Injured

Well, it's been a good run for me so far, but it's time I explained to everyone at the same time that it seems my stay abroad has come to a sudden and unexpected end. In my last post, a few weeks ago, I mentioned that I was finding ways to manage my time around the rib injury which prevented me from training, but it looks like that same injury will govern my lifestyle a great deal more than I had thought.

It has been several weeks now since I was hurt, and while I go significant periods of each day without serious discomfort, there are still no days entirely free from it, and the small amount of training in which I've engaged has been extremely unpleasant, and impossible to pursue in earnest. I have finally come to terms with what several of the staff here have been telling me, which is that with a cracked rib, any serious martial arts training is really impossible for at least a few months, and, particularly considering the nature of the training I had planned in Brazil, it has seemed most prudent to postpone the remainder of my voyage and return home at the beginning of December.

I've spoken to my parents about this a few times, perhaps unsurprisingly they support my early return, and most of the trainers here seem satisfied with the decision. Needless to say, I am disappointed, but I am continually reminded that Brazil will still be there next year, and I have already had an extraordinary experience by any standards. For now, I have been enjoying thoughts of the many wonders that await me in the furnaces and faucets of America, and of the friends and family that I'll be seeing much sooner than I had thought. I have been fortunate in easily finding a place to stay, and it seems to me now that I have had as much good luck as bad, and certainly have little cause for complaint.

For my last few weeks in Thailand, I have decided to treat myself well, and using the dwindling finances that I had reserved for my next destination, I have rented a large, air-conditioned room (technically a "villa," I'm told) at a resort down the road from camp. I now have a real mattress, hot water, and my own bathroom. I have spent several days at various markets at the towns and beaches around the island, and have found many things that I look forward to presenting to people back home, and I have hired the personal services of Prathet, one of the most able and talented trainers in camp, to give me short, private lessons in which I can learn and be somewhat challenged without risking further injury.

At this exact moment, I am sitting on a small leather couch near the bed, and I am staring out of a large double-window taller than I am. Next to the resort is someone's small house, and I can see several chickens and a rooster darting about in the open ground nearby under some palm trees. The room is filled with furniture made out of dark, beautifully stained wood; there is a wardrobe, a TV stand, and a small table against the wall with a mirror attached to it. In the evening light, the sun drenches long, diagonal lines of the room, and I can see the bits of dust and drifting lint on all the surfaces. My guitar is against the wall in a corner next to the television that has yet to be turned on, and today's clean, pressed sheets are stretched across the sprawling double bed in the center of the room.

I appreciate that here there are no ants crawling through cracks around the windows, here there is more than a lazy fan oscillating drowsily up on one wall, and even though here I am comfortable and distracted in about every way I could want to be, I must admit that it's hard not to feel as though I've somehow lost something, as though the murmuring A/C unit on the wall, or the unnervingly constant internet connection are false friends, all-too-charming acquaintances met at the funeral of a wealthy family member.

When I take a shower now, there is no intermediate walk outside, no contact with the sun and open air, and comparatively little need to shower at all now that I spend so little time sweating. Little by little I've started to see things about myself shifting back to mirror a world that I had left what seems like a very long time ago. Due to the climate control and the attitude of the staff at the resort, I have started wearing shirts every day; soon I may even recommence with shoes. I have started keeping multiple windows open simultaneously on my computer, as the internet connection can now handle that, and while I still spend a lot of time sitting still, my mind is on more tracks than it was a month ago. The scabs on my knuckles, never fully healed in the last three months, have finally hardened and fallen away, and I'm left with this soft, pink tissue that seems unprepared for its past.

As mentioned above, I've been gathering a lot of souvenirs lately, and I think that perhaps these tokens of myself will be among them. Yesterday I bought a small figurine of an elephant that had been carved by hand by an old woman who always sets up a stall at the night markets. When I go home, I will fold this up in newspaper, and put it in my suitcase next to three shirts and my habit of sticking a towel under the door to keep out insects that we don't have in North America. I will pack away my handwraps and my boxing gloves, and stick inside of them my memories of how to tie the curtains to let in the breeze and keep out the sun. I hope to keep handy my awe at air conditioning and hot water, and the guitar-string calluses on the fingers of my left hand are among the few things that show no signs of fading.

It strikes me, as I prepare to leave Thailand, that as with anything, it's the people here who have made this experience real to me. It seems hard to imagine that the tokens of this life would remain after I've left their witnesses behind, and though it may seem strange from the outside, I feel as though my body has learned as much in the past few months as my mind would in a studious year at college. My experiences here are held in such a way that I find it very hard to describe them in words, and thereby give them some form which is separate from the smiles of the trainers at camp, or the way we would stand just under the roof of the intermediate training area and watch the water come over the ridge in a solid wall during the rainy season.

I know that when I go home I won't suddenly forget all that the Thais have taught me, but for someone so used to putting things into words, it is somewhat unnerving to have the only real understanding of this time somewhere inarticulate. On Saturday night there was a party at the camp, and when I saw Nazee, I waved to him, and he walked up to me, grabbed me by the head, laughed, and kissed me on both sides of my face. When I am home, dealing with jackets, good beer, schedules, and other things unknown here, I will try to keep my souvenirs close by, and whether or not I can explain it well, in my shoulders and my neck, and in my fists, knees and elbows, I will remember these people for a very long time.

Quiet Places

For the past several days, I have been in enough physical discomfort to prohibit any significant form of training, but not so much that I am unable to get up or move about my room and the camp. I can sit up well enough, which means that I can also ride a motorbike to town, or go to the store or the movie theater if I'm so inclined. In other words, one might say that I am still invested with my usual amount of potential energy, though in practice, I rarely stir outside of the four walls that now surround me.

I think that this is a trend which actually began before I was directly prohibited from training, and comes as a result of the growing detachment I feel from many to most of my fellow students. I don't think that it would be appropriate to say that I am in any way reclusive, but rather that my status as a sort of intermediate invalid has made me somewhat eccentric and a bit more private, as if my cracked rib were a suddenly inherited family fortune of ill repute, or the overnight growth of a genius IQ which I share only with a portentously named lab rat.

Generally, when I wake up, I snack from my own food stores until just before lunchtime, when I try to beat the post-workout rush of dripping torsos which crowd the bar at the Tiger Grill. After eating, I return to my room usually until dinner, for which I generally wait until about an hour after the final training sessions have concluded, so as to again avoid the crowd. Occasionally, after lunch, instead of going back to my room, I will wander down to the office and request the use of a motorbike for the day, which provides its own series of diversions.

At mealtimes, I generally resist the temptation to order my food to go, and I sit either at the outdoor bar or in the public set of tables between the intermediate and advanced training areas. I always bring with me something to read, and for some time now I've been muddling through Moby Dick, as I've thought that it bears re-reading since the arrogant glossing I gave it in high school. There is a significant amount of foot traffic through this part of camp, particularly as the main entrance is just across the intermediate area, and I am often hailed by passing acquaintances during the meal. In all honesty, these brief exchanges and passing nods are quite likely the peak of my socialization here in recent days.

I feel that it's important for me to explain that I really don't feel any misplaced sense of superiority or even distaste toward the people around me. I admit that at other points during my stay, I have been quite frustrated with the pop-culture, fraternity-like element which infests modern combat sports and their participants, but at this point my irritation has mostly faded into rueful humor. I hear the screaming from the MMA mats though most of the day, I see the broken chain of dull sparkles as the prostitutes leave in the mornings, and I feel the weekends nights wash over my room carrying most of my neighbors away on tsunamis of cheap beer and cheaper friends. For my own part though, I have become quite content to sit alone in my room with my books and my guitar.

I think that when I arrived, my disgust for the popped-collar culture in which most of the students here participate came from some type of insecurity towards it. I recognized that my monogamy, general sobriety, and continual use of many-syllabled words marked me as an outsider of doubtful character who will bear watching. I have never been in any way hazed or ridiculed for my deviant behavior, but I understand now that many of the men here are slightly uncomfortable around me if only because they don't know how to act. I have tried to make it clear that I don't appreciate stories about prostitutes, and that I don't tolerate violence toward them, no matter how amusing the situation seemed to others. I have had a total of four beers spread across my entire stay in this country, and only two of them were on the same night, and I'm frankly just not very talented when it comes to objectifying nearby women. I know that it will seem unfortunate to most of you reading this that these characteristics in me make me comparatively unfit for the social scene here, but it is in fact the case, and for some time, though I had no desire to change, it was hard not to feel a vague sense of insecurity for no other reason than that I was so clearly not like everyone else. Here in my last month, however, I have finally and fully detached from all even fragmented desires for acceptance from this group, and I have decided to put my efforts in a different direction.

For the first two months of my time in Thailand, I was fortunate enough to find a few friends to whom I related well. Most notably Chris, about whom you have heard some scattered things before, André, a hunter from Montreal, and a young French woman named Aurora, have comprised my few genuine friendships. Unfortunately, André has returned home, Chris is rarely in his room, staying mostly with one of the American MMA trainers who smokes weed with him a few times per day, and Aurora has drifted toward more admiring eyes for the time being. In themselves, these things are somewhat lamentable, but they have happened gradually enough that I have felt them only in the way that I have felt the country shifting out of the rainy season; change has come slowly and intermittently, but there's something different in the air, and though I find myself sitting in the same places, it's just a bit quieter all around.

