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Ryan Mackins Thai Blog
04/20/2009
Thailand Part One:
After 4 flights in just under 30 hours I finally arrived in Thailand. I spent over an entire day going from Baltimore to Detroit to St. Paul to Tokyo to Bangkok, only getting a few naps in during the flights. A bit of a delay in Tokyo set my arrival to Thailand back a couple of hours but I finally arrived at about 2 am (Bangkok Time). Originally I planned on getting a hotel for the first night but I was starving when I got off the plane and went and got some food from one of the food stands at the airport. When I sat down to eat it, I was too tired to get up so I spent my first night of the trip sleeping a bench in BKK Airport. Lucky for me I woke up about 4 hours later, just in time to catch a cab and get to the gym in time for the first scheduled workout.
I was shocked when I arrived to an empty gym. The gate to the place was wide open but there wasnt anyone in sight. I was able to take a look around to see what I was getting myself into. This place is a lot smaller than I had imagined it, only about 6 bags, all of them looking pretty worn out from the thousands of kicks they have taken over the years. There is a wooden shelf with tons of equipment (shin guards, boxing gloves, focus mitts, thai pads) neatly organized outside of a floor ring that I imagine takes up over half the square footage of the entire workout area. Several tires are also laying on thier sides outside of the ring against the wall for footwork drills and with the exception of a couple areas right outside of the ring that are matted the rest of the floor in cement. Oh yeah, and did I mention the place is outside? There is a cement wall with fencing on the top that serves as the peremeter to the gym property. There is some kind of roof, but I didnt really even look to see what it is yet, and outside of the fence is surrounded by palm trees, which helps with the shade but the downside is branches fall into the workout area (if not on you) sometimes if there is a heavy enough breeze. The walls are covered with magazine clippings, photos, fight posters, and newspaper articles.
After a couple of fighters came down for breakfast I finally got to meet a few of the people that would be my teammates for the next month. I also had the opportunity to meet my trainer, Jitti Damriram, who is the owner and head trainer of Jitti Gym. Jitti had just come back from weigh ins with one of the fighters at the gym, ironically the only other person training from the States. Mark (throughout most of these blogs I will be refering to many of my training partners by their first names only because I havent gotten many of their last names yet) was scheduled to fight later that night at the world famous Lumpini Stadium.
After breakfast Jitti showed my to my room where I met my two roommates: Chris (from Leeds, England) and Aaron (from Brittish Columbia, Canada). Since it was only about 8:30 in the morning at this time and I didnt have to practice until 3:00, I finally got the chance to sleep in a bed for the first time in about two days. Around 11:00, my roommates woke me up and told me I didnt want to get that much sleep or I wouldnt be able to sleep that night (which I didnt anyways, but I will get to that later). After walking around the area to kill some time I got a chance to experience my first workout in Thailand.
The session started with a "short" session of skipping rope to warm up. This lasted about 20 minutes, which is shorter than the normal half an hour of skipping that is done during most of the workout sessions. After that Jitti wrapped my hands and put me in the ring with one of his padmen. I was very happy to see that eventhough there were only about 15 fighters training at the camp they still had about 8 coaches working with the fighters. I was able to last 5 rounds on the pads despite a pretty steady pace and intense heat, which impressed a lot of the fighters and trainners there. Lucky for me I was still in shape from my fight last weekend and my cardio has always been something I have taken pride in. After the pad work I did 3 rounds on the bags and then 3 more rounds on focus mitts, just boxing. I threw in a couple of shadow boxing rounds to close the workout before Jitti told me to "warm-down" and then go and shower up.
Training at this place is a lot different than it is at home for a lot of reasons. One is that most of the instruction here is done on the fly not in a clinic-style format where the group is brought in, shown a move or technique, and then broken into pairs before they go and practice what they were just taught. I think both styles are appropriate for the type of fighter that is at both camps. At Ground Control, there are several first time students who need every step broken down to them before they attempt it at a slow pace. If I walked into the ring for the first time and a padman said "Jab", I wouldnt know what to do. However at Jitti, everyone has fought at least once before and has at least a grasp on the basics, so mistakes can be improved or corrected as the workout moves a long. Another aspect that makes a huge difference is how spoiled we are at Ground Control. Although I feel I have always appriciated John and Rob going all out so that our school can be a top notch facility I now have a much greater respect for all that has been put into our school. Forget about air conditioning, water fountains, or time clocks....those are luxiaries that fighters don't have in Bangkok. The version of a water fountain is a large tin bucket filled with water and an ice block dropped in and fighters go dip a tin cup and scoop out whater they can sip on for a couple of seconds before one of the trainers says "Ok, time fight". It may not be seen as the cleanest approach to rehydrating during a workout, but that was my only option and my whole reason for making this trip was to experience training like they do in Thailand. The time clock is nothing more than a wall clock that one of the kids at the gym watch from outside of the ring and give a yell to the trainers when either the round is up or it is time to get started again. It took me a while to pick up on how everyone knew to stop at the same time but one of the guys from the gym brought it to my attention. And air conditioning? Haha, just dont pass out or if you do make sure its on a padded area. The experience so far has been great and I cant wait to get back to work tomorrow morning. I will get into some of the other activities I took part in but now its 1:20 in the morning and I have a workout at 7. Hopefully I will be able to finish part one tomorrow. Til next time.
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