One Night in Bangkok, Part 4: On the Verge

… the threshold.

My private Muay Thai training session at the Muay Thai Institute in Rangsit, Thailand is finally here.

Before getting to that, however, recall that Part 3 of One Night in Bangkok: The New Plan concluded with The Phone Call.

The Phone Call was actually two phone calls – the first one for my wife to gather information and the second one to confirm my training time.

By early afternoon, all of the arrangements had been finalized.

I was so excited because I was finally on the verge of realizing a long-time dream.

A Restless Night

I was pumped because the next day I was finally going to realize another one of my dreams.

All that excitement was fine during the day because it served to energize me.

At night, however, my enthusiasm only served to fuel a restless night.

On a normal night, I am typically asleep within minutes of my head hitting the pillow.

This night, however, was far from normal.

Being on the verge of tomorrow’s private Muay Thai training session, the anticipation coursed through my veins making it feel like it took me hours to doze off.

An Early Beginning

I arose from my less-than-replenishing sleep at 5:30 AM.

I gathered the clothes and equipment that I had laid out the night before and quietly exited the room so as not to disturb my wife and son.

I went into my sister-in-law’s room to get dressed.

Don’t worry! She wasn’t there.

She was sleeping in the room with my wife and son.

After getting ready, I went downstairs to have some water.

My excitement wouldn’t allow me to sit still and I couldn’t stop looking at my watch. It seemed like I looked at it every couple of seconds.

Would 6:15 AM ever arrive?

It didn’t seem like it would at the time.

After what seemed liked hours, I was really on the verge as my watch finally struck 6:15 AM.

The Walk of Anticipation

My steps were lively as the walk of anticipation began.

I made a right turn out of the entrance gate and another right turn into the alley that took me towards the canal.

At the end of the alley, I crossed the road to get on the paved sidewalk that runs alongside the canal.

I followed the sidewalk until it ended shortly before the bridge that crosses over the canal.

I crossed the canal bridge and proceeded to get back onto the paved sidewalk.

As I continued to walk, I began looking to my right because I knew I was on the verge of spotting the Muay Thai Institute, which was on the right. It sat back off the road a considerable distance behind some other buildings.

As I neared the Macro store, I realized that I had walked too far. I had already passed the Institute.

So, I turned around and walked back in the direction that I had just come from.

Within less than five minutes, I spotted the Institute through an opening between two buildings.

As I walked back between the two buildings, I was on the verge of arriving in the parking lot of the Muay Thai Institute / Rangsit Stadium / World Muay Thai Council.

My walk of anticipation had taken approximately 15-20 minutes.

The Arrival

I was sure they were there for training.

I proceeded past them towards front entrance of the Institute.

As I was on the verge of the front entrance, I noticed a Thai guy wearing Muay Thai trunks off to my left.

Upon arriving at the front entrance, I peeked inside to see if anyone else was around.

I did not see anyone, so I did not enter.

I went back into the parking lot.

I began doing some light loosening up in the parking lot.

As I was loosening up, the two guys who were jogging came back around for another lap. As they passed, we exchanged nods.

They continued jogging and I continued loosening up.

As I continued, a man came out the front entrance with a piece of paper in his hand.

He approached me and asked me if I was Ron.

I confirmed that I was Ron.

He informed me that he would be my teacher.

He told me to follow him inside.

As we walked through the lobby and neared its end, we were on the verge of entering the stadium.

Once inside the stadium, he instructed me to warm up.

The Warm Up

My laps took me around the perimeter of the stadium as well as through a “bare-bones” back room that I’m assuming was meant to be a locker room of sorts for pre-fight activities.

At one point when my teacher checked on me, I asked if I could jump rope.

He told me to take it easy and jog slowly to save my energy for training.

He proceeded to tell me that I would need it – energy, that is!

After too many laps to count, a Muay Thai Institute teacher motioned for me to come over to him.

As I approached him, he flipped over a large tire in my direction and proceeded to, first, point at two guys who were executing bouncing footwork on the tires and second, point at me to get on the tire he flipped over for me.

He walked a short distance away before turning back to say, “One hour!”

That brought a smile to my face.

While I certainly didn’t think we were actually going to do this for one hour, the statement appealed to my desire to experience some tough, demanding training.

As we went about bouncing around on our tires, I noticed our taskmaster speaking with the teacher that would be conducting my private session.

While I couldn’t hear the conversation, I could see my teacher point to me and then I saw both of them laughing.

I figure that my teacher told the taskmaster that I was his private student for the next two hours.

Since I was his private student, what was I doing bouncing around on the tire with the guys who were there for the 10-day class.

While they had a laugh about subjecting me to that, I was happy to do it!

As their conversation ended, the taskmaster told us 10 minutes.

All-in-all, I figure I spent about 13-15 minutes continuously bouncing around on the tire before my teacher called an end to my tire time.

I never took a break, despite the facts that:

#1 - A few minutes into it my feet were on fire and

#2 - All three (another guy had joined the two “class” guys) of the other guys took multiple breaks!

To persevere, I told myself two things.

First, I told myself the burning sensation in my feet would eventually diminish and it did!

Second, I told myself that I was physically conditioned to withstand the rigors of the training despite this being my first time training Muay Thai in Thailand.

To me, the tire training was enjoyable for three reasons.

It was a new experience for me, but an experience that I envisioned Muay Thai fighters and old school boxers having had many times before me.

It presented a comprehensive challenge.

While the challenge initially centered on overcoming the burning sensation in the feet, it turned to the mental challenge of persevering through the discomfort, and, finally, it progressed to challenging the spirit not to quit despite increasing fatigue levels.

Lastly, I could understand the Thai mindset on the applicability of tire bouncing to fighting.

Footwork is the essence of fighting.

If you can develop the fundamental qualities of mobility and stability, supplement that with fluidity, speed and endurance (work capacity), and finish with skilled footwork patterns, you have a good, solid foundation on which to build.

The tire training was a crude, but effective method to achieve all of this.

With my time on the tire finished, I was on the verge of getting my private Muay Thai training session started.

Continue to Part 5

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