Since I've been reading more, I have been reminded of a sort of parable from (I believe) The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, which seems particularly appropriate here by both its meaning and its symbols (forgive me if I take some liberties; it has been several years). The story basically is that of a one-legged hooker who lived in a small town, and before whatever accident deprived her of one of her engines, she had apparently been well established and accomplished in her profession. Finding herself suddenly one appendage poorer, she at first was understandably discouraged, as any cosmetic abnormality can be disastrous for a lady of negotiable virtue, but after some reflection, she devised a plan. The specifics of the story (if they were ever provided) escape me, but in the end she concluded by telling some dusty Steinbeck avatar that she had done quite well for herself since the accident, and in fact, "started chargin' folks extra. It ain't every day they get a chance at a one-legged hooker."

After what I hope is a significant stretch from this quaint story of turning adversity to one's advantage, I have found some encouragement for my own situation. Since I am generally so out of sync with the social rhythms of my classmates, I have actually been fortunate enough to encounter some otherwise unnoticed occurrences on what could be considered the dark side of camp. I have realized that my own pseudo-approachable status here is in many ways quite analogous to that of the Thais from the perspective of these same westerners. As I so far have very little save affection and admiration for the trainers themselves, I have decided to put whatever time and energy I devote to socializing in the future into a more complete relation to the trainers. Like me, they generally keep within the small groups of their own kind, but they are far from xenophobic, and even in so short a time, I have found my efforts with them well rewarded.

Late on a Saturday night, from a back corner of camp past all of the rooms and behind the beginner training areas, I heard the sound of music while I was on my way to the bathroom. Outside it was mostly deserted, as the vast majority of the students were out in search of tomorrow's headaches and uncomfortable burning sensations. Returning to my room, I put on a shirt, and wandered over toward the music to find a birthday party among the Thais for one of the trainers with whom I am well acquainted. Perhaps twenty of them were gathered on the ground near a small fire, and Dang, standing on the periphery, saw me from a distance, and, calling my name, waved me over. Grinning contentedly, I sat down among them and listened to Nazee play a few Thai folk songs which were pleasant enough, though obviously I understood very little. After the third song, the musician, nodding to me and laughing, asked, "Ah, you kno...ah...Jon Denva?"

"I know of him." I answered.
"OK then. We play heem now." Nazee said with a chuckle.

(see video below.)



I apologize for the poor quality and the erratic movement of the camera. I was actually recording Nazee somewhat surreptitiously, and as he was looking at me for most of the song, I had to hold the camera down a bit and pretend to less desperate to record the moment for posterity.

For those of you who couldn't tell, that was Nazee's interpretation of Country Roads, by John Denver, though his faulty English and the excessively enthusiastic sauce-pot accompaniment from in front of me perhaps hampered the performance a bit. Just the same, needless to say, I enjoyed it immensely.

Yesterday, the head MMA trainer, and American named Ray Elbe (a contestant on the Ultimate Figher 9 reality show) gave me his business card, on which, as you'll see below, he is featured in the midst of a strategic wardrobe malfunction between a pair of scantily-clad young women (of the two-legged variety).

He handed it to me outside of the cage, saying, "Here bro, Chris says you used to do some grappling. You should come by some time, we'll show you how it's done."

I smiled and nodded. "Thanks...bro. I'm pretty much sticking to Muay Thai right now, but I'll be sure to use your...uh...contact info here if I need to get in touch with you."

"Yeah man, I don't really see you around much."

"Yeah," I said slowly, "I think we just have different friends."

A Brief Update

Several days ago, I received one of the more painful blows of my martial arts career, which is to say one of the more painful blows of my life. While in a clench (a standing grapple, for the laypeople) with a young Thai fighter, I was thrown off balance by a skillful twist from my opponent, and I flew into the ropes. With agonizingly perfect timing, as I rebounded off the ropes, this young man (maybe 14 years old) jumped in the opposite direction with both hands around my head, and pulled himself forward to deliver a knee to my ribs. The whole situation, considering that he jumped, that he moved forward, that he had the necessary hand perfectly positioned, and that I was rebounding off the ropes directly into his strike combined to lend him double to triple the amount of force which he would have otherwise delivered. It was a complicated event, but it ended with a cracked rib for me.

I'm told that as far as these things go, I've come off rather well. It has hurt to breathe for a few days, but there are less painful positions, and I've been sticking to them pretty faithfully. My entire torso was wrapped with bandages, and I've been warned by the general manager here to stay out of the ring on pain of explusion for a significant period of time. All together, I should be able to train again in just a week or two, though I will probably be staying out of clench fighting for a bit longer than that. The only significant danger, I'm told, is in a repetition of the injury in the near future; in short, if a rib is barely cracked (like it is now), I stay in my room for a while, if a rib is broken, I go home. USA home.

I apologize for the brevity of this, and for my lack of updates on any other front, but it's something of a hassle to prop myself up like this, and I'll make a point to tell some real stories tomorrow. For now, I just thought I'd let everyone know.

The Fights That Came Before

I'm writing this post to immediately follow its predecessor, and I separate the two because I wanted to distinguish some of my personal feelings about the nature of fighting and this particular combat from what I've observed about this event in my capacity here as a researcher. Just before the fight, I described some of the rituals involved with Muay Thai here in Thailand, and I would now like to examine them again with reference to my own experience, and in light of my original hypothesis for this project.

Some may have actually forgotten this, and so I will explain for you and for those just joining us that my original purpose in making this voyage was to examine martial arts as cultural objects which are expressive of the history and values of the people who created them. In the past, I've made the comparison to language, which, through its evolution in a culture, changes to reflect that culture. For a simple example, linguists and historians often examine how many words there were for a certain idea or phenomenon in a society in order to get an impression of how much that thing was talked about or emphasized. It's a bit simplistic to explain that way of course, but changes like these, collected over time, constitute a dynamic history of a culture that continues to change, and in fact affect the present by the habits made in the past.

I still think that this analogy to language is appropriate, and I would like to draw attention to a certain duality inherent in the phenomenon of both. If we consider martial arts (and, I hope it's evident, I include in the art of Muay Thai all of the traditions and ceremonies which accompany its practice) as a sort of language, then we must consider that Muay Thai, for example, in its conscious implementation by its practitioners, bears features of which not all of its practitioners are conscious. For example, not all of my trainers are religious, certainly not all of the students are, but it is still accepted by them that one does not enter the ring between the ropes when wearing the Mongkon. Similarly, very few Thai boxers still practice Muay Boran, which was the old military art from which the sport of Muay Thai has evolved, and so many fighters are unaware that some techniques that they practice have their roots in the deflection of spears and clubs, Buddhist ideas of which body parts are sacred, or even the accommodation of nearby elephants. This ignorance does not affect their ability to effectively practice Muay Thai, just as one does not have to be an etymologist to speak a language, but it is relevant that in practicing Muay Thai, these fighters are representing a long evolution of which they may be only partially conscious.

This duality is notable on its own, but it becomes particularly interesting when one considers that Muay Thai, as a competitive sport, is constantly changing to meet the needs of ever-varying styles and competitors. Any competitive activity will necessarily be in a constant state of change, as new competitors seek to dislodge old champions with new ideas, but Muay Thai is such an integral part of Thai culture that changes come from other directions as well. King Naresuan in 1584 saw that Muay Thai became required training for every soldier in the Thai army, and practiced it himself. Royal interest and influence in Muay Thai has continued ever since, such as king Prachao Sua, AKA the Tiger King, who supposedly loved Muay Thai so much that he sometimes fought incognito in village contests.

In other words, in addition to the inevitable practical and aesthetic changes made over the course of centuries, the monarchy has directly acted to affect the course of Muay Thai's evolution as well, tying it still more closely to the Thai culture in particular, as opposed to just a sport with its own history. The monarchy has also greatly affected the practical habits of Muay Thai by the organization of several official Muay Thai stadiums, such as the famous Lumpini stadium in Bangkok, which have added requirements and limitations on technique and equipment for competition.

Muay Thai, then, is a means for the preservation of many ancient traditions and beliefs, despite the fact that many practitioners are unconscious of that which they act to preserve. In addition, Muay Thai, as a living form of expression, is constantly changing in practice and in ceremony to affect the shifting beliefs and priorities of the Thai people and government. Thus, the martial art acts at once to maintain the old and incorporate the new, and paradoxically sustains tradition through constant change.

It is somewhat difficult to frame this argument with so few specifics, but perhaps this will be an undertaking to pursue in earnest upon my return. For now, doubtful as I am of the general interest in a catalog of the many techniques of Muay Thai and their cultural/historical significance, I will suffice to say that to me, this venture has already been incredibly enlightening, and I consider it essential to the true study of the art. I consider the difference between studying learning the same techniques in America, and coming to learn Muay Thai here, to be more or less analogous to the difference between being able to pronounce a word, and knowing what that word means.

