A Very Geeky Private At Dragon

So, as mentioned back here, midway through my Tiger experience, I was feeling a bit frustrated. The hefty conditioning:technique ratio was killing my attendance, and leaving my questions about form unanswered.  Overall progress was slow, to say the least.

By the last week, Andy had been promoted to the Advanced class, and in all fairness reported back that the technical content was more focussed in those sessions.

The intensity had once again stepped up a level (20 minute clinch rounds for example) but there was a much smaller attendance, and a definite shift from “just do something fast” to “make sure it’s right as well”.  So it may well be that Tiger training really kicks in at the higher levels (there is also a Fighter class) and they just go through the motions with the beginners.

I didn’t actually do any Muay Thai at Tiger in those last three days, so we’ll never know if I would have got bumped up too. When I asked Andy how he thinks I would have got on in the Advanced sessions, the consensus is that technically I would have been fine, but sparring might have been a bit hairy (I’m well out of the sparring side of things, and still prone to eye-shutting, back-turning and the like).  Anyway, given a few more weeks, maybe it might have sorted itself out. But as I tend to lack confidence in my ability anyway, and being simultaneously clobbered by a pro fighter might not have helped that, I decided to take a different tack.

Fern House is just around the corner from Dragon Muay Thai and as a consequence we normally walked past their gym a couple of times a day.

It’s much smaller, but seemed way more personal. With a bit of spare cash left over, I decided to splurge 500TBH (about £11) on a private.

As it happened, it turned out to be 600TBH (about £13) but it was probably the best money I could have spent at the time. The woman in the office issued me a coupon and told me to come back on Sunday at 4pm for a session with Rolex.

Rolex has been training Muay Thai since about the age of six, and has, by his own admission, had something like 500 fights.  Given my demeanour at this point was about as threatening as a week-old kitten, his experience was about to be put to the test.

What we worked on will sound deathly dull to most of you. There were no spinning, jumping, stunt-style moves here. It was basic, basic stuff – walking backwards and forwards, jabs, cross, single elbows, kicks etc – but analysed and corrected every single time. And weirdly, it was exactly what I wanted.

Anyone listening (thankfully being Sunday, few people were around) would have heard something along the lines of:

[WHACK]

“Stop leaning back”

[WHACK]

“Don’t jump into it”

[WHACK]

“Move your hips”

…and the like, for 60 minutes (interspersed with some water and massages, which, having the inhibited nature of the British, I found mildly awkward).

I discovered a multitude of tiny flaws which I have doubtless had for years, and which I now know to focus on.  Stuff like stepping and then punching, rather than bundling it all up together. 

By the end of it (right after 100 situps) I felt like I had worked, but in a smarter way.

I had things to go away and practice, I knew what I was doing wrong, and at least theoretically how to put them right. Plus I’d really enjoyed myself.

We were leaving for Cambodia a couple of days later, so I couldn’t stack up any extra sessions at Dragon, but we’re hopefully returning to Thailand in March, and I’m definitely factoring more privates into the training equation.

We Go Up A Level…Aka The Intermediate Muay Thai Class At Tiger

Sure enough, after a couple more beginners sessions with Mr Miyagi (coincidentally almost  carbon copies of the first lesson, complete with infidelity tales) we got bumped up to the Intermediate level.

It’s not like a friendly graduation thing, the trainer literally accosts you during the warmup, frogmarches you round the corner, and deposits you on the mat of the new class. Anyway, we were promoted.

The Intermediate class runs roughly in the same format as the Beginners one, with “runs” being the operative word.

We were hoping that the get fit onslaught would drop and the technique-finessing element rise in honor of our new status – we swiftly found it was just more intense all round. 

As a swift numerical breakdown:

1) Running. Of course. Heels, knees, arm swinging, all that jazz.

      2) Stretching, and a chance to look at your sweaty, grimacing face in the mirror.

3) Wraps on (nothing makes you feel like a lady more than having someone wrap your hands for you. A marriage proposal perhaps), gloves on, and then partner-based combination drills. Again, your partner is largely picked for you – you’ll understand who you’ve been matched with because the krus will point wildly and occasionally just shove you in the right direction.

