Lessons from Muay Thai
Building resilience in San Kamphaeng’s tranquility. Thank you to Santai Muay Thai
(1) Cookies for the cookie jar
(2) A day in the life
(3) Some takeaways
(4) Why I love the village of San Kamphaeng
Cookies for my cookie jar
I trained Muay Thai in a village 40 minutes from Chiang Mai for two weeks straight, dedicating 6 hours a day to fitness for 6 days per week. It was a relentless physical and mental grind. Despite not being incredibly passionate about Muay Thai as a martial art or spectator sport, it was the best experience ever. Imagine a lifestyle focused solely on one thing: getting better at your craft.
While some things in my immediate future have definite shape and form, my place in the world is uncertain and bound to change. The purpose of training Muay Thai was to build my determination, adding another achievement to my mental resilience and assuring myself of a character trait that will be the only crutch I need in tough times. Every day, despite exhaustion, I pushed myself to keep going. My limits and my breaking point are further than I expected and that’s what I came here to prove to myself. If I ever need it in the future, I have a cookie in my cookie jar.
“A Day in the Life”
Morning
5:30-5:50 AM: get ready. eat nothing or something small (2 biscuits or a small banana)
5:50-6:00 AM: get dressed and walk to the gym
6:00-6:35 AM: dynamic stretches for run and then 2.75 to 4 mile run
6:45-7:00 AM: static stretch with group
7:00-8:00 AM: muay thai drills
8:00-8:15 AM: abs with the group
8:15-8:45 AM: cold shower
Late-Morning
9:00-11:30 AM: Thai massage, breakfast
Afternoon
11:30 AM-2:15 PM: assortment of daytime activities (reading/audiobook, do work at a nearby cafe that has AC, nap, deliver/pick up laundry, eat lunch if not too early)
Late afternoon
2:15-2:30 PM: warm up at the gym for private lesson (jump rope, stretches, etc)
2:30-3:30 PM: private lesson with Chay
3:30-4:15 PM: break, water, chat
4:15-4:30 PM: warm up again alone (jump ropes, stretches, dead hangs)
4:30-4:45 PM: static stretch with group
4:45-5:45 PM: muay thai drills
5:45-6:15 PM: group would do clinching or sparring, on days I wouldn’t participate, I would do abs circuits
6:15-6:30 PM: abs with group
Evening
6:30-9:30 PM: shower, eat, chill out with other students, continue reading in room, watch Pantheon
9:30/10:00 PM - 5:30 AM: sleep
Some takeaways
I practiced “smiling” during the most painful parts of the workout.
Whenever I would cramp, I would take deep & short breaths between reps, each one feeling harder and harder. At the end of every drill timer, I’d force a smile as I lay drenched in sweat and joint ache. I’d be proud about it.
Even if you only smile a small % of the time, it releases endorphins in yourself and unleashes an infectious positivity to the room. The coaches smile and other students have a glimmer in their eyes when you give them fist bumps, making everyone’s suffering feel like a true group triumph.
David Goggins smiled during the most painful part of Hell Week, and took control of the pain that his trainers tried to take away from him
There’s no such thing as working too hard. There’s just being under rested and not stretching enough
I can only focus on 1-3 things at a time. (Keep my hand blocking my face, don’t let my heel go over my knee when I raise it, pull my arm back after my punch, use this specific motion to start my punch, twist my hip and legs in this specific way to get max power, ). It’s better to practice extremely slow and ask the coach to check on you every 1-2 minutes of practice than to think you understand it all. There’s always some minutiae you’re not picking up on as a beginner
Light sparring practice is the best way to get common sense beat into you (i.e: keep the hand blocking the face, move to the side and not forward for a kick). But it hurts when your shins and knuckles haven’t been exposed to being hit before.
Simplicity is hard. We make a lot of excess steps / complex movements, which shows our inexperience. To have nothing but what is needed – that excellence takes a minimum of months to see taking shape and years to truly integrate in the pressure of the moment
The fundamental moves I practiced:
Jab / cross, uppercut, side jab, front elbow, up elbow, side elbow, kick, low kick, push kick, knee, block, parry, catch (for right and left sides)
Hesitation can be the ultimate life coach.
Watch over yourself like an Eagle and identify that exact moment of hesitation. And then instead of using it as a trigger for excuses, you use it as a trigger for action.
Just showing up matters. Once I show up, I know that I’ll bring the intensity. If I’m tired in the middle of a set and know I’m not giving 100%, I’m thankful that I’m still showing up. If I’m feeling injured, it’s a signal to get a massage or stretch more.
I injured or aggravated various parts of my body. It’s a blessing in disguise, because it gives you time to focus on other physical components of your game or to put time into the important mental efforts.
Why I love the village of San Kamphaeng:
Every day, I get a massage for 150 baht ($4.50) at a community center for the elderly, employing only older masseuses. While many at Santai Muay Thai go 1-2 times a week, I go every day. I’ve become a familiar face, and they now know exactly where my body aches. After each massage, they serve me tea as I sit on a flat cushion on their concrete bench, gazing at a beautiful temple in tranquil meditation.
I frequent a small cafe with AC for an iced matcha or hot green tea (60 baht). I spend hours there, reading and outlining my systems medicine textbook or other books. Despite the poppy Western music or Thai soap opera sounds, I focus with the noise-cancellation in my AirPods and enjoy the background noise during breaks.
I walk along one-lane, two-directional roads, listening to “Can’t Hurt Me” by David Goggins or the “Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin” while staring down stray dogs. Admittedly, I’ve occasionally wussed out of confrontation and have chosen to walk a longer way when there’s an especially feral pack.
I eat at local kitchens where stir-fried rice and chicken cost 50 baht, sometimes 75 baht with extra chicken. The locals share their lives with me and teach me Thai words, which I might forget, but the memories remain sweet.
I use Grab to order two meals for dinner from take-out which costs ~300 baht including 15 baht delivery fee. Expensive relative to my other meals, true. But I justify it because I usually spend 7-9 pm in deep focus reading my books. In between, when the driver arrives and can’t find my location, I do a quick walk outside and thank him. On that excursion outside, I’ll pet Tiger, the gym’s dog which rules the village alleys, which answers to nobody but herself, and which has won my heart. I savor the food while watching Pantheon at 1.5x speed.
Sometimes, I talk to people who sit outside and smoke their leaves. I learn Aussie slang as they explain why calling someone a “cunt” isn’t offensive and the best ways to use it (occasionally calling me a “smart cunt, yeah…”). I hear French people complaining about various things. Often, our conversations turn deep, sparked by my questions about their backgrounds and history. They’ll jokingly call me their therapist and I’m endlessly fascinated by how different their stories are from the suburban bliss of Holmdel or from the high-flying achievers at Penn. I learned about a man who had to drop out of school due to severe ADHD and a two-year wait time for a psychiatrist in his country. I met an undergraduate student with dreams of becoming a chef who struggled to scale his private chef business because no one he hired matched his attention to detail. I heard about a man who escaped a rough town (like the Camden or Compton of Australia) by becoming an electrician and choosing not to retaliate when his friends were killed. I also spoke to a man with a horticulture degree who retired early from urban design due to successful real estate investments. He’s done two Vipassana 10-day meditations and promised himself 50 Muay Thai classes after turning 50.
I sleep around 9:30 pm, ready to wake at 5:30 am, groggy but determined to do it all over again.
Thank you to Santai Muay Thai. Surely in the future, I will take a months-long sabbatical and be back.