The Fight

When I walked out of the ring, I was covered in sweat, my left leg was throbbing sullenly, and my arms hung like curtains that I couldn't summon enough wind to move. I oozed through the ropes, and a few people clapped me on the back as I tottered down the three steps to the ground. I nodded and smiled my way through the crowd as people politely complimented me on my defeat, and their respects slipped into my body like novacaine around a toothache that was irritating but according to the professionals wouldn't require surgery.

I was a little disappointed and somewhat frustrated as I left the party to shower and change clothes, but overall I just couldn't shake the feeling that the whole affair had just been rather anti-climactic. I wasn't pleased that I had lost, but it certainly wasn't an embarrassing defeat, or one of which I would have to be ashamed for the rest of my fighting career. I hadn't been knocked out, I had landed a few good shots of my own, and in fact I hadn't even sustained much damage, but I just felt that neither I nor my opponent had fought the fight that we could have.

For all three rounds, Craig (my opponent) had stayed mostly out of my reach, and when I came after him, he retreated, often dropping a quick outside leg-kick on his way out. Some of these kicks I checked, more I didn't, and I realized that I have a bad habit of ignoring strikes that I don't expect will do much damage, despite the fact that whether or not they hurt, they still make their way onto the judges' cards. It was these counter-kicks which did the only real damage of the fight, and which guaranteed Craig the win, and in fact were probably the most exciting part of the fight. We clashed in earnest very few times, and he usually retreated quickly, more than once leaving me swinging for the fences in unsuccessful attempts to land a solid blow. I was very frustrated by his strategy, and I wish then and now that he had been more willing to directly engage as I had expected him to, but I have to give him credit for developing a successful strategy that neutralized my height and my reach, and sticking to it.

All of that said, I consider the whole experience of the fight to be extraordinarily valuable, both from a personal perspective and an academic one. Personally, I now feel a substantial difference in my bearing and confidence, and I think it comes as a simple result of withstanding the consciously directed violence of another person. Certainly, my fight could have been more ferocious, but I expect that a certain moment in it will remain fixed in my memory for a long time, somewhere between my first kiss and when I received my black belt.

The moment was after Phatet, one of my closest trainers here and one of my corner-men for the fight, poured the last of a cup of water over my head between rounds, patted my shoulder, and stepped out of the ring. I stood up, heard the bell, met Craig in the middle of the ring, kicked, was blocked, felt the counter land hard across my left thigh, and I darted forward with a jab followed closely by a quick, simple combination. Craig fell back immediately, bounced off the ropes, threw a loose jab that I dodged, and then turned and retreated a few more steps. All told, this clash is hardly an unusual one in the course of a fight, but I remember, as I saw him retreat again, ducking back quickly to avoid my hands, that he was afraid of me. I don't mean that he was cowardly, or unable to face his fear, but that this man, this trained fighter, didn't want to be in range of my limbs an instant longer than he had to be. He wasn't giving up the fight by any means, but he was afraid of me, and I knew, with a sort of frosty effervescence, that he should be.

As I mentioned, I've been frustrated by the result of the fight, but overall I just feel that it wasn't what it could have been. I certainly had a respectful fear of Craig's capacity in the fight as well, and I failed to push hard enough through the match to disrupt his well thought-out game plan. I am frustrated, I am disappointed, but there remains that abiding sense that I have now stood against exactly the type of person who has intimidated me in the past. Craig is stronger than me, he is more aggressive by nature, he places more value on public displays of strength and masculinity (he flexed for the crowd and fondled the ring girls between each round). I always knew that I would be afraid when I had to face a man like that violently, which is to say in an environment and with standards which he so values, but there's something that makes my shoulders sit higher when I remember that of course I was afraid, but after the first round, so was he.

In My Corner

Those of you following this scrupulously will be aware that this Saturday, which is to say two days from the composition of this post, I will have my first competitive fight. A little over an hour ago, I found out that my opponent is to be a man named Craig, who arrived at the camp around the same time I did, and has been at the periphery of my experience for the past several weeks. I've spoken to him since I saw the matchings, and he's as good-natured as I would hope for him to be, and I have good expectations for a clean, challenging fight.

For the fighters and martial artists who read this, I suppose it's also relevant to mention that I outweigh Craig by about 5 kilos, though he's clearly much stronger. He has broad shoulders and a stout frame, his arms are large and much more muscular than mine, though I stand several inches taller than him, giving me a significant reach advantage. I don't know what his background is, but I take our boxing skills to be roughly equal, though it has been a long time since I sparred with him.

I am somewhat encouraged by the fact that very rarely do the trainers allow us to kick during sparring, and so hopefully my strong background with lower-body techniques will be another point in my favor. I have to say, however, that Craig is, by his bearing, the veteran of more than one street fight, and I heard him once explaining to someone that he has been to prison back in England (though I don't know how many times) for some extended term, and I must presume that that stay was hardly untroubled. All told, he is a daunting opponent, and one that I consider to be at my level, not significantly above or below. All signs point to a hard fight, though I remain cautiously optimistic.

I spoke to my mother yesterday, who perhaps unsurprisingly seems confused about the need for me to participate in something like this, and apparently would prefer that I avoided it entirely. In response to a similar reaction which I anticipate from some of my readers, I feel that perhaps I should explain.

On one level, I am not being in any way facetious or insincere when I say that a fair part of my interest is academic. My purpose here is to study the way in which Muay Thai relates to Thai culture and history, and an official and organized Muay Thai fight is rich in both. Before the fight, both combatants enter the ring much in the style of Western boxers, following a presumably grandiose announcement from an official, including the notable parts of a fighter's record, along with their country of origin. Once both parties are present, a traditional piece of music beings to play, referred to as Pi Muay, on an instrument which somewhat resembles a clarinet. As the music plays, both fighters proceed in a dance called the Wai Kru, which begins by walking around the ring three times and bowing/saluting in some fashion at each of the corners, and after a minute or two of formulaic dancing, finishes with whatever personal touches the fighter wishes to add.

Technically speaking, the laps around the ring are not actually a part of the Wai Kru, but are referred to as "sealing the ring," as they seal the ring from evil spirits by walking with one hand on the ropes, and stopping to pray at each corner. The Wai Kru itself has a certain series of proscribed movements, but these are more convention than ceremony, which is to say that many/most fighters alter or even abbreviate this part. The dance itself, in whatever form it takes, is actually very important, however, as "Wai" means "bow" and "Kru means "teacher," the dance is the fighter's opportunity to show respect and thanks to his or her trainers and teachers. In other words, the dance may be and usually is adapted to personal taste, but should never be excluded.

Below is a link to a video of this dance as performed by Nazee, one of my trainers, and the man with whom I have been taking private lessons in preparation for the fight. He proceeds through the dance almost entirely according to conventional practice, but the main personal touch is right at the end and is in fact Nazee's trademark. Before going back to his corner, he mimes drawing and firing an arrow at his opponent, stepping forward, surveying the damage, and concluding that the other fighter's future is grim. Much, much more about Nazee to come.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCX41E9J5yM

During all of this, the fighters wear a headpiece called the Mongkon, which in years long past was a towel or a cloth twisted tightly around the prayers and good wishes of the fighter's trainers, friends and family. Today, the Mongkon still represents the same thing, though one is usually re-used by a gym or a group, and it does not usually contain the written prayers anymore. Sometimes the fighters enter the arena with the Mongkon already in place, but while wearing this, the fighter will never duck between the ropes to enter the ring, but will instead enter only over the top rope to show respect for the prayers, and to symbolize that God and prayer are above all things.

In the last week, Nazee has been teaching me this dance, and while he is somewhat critical of my funk, and insists that I move more to the music, I think that I'm at least getting enough of a handle on it so that I won't embarrass myself or him on Saturday.

In addition to studying the cultural/historical aspects of this ceremony firsthand, a great deal of my motivation is social. About a month ago, I mentioned Dang, the head trainer in the beginner classes, and the fact that he started fighting when he was still a small child. Though I was aware at the time that his case was hardly atypical, I have discovered since then that without exception, the trainers at the gym have all entered the ring several dozens of times at least, giving them a fight record as long as most professional boxers in the Western world. For some time, I have felt that my utter lack of experience in serious combat with a trained opponent is something unimaginable to the Thais here, and in fact could become a source of alienation. I don't mean that they would think of me as weak or cowardly, but rather that they would (and in fact do already to some extent) question my motivation in training Muay Thai without ever thinking to apply it.

Most of the trainers have in fact fought far more than any western boxers would in two lifetimes, and they still continue to compete. I feel that I should warn everyone who could be reading this while running or operating heavy machinery to pause for a moment before I impart this next piece of information, as the average professional boxing carrer is usually thought to be around 50-80 fights in a lifetime. Nazee, my personal trainer pictured in the video above, will fight at Patong Stadium here in Phuket in two weeks. This will be his 382nd fight. Three hundred and eighty-second fight.

