Short of three weeks of training during Holiday season, I flew to Thailand with agenda skewed by a group from my camp from Tampa, Florida. Some of the men I traveled with wanted to party, some wanted paradise, and some wanted training. I had three weeks to maximize my experience during my trip to Thailand December 2014 - January 2015. I wanted culture, paradise, vacation, and training. I wanted it all. I wanted to train but I spent and wasted a lot of time excluded and wasting time on a bag in the U.S. The idea of being in a male dominated camp and being excluded drained enthusiasm of me. When my camp mates suggested Sinbi, I didn't argue. Sinbi is well established with a dominant internet media community revolving around Natasha Sky. I knew that Caley Reece trained and fought out of Sinbi, and my trainers and several former female fighters from out Tampa gym had previously trained there. But I have a general disdain for mainstream anything. I listen to indie music with a really obnoxious elitism, thrift shop, and respond to everything popular with a polarity. If you tell me something is cool, I will argue for the opposite. I am an admitted over-grown adolescent. But I have to give credit where credit is due and address my experience at Sinbi Muay Thai on Phuket. I had a wonderful time training four hours a day. Between sessions, we napped on pristine beaches, drank 40baht toasted coconuts and ate 50baht street pad thai and barbecue. I discovered the joy of sangsom and coke and sunset on a clif over-looking a beach. Rawai beach is paradaise. The Thais were pleasant, relaxed, smiling. Even during the intensity of padwork and sparring, muay thai was relaxed. It's a different cultural contrast going from a camp that prepared you for the machismo of 1 to 1. In Thailand, you give your opponent credit for good strike, and you strike back in kind. The strategy is different. So did I find Sinbi muay thai inauthentic? Was the branding exhausting? Did I feel overwhelmed by commercialism? The only time I felt uncomfortable by Sinbi pride was when the front desk lady asked why we didn't stay at Sinbi apartments, and the trainers hounded us to buy Sinbi fight night tickets. We were going anyway, but I am the kind of girl who never went to a high school football game. I didn't feel any pressure to don the Sinbi clad gear and didn't hear any Sinbi superiority propaganda. The trainers, all 13, trained us all differently with different styles and emphasis on different techniques. I spent several days on the basics. A kick and a punch. A knee. A clinch counter. Some made me do 20-20 kicks and some made me do push-ups. None of them seemed to act to appease me. All of them trained me like they cared about their own agenda to make me better at the art they dedicated their life to. Sure, they're being paid to train me, but they trained me for the art. And that's the soul in muay Thai. Despite the huge westernization a relatively modern and popular camp, the trainers and their training had soul. They spent time and cared. Each one of them, some more than others, made such an incredible impact. So when I watched this video by Asha
I grew incredibly nostalgic. I miss training in Thailand.
