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It's Friday morning and my lower body feels worn out. Getting out of bed and flexing my legs to rise up was more challenging than usual. My eyes are now opening naturally every morning at 06:45, I'd like for it to become 06:00 soon. The high impact activity this week has my knees and right ankle feeling cranky. Because it's so hot and humid here at 15:30 when afternoon training begins, Kru has been starting each session with agility training inside the gym; cone/footwork drills, jumping on, in, and around rubber tires, stationary pedaling, free-weight shadowing boxing, rope swinging and hanging, pullups, explosive bodyweight squats.. All of this has been tough on my knees and right ankle as I have previous sports injuries to those parts and I've discovered they're not nearly as strong as they were pre-injury. Yesterday was my birthday and I'm officially 32, so age creeping up. Certainly don't have the same recovery speed as in my 20's when I was also very active. When I think about it, I've been active in sports my whole life. Professionally I worked for a railroad, so that was active too with many miles per day being walked in steel toe boots. It feels like i'm teetering on the law of diminishing returns. It doesn't feel practical or necessary for me to train 12 sessions/week. The 7-9 sessions range feels more appropriate and better for my mind and body. Eventually I think I can kick it up another gear to 10-12 sessions, but I'm just not there yet. Since I didn't train this morning, I was able to catch up on birthday messages from friends and family back home in the states. It felt good to re-connect with them. I like having the morning free from training to focus my attention on writing, video editing, and listening to music. And then train from 15:30 to 19:30 for four hours every evening. I'm going to experiment with this routine plus daily solo morning running in the Wat complex near my apartment. I acknowledge the importance of pushing yourself, but where's the line? Injuring yourself then scaling back? I guess I'm still working on upping the limit of physical pain I'm willing to subject myself to before taking a breather. I really don't want to have any injury set backs. That would/will suck. I'm neither complaining nor moaning about the workload, I'm simply saying it's too much for me right now. But... one of the surprising benefits of training in Thailand at a gym where english is sparsely used, is that you can't make verbal excuses to anyone because they won't understand what you're saying. I've now realized that in playing sports in the past at times (especially when a beginner) I'd make excuses or try to explain my performance when I make mistakes. You can't really do that here. There's nothing to be said, you just try to do better. Show don't tell. The gym is a place to be other than your home that's not a park, bar or restaurant. So often as a new person in town you don't have any place were you can just hangout and commune with friends. The gym becomes that place where you feel welcome to come as you are. I also had this with my old job in Northern California... it was work, but it was a good place for you to be; an extension of your lifestyle. Lately Kru Gig has taken to beating everyone with whatever object is near him. It's usually pretty funny to me, and clearly is to him as he laughs hysterically while beating you with a selfie stick or sandal, but it also hurts haha. At other gyms the old timers walk around with their correction sticks and will give you a nice whack, but here, any object is fair game to come your way. Sometimes I need to stop what I'm doing because I can't hold my laughter from the pranks he pulls on the fighters. He's also very strong in the clinch from I can see.. someone mentioned that was his specialty during his fighting days. Watching him teach clinch technique to others, the fighters would try to push him but could not. He's like a tree rooted in the ground, impossible to budge from the base. I'm about to leave the house for afternoon training and will probably go for a massage tonight with 'Joy' from the shop down the road. She has given me 6-7 thai-sport-massages and knows my body now so I keep going back to her. My flexibility is improving from routine visits with her. She's like 4'11", all forearms and strong! 500 Baht / $15 USD for two-hours... money well spent!

All I know is he used to be instructor for Evolve MMA out of Singapore and most people recognize him from this series of videos Evolve University Fight Breakdown. From what I understand, he will be in Udon instructing at Siriluck for 2-months then move on to teach in China. Unlike the other gyms I've been too (except Boon Lanna), Siriluck does not rely or even advertise training foreigners on a pure fitness plan. It's a fighters gym. I'm the only one not scheduled to fight right now. Therefore I don't think it would be a great place to train for a short vacation. It would be best to have a few months available for a place like this. That's just my feeling, I could be wrong. Kru is laser focused on preparing the fighters for upcoming matches. Muay Thai tourists are more of a distraction than anything I think.