Surrounded by people like this, it is easy to see that fighting in the ring is such a quintessential part of the characters of the trainers here, that I know that I am expected to enter the ring and test my own skills. Just as I was pushed to advance from the beginner mats, and again from the intermediate area, my trainers (particularly Nazee and Phatet, who I consider to be the most talented and helpful of the advanced trainers) have been subtly encouraging me to step up to the level of a Muay Thai fighter, and not just an American with a hobby.

Add to this the fact that as a lifetime martial artist, actual combat is something that has always lurked at the back of my mind as a silent challenge from the world. It has always seemed to me that to conduct oneself with legitimacy in the arts that I have chosen to study, one must be able to apply them to a hostile opponent. I've waited this long because I believe that there is also a great value in perfecting technique for its own sake, even if it be in a vacuum, but a large part of the aesthetic value of martial arts is their power, and it's time I tested my own.

Two days ago, I asked Chris if he would be my corner-man for the fight, and help me warm up and get focused on the night of. He was honored, and agreed instantly, and I'll be very glad to have him there. While perhaps not as terrified as I had always expected to be at this prospect, I admit that I am rather apprehensive about the whole event, and as Chris is my oldest and closest friend here at the camp, I expect him to be a very helpful and reassuring presence. I am also confident that he is well suited to the responsibilities that will await him in this, as he is not only an insatiable aficionado of combat sports, and so well versed in the preparation and care of fighters, but also he is the veteran of a significant prison sentence, served mostly in Texas penitentiaries, in which he once had to fight a man to save his own life.



At this moment, sitting on my bed alone in my room, it seems that I have come to be very far away from my life back home. I am still very much glad to be here, and I am excited for the fight on Saturday, but as I read back over this post, thinking of how personable I've become with these hard-knuckled men of necessity, with their shotgun biceps and backs and stomachs made of iron and knotted rope, I admit that part of me very much wants to read a book, and then talk about it with someone who has weak shins.

Back to Basics

First off, I should apologize for my long silence, and offer a few words of explanation. I appreciate that some of you have even gone so far as to ask about the progress of my next post, as I am always flattered that there are people following this closely, and I will certainly try to get back into the habit of regular publication.

To sum up the last two weeks or so, I will say that right now, seated in my room on my bed, I am as close as I have really come in some time to again being lord and master of my particular circumstances. The allied insurgents of a large-scale technological failure, a brief trip out of town to visit a friend, the foreign and rebellious contraption in the corner of my room, and my own mild ineptitude at surviving on this side of the Pacific have all made fair bids at the overthrow of my kingdom, and while unsuccessful, have caused a great deal of strife amongst the baronies. Even now, my computer has an entirely new and entirely empty hard drive, my guitar is adjusting to some new strings that have yet to be broken in, and my stomach is shuddering through aftershocks. It's been a long two weeks.

The communists began their muttering last Wednesday, when I awoke to find that my computer had stopped responding to all commands. I rebooted it, attempting to negotiate, but all it showed me was a blinking icon of a folder with a question mark inside of it. The fact that nothing was coming onto the screen certainly irritated me, but in hindsight I think it was the question mark which really provoked my wrath. When it comes to my appliances, I can tolerate some idiosyncrasy, and in fact can even turn a blind eye to a certain amount of inconsistency or sloth, but I will not brook insolence in a computer. In the end, I placed the contraption under arrest, found it guilty of taunting me with the question of whether or not it had a hard drive, and turned it over to a repair shop in town for sentencing. Some days later, they informed me that sadly, it had shown no remorse for its actions, and would have to be lobotomized. Unfortunately, my Empire can show no mercy to insurgents.

The procedure took several days, but now my computer has been returned with an entirely new mind. I was actually charged no small amount for this service, and the attendant at the shop gave me her best Nurse Ratchett smile as she said that in fact the storage space had been upgraded, though no data was able to be transferred from the previous incarnation. Fortunately (and somewhat morbidly), she also gave me the old hard drive in case I could find someone able to extract the data once I return home.

In the intervening days between the computer's trial and execution, I was fortunately able to occupy myself in pursuits other than the contemplation of my 80 gigabytes of treachery by taking a trip to Bangkok. As at least a few readers of this are aware, a good friend of mine named Rachel DeCuir has recently arrived in this country, and has begun a much more extended stay for the purpose of teaching English in a rural school as part of the Fulbright program. Previous to their diffusion amongst their various provinces, however, the Fulbright scholars are all staying in Bangkok for a short orientation program so that they can have some help learning the language and customs. Remembering my own feelings of isolation and discouragement upon my arrival in this distant land, I thought that perhaps a friendly face would be welcome.

I took the bus to Bangkok, and we departed on Friday evening. This being the second time that I had traveled to the city in this manner, I was somewhat better prepared for all the small irritations that accompany the 13-hour ride, and I did my best to pass most of the night in comfortable oblivion. I arrived at the Bangkok bus station around 7:00 AM, with the sun only timidly occupying the Eastern horizon, still balking at the dense clouds of smog with their leather jackets, slicked-back hair, and hard, greasy knuckles that promised a long fight for dominance of the Bangkok sky.

I took a taxi to what has become my preferred place of lodging in that otherwise unfortunate metropolis, and stayed just long enough to drop off my backpack and brush my teeth. Slinging my guitar-case over my shoulder, I strode out of the hotel and, following the directions given over the phone by Rachel's roommate, I was soon facing the recessed front of Suksitnives International House.

I know that Rachel was glad to see an old friend in what is otherwise so callous and disheartening a place, and the feeling was mutual. We spent the next couple of days in general exploration of Bangkok, and actually covered a significant amount of relevant ground, traveling by canal, seeing the area of the Royal Palace and many surrounding monuments, becoming proficient in the Skytrain transit system, and having several small adventures along the way. Though I still possess a strong general distaste for Bangkok, I will say that my perception of it did improve through our wanderings, and all the while it was extremely refreshing to converse with a personality that would never be found amongst the juiced-up muscles and peacock struts of the students at Tiger Muay Thai.

In fact, being with Rachel, and going out as we did one night with the other Fulbright scholars, made me again very conscious of the particular strain of narcissism which infests the camp like a fungus. Unfortunately, I see it almost everywhere, and, like most fungi which adheres to humans, it is rather contagious. Every time I step out of my door, I see it mouldering the biceps and battered chins of most of the Westerners here, and I smell it's dank odor in the breath of people who actually begin sentences (not an exaggeration) with the phrase, "Yeah, you know, that's the awesome thing about me..."
I think that the worst thing about it is that it creates an environment in which competition is so omnipresent that it's hard not to start thinking that you're better than everyone because you aren't as competitive as they are. The whole thing is paradoxical and painfully ridiculous, but even spending a couple of days away from it helped me to be able to laugh about it more than just getting exasperated. What's more, it was nice to be around people who were actually interested in the cultural roots that I'm trying to trace, people who read books without the words "EXPLOSION," "ULTIMATE," or "POWERHOUSE" in the title, people who are looking to learn more in Thailand than how to fight during the days and separate the ladyboys from "the good ones" in the evenings. Good to get out of camp I guess, and just play some music for a while.
On that note, I did bring my guitar with me to Bangkok this time, and I was glad that I did. This was the first time since I've put any significant effort into learning that instrument that I've carried it with me on any serious venture, and it makes the whole experience much more picturesque, charming and generally enjoyable.

In the past two months or so, I have come to consider my guitar to be a sort of court-jester in my Kingdom of Comfortable Circumstances, though perhaps one that was selected by one of my more adventurous secretaries after a several day drinking binge. My court jester, you will understand, is unfortunately a terribly fresh arrival from the distant land of Ibanez, and as of yet he (for somehow I've gained the impression that it is male) shares a language with no one in the realm, least of all me. Nonetheless, every day we meet, sit down to peer over some strange scratchings and tablature from his homeland, and I shake his hand and he does his best to be entertaining. So far, we have both been generally well-meaning and studious, and we had been making some progress on basic grammar (to be, to have, subject-verb inversion to form a question, contractions, etc.), but a great deal of our conversation remains halting and broken, the pauses marked by strange buzzing noises. Recently, however, he seems to be harboring some distinctly Soviet tendencies, and has rather stopped cooperating. Personally, I suspect some sedition by the Laptop before its sentence was carried out, but unfortunately I have no proof.

Whatever the cause, many of the strings have been refusing to stay in tune, and sometimes it just sounds a bit off, particularly when trying to play new songs. I've spoken to it about this, quite sternly I might add, but as I possess only a failing electronic tuner, the translation equipment is as limited as my ability to make sense of it. I'm sure that there is an answer here, and that soon enough my jester and I will be conversational in our awkward, discordant way, but at the moment it feels as if we were discussing present tense conjugations of "to be" and I am suddenly asked to understand the subjunctive. Yesterday I sat down to inquire about a talk I had with Glen Hansard, and my jester practically spit in my face. That evening, I changed his strings out of spite.

Finally, after I returned from Bangkok, I gained yet another reason to detest that city and almost everything that comes from it. For part of my last day there, and for the four days immediately following my return, I experienced physical discomfort unrivaled by anything to which the trainers here have yet subjected me. I had a fever, joint pain, skin sensitivity, nauseousness, and serious bowel complications that do not need to be detailed. Needless to say, I did no training in that interval, and spent it mostly cooped up in my room, sleeping, watching movies, grumbling at my blankly complacent and empty-headed computer, and arguing with my court-jester.

