The Fight that Counted

Jacob Blair
Aug 31, 2018 · 11 min read

At the gym the afternoon before the fight, my body was slow and heavy, saving itself. Ten leant against the ropes of the middle ring, his gut protruding over the belly pad that absorbed hundreds of knees and punches daily. He craned his neck to look at me and shouted “You fighting Ma Bu.” The other trainers laughed. I smiled, but fear rippled down my spine.

Manasak motioned me into the ring to warm up. “Him left kick powa,” he told me, as I swung myself under the ropes. We danced around the ring, left hands meeting, feeling each other’s balance. Manasak is 5’4, 125 pounds, and at 34 was still a world-class Muay Thai fighter in a sport that eats its young. His face was angular and scarred, whittled away over hundreds of fights. He called out combinations, and I flowed through them. “You no stand.” He mimed the way Thai fighters often stand in front of each other, trading blow for blow. “Him kill you. You close, grab and knee and elbow.” In a battle of skills, I’d lose.

That evening, a crew of fighters and trainers from the gym piled into pick-up trucks for the 40 minute drive into Chiang Mai. Weigh- ins were in a concrete room in the back of the Thapae stadium, a grungy concrete box behind two massage parlors. A booze ravaged man wearing a dirty white t-shirt and stethoscope took my blood pressure, then led me to a rusty balance beam scale in the corner. 77 Kilos. My opponent stood inches away, picking through blue leather gloves on the shelf, prodding and palpating to find the hardest, least padded pair. We avoided eye contact. He was shorter than me, but strong, with massive quads that hung over his knee and calves bursting through his skin like overripe fruit. I counted my breathing, slowing it down, dampening my terror.

Backstage, practicing my game face

Gloves selected, I went backstage — an open room with mats scattered on the floor and heavy bags swinging from the ceiling. Coaches massaged fighters, taped hands, stitched cuts and plugged bloody noses. Langkhao, a teenager from my gym, was about to have his first fight, and lay resting on a reed mat. Saeb, another gym boy, had forgotten the gauze and tape that we’d use to turn Langkhao’s hands into clubs. Saeb and I sprinted around the corner to a pharmacy and came back with just minutes to spare.

In the weeks before Langkhao’s debut, he’d show up after school in his pressed white shirt and khaki shorts. After changing into Muay Thai shorts, he ran suicides until he collapsed. The trainers shouted insults and abuse all the while. As Langkhao walked into the ring, he gave me a nervous smile. Our gym’s owner leant over and said to me “Now we’ll see what he’s really made of.” After four dominant rounds, he won with a head kick that whiplashed his opponent’s cranium like a bobble-head doll.

Langkhao post fight, with Saeb on the right

Minutes after Langkhao limped out of the ring, his shins bruised from blocking kicks, the boys gave me a quick rubdown with menthol massage oil. My skin burned, and my muscles warmed and loosened. Saeb’s English was better than any of the trainers, and he cornered me and the other foreign fighters at the gym. Though a decade younger than me, he had something I craved. He’d fought more than 40 times, and moved with the preternatural confidence of a boy who’d been tested.

My skin glistening from sweat and massage oil, I sat cross-legged while Ten, my trainer, wrapped my hands. We ran out of tape, and he just used gauze on my left. “No problem. You right hand power. KO sure.” He placed a Mongkol on my head, and it dug into my scalp. I couldn’t wait to get into the ring and take the fucking thing off. Traditionally, a Mongkol is fashioned from Buddhist scrolls, wrapped in cloth, and shaped into an open topped headpiece. The scrolls protect the fighter from evil spirits in the ring. This one was plastic though, just for show, another piece of the ritual surrounding Muay Thai.

Ten, the two boys and I walked towards the ring. The room was cavernous and lined with bars serving the tourists — white, young, wealthy — and the Thai gamblers — old, alcoholic, poor. My opponent vaulted over the ropes, and stood in the ring, waiting for me. I climbed up the thin metal stairs, put my hands on the ropes, and did the same. A rush of adrenaline hit me and I felt my heart slam against my chest, fighting to escape. But three fights in, I was getting a little more comfortable with fear.

Fear’s defined my life. Not physical fears or phobias — I’ve always been pretty gung ho about physical experiences and new challenges — but something more-subtle, more damaging: fear of engaging with life on my own terms. I got good grades in high school, so that I’d get into a good college, and someday get a good job, but I let other people define what good meant. And when I saw people living lives that I was jealous of — and in college there were plenty of them — I was good at explaining away the dissonance.

