Search the Community

I've been meaning to write a blog post about this for a while and recently, as I think it's an amazing topic. A lot of folks who become dedicated to Muay Thai find it to be a form of therapy, out outlet, a time for themselves away from the pressures and stresses of family/work/school. Muay Thai is empowering, but it can also tear you up; but for most of us, Muay Thai is something that has forever changed us and keeps forming us the more we work in it. I came across this post from a woman who has found her experiences at her gym (Onyx MMA in Singapore) to be helpful in dealing with her Depression. For whatever reason, I think Muay Thai beckons to those of us who are struggling with ourselves and gives us a set of tools and a process through which we can translate that struggle. This thread is to share our thoughts and experiences on the usefulness and challenges of Muay Thai as therapy. For me, Muay Thai is an incredible outlet. Physically pushing myself is, at times, a very real necessity in dealing with my personal demons. But it's also difficult because all the things about Muay Thai that make me feel empowered and strong and capable, ALSO make me feel useless and stuck and self-critical. A mirror is just a reflective surface - it's YOU that interprets what you see in it. Muay Thai is like that - some days it shows me beauty and some days it shows me a monster. But I do feel that I'm able to work through things on a personal, emotional and psychological (even spiritual?) level through the language and art of Muay Thai that I wouldn't be able to address otherwise. It gives me the courage to keep trying, I think. And I can see improvement; it's measurable, whereas being a more stable or happy or good person is harder to gauge. But man... sometimes it just crushes me, too.

Today I was having a private training session and something interesting happened. It's happened once or twice before but this is the first time I've really thought about it. During the last round of pad work today I was exhausted and my power and technique was dropping and flying out the window. My trainer kept yelling at me to go harder, and as I was pushing myself there was a point where I had a burst of emotion. It was a combination of frustration at myself for not being able to strike harder, anger at myself and also anger where my body was going "I'M KICKING HARD WHY IS THIS NOT HARD ENOUGH". I also felt myself get angry at my trainer at points in the last round where I think I was just transferring my frustrations. By that point for no reason I also thought I might start crying or something. Its odd because I started off the session feeling quite good and I finished it feeling relatively calm as well, it was just that point where I had this huge burst of emotion. I know being calm and controlled is important but this just came out of nowhere. I almost started punching the heavy bags afterwards just to vent but it disappeared really rapidly. Have any of you guys had something similar happen in training or fighting?