The causes of that terrible illness are still unknown to me for certain, but I have two primary suspects. The first is actually the more shocking of the two, and one that I never saw coming. Both of the full days that I spent in Bangkok were dappled with rain, and on one day, I was actually caught out in a light drizzle for a short time. I have since been informed that the pollution in that accursed city is so abominable that if one is rained on, then, having the characteristically weak immune system of an American, it is important to shower immediately, or risk becoming ill. The second culprit (pictured below) is perhaps less shocking, and is simply my own fault for being a bit too adventurous with my meals in a questionable market setting.


For those of you wondering, that is, in fact, grilled squid on a stick, though the inside was sadly and dangerously undercooked.


Anyhow, I recovered by the beginning of last weekend, and was able to go to class on Saturday. I have resumed training on my normal schedule, and in fact have taken a major step in my martial arts career. I don't mean to be dramatic by leaving this as a cliffhanger at the end of the post, and so I will furnish all basic details now, and go into a more extended explanation soon.

As of today, I have officially signed up and weighed in to compete in a full-contact Muay Thai fight this Saturday. Both combatants must wear 16oz. gloves and a mouthpiece; all punches, kicks, and knee strikes are legal, though points will only be given for recognized Muay Thai techniques. These fights are very short, and meant only to be a centerpiece to a barbecue and party that will last the whole evening, so each fight will be three rounds, each round lasting two or three minutes (TBA). I weighed in at 86 kilos (about 189 lbs.), and I will find out who my opponent is on Thursday, though I know that it will be another fighter from the camp. Think well of me that night my friends; I wish that so many of you were here.

Advanced

Yesterday I stood on the mats below the boxing ring, facing one of my more enthusiastic trainers. He had a regular Thai pad on each arm (I use the term “pad” loosely here), and my wrapped fists were clenched inside of black 16 oz. gloves. We faced each other in identical stances, though his bore about 13 fewer inches above it, and he held the pads up next to his head in a normal boxer’s position, regarding me expressionlessly from between them.

We circled each other slowly, bobbing up and down in a steady rhythm, and suddenly he gave a harsh, guttural cry and spun to the side, holding both pads together facing my right. I took the signal, and threw my already aching right leg toward the pads with as much legitimacy as I could give it; my shin and ankle thundered into the pads with a satisfying explosion, but before I had time to rejoice in the small patch of fluff which flew off of the pads in my direction, I felt a small ankle at the back of my left foot, and in a fraction of a second I was on my back, staring up at the ceiling.

As usual, a loud cry of “OOOOOHHHH-WAAAAAIIIIEEEE” echoed around the mats from the trainers nearby, and I lumbered back to my feet, nodding and smiling ruefully at my grinning opponent who was bouncing gleefully from side to side. I set my stance, regained my rhythm, and the moment my gloves came up to my chin, my trainer’s grin vanished, replaced again by blank, unyielding concentration, and the pads resumed their irregular orbit in front of him.

This scenario repeated itself over a dozen times, often requiring a long string of techniques from me before the heavily anticipated counterattack, when this man’s shins and forearms formed a complex drum line across my head, ribs and thighs. Sometimes I was able to respond; sometimes I managed to catch the counter-kick, or to at least raise my own shins to ‘block’ it, much as one places a stop-sign in front of a careening semi, but more often my stomach and jawbone grimly accommodated their foreign visitors.

When the whistle blew for the end of the final round, my trainer held the pads to his right one more time, uttering a loud cry in Thai which I took for encouragement. As I threw my shoulders and hips into the kick, my leg whipped around in defiance of all exhaustion, and as I felt the last reserves of my speed and ferocity course through my muscles, I just had time to see a tanned foot rising over the rim of my carelessly lowered left glove. There was a flash of light, and a second later, with no knowledge of how I had arrived, I found myself once again on my back, staring at the ceiling, and feeling a ringing numbness where the left side of my jaw should have been.

My trainer scampered over to me smiling, helped me up, and I grimaced, rubbing my jaw, and shrugged helplessly at him as if to say, “I’ll do better next time.”

He smiled broadly, and put both of his hands on my shoulders, staring up at me earnestly. “Haha, no. You ge keeked, do no feel bad. I know EVERY-thing.”
Laughing again, he released me, clapped me on the shoulder, and made the Thai gesture of thanks/respect before shaking my hand. This, I have found, is the regular story of the advanced class here at Tiger Muay Thai.

The trainer who I’ve described here (whose name I will make a priority to learn) is in fact already familiar to me. He, along with many other Thais, fluctuates back and forth between the beginner and advanced mats, and in fact is the same trainer who still leads the beginner class in the aforementioned ceremony of his own invention beginning with “WHAS YO NEM?!”

I have noticed a few other familiar faces as well, though it seems that some do stay exclusively in one area, as much to my regret, Dang has yet to make an appearance outside of his customary rounds. Their attitudes are much the same as well, and I have found the complete return to this jovial spirit of training extremely refreshing. My young friend’s bellowing introductions don’t take place here (being perhaps unnecessary, as at its heaviest day I’ve seen up to six people in the class including me), but there is unmistakably the same emphasis on personal relation.

For example, the trainers seem to have a pretty firm idea of what each of us is capable of performing, and assign some students mildly heavier or lighter workout numbers for certain exercises. Likewise, I have found myself remembering the styles of the particular trainers, knowing to whom I should address certain questions, and what amount and what manner of physical punishment will be dealt out by each one during the dreaded pad-work drills (described at the beginning).

What’s more, at this level, I have found that the trainers sometimes disagree on certain minutiae of the art. Far from being frustrating, it is actually interesting and encouraging to have conflicting corrections from different instructors, and while any of those attending or spectating always quickly yield to whoever is leading the lesson, I often see them after class, standing on the mats in small groups, demonstrating movements and speaking thoughtfully in Thai.

Overall, the trainers seem to worry a lot less about students slacking or not paying attention, or being in any way undisciplined. The students here, what few of us there are, seem to be distinctly less concerned with proving themselves against the others, or really with anything other than committing themselves to the training, and it strikes me that Dang’s beloved bamboo switch would have very little purpose. This is not entirely without exception of course, but I have already found the students in the advanced class to be very friendly and inviting, and I do not at all have the impression that anyone is comparing him- or herself to me (I say this, of course, bearing in mind the fact that I have once been mistaken on this account; despite that, I feel that I'm more on the mark this time).

Though I have been shaken somewhat by the recent social troubles involving my progression, I can say honestly that I am very happy to be in company with these people. I have met a young English girl named Karla who is in possession of both phenomenal boxing skills and a genial and approachable demeanor, and her boyfriend Adrian, who has actually grown up alternating homes between Bangkok and Manchester, and so speaks fluent Thai and has the mannerisms of the West with the comfort and ease of someone who is still at home.

In short, I have finally begun to find a few people to whom I actually relate somewhat, even if only on a casual level so far. I have already had interesting conversations about something other than sex or violence, and the forecast is good for many more.

Next time, I should really talk about Chris; I feel that he is a central character whose detailed description is long overdue.

Up and Down

For the past few days, I've just been kind of pissed off. Right when humanity was looking sunny, the Americans came along. It all begins with good news.

On Tuesday morning, I walked across camp to the intermediate mats at the same time I always do. The trainers were sitting and standing around the edges of the boxing ring, and I stepped up next to the base of it, depositing my bag and water bottle on the ground, and kicking off my sandals before I stepped onto the mats. I nodded up to the reclining Thais as I started stretching, and the head trainer shook his head at me and waved his hand. I paused, looking at him inquiringly, and he just pointed back through camp, saying simply, "Avanse."

I stared at him blankly, not knowing what he meant, and he nodded back the way I came, pointing again. "No mo tren here. Today you go avanse." Once I understood his meaning, I was pleasantly surprised, and immediately pressed my hands together under my chin in the Thai sign for thanks/respect. He nodded again, returned the gesture, and waved me off toward the advanced mats, returning to his companions. I picked up my things, and turned around to find that one of the nebulous, floating trainers who seem to have no fixed position had materialized behind me. He smiled simply at me, and led me away to the advanced area.

The class itself was conducted in very much the same pattern as the intermediate class, though obviously with significant differences in subject matter and intensity. I'll say a few words about the class in a later post, however, as I find it difficult enough to limit myself to reasonable verbosity on just one topic at a time.

In the few days since I was moved to the advanced class, I have been extremely frustrated by the reactions of my peers. I recognize that moving to this level of training is something of a change in social status; this is a demonstrable sign that I have attracted the attention of my trainers, and earned their respect, which is doubtless the most sought-after prize in the camp. What I did not recognize, however, was the intrusively competitive nature of many of my acquaintances here, and that their evident confusion, mixed with thinly veiled insults, would leave me thinking that I had seriously over-estimated the number of friends I've made.

Let us examine, as an exemplary case study, a young American man named Luke. Our arrivals at the beginning of September were within two days of each other, and up until this week, we've been on roughly the same training schedule. Overall, I know very little substantive information about Luke, but in the manner of fellow countrymen in foreign places, we have maintained something slightly above a friendly acquaintance through shared meals and random meetings around camp. Since Tuesday, however, things have been different.