FYI I’m now a $10/month Patreon member. In my search for different bits of Muay Thai information/advice online, I realized there probably isn’t a better archive to learn from than what Sylvie and Kevin have compiled. No need for me to reinvent the wheel or bounce around from site to site when there’s a enough information inside the Patreon to chew on for a lifetime. Kevin- Thank you for the nice words and for continuing to follow along. I'm having a lot of fun as the line between work and play becomes blurred and the environment pulls me in more and more. I really like everyone at the gym. There's nothing negative I can say about the cast of characters there. They're warm, humble, passionate, hilarious, and playful. I read about Isaan people being friendly, but you don't really get it until you're on the IRL receiving end of it. The system they have for scheduling and training for fights is really neat. Each fighter appears to average one fight per month. They will fight, take 5-10 days away from the gym to recover, come back to gym for three-weeks of training, fight again, repeat. Right now, the gym is in full swing with the energy feeling very positive. As I mentioned in previous post, 6-7 fighters have matches in March, so they are training hard. Depending on weigh-in date/time before fight, head kru and fighter will either take an 8-hour overnight train from Udon to Bangkok Don Mueng or fly one-hour, hangout, fight, then return to Udon to repeat process. All of them are fighting to support their families in different capacities. It is not recreation for them, this is a job. After they fight and money is received, their family is taken care of for at least one more month. Take a breathe Nak Muay. There's a few teenage fighers boys and girls who go to school full-time along side their full-time training. Watching him pull up to the gym (where he also lives) in his school uniform, then quickly do homework by himself on the table off to the side before dressing down to get to his real work. This sort of stuff really inspires me. It shows me I have the capacity to do more, like document this experience. I found my apartment on book.com, after staying at a different place during my first week in town while I was getting my bearings. I've been at my current place for one month, having booked it on book.com for a few days at first, I then arranged a weekly/monthly deal with the hotel directely. It's a good fit for me. I don't feel comfortable sharing my specific location on the forum, but if anyone wants to private message me here or on instagram: 'audio.visual' i will happily share that info. I can say that monthly rent is ~$350usd all-in. My cost of living/training here is quite cheap while still comfortable. I will post pictures of my unit and motorbike tomorrow when sun is back in the sky. Today's training was a bit frustrating for me as my kicks are not improving. kru ornono says i'm too stiff; my hips and shoulders too rigid during roundhouse. He's being patient with me, but also stern. Hitting me with pad, grunting, and looking disapprovingly when i do something wrong right after he showed me how to do the move properly. But he gets it, he's trained a lot of people. i'm not the first to have these technique problems, won't be the last. Being whacked in the head by a guy who has defeated Buakaw and Saenchai is now off my bucket list. To be training with such a legend is a real treat and I'm extremely grateful; trying not to waste the opportunity. However, the 7 of us did a lot of cardio today. Begining the session with tire jumping while 1 person pedaled on the stationary bike. Kru Gig was in one of his not uncommon funny moods and was sitting in the seat with his timer whacking the back of the person on the bike. Kind of like they were a horse. It was funny, but also painful. The whipping effect from slight flick of his wrist stung the back. I prefer to believe there's a practical reason to this punishment beyond his personal enjoyment haha. After 25 minutes of that we wrapped hands, shadowboxed, hit pads, heavy bags, sparred (I didn't), Clinch (I didn't); while they were doing the latter two I was working on punch/kick technique. Drilling on the basics. This sessions started at 16:00 and ended 19:15, so 3.25 hours as we ran 3km to the lake and back again tonight. My running continues to feel strong. Lastly, this morning I listed to #42 Mental Training: How I Prepared For My Championship Fight - Sylvie's Technique Vlog (45 min) on the Patreon page. I picked this one as the first to dive into as I feel like my mental game needs ALOT of work. My main takeaways were: Mental Training is a Technique! Have mental training be part of your training all of the time, not just when you have a fight scheduled. Mental Training is not fun, it’s like doing cardio, it sucks but the more you do it, the further you can push yourself before gassing or psyching yourself out. It’s a vague concept, assign colors, tools, mental association- Grab a crayon with your mind and draw a tree with the green, draw a bench with the brown..etc. Perfection robs you of flexibility and is not a good thing. When you become tired brain becomes lazy, over generalizes, negativity appears. Confidence: It’s cultivated, it’s an act before it’s a feeling. Act confident first, then you’ll feel it. It’s something you can do without thinking much about it. Visualization is key. Walk through a familiar place like childhood home and visualize the sights, sounds, smells, feelings of the environment… put yourself there. Can do anywhere anytime, the closest thing to teleportation. Most visualizations don’t come true and that’s okay. Make personal Affirmations, ex: “I am Confident Under Pressure”, “I win Tough Exchanges”, “I always Bring Intensity to Every Training Session and Every Fight”. Act like you’ve been here before, you are always performing. Pressure and Stress are not the same thing. Nervous is good, flow it out, don’t bottle it in, keep it circulating. If this, then that… the world moves on. If the pressure is too big, make it small. No questions, only statements. Under pressure you will never do as good as you do in training. An Octopus can see good enough for what they need to sustain life... and so much more! Thank you Sylvie, the $10 has already paid off after one video haha. There's a lot to thin about here, and I actually cried a bit when you suggested visualizing your grandmothers house... well I grew up in my grandmothers house and she jut died a few months ago while I was in Thailand just beginning my Muay Thai journey in Pai. In a way I feel like I'm training for here. With all of my senses I can visualize and experience my grandmothers house and my youth. I know I'm not one of the rare few that doesn't have the ability to create images in my mind, so I will begin applying this to boxing.