      4)  Shadow boxing. Works a bit like X Factor, they watch you and decide which trainer will take you on the pads for the next bit.

5) Three rounds of padwork (we’re guessing they were about five minutes each), interspersed with twenty press-ups in between. As before, how this goes largely depends on who you get as a trainer – one guy helped tidy up my narrow stance, another just yelled “20 left kicks, 20 right kicks, 20 left kicks, 20 right kicks,” continuously at me, followed by, “You smoke cigarettes?” (I don’t) when I gave him the “I am not enjoying this in any way" face.

      6) Three fiveish minute rounds on the bags, interspersed with 20 press-ups.  Often with mandatory continuous jumping knees, and shouts of “more power, more POWER” as a backdrop.

7) Three rounds of sparring.  At this point most people will be able to have a go at sparring (the beginners class housed a few non-starters on that front) – Andy’s end of the room was speckled with more technical, fluid ability (and a few “win at all costs” aggressive types), my side of the mat looked somewhat more awkward and ill-timed.

      8) 30 minutes of lactic acid inspiring fitness drills. Often with a partner – could be continuous kicks, continuous press-up variants, split-lunging jumping stuff, or hopping on one leg back and forth across the room. Whatever it is, it will burn like a mother (bear in mind this is not generally a point in the class that you wish to embrace cardio).

      9) 300 situps and 200 pressups.

Tuesday and Thursday afternoons are “Clinch Days”, which means you skip the shadow boxing but get two ten minute rounds of continuous clinch sparring instead, followed by laps around the outside of the gym.

In terms of the fitness, and this is a personal thing here, I found it problematic. By this point we were taking two bottles of water (one frozen cold, one filled with rehydration salts, which are sold everywhere on the street) to the class, which certainly helped. I was also taking magnesium supplements to help with muscle recovery. But it’s no secret that I’m not of optimum fight age, and I found that 2.5 hours at such intensity was too long, or at least too long to recover enough to train again the next day.

So, despite having fantasised about training twice daily all through January (particularly whilst stuffing my chops at Christmas), what actually happened involved quite a lot of time out, yoga sessions and massage before I could take on another high intensity stint.

For me, a schedule where the technique is split away from the conditioning elements (perhaps in back to back sessions that you can opt in or out of) might have been more workable in terms of everyday training.

And again, from a very personal perspective, I’ll admit I didn’t find these group classes the quickest way to fine tune my technique.

As mentioned a couple of posts ago, I already had some basic Muay Thai knowledge, gleaned from various sources over the years. But whilst I can theoretically string together combinations of basic punches, I am painfully aware that my form looks like that of gibbon full of Red Bull.  So yes, I need some definite sparring practice to find out if those combinations are impractical, but I also need someone to take me aside and say things like, “What’s with these wildly flapping elbows?” “Stop looking off into the middle distance” and “You’ll break your hand if you keep hitting things like that”.

Tiger teach hundreds upon hundreds of folk a week, and the machine-line nature of their business, coupled with the large class numbers, means it’s really hard to build any kind of ongoing training relationship with a singular trainer.

Perhaps if I’d attended on a more continuous basis (see the paragraph above), or bought in to a 10 class privates package, some kind of rapport might have developed. There were certainly a couple of trainers who volunteered advice whilst training (Andy maintains I got roughly ten times more interest than him, on account of my feminine charms).

But, and it pains me to break the hearts of Tiger aspirants across the globe, those were the noteworthy ones.

And in general, there were just as many who looked, well, a bit bored, with teaching hapless farangs.

Three weeks in and the ratio of broken body:learning wasn’t quite working for me.  It was time to rejig my training plans again…

Mister Miyagi And The Infamous Stick…aka the Beginner’s Muay Thai class at Tiger

So, as previously mentioned, Tiger is probably the biggest and most well-known gym in the area, with thousands upon thousands of wannabe Chuck Norrises flooding through the doors every year. Along with a few real life MMA fighters, who have chosen to set up shop (or fight camp as the case may be) there for a prolonged period.

