A Rhombus is a good shape

So yesterday I tried another Thai style called Muay Boran.  In a nutshell, Muay Boran is the precursor to Muay Thai.  what I mean is that Muay Thai is a sport where combatants wear gloves and there are rules to the fights.  Muay Boran has no rules; its a combat based fighting style.  no gloves, no pads.  I wanted to check it out considering this type of martial art is what i'm more interested in.  It was very interesting and I definitely learned some movements that may come in handy someday in later trainings.  I guess i shouldn't be surprised, that the same guy that teaches this style is also the one who teaches Krabi Krabong, the Thai stick/sword fighting.  As with the Arnis (stick) and kempo martial arts I do, learning how to fight with a weapon is virtually the same as fighting without a weapon.  It was an interesting class...i'll save the details for my kempo club who will actually give a crap about the minutia there.

I then felt so frickin exhausted, i ate some food and napped and watched movies in my room for a couple hours until Muay thai class.  I didn't feel bad staying inside because it was really cloudy out and i was frickin exhausted.  I gotta say, I came here to get an authentic training experience, which is what i'm definitely doing.  but I'm not seeing too much of Phuket.  meh, it's okay I guess.  I'll check out the beach on sunday i hope.

but Muay thai class was another uber-rigorous workout.  I think my stamina has increased by +10.  unfortunately, The reason i came here was to learn muay thai techniques, not necessarily get in ridiculous cardio shape.  I can exercize anywhere I want, should i ever have wanted to work out this hard.  but I don't feel that i'm getting the close instruction that i really need to take home and work with.  For this reason, i decided to purchase personal training sessions for my remaining two days of training (was only $30).  Unfortunately, by the end of the Muay thai class, my hips and other joints were hurting pretty badly.  I can deal with muscle pain, but as I've had joint issues over the years, it started to worry me a bit.  

Today, my joints were feeling a bit better, but i decided not to push it with the crazy strenuousness of the muay thai group class.  So in the morning I went to a Krabi Krabong class.  The instructor knows that i've been doing Arnis for a while and that i'm looking to expand my repetoir with the Krabi Krabong.  Its just kind of funny that he says that i'm "a natural."  what he doesn't realize is that it took me like 3  years to become what I would consider moderately almost competent wielding weapons.  That being said, It was an interesting class and i look forward to bringing some stuff i learned back to the kempo club.

After just a two hour break, i had my first personal training session.  It went reasonably well.  My punches, elbows and knee techniques seem to be up to snuff.  My kicks, by the end of the session, were of muay thai quality too.  Now i don't know if i did better because it was one on one training, or maybe if it was just because I wasn't being completely exhausted for over an hour before working on techniques.  We then worked on some clinching moves which was also fun.  something i don't have too much experience with.  

It seems like more than anything, all these things i'm training in are giving me a decent base with which i can work on and the integrate it into my own personal repetoir of moves (Justin Kwan do?).  I always thought i was in okay shape, but compared to the people here, I"m definitely not a rhombus (you know, look at the title.  a rhombus is a good shape).  Although, most of the people here are at least semi pro, so its definitely another level of fitness that i'm not used to.  meh, either way, i'm getting in really frickin good shape.  and if i can keep up some of the cardio during the rest of my trip and resume weight lifting when i get home, i think i'll be good enough for me.

okay, one more day of training left.