I've doubled down on my commitment to continue training in Thailand by getting a fresh 45-day visa this past sunday, which takes me through April 11 with option for 30-day extension through May 11, 2023. I've also renewed my apartment and motorbike for one-month, all of March 2023. Previously I've been paying for everything on a weekly basis, as I like to keep a certain degree of flexibility, but now I'm confident I want to continue doing what I'm doing here in Udon for at least another 4-weeks, maybe longer. I spent the weekend in Vientiene, Laos and Bangkok to get new visa and see a friend. Returning to Udon late last night, I got started training again today after 2.5-days off. I asked the head kru if I can get one hour of one-on-one private training everyday in March (except Sundays) and we worked out a deal for 9k baht/month which includes 2 sessions per day, and the one hour private training every afternoon session. Today before afternoon session head kru messaged me on facebook to say my trainer today wouldn't be him, but instead someone named Orono. He sent me a picture of the guy holding 7 belts so I knew he had been a successful fighter, but didn't know much else about him. I met with him at 16:30 and was happy to hear he spoke good english. He asked me a lot of training related questions I haven't been asked before, probably because of the language barrier. Veryyy little english is spoken at Siriluck Gym, so most of my learning is done through observation and expression of body language. Communicating and receiving verbal advice from Orono was refreshing to say the least. We focused on the absolute basics; breathing, footwork, stance, rhythm, jabs, cross, elbows, l/r kicks, etc.. he closely observed all of my movements like a scientist doing an experiment and gave me helpful tips. My mechanics are not so good, but by the end of the 1.5 hours together (we went 30-minutes longer), my kicks and punches felt more fluid and powerful. I'm trying my best to lock-in the muscle memory, but it's challenging as any reader here knows. So far I'm really liking Orono's teaching style and his overall personality- cool guy. There were 7 fighters training tonight and we all went for a 3km run to the lake and back, with head kru trailing behind on a motorbike. A few months ago, completing this run after 2+ hours of hard training would have been very tough for me. But tonight, I felt great and kept up with the fast pace the guys were moving at. The three 6k runs I did last week are already paying off. When I got home from training/dinner, I began reading about Orono Wor Petchpun and watching his fight tapes. He's fought and defeated big names like Buakaw, Saenchai, Yodsanklai, Lerdsila, and many others. I'm feeling very excited and grateful for the opportunity to start learning from this legend everyday. I don't know why he is training out of this gym now, or what his relationship to the owner is, as he has previously been living in Singapore with Evolve MMA. There's a lot of high level talent drifting in and out of Siriluck Gym and I'm happy to be around it. All of the fighters have matches this month: 3 in Udon, 1 at BKK Raj Stadium, 1 at BKK Lumpinee Stadium, 1 at Yokkao Stadium. I'm planning to attend all of the fights, so I will continue to travel a lot this coming month. In fact, I've been in Bangkok for each of the past 3 weekends, 2 of which were for matches. Hated Bangkok first time I visited, but I fall in love with the city a bit more everytime I go.