Every time that I have seen Luke in the last four days has involved some mention of my placement in the advanced class, and a not-so-subtle comparison of my abilities to his. Of course, the first time I saw him after my promotion, he immediately congratulated me, but it was clearly forced, and he followed that nicety with a rather offensive (and inexplicable), "Huh, you know I never really saw you training much in intermediate. I guess advanced has been a pretty small class though, they probably want some new people."

What bothers me most about my promotion, however, is not actually the jealous incredulity of those with whom I had trained before. In the company of everyone, it seems, whether or not I had trained with them before, the fact of being in the beginner or intermediate Muay Thai classes has become something of which one is obligated to be ashamed. Chris and I took a new arrival named Dave out to lunch yesterday to show him around town, and after Chris spent the first few minutes of the venture heckling me about my class change, Dave filled our lunch with obnoxious proclamations along the lines of, "I mean, I seriously can't believe they put me in the beginner class. I'm all like, 'dude, I know my training's been off and on, but don't put me with this bunch of pussies.'"

(As an aside, I should say that, to his credit, Chris seems to have been almost completely unfazed by my advancement this week, and while occasionally joking with me about it, he has provided my only real outlet for this frustration)

I would like to ignore Luke's change of attitude, and I would like to remind Dave (and all of the so many others) that the beginner class, or "this bunch of pussies," refers to, at one time or another, every person in the camp. Frankly, the notion that anyone's talents are being wasted as they stagnate under the oppressive, Philistine yoke of the beginner or intermediate trainers is very offensive, as is the realization that all of these comments are coming as an attempt to make their speakers feel that they might still be better fighters than I am, though they are unjustly imprisoned while I am shown undeserved favoritism. If I didn't think that arguing with them would make the alienation problem worse, I would explain to them that they may well be better fighters than me, and that I frankly couldn't care less, as I'm here to study an art form, not prove my masculinity by bouncing my skull off the hardened fists of unimpressed Thai men.

I should also point out that it has been almost entirely Americans who have thus displayed this shallow and competitive nature toward their friends. Maybe it's just a random coincidence, but the others I know, particularly the non-Westerners, seem to be less bothered by my promotion. Perhaps not surprising.

This is all the more frustrating for me as it runs so contrary to my own experience in the States. I don't mean that I'm any stranger to the hyper-competitive nonsense that is a large part of modern martial arts, but rather that I have been selective enough (and fortunate enough) to train only in gyms at which community and dignity are highly valued. At this point I feel it appropriate to mention Conway Mixed Martial Arts, the site of my physical education and intermittent employment in Conway, AR, and a place where I learned a great deal about the dignity of martial artists.

Anyone who has trained at Conway MMA knows that you won't get far as a stranger. I have spent the past four or five years cultivating a strong friendship with the Newton family, who owns and operates the school, and I consider many of its students to be personal friends. What's more, I have always felt that whatever success I earned on my own was an honor for the gym, and I know that I was far from the only one to feel this way. Each time I've been promoted, in whatever style or class, I have always met with encouragement and genuine congratulation, not suspicious stares and backhanded comments. After the first Jiu-Jitsu tournament in which I competed, I and everyone else from Conway MMA handed our medals to Joel after the whole thing was over, and they stayed on the wall in the school, never to be worn by any of us as far as I'm aware.

I think that the Thais understand that. While my last post now appears to me in something of a naive, rosy light, I do still sense a certain camaraderie among many of the students, and its presence is absolutely undiminished in the trainers. I'm encouraged by the office of the camp, in which walls and tables are filled with trophies and championship belts that the winners left there. Every fight picture and video I've seen always shows the Thais displaying some symbol of their training ground, and the art of Muay Thai traditionally features a pre-fight ceremony in which both combatants conduct a dance and a walk around the ring while adorned with physical symbols of the prayers and well-wishes of their trainers and family. I'm sure that these men are aware that many of their students consider promotion something personal, almost like a popularity contest, but they obviously pay so little heed that I can only be assured that they find it as ridiculous as I do. Following this, I plan to continue to try to flesh out what this bond is, though it may be more subtle than perhaps I had originally thought, particularly among us foreigners.

Back to the personal business, I guess what I mean to say is that this one goes out to the guys (and girls, Missy) back home. I know that many of you would love to be where I am, and several of you expressed your envy to me directly, but I especially appreciate that before I left, everyone came down, had pizza, shook my hand, and sent me off with smiles and good wishes. I think that after I come back, and after my financial situation is sorted out, I will make it my business to come back here, and to take at least one of you with me each time. My experience at Conway MMA has always been one of strong community and genuine friendship, where the stripes on your belt, or the notches in your gloves, are never as important as the respect you show on the mats. If only I could show these floundering, insecure peacocks that where I come from, we stand up straight, we don't talk shit, we do our best, and when one of us does well, we shake his hand, we clap him on the back, and we all do what we can to help him do even better.

Love.

We Are the Fighters

From time to time I'll hear a few words, or even as much as a sentence, delivered in just the right way, or perhaps at just the right moment, so that they seem to echo with a profundity that would otherwise not be implied by the arrangement of the words themselves. Today I was thinking about the first time that this happened to me in Thailand. It was my first week in the camp, and no doubt I was a little extra-susceptible to wonder, due to a combination of culture shock and a lot of well-trained punches to the head. I was perched uncomfortably on a bar stool at the Tiger Grill, wings folded, head down, trying to ignore the pervasive agony in my muscles, when a man named Will came by. I still know very little about him, other than that he is a young man, a general manager here, and was born somewhere near Boston, but he introduced himself to me almost immediately upon my arrival, and checks up on me from time to time.

As he passed, he clapped me on the shoulder, saying, "How you feeling, man?"
I feigned indifference to the protests of my entrails. "Ah, I'm alright. Just recovering."
Will chuckled, presumably seeing through my façade. "Alright, good to hear."
Then, just before continuing on his way, he paused for a moment which, in my memory, always plays like a close-up just before a scene change.

"The pain happens, man. Don't worry about it; there's only the fighters here."

It's been a little less than a month since he said that to me, but it's taken less time than that to realize that he was right. There is certainly a solidarity amongst everyone here at Tiger Muay Thai, trainer and student alike, but I don't actually think that it is hugely different than that achieved, for example, at Conway Mixed Martial Arts, my gym back in Arkansas. I don't know that every martial arts training ground has a similar community aspect, but due to the quality of my previous instruction, I'm no stranger to it, so I can't say that I really expected anything less. In fact, what has provided a much greater subject of interest to me is the habits and lifestyles of the people here, and though they perhaps do not reflect the feelings of similarity encouraged by shared hardship, the elusive commonality which persists.

As an aside, I remember quite well that in every school at which I've trained, and indeed in every community of which I have been a part, there are those who either resist, ignore or betray the feelings of solidarity extended to them. Certainly, that has already been the case more than once in my limited experience here, but for the purposes of this discussion, I'll be limiting myself to the large majority of students, all of whom seem to share an understanding with, and mild affection for, their trainers and classmates.

The really remarkable thing about the community here is that so many people seem to have so little in common with one another. For example, just this afternoon, I went to the office to buy a few of the necessities sold there, such as soap, disinfectant, and an extra pair of handwraps. While my purchases were being calculated, I stood next to an Irishman with a chest full of tattooed proper nouns, a slurred voice that seemed to have few worthwhile uses, and half-lidded eyes that might otherwise be keen, but had the air of having lost their edge after long being beaten against poor choices. He was very drunk (as it was then a little after 2PM), and mentioned that he was on the business end of several tablets of Vallium. He explained to me that he deserved this day of stuporous rest as he had just lost 50,000 baht (about $1,500 USD) last weekend to the classic alliance of a prostitute and too much alcohol.

By contrast, on the trip to Bangkok mentioned last time, I shared a bus with a man named Berneung (corrected spelling). Berneung is Thai, and a man of few words and fewer facial expressions. He is not grim or prickly, but simply impassive, though his eyebrows are permanently fixed in a slightly peaked position of imposing analysis. He followed the rest of the TMT crew to the bars each night, but I didn't hear him speak a single word to any women who didn't train with us, and he only quietly shook his head each time he was offered a drink. He doesn't say much to anyone from what I understand, and showed very little response even after his quick and decisive victories in the ring that weekend. On a side note, I'm told that though his personal demeanor has been consistent in recent memory, he has actually demonstrated a bit more flair for the dramatic, as in this picture taken of him a few months ago which has since been made into a poster for sale around Phuket (Berneung is on the right).



These two men clearly have very little in common. What is of course striking about the comparison is that as far as anyone can tell, they have a perfect understanding. Between these two specifically, I cannot vouch for anything other than that once Berneung held pads for the Irishman whose name I've forgotten, but it is implicit among the social group here that each would help the other if there was need. What's more, I know that there are many here who are as different from me as these two are from each other, but when I've been outside the camp, I know instinctively that I'm with them, and they're with me.

