Kicking Around

Fairtex Muay Thai Camp, Bangphlee, Thailand

 

some notes on the cast of characters and life generally here: of the fellow trainees, it's mostly professional fighters from Europe (such as Herman, the factory manager/kickboxer from Graz, Austria who fights under the name "the Hermanator" (actually he spells it "Horrmanator", but that's a little too Soi Cowboy for my tastes) as well as your occasional wannabe such as myself and the two hyperactive Spanish brothers from the Canary Islands who are about the funniest two guys you'll ever meet.  No real assholes or ego cases, which is surprising given the nature of the business but obviously good.  The only problem is that very few of these guys ever wants to go out and have a drink (save on Saturday, Sunday being our only off day).  They go out, but they drink coke.  Not my style.

 

More my style are the trainers, who consist of retired fighters that sit at the little street kitchen across the street and polish off cigarettes, cheap beer (Beer Leo) and Thai whiskey by the boatload after each day, despite the fact they have a 5 AM wakeup call 6 days out of 7.   Good guys mostly, and the fact that a lot of them are half crazy from being punch-drunk (these guys usually have fought in 100 plus matches prior to age 20) contributes to making it easier for them to get really drunk, after which all bets are basically off.  Even when not drunk, they're a funky group.  To name a few, there's Apideja, apparently a walking god among muay thai fighters, who's now a bit nuts, but incredibly friendly who likes to come up to me and say "USA good!" all the time (even W couldn't turn him off).  Likewise there is Boonma, another guy who is half crazy, speaks little english and probaably massages me too much, but has proudly said that he is christian and that baby jesu is good, which allays my fears. (after spending about 90 days in a country with as much gender confusion as Thailand  (which I love, btw), a creeping sense of paranoia sets in after a while).  I also like Yak, who, at 6-3 and 230 plus lbs, (a behemoth in Thai terms) is the epitome of the gentle giant.  He likes to practice his english with me, so imagine a big huge oxlike thai fighter, sitting next to me with an elementary english book, gleefully going over phrases like "you are my friend, yes we are friends, we are very good friends".   Funny stuff. 

 

The other folks are the real Thai fighters (not this kind - sorry, terrible joke but I had to make it).  Fairtex is kind of a dynasty in Muay Thai, consisting of a family-run company that runs 3 training centers (Bangkok, Pattaya, and one in San Francisco), promotes fights, manufactures equipment, and manages fighters.  Here there's about 6-8 actual Thai kids who fight professionally at the highest levels here, the older ones of which are among the baddest men on the face of the planet, pound for pound (pictures and videos upcoming in the next post). When they train, they basically do the same stuff as we do, yet at an exponential level of intensity.  Watching these guys hit the pads and the bags is a study in inertia being overcome and translated into pure kinetic energy in the most efficient manner possible. In other words, they tear shit up, in violent fashion. Foremost among them is Yodsaenklai, who is the baddest man in the Thailand (and possibly the world) at 154 lbs.  When he hits the pads, he rips off about 30 kicks in 25 seconds that creates a sound not unlike a machine gun - except more fearsome and certainly more lethal in reality.  Despite this, he and the rest are actually very nice kids, who are as fascinated with us as we are with them, probably due to the fact that really big money isn't a factor in muay thai as it is in US pro sports - so egos don't develop.  He also enjoys poking fun at my Singha beer gut when I do sit-ups, which I don't enjoy too much, but I'm not going to be the one to tell him that.  Also the children of some of the staffers, ranging from ages 8 and up, train sometimes, though I think they just do it because they live here rather than because they've been sent up the river to a camp as some young thai kids are - I don't think Fairtex signs a fighter to their stable till after he's had a few fights and developed a bit.   Also showing up on occasion is famed fighter Nong Tum, an attractive young...woman whose story sort of speaks for itself ( you really should click that link to see, not that there's anything wrong with that, she could kick my ass from the looks of her)