There is also a third group of folks – those who have chosen to literally sweat off the pounds and attend the camp for weight loss.

Anyway, the point that I’m making is that it’s a very mixed bag. Which is doubtless reflected in the lower level Muay Thai classes.

Now, Andy and I have a bit of “kicking and punching” experience behind us. I did a couple of years of kickboxing/JKD about a decade ago, and Andy spent his teens and early twenties doing Shorin Ryu Karate. Both of us have dabbled in various Muay Thai and MMA classes since.

But as our first Tiger class held a very real potential for getting smashed in the chops, we pegged ourselves low and went to the Beginners session.

The class was big, very big. And whilst some folk might be more physically blessed than others, there’s literally no way of telling who can do stuff properly, and who’s a distinct liability to themselves and others. Or is just there to work off the last chocolate bar they ate at Christmas.

So they’ve come up with a format that collectively covers off all bases:

1) Running. Sweet baby Jesus, these folk love to make you run. 30 minutes at the beginning of each class, round and round in a circle. Ditto sideways galloping, running with high knees, running whilst punching and anything else that gets the heart rate up.

2) Stretching. Partially to limber up, partially to stop people having a cardiac arrest after all that running.

3) Copying moves in a mirror. Rows upon rows of students doing jabs, crosses, slips, elbows and blocks like the instructor at the front.

4) Partner drills. Trying out a couple of combos with another person.

5) Bagwork. Trying out some of your new moves a bit harder on something that shouldn’t smack you back.

6) Padwork with the instructors. Depending on which one you get, this might involve three rounds of flirting and “I’ve been to England” type chat, or someone trying to punish you for all the sins of humanity.

7) Sparring. Largely split into three groups – people they think can be trusted to fight together, women and then stragglers that don’t fit in either group.

8) Strange half hour break where chief instructor Mr Miyagi forces everyone to introduce themselves and their country of origin, before telling a story about his wife’s infidelity. Allows everyone to get their hopes up that the physical pain is winding down, whilst simultaneously getting eaten by mosquitos.

9) Getting our asses up and doing endless (well a few hundred) jumping knees, front kicks and elbows into a bag.

10) Enforced walking knees, round the room, with the promise of being beaten with a stick by Mr Miyagi if you put your heels down.

This is a shot of Mr Miyagi during a quieter, more pensive moment - admittedly it's a lousy photo, but I didn't want to risk incurring his wrath.)

11) Watching someone get beaten with a stick.

12) Three hundred situps and one hundred press-ups. Sometimes the trainers will simultaneously hit you in the stomach with medicine balls or pads for extra misery.

In total, the whole shebang takes 2.5 hours, and is offered six days a week, morning (8am) and afternoon (4pm). Overall it’s a bit like a kilogram of pick n mix sweets – there’s something for everyone and most people feel thoroughly sick by the end.

The downside is unless you get a particularly diligent instructor (more on this point later) there’s no real chance to polish the finer technical elements – the onus is on movement (of all kinds, particularly running) and entertainment (the “authentic” Muay Thai experience, complete with beatings) perhaps more than finesse in execution.

I’m not going to claim to have the “key” to this class – suffice to say by the end of it I had drained the bottle of water, and was bright red with two ripped up toes (tip: tape them before the session) and everlasting cramp in one calf.

Now if only they’ll promote me to the Intermediate level…

A Tentative Trip To Tiger Muay Thai

The morning after our mega-journey we were a tad worse for wear.

Going through a-day-and-a-half’s worth of time zones had left Andy looking crumply-faced, and me under a pile of tissues.

Suffice to say, neither of us felt up to having our mugs smashed in.

So we did the next best training thing, and headed down to Tiger Muay Thai to enrol.

For those that aren’t up to speed with the area, it’s based around one road.

Tiger is up one end (about a third in) and Dragon is up the other (about a third from that end). Somewhere round the corner is Phuket Top Team.

