DAY 1: What The Hell Am I Doing Here?!
Today, my alarm went off at 6.30am. I jumped awake being totally furios, thinking "I'm on my bloody holiday, why the hell does my alarm go off?!" Until I realized: it was time for my first real Muay Thai workout.
So I forced myself out of the warm sheets, brewed some coffee and got ready for my initial Thai Boxing lesson: I stuffed gloves, bandages, shin guards, a skipping rope, a towel and a bottle of water in my bag and dressed up in the new fancy Muay Thai outfit that I had bought the previous day at the camp's own store. Then I tumbled, still totally sleepy, towards the Gym that fortunately was only about a hundred meters away from my apartment.
By the time I arrived, the everyday training routine was just about to begin. It worked as follows:
- to warm up, all of us had to do 15 Minutes of skipping, then 10 rounds of running around the Gym (by that time my new fancy outfit was already soaked in sweat)
- next was stretching: here, one of the trainers showed an exercise and counted to 10 before he moved on to the next one (the fact that he was counting in Thai lead to the problem that I always missed the first couple of seconds of each new exercise because I could never tell when the previous one would have been finished)
- then, there were 3 rounds of shadow boxing; during the last round one of the trainers approached each of us and told us either to go to one of the 4 rings or to move towards the heavy bags (I got chosen for ring first which is a very good thing as I should find out later)
- now, the actual training began: at first, my trainer put pads on his arms, legs and around his torso; then, during the next 5 rounds which lasted 2 minutes each, he screamed out various instructions like "jab" (left punch), "punch" (right punch), "knee" or "kick" which I was supposed to follow as fast as I could (these 10 minutes definitely seemed to be some of the longest of my entire life)
- after I had survived the ring, I was now expected to proceed at the heavy bag for another five rounds ("expected to" because all I was able to do after my experience in the ring was to slightly stroke the leather of the bag with my gloves)
- at this point, the hardest part of the session was over; for the first time in one and a half hours we were finally able to catch a breath while receiving some instructions about certain Muay Thai techniques which we then had to imitate with a partner
- finally, the two hours of morning training were over and we finished the session by another round of stretching and some strength exercises like sit-ups and push-ups
Meanwhile, the clock showed 9.30 am. I looked down my body which was all covered in sweat and already started aching from all the mean things I had forced it to do during the last couple of hours.
But then, I realized one thing: that I had never been that satisfied with myself at this early hour of the day.
I looked around and saw that the others had the same facial expression. Then I grabbed my things, took a quick shower and by the time I left my apartment to have breakfast with two of the girls I had just met during training I thought: I can't wait for the afternoon session. And for the next morning session. And for the coming 6 days which will all follow the same routine.