4 weeks out from fight day and I was feeling like a rotten, miserable sack of toxic shit. I’d made a conscience effort to cut out all processed foods, most carbs and sugar – but food poisoning got me anyway. I’d been vomiting all week, I hadn’t been able to train and I had period cramps – all at once. I felt so sorry for myself, that I sheepishly reached for my hidden stash of Cadbury coconut rough I brought all the way from NZ, only to vomit it out a few hours later. (Karma is a bitch.)
Once the antibiotics started to kick in, I wanted to replenish my empty stomach by reaching out to all the irresistible deep-fried goodness I walk past no matter where I’m going. Every morning, I have to resist delicious pork skewers, deep-fried chicken, Thai pastries, coconut pancakes, all in the space of 300m it takes for me to walk from my apartment to my work. The walk from work to training is worse. I’ve already been dreaming about ice cream all day, and I have to walk past more street food stalls, and the vendors actually call out to me yelling “tao-lai kaaa?” (how much do you want?) EVERYTHING OMG EVERYTHING! 10 please!!
Needless to say, getting back into training after a year off has been tough AF. And it’s also shown me the painful reality of what an unhealthy lifestyle I fell into after I quit – dessert every night, carbo-loading every meal, mindlessly consuming processed garbage every single day…. Without realising, I had packed on the pounds – an embarrassing 8kg of fat. Ew!
I’m already sweating like I just ran through Africa by the time I get to the gym, so sometimes I contemplate calling it a day and going home. That’s burnt enough calories aye? I think it’s dinner time.
Once I start shadow-boxing, I feel pretty good about myself. Oh yeah, I look good. This feeling stays for about 2 rounds, then I begin to continuously check the timer. 3 minutes left to go!? I’m already puffing! And you’re telling me I have 3 more rounds on the bag, 3 more rounds on pads, and sparring, and push-ups, and sit-ups left to go!? And I begin to wonder – why is this so hard? It used to be so easy, I used to just forget about time and enjoy it so much? What happened?
Then this week I realised, you need a bare minimum level of fitness to start enjoying this brutal, challenging sport that is Muay Thai. And I should put in the extra mile not just to get fit, but so I can start having fun again by being fit. So instead of getting into this negative mindset where I was constantly becoming anxious about not being fit enough, I put having fun at the centre of my focus. So how do you get there?
Well, what I lacked was patience and dedication. It’s not an easy stroll through the park. So instead of getting super frustrated at how unfit I was, I just let it be – “it will take a few more days,” I told myself. And also, by pretending that you’re having so much fun, smiling, and faking it to you make it, I tricked myself into thinking 100 kicks each side was an enjoyable activity.
This training video was the second round out of four rounds, and it’s the first time since I’ve been back on the bags that I actually fully enjoyed a whole round of 4 minutes without wanting to throw in the towel. Your trainers and training buddies can really make a difference. My trainer Aat is patient with me, has a keen eye for technique, and makes me repeat everything so it’s drilled in my head. He’s also the master at not taking things too seriously, because training should be fun – it shouldn’t just be purely agonising. So we spend half the time giggling away and doing cheeky tricks – which hopefully, I can actually use in my fight!
There’s definitely a lot more stuff I want to work on next week – fitness, faster kicks and quicker jabs. But this week has made me realise if you put in the work, it will come in time! 🙂
Lost in Gustation 