The rest of the area is comprised of restaurants, hotels and hostels, scooter hire places (sometimes these three services are all housed under the same roof), pharmacies, tattoo parlours and a reassuring (under the circumstances) ambulance station.

Anyhow, Tiger is by far the biggest gym in the vicinity, looking roughly 5-10 times the size of Dragon down the street.

It’s also, if we’re honest about things, probably the most well-known gym in terms of tourist trade. Your Muay Thai aficionado may well nod approvingly if you’ve trained at Dragon, but pretty much every bloke in the bar will know what you’re on about when you mention Tiger. But more on those differences later.

So why bring it up?

Well, because it sorta explains what happened when we hit up the registration office.

Whether it’s down to the guaranteed rate at which folk rock up begging to enrol, book privates and buy the Tiger-branded t-shirt, or whether the ladies housed within had just had their fill of farangs, the service was pretty much non-existent.

In the land of smiles, we were hoping to be walked through the signup, hocked a bit of training gear, and then guided in the direction of the classes (it’s a big place).

Instead someone begrudgingly took our passports and money (approx. £217 each for the month once credit card fees kicked in), handed us a schedule and we were out on our proverbial arses.

So far, so perfunctory. But, somewhat ironically given the speed in which we’d been pushed out of the office-cum-shop, we actually needed to buy quite a bit of stuff before we could start training.

According to the Tiger site, 16oz gloves are compulsory for sparring, so both of us had budgeted enough to buy them on the ground.

Andy needed shinpads to protect his delicate pins, and we were both up for some wraps and Thai shorts to look the part.

The YouTube vid for Tiger showed a well-stocked selection, whilst UFC veteran Brian Ebersole assures us they have "everything you need for your trip to Thailand".

Heck, shopping is my second favourite sport, so I figured perusing the range of Thai Boxing gear in Thailand, in a shop that could even order stuff in on request, would be an almost orgasmic experience.

As it happened, the only 16oz gloves on the shelf that day were Tiger-branded ones, and the salesman’s chair was empty.

So we headed over the road to Fightlab, where the functional (if not in any sense extensive) selection awarded us two pairs of Fairtex gloves (2100THB/£45 each, Fairtex is a premium brand with a higher price point), two pairs of shorts (Fairtex ones 1200THB/£25, non-Fairtex ones 700THB/£15) and a couple of pairs of own-brand handwraps (250THB/£5 each).

Here we are modelling our his-and-hers haul.

Andy snuck back to the Tiger shop and picked up his Fairtex shinpads the next day for 1700THB/£36.

As I skimmed over before, the Asiana baggage allowance was stringent, and my gloves in the UK are a measly 14oz, so I’m not going to bang on too much about the end cost of our protective swag.

It is worth factoring into your budget though if you’re planning – in a country where dinner costs a couple of quid, laying out nearly £300 each in an afternoon smarts a bit.

Anyway, we were finally set for our Muay Thai date with destiny, or at least with a room full of trainers and some other sweaty folks. Hands up...

What I Learnt At Atos

Today was our last BJJ session at Andre Galvao’s Atos Academy. We opted for the competition training. Something about the way we could have a four day break afterwards made us weirdly brave (not brave enough however, to have warmed up with the 10am class beforehand).

Two hours in we were more sweaty, exhausted and sore than we had previously thought humanly possible.

I had (accidentally) sampled a competition class before, on a day when Andy was injured, so was wise to the painful practices that went on in the 12-2pm slot (13 minute same-person-stays-on rodizios anyone?) but it still hurt.

Michael Liera Jr. pushed us through movements, specific sparring and speed drills in a manner that would have made Professor Galvao proud. Put it this way, at 12.45pm I felt utterly destroyed and like the class should definitely be winding down, and then we did another hour.

But as the Convoy Street part of our adventure draws to a close, I feel kind of sad.

I can’t speak personally for Andy (though having listened to me bang on every day on the bus trip home, he could probably speak for me) but our 11 week gatecrash of the Atos environment has taught me some amazing lessons. Even if I haven’t yet mastered that darn leg drag.

