Tiger Muay Thai, day's 1 and 2

So, for the first time in my life, all my time is revolving around martial arts training.  it's been pretty interesting I must say.  I'm here training with people from all over the world.  All different skill levels, novice, those with traditional martial arts training like me (although we are by far the minority), and then there's a ton of fighters that are either professional or aspiring professionals.  hell, i heard there's some pro UFC fighters training here now, although they only do private lessons so don't see em around.

so yesterday morning, I lost track of time in the morning and didn't have time to eat a proper breakfast, so just had water, red bull and a multi vitamin, before getting to the 2.5 hr, 8am Muay thai class.  Now these classes are ridiculously intense.  usually start out with running and a ton of calisthenics for the first half hour. then rigorous techniques, then bag work and sparring and stuff.  but basically, going at 100% for 2.5 hours is crazy.  well yesterday, about an hour and a half in, i kept getting so dizzy i couldn't even stand.  Sweat pouring out of me.  i could breath fine, I just was wobbly.  no amount of water seemed to help.  So... from this i learned two lessons.  One, I now have breakfast ready the night before, so i can wake up and eat nice and early before whatever training i decide to do.  two, i was advised to get an electrolyte powder to add to my water for during workouts.  with the excessive sweating, it made sense.  (and it worked very well for my training today)

yesterday evening There was a special seminar from this professional fighter who used to be professional in the Tae kwan do circuit, but switched to muay thai.  since i have a pretty extensive tae kwan do background, i figured i could learn something from him.  As a style, Tae Kwan do gets very little respect from MMA, professional fighters. Basically, his focus was on teaching the majority of MMA fighters that there are some tae kwan do moves that are effective in real fights and how to use them.  So i didn't really learn too much, but he definitely helped me refine a few things.  if you care, here's a quick youtube clip of this guy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6cmS2DR0bk .  (they were filming during the seminar so if they post anything i'll post it on my blog).

today i woke up early and ate my breakfast.  went to a Krabi Krabong class.  this is a thai, combat based stick fighting art.  I thought it would be interesting to check out and I was right.  The teacher was quite a bit crazy and hippie dippie, but what he taught was very interesting and i'm hoping to take some stuff back home with me for my kempo club.  

I then rented a motorbike/scooter thing for the day.  i hoped to go to the beach, but it was pretty cloudy all afternoon.  that, and riding around on the street is scary.  so many cars and bikes running every which way and swerving all around.  for my first time on a motorbike, it was a little overwhelming to have to deal with all that traffic.  its probably better i didn't anyway so that i could get back to my hotel here and have a lil food before my 4-630 muay thai class.  again, another insanely difficult class. completely exhausting.  but this time, since i ate a couple hrs before, and i had my electrolyte water, i was able to survive.  no dizziness, just exhaustion.  my technique is also getting better.  i wish i was in better shape when i got here so this wouldn't be so exhausting.  but then again, i've never worked out close to this hard in my whole life.  hell, its only 930 and i'm sitting in bed and prob going to sleep soon so i can train more tomorrow.  

good night

So sweaty