I have a good comparison between both worlds. Most fighters chose just to fight, and they often ask how I balance the two.
I truly believe that you can have a career AND fight on a very high level. There are caveats, as well as limitations you should keep in mind, which I am happy to share.
All of these lessons, I believe, have led me to become a better Muay Thai practioner. And they’ve bled into other areas of my life. Lockdown sucked, yes. But I can say, without a doubt, that I didn’t get nothing out of it.
Every year when springtime came around, the only thing I had in mind was what within just a couple of months: summer. Growing up in New York, we had distinct seasons, but the winters (and transitions between fall to winter and winter to spring) seemed to last way too long. Winters fill me with dread as I think about gray skies, sloshing through dirty snow, getting my socks wet and feet cold. The thought of the unforgiving soft howl of the wind and the cold piercing through my skin and to my bones still makes me cringe as I write this from my apartment in Bangkok.
This post will be different than my prior posts in that this is an account of my own experience. I usually write about other fighters, but I had a lot of people ask what it was like to fight in MMA gloves, and also how wearing a female groin protector was like. BE PREPARED to read the word “crotch” many many times.
