Adventure In Thailand

By Ellen Forrest

MY fight was quite appropriately scheduled for the 26th Boxing Day.

In the days leading up to it, I wasn ’t really feeling that calm before the storm ’ I ’ve come to associate with all my fights back home. I think it ’s because here they ’re much more casual about the whole affair. Here it ’s not unusual to fight every one or two weeks (compared to four to eight weeks back home), and they ’re even more blas when it comes to matching opponents. If you ’re roughly the same size and skill on pads, "same same", you ’re good to go.

The two days I had off from training I spent getting myself into peak condition for the fight, indulging myself in cheap massages, senseless eating and sleeping. I can ’t quite express how really, really fantastic this is, considering back home I have to cut weight to make the divisions for fights (usually dropping 5kg in a week, which does hurt).

Towards the afternoon of the fight night I was starting to feel the buzz and there was no point pretending to sleep, so I started getting my stuff ready. A young Thai boy called Steak (really it ’s Siteak, but in western terms it ’s actually Steak) and I were scheduled to fight that night. In an example of the attitude Thais have to Muay Thai through some discrepancy we ’d found out he hadn ’t actually been matched up.

And after some hassling with the promoter within the evening they ’d somehow tracked down a boy about his skill and size and they were matched to fight.

So we all packed into a couple of utes, about 10 of us in each, mostly in the tray, and headed off to Patong, the centre of nightlife in Phuket, and Bangla Stadium.

The Stadium sits in a dustbowl surrounded by construction works, and the Stadium itself is more of a giant open shed than a stadium. The walls are made of roughly standing corrugated iron that wild grass grows past.

There ’s a stand, seats (deck chairs) and painted wooden benches behind them for warming up. The ring still looks like a ring, though, and the simpleness and raweness of the "stadium" appeals to me being a lot less intimidating than a fancy sports complex.

I was fight #6, 50 I sat around a bit and watched the fights to help fire up. Steak was fight #2, and both kids would go back and forth in dominating the fight, while grown men waved their hands about placing bets as the fight went on. Steak ended up losing on points, but performed quite well.

Things got a bit rushed when in one of the fights a guy got knocked out in the first five seconds. So within the space of a fight I got my hands taped, got dressed, rubbed down and I probably did three kicks to warm up before getting shuffled into the ring. I still wasn ’t quite with it, but after the preliminaries (I found out I was fighting for some sort of Stadium belt), and my Wai Khru Ram Muay ritual dance, the fight started.

Usually the first round is something of a feeling out process to get a measure of the other fighter. I started by feeling out her right hand with my face. I usually start out fights a bit dumb as what to throw first, and in an unfortunate majority of them I eat a few right hands which come dangerously close to knocking me out. One day it ’s probably going to, but that wasn ’t the case that night. I got into the grapple in a bit of a daze and clicked on.

From there I worked plenty of knees, which score big points in Muay Thai. At distance I would land clean and have her moving back, up close I ’d have her in the grapple and have complete control from there, landing some knees to her body and face. I knew I must ’ve broken her spirit because in the 2nd she stopped fighting back and I moved in, landing a right hand which made her nose bleed. The referee stopped the fight because she was clearly hurt and wasn ’t fighting back, and declared me the winner. A little surprised, but hey, a win is a win, and I got a belt for some photos (only for about five minutes though because they use the same belt for all the title fights every night) before they put it up for the next fight. It was a great night to follow an amazing two weeks in the home of Muay Thai. Now I ’m back in training for my next fight on January 4 against a local Thai girl I can ’t wait.

Trip to the home of Muay Thai ends with a victory in the ring

Eileen Forrest Thai Journal
http://www.gladstoneobserver.com.au/