Woman spends 10 days at Thai kickboxing camp
By ELIZA MARGARITA BATES
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Published: October 19, 2008
BANGPLEE, Thailand — As my 30th birthday approached, my fear of becoming a middle-age woman plagued with mystery ailments, huffing and puffing up the stairs, finally started to outweigh my exercise phobia.
More Info
Fairtex Muay Thai Camp
For more information, go online to www.fairtex.com. It operates two kickboxing camps in Thailand, three in Japan, and two sites in California (San Francisco and Mountain View).
→Rates at Bangplee: $32 for shared accommodation, $76 for private, air-conditioned room. Prices include training and two meals a day.
→Rates at San Francisco gym: $120 an hour; $1,500 a week for intensive training; drop-in rate of $45 a day or $25 group class. (Lodging separate; hotels nearby.)
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I decided to get in shape while learning Thailand’s notorious national sport, Muay Thai, known in English as kickboxing. This was no small commitment: I attended a Muay Thai camp near
Bangkok for 10 days, training for five hours a day.
Muay Thai is performed with boxing gloves in Western-style boxing rings but uses knees, elbows and legs, in addition to fists, as weapons. It is considered the most violent of all martial arts.
I chose my training camp by scouring the Internet and reading online reviews. The two gyms that got the highest ratings from kickboxers around the world were Fairtex, in the Bangkok suburb of Bangplee, and another gym on the dazzling Thai island of
Phuket. Both offer one-on-one Muay Thai training.
Fairtex opened its doors to Westerners five years ago and boasts two gyms in
California in addition to other locations in Thailand and
Japan. Foreign students who come to Fairtex temporarily adopt the lifestyle of professional Thai fighters, who live, eat, sleep and train at camp.
A cacophony of grunts, whacks and thumps greeted me when I arrived. Students glistening with sweat duked it out with trainers in four outdoor boxing rings. Turned out I was in for a lot of sweating myself.
My training began at 6:30 the next morning when I dragged myself out of bed for a half-hour of cardiovascular exercise in the air-conditioned gym.
Before leaving my room, I donned my shiny red kickboxing shorts and flexed my muscles in front of the mirror. But my fantasies of becoming a female Rocky faded fast when I got to the gym and couldn’t figure out how to use the treadmill.
As I jogged, I imagined everyone staring at my jiggling thighs and listening to my haggard breathing, thinking, "What is she doing here?”
I headed out to the boxing rings and sat awkwardly waiting for someone to explain what I was supposed to do next. Finally, a barely pubescent-looking Thai boy came over and started wrapping my hands in the flashy pink hand-wraps I had picked out at the on-site shop the previous day.
That child,
Sarun Inta, was my trainer for the next 10 days.
Each morning after cardio, I met Inta in the ring, where he showed me Muay Thai moves, mostly by pantomiming, as his English was limited. Then he held up pads and told me to kick, punch and jab with knees and elbows until my arms felt like rubber and my kicks turned sloppy.
My entire body, from head to toe, hurt for the first few days. My knees and shins were covered in bruises. Between training sessions, I could do little more than sleep and eat. I was too exhausted,
Women were once barred from entering Thai boxing rings, as they were seen to bring bad luck. But that tradition has changed. Four out of the 25 foreigners training at Fairtex were women.
My trainer loved to tease me. Sometimes he would tell me to punch, then pull the pads so that I would stumble off balance. Then he’d kick me softly on my side and laugh.
But on my third day, I knocked him down. By then, he’d taught me how to block, so when he pulled his pads away this time, I rebalanced and threw up my knee to block his kick. He lost his balance and fell to the ground, then rolled around laughing. After that, I felt tougher. I kicked and punched harder.
On my first day home in
New York, I woke up at 6 a.m. and went running in
Central Park. For the first time I that could remember, I enjoyed exercising.
Perhaps Muay Thai camp was the first step in my permanent lifestyle change.
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