I want to emphasize here that this isn't even something based on foreignness. I can remember a similar feeling of camaraderie springing up quickly with people I met in France, if only because people who are outside of their comfort zones tend to band together quickly, and generally part with equal swiftness when the need is over. Here, however, I have observed and experienced this bond between Thais and foreigners, between the travelers and the xenophobes, and even more impressive, I've noticed that it endures.

All of this is admittedly rather nebulous, though I've forgiven myself somewhat due to the fact that don't particularly think that I'm describing anything really momentous or outside the experience of most. The reason I go into it, however, is that it is the most concrete symptom of a phenomenon that I have found which directly relates to my study here. It strikes me that ours is a completely imagined community here at the camp; we have no specific personal bond, and indeed many of us have never met. Other than the fact of one's training here, the personal criteria for our acceptance of another, then, are functionally nonexistent.

This idea immediately reminded me of an earlier post in which I asked some vague questions about the differences between soldiers and martial artists, and in which I mentioned a book from which I have just borrowed a phrase, Imagined Communities, by Benedict Anderson. I sorely wish that I had been able to read more of that book before my departure, but one thing that I took from it which has stayed with me is that nations are, in fact, what I have just described. Here we are certainly absent the comparatively recent inventions of Western-imposed categorization and strict border recognition, but according to Anderson and Dr. King of the Howard University Anthropology Department (with whom I had a very illuminating conversation before I left), the fighters here have the basic genesis of a cultural identity. In short, the fighters of Tiger Muay Thai are certainly individual and separate, "but in the minds of all exists the image of [our] communion" (Anderson). I'll be trying to get access to more of this, as I think that it's fascinating.

Finally, I should clarify that I do not believe that membership in one imagined community excludes one from membership in others. I was warned by Will (from the beginning of the post) that the Thais may be somewhat offended if I tried to vent to them about my vexing run-in with the famous merchants of Bangkok mentioned in the last post. While many Thais would respond the same way emotionally, Will explained that it was quite possible that they would be a bit resistant to commentary on their social problems from a foreigner of the same brand who supports the problem. Even the trainers, that is to say, would not necessarily accept me as part of their community in this sense, despite whatever other camaraderie we share.

In short, the identity that we here have all adapted as Muay Thai fighters does not subsume all other identities, though it does somehow rank among them. I can say that I feel a certain kinship toward the fighters and trainers here that I do not for Americans in general, though that wouldn't make me indifferent if I met someone else from Kansas City. It is particularly relevant to me as well that this identity as Muay Thai fighters has rules to it, and traditions, and it behooves us all to follow them. The martial art has demonstrably incorporated us into an imagined community in which we follow its ethics. We don't kick for the groin, we don't follow our opponents to the ground; we show respect for our trainers and for our ancestors before a fight, and we use Thai words to describe certain features of the training or ceremony. This is, in fact, what I came here to study. We are not all Thai, but neither are we the same as we were before we were immersed into this Thai art, which has carried with it the old rules and traditions that are now becoming our own. And so, almost as if we said, "We are Americans," or "We are Christians," or "We are Buddhists," we know that we are Muay Thai fighters, as little or as much as that means.

For the sake of levity, I submit the following picture of one of my friends here for general approval, as a brilliantly telling allegory for my own presence here in the camp.

Bangkok

I've been back in Phuket for a couple of days now, and I willingly confess that I've been procrastinating on writing this entry, because I couldn't quite conceptualize a description of the past weekend. I have decided to get to it now, however, as these entries are usually the best opportunities for me to take the attendance of my thoughts, to make them all stand up, pay attention, put down their accordions and Scrabble games, so that I can talk to them one at a time. I hope that this attempt will be successful, as these recent thoughts are rather a raucous bunch, and that I do not end up like a failed AA meeting leader, face-down in the gutters of my intentions, groaning about my life, and as incoherent as my stuporous charges who surround me.

(As an aside, I may or may not have been reading a lot of Milton lately, and while I have been procrastinating, the rest is perhaps just the pressure to invoke a Muse. Then again perhaps not.)

I left the camp with my friend Chris on Friday afternoon, and we shared a taxi to the bus station with Oscar, a Swedish fellow-student, Nu, a Thai trainer at the camp and part-time professional competitor, and Vernon, also a Thai trainer, who was recently ranked among the top-ten Muay Thai fighters in Thailand (Vernon is rumored to have once knocked out an opponent with a cartwheel-kick). We boarded the bus around 6PM, and began the overnight trek to the capital, where some organization which remains unfamiliar to me was hosting a Pan-Asian grappling and MMA tournament. We arrived, cramped and ill-rested, on Saturday morning, and just had time to find a taxi to a hotel, drop our things, and then race to the competition which began at 10AM.

We arrived just in time for weigh-ins, which didn't concern me or Oscar, as both of us had come to spectate rather than compete. We met about ten other people from Tiger (my gym, for those of you just joining us) who had wisely flown in, and together we formed a solid cheering section near one corner of the chamber. I'll spare a few words for the tournament itself here, but I must say that overall, it was much the same as Jiu-Jitsu tournaments in the States, though with many more languages being spoken around the mats.

Chris was the only of my traveling companions to compete on the first day, in the gi part of the tournament. He gave a good showing, but was defeated due, I think, to a few basic mistakes which he is usually above. We watched a few other brackets, but I retired back to the hotel rather early, citing nauseousness, thanks to the dubious quality of some of the roadside vendor "food" for which everyone on the bus had been periodically jostled awake the night before.

The competition the following day was distinctly more impressive, though perhaps I only thought so because I saw more of it. I was very struck by the level of physical conditioning of the fighters, particularly in terms of flexibility, as that's something that is too often overlooked in US mixed martial arts, in my own humble opinion. That said, perhaps there's a reason that the ever-practical Americans have comparatively ignored this method of training, as I did see one unfortunate man choked out by his own ankle, in a very complicated scenario of anatomical treachery.
The second day also proved more impressive for the Tigers, as our grapplers train exclusively without gis, in preparation for MMA fights. Chris did better than he had the previous day, and several of our fighters won their divisions. In the three MMA fights, Vernon and Nu each won almost without a struggle, at the great expense of their opponents' shins, and Tobias, our Swiss novice fighter, won against a much larger opponent with a well-executed rear naked choke. All-in-all, a very good day for Tiger Muay Thai, and despite our comparative lack of success the day before, we took home the trophy for second-most medals won overall.

Now, on to the city.

It is difficult, if at all possible, to reckon the size of Bangkok. Due to a misunderstanding with a cab-driver, at one point I ended up at 100th St. instead of 1st St., but I still wandered around for a few minutes, deceived into thinking that I was close to my destination by the fact that there were skyscrapers at 100th St. to compare to those at 1st. The city is all the more difficult to navigate due to the seamless-ness with which alley melds into street, and roads branch off at any angle and degree. It is somewhat difficult at points to differentiate the heavily residential districts from the commercial ones, particularly at the lower income levels. I remarked several times (necessarily in passing, as I can't imagine how long it would have taken me to explore these areas, even if a 6'4'' blond-haired white guy could have done so safely) that in so many places, the stalls and small stands which lined the street were just the fringes of much larger markets just out of sight. When one walks the streets of Bangkok, one can see hundreds of alleys and paths that run between the cheap craft and produce stands of the poor. These narrow passages disappear quickly into darkness, the gloom punctuated grudgingly by dim, flickering, flourescent bulbs, and it is difficult not to be haunted by what lies out of sight in the child and adult prostitution capital of the world.

At night the city shifts gear, but certainly doesn't slow down. Like any big city, there is the constant dull roar of streets clogged with traffic and industrial fans blowing mist and smoke out of the tops of buildings and gaps in the sidewalks. People pass constantly on the sidewalks, most averting their eyes to the ground when they see us coming. Saturday and Sunday nights I went out with the other Tigers, though both nights I refrained from following them to the end of their beer-washed paths. As we walked the streets, pausing at restaurants, markets and pubs, we certainly did our part to protect each other from the feeling of insignificance that often assails one in any of the great cities of the world, but I'm not sure that I really appreciated that feeling. True, it was nice to look around and realize that I'm about as safe as a person could be without Secret Service protection, but at the same time, Bangkok has so much fear, so much poverty, so much sadness, and yet so much power, so much wealth, so much pride and majesty that to insulate myself in this way made me feel almost dishonest, as I looked around at the people we passed.

For fear that I may not be making sense here, I'll provide an anecdote. When we left a Western-style pub on Sunday night, I decided to head back to the hotel, and on the way there, a man fell into step next to me. He was Thai, and looked unassuming enough, with short black hair combed over to one side and a dark leather vest on over a horizontally striped T-shirt. He smiled widely at me, as many seem inclined to do here, and said this:
"Heeey, you come out an paateee?"
I paused. "Uh, I'm having a good time," I said.
"Okay! Lots of guys weeth you, need girls! You come with me, I show you menee girls!"
I grimaced and turned my eyes forward again. "Oh. No, man. Thanks. Have a good night."
He waved his hands quickly back and forth, twice. "Oh no, ees no problim! Have menee girls! Girls like thees," he held his hands out in front of his chest, and, giving me a conspiratorial grin, he held his hand down near my waist level, "girls like thees."