1) For a relatively small club, Atos has a disproportionately high number of world champions. We’re not talking “once got an honorary bronze at a local competition here”, we’re looking at several times a year, several years running at the top of the global podium.

Having watched those people train (and sampled the rate and precision with which they rip my limbs to pieces) it is a worthy result of hours and hours of drilling, every day of the week. You might just be touching hands on the mat, but mentally they have already passed your guard and secured 7 points, because they’ve done it 40 times at speed against every person in the class. Actually, mentally is the wrong word; they’ve done it so often it’s as automatic as breathing.

If you’re training for a competition with them, it’s amazing. If you’re up against them, be afraid, very, very afraid.

2) Given that disproportionate rate of world champions, you would expect to find one or two egos in the dojo. To be honest, if I even placed in the Worlds, I’d be wearing my medal to class every day. But you’d be wrong.

You’ll be able to identify the champions by the way they slice through your legs as if they were tissue paper, but bragging is kept very much on the downlow. And regardless of my very unchampionlike performances on the mat, everyone has gone out of their way to help me improve.

I think it’s a top-down result of having an eight times world champion with an obvious love of teaching and a devotion to his students’ wellbeing at the helm, but you get the feeling any progress you make is part of an overall victory for the club.

Which, given we could have just as easily been the BJJ equivalent of live mice fed to a tank full of snakes, is rather nice.

3) On the subject of winning, Atos fully endorses the “feel safe to make the mistakes during rolling” mentality.

People here spar hard, like they’re in a competition, but there is a distinct absence of douchebaggery, and no-one is going to mock or berate you if you try something and make a mess of it. The only mistake you can make is to just lie there, under those world champions, and stop trying.

If you score points or a submission, you’ll touch hands and start again. If they do, the same thing happens.

There’s a certain freedom in knowing it doesn’t matter if you have a bad day on the mats, and over the months I’ve seen myself slowly shifting from absolutely petrified, reactive defence lockdown to more practical defence, more continuous escape efforts and a submission attempt or two. This for me is big progress.

4) Respect is a big thing at Atos. Everyone works when Professor Galvao tells them to. Noone swears at each other or messes around.

But overall it’s a family environment (in both the literal and metaphorical senses of the word).

It’s not unusual to see Sarah, Andre and Angelica’s daughter, playing by the side of the mats, or with her dad before class. Many of the club members come as a family package and there’s hanging out across all age groups.

I’m not sure whether it’s because there are two brown belt women in regular attendance, or because Andre is so obviously enamoured by his wife, but as a woman I have never found anywhere as comfortable to train. Sleazy comments, pickup efforts, or antiquated “I don’t really want to go with a girl” putdowns are noticeably absent. I felt equal, if smaller and a bit naturally weaker, to any male student on the mat.

5) Jiu Jitsu is changing, it’s a fluid, ever-morphing commodity. We’ve all seen the traditional stand up guard passes and collar chokes, but there’s a whole world of new moves that are being invented to foil the old-school repertoire.

If you train at Atos, you’ll soon notice the predilection for close-range, seated moves, and inversion.

Well this week anyway (they’ve probably devised something more devious already).

We were in town just long enough to attend the Atos yearly grading, an event which even 27 x world champion Renato Laranja chose to rock with his presence. It ran an hour or so over time, and was filled with Professor Galvao’s proud stories of his students. And (in a completely unpredicted turn of events) both me and Andy picked up a first stripe for our purple belts.

Professor Galvao, Angelica, Chelsea, Mike Carbullido, Michael Liera Jr, Manny, Rick D, Matts Langford and Smith, Y J, Carlos, Jason, Sabara, Savannah…the list goes on and on, but I want to say one big collective thank you to everyone at Atos for making us feel so welcome, and helping to restore my interest and confidence in Jiu Jitsu. I’m very proud to wear that stripe, the t-shirt, and reflect your training in any way.

We only wish we could have stayed longer, and of course, we’re already busy saving for our allgalvao.com subscription…