It took a few seconds to realize that this man had offered to force a child to have sex with me. I'm not really that educated about how the whole industry works, but from what I understand, there are few volunteers, and those who employ child prostitutes, or indeed any prostitutes, are something less than philanthropic. It was perhaps the first time in my life when I have genuinely felt that one fact was all that I would ever need to know about a person, and the first thought that went through my head was that I should hit this guy in the face, for no other reason than that someone should.

I would be angry afterward; minutes later, when I got back to the hotel, fury would actually rise up in me which might cause me to do physical harm to someone. At the time, however, I was just shocked, and I thought, feeling almost coldly rational, that good people don't walk away from this. Good people take this to the police, good people find a way to help these girls, or if nothing else, good people don't let someone who sells children smile at them openly without knocking that grin to the pavement.

Though it actually pains me somewhat to say it now, I did not turn out to be that particular type of good person, though I am somewhat satisfied with my decision. Other thoughts entered my head, not the least of which was that flesh-peddlers quite probably travel armed, or that doing what was in my power, which is to say beating this man senseless, would probably only cause him to repeat that cruelty exponentially on the plentiful supply of people who were weaker than him. I had reasons not to hit him, and in hindsight, I still think that they were good ones, but there is a part of me that recognizes that moment as a chance to throw the most meaningful knee to the face that I have considered in my life thus far.

Before I went to bed, however, my anger subsided, and the morals I'm used to walking around with came back to me. Despite my hobbies, I really am something of a pacifist. When I'm in a room at Hendrix College, I don't believe in fighting to solve problems. I recognize that cruelty is the thing that cruel people know best how to handle, and that good people should generally not employ the methods of those they oppose. I don't think I'll solve any problems by becoming bigger and more dangerous than the pimps in Bangkok, which I guess means that, despite my inclination, I can't actually make a difference in a large societal problem on a whim.

I would encourage everyone reading this to look up a thing or two on the sex trade in general, and to perhaps familiarize yourselves, as I have in the past two days, on the type of thing that goes on everywhere, and quite significantly on the Mexican-American border. I suppose that our awareness is the least we can give, and I don't think that it's insignificant.

Before I left Bangkok I did one good thing. I don't think it really matters what it was, but it made me feel better, even if it was the societal equivalent of kicking a mountain in an attempt to move the range. While in the capital, I met a lot of different types of people, though of course in my two days, I didn't really have the opportunity to get to know any of them as well as I would like. I learned something about Lumpini Stadium, which is one of the best-known Muay Thai arenas in Thailand, and in the next post I will most likely return to the declared business of my voyage with a study of that blood-soaked place and its history.

For now, however, clichéed though it is, I would encourage all of my friends out there to do one good thing, preferably small, as it's generally less ambiguous that way. I think it will make you feel good, and somewhat powerful. Like you just voted.

A Few Peculiarities

As I'm sitting here in my new room, having hurriedly vacated the old one due to imminent roof collapse (or so the office told me), I'm realizing that there are a fair number of subtle differences to my new environment of which I wasn't immediately aware. I will certainly get to those differences in a moment, but I was actually led by this realization to consider some of the general peculiarities and eccentricities displayed by the camp and the country.

The first thing that I, or, I think, anyone else, would notice about Phuket at this time of year is the rain. It would be an understatement to say
that it rains every day, as the sky is rather like an asthmatic with a serious head-cold: marked by long periods of calmness, but whenever roused from stillness responding with loud and violent sneezes, followed by long periods of wheezing, howling and sniffling. At this point, I have tried to emulate the native population, and just ignore the rain as much as possible. During the sudden and frequent monsoons, I notice no decrease in the sizeable amount of motorbike traffic on the roads, and no classes are ever canceled due to inclement weather, despite the absence of a single full wall around any of the training areas. In fact, after the second or third time, I have come to rather enjoy doing pushups or hitting a punching bag in the rain; it gives one a sort of fierce inspiration at the most violent and tenacious moments, and makes me feel as though the natural world is rooting for my success, as though I had just seen an eagle fly by, carrying an electric guitar.

As pervasive as the rain, yet sometimes more subtle, is the affluence of cats in the camp. After spending a few weeks here, I'm reasonably certain that there is actually only one rather large family in residence, but they seem to enjoy making themselves obnoxious (as cats so often do). In my last room, which was situated rather close to the camp's kitchens, I was sometimes awoken by a lanky, rather stretched-looking, camel-colored feline, who would hop onto the chair outside of my window, and whine incessantly, as if I was withholding a stock of food that was rightfully hers. Once, in exasperation, I opened the door, intending to justify myself through sheer evidence of poverty, and she sauntered inside, glanced disdainfully at my box of granola bars as if they affronted her, and went to sleep on my boxing gloves.
Before I moved, I had actually struck up something of a friendship with one of these creatures. Perhaps the smallest of the bunch, a small black-and-white kitten seemed very fond of murdering the sweaty hand-wraps that I hung out to dry on the rack outside my door. I never actually fed this one either, but she seemed content to show up each evening as I returned home, attacking the heels of my sandals as I crossed the restaurant area toward my door. I admit that I grew somewhat fond of her before I was forced to relocate, but I have since seen her sleeping on the shrine kept towards the front of camp, her head resting somewhat impiously on the Buddha's right knee.
Below is a picture of her habitual evening occupation with my shoes.



Since I have moved, I am actually closer to the fringes of the camp, and in fact the back window of my room looks out into the jungle. It seems that the cats are less inclined to venture out this direction, and so our relationship has gone the way of French cinematic romances, with much sighing and staring from long distances, but little in the way of activity or complete sentences.

I have, however, discovered a new set of creatures to plague my rest, which seem equally interested in my footwear as places of repose. I have taken to keeping my tennis-shoes inside now, after one evening when I stepped outside my door in only my socks, and when I attempted to put on one of my shoes, I felt something inside, about halfway down the sole. I pulled back, and was about to reach inside to smooth down the lining, or brush away whatever had wrinkled up enough to obstruct my toes, when I paused, reminded of the hand-sized spider that I had noticed in my room about a week before. Thinking better of reaching in blind, I tapped the heel of my shoe against the ground three or four times, and, holding it by the toe, I made a quick whipping motion with my hand, flicking the heel end away from me. At this final gesture, a frog just slightly smaller than my fist was sling-shot out of my shoe, and rocketed (presumably terrified) some ten feet into the grass, where it quickly righted itself, paused, and hopped away.
Since I have moved out here, I have noticed a particular excess of reptiles, which I suppose accounts for the comparative lack of insects and arachnids about. While I value that service, it is somewhat disconcerting when, in the middle of the night, I'm making my way toward the bathrooms on an errand of doubtful import to God and Country and I realize that I am being watched from all sides by a myriad of squishy bodies in the grass and clinging to the walls. All the same, I am glad to be free from houseguests like the one pictured below (for reference, my hand, from wrist to fingertips, goes about to the top of the first hinge on the window).


Speaking of the bathrooms, I feel that a word or two is due the facilities here, as it is truly some unfortunate person's thankless, Herculean responsibility to keep them somewhat in order. Overall, I have been very impressed by the state of the camp and by the rigorous cleanliness applied to the mats, but while it is certainly something to clean off the buckets of sweat and blood which are splattered across the training areas every day, I think that the bathrooms may have been doomed from the start. Without getting too graphic, I should warn any travelers to Thailand that native Thai cuisine apparently has a reputation for causing something of a traffic jam in the bowels of newcomers. I myself somehow escaped this unsightly syndrome, but many of my colleagues did not, and as new people are constantly arriving at the gym, I have come to expect the worst from the toilets and their immediate areas. In fact, as Western Europeans seem to be particularly vulnerable to the obstructive effects of pad thai, I have come to think of the bathrooms as existing perpetually in a state akin to the beaches of Normandy on June 5th, 1944: quiet and serene, well-attended, but on the eve of being stormed by large numbers of ill-fated Englishmen.

The final eccentricity of camp on which I'll comment today is the casual nudity which seems to pervade the mats. The population of the place is predominantly men, but certainly not without exception, which to me makes the general disregard for clothing all the more striking. To be fair, one rarely encounters full frontal nakedness in men or women, but I have only to look out my window to see one of the MMA fighters disrobe in the corner of the mats in order to put on his athletic cup and supporter; an activity which, to my mind, reminds one in private of humanity's absurdity quite well enough, and in public is at best a strong kidney-punch to one's dignity. Just the same, however, I have already had several three- and four-day stretches in which I haven't once put on a shirt, due to, if nothing else, the sheer impracticality of clothing on the upper-body in this level of heat and humidity. Without any means of air-conditioning in my room, let alone on the mats, it seems prudent to me to trade in a bit of self-consciousness in exchange for sparing myself from sending in my laundry every third day.

Finally, as I've clearly only just now discovered the ease with which I can post pictures here, I'll add the photos of Dang that I promised in my last post. I somewhat wish that I could have taken more candid shots of him, as his face in training is usually very different than the grin with which you see him here, but perhaps that will come later.