The summer before my senior year of college, I interned at an investment bank in New York, an experience that ended in a six-figure job offer for most of my peers. I bombed. While other interns soaked up 100-hour work weeks and capricious bosses, my coffee breaks got longer and longer. I dreamed of fire-bombing the LED Coca-Cola advertisement that consumed my view from the 45th floor. There was no offer waiting at the end of that summer.

I finished out senior year focused on my classes and playing Rugby — and studiously avoiding making concrete plans for the future. After graduation I traveled in South America, started meditating, mooched off my parents and eventually found myself back in New York working for a Sports Nutrition Company and doing personal training. That’s when I started training Muay Thai at a gym near city hall called The Wat — Thai for Temple.

Muay Thai is similar to boxing — competitors fight in a ring for a predetermined number of rounds, with the winner determined by points or KO. In addition to punching, fighters can kick, knee, and elbow. The Wat’s owner, Phil Nurse, is a former European champion in both Muay Thai and boxing. At 52, he still moves with a flexibility and athleticism that puts even the pros at his gym to shame. His athletic style has transferred well to MMA, and he’s been the striking coach to UFC greats like Jon Jones, Rashad Evans, and George St. Pierre.

While cocky to the point of arrogance in the ring, in person Phil was warm and mild mannered. He’d grown up in England, but his family’s roots were in Barbados, and he had islands relaxed, playful charm. Soon, I was blowing my meager paychecks on private coaching, and stretching my welcome at my parents’ house so I could keep funneling rent money into training. After four or five months of training I had a “smoker” — an unsanctioned amateur fight with no winner declared. It hooked me.

The best Muay Thai gyms and fighters are in Thailand. Thai gym’s offer the chance to train full time with the best coaches in the world. After spending a few weeks trawling the internet, I found Santai Muay Thai. The camp had a reputation for excellent technique instruction, being beginner friendly, and was in an inexpensive, out of the way location in Northern Thailand that was conducive to focusing on training and nothing else. It would cost me less than $1000 a month to eat, sleep and train full time.Two months after my smoker, I’d quit my job and was on a plane to Bangkok.

When I got to Thailand, the training was harder than anything I’d ever done. At night, I was so sore I couldn’t sleep. By the time I got in fight shape, I’d start my days with a 7 to 10km run, followed by another two hours of bag work, hitting pads with a trainer, sparring and clinching. A similar session followed from 3:30 to 6:30, although now sprints and skipping rope replaced the jog. Ten, my trainer, kept his eye on me throughout. “Manasak, Thailand technique!” he’d say, referring to two other trainers. “Me, power! Heart!” When I flagged while jumping on the big tractor tires we used to condition our legs and calves, he put country music on his phone speakers and started jumping alongside me.

Ten, always encouraging

I found solace in the unrelenting physical exhaustion of training camp. I’m often scattered and forgetful, but my mind focused as my body bumped up against its breaking point. My attention narrowed to this round, this sprint, this push-up.

Yodwandee and Prakayphet were two of my training partners in Thailand. They were also Channel 7 champions, fighting and winning on Thailand’s biggest stage. But outside of the ring, they had the same friendly, relaxed quality as Phil.The first time I boxed Prakayphet, who I outweighed by 40 pounds, Ten told me “Go 100 percent! You KO him, I give you 2,000 baht!” Trainers gathered around the ring, hollering and betting as the champ beat the shit out of me so badly I ate of the side of my mouth for the next week. But I was prouder of that beating than of any line on my perfectly formatted resume.

Hanging post training with Yodwandee and Prakayphet

Single pointed, relaxed concentration is what makes a great fighter — it’s the grail I’m still striving for. The trainers begged me to “Sabai, sabai, relax relax.” Their relaxation tool of choice was rice moonshine — I once watched Ten down an entire bottle over the course of dinner. Afterwards I carried him home. A lifetime getting your brain shaken leaves its scars.

Liquor is for trainers, not fighters. He ordered me to “do Samadhi” while pressing his fingers thumbs and fingers together in the mudra Buddhist monks use in meditation. We also less traditional means. Hours before I fought, sensing my nervousness, Ten asked me “You know ‘jackoff’?” while moving his clenched fist in the universal symbol for masturbation. “You go room and jackoff for relax!”

In the ring that night, I rode waves of fear and clarity. The ref walked towards me and checked my cup and gloves. Satisfied, he retreated, and the shrill sounds of Sarama, traditional Thai music, piped through the speakers hanging from the stadium ceiling. In local festivals there’s often a live band, four men playing oboes, drums and cymbals, who vary the rhythm of the music with the intensity of the match. We both started to circle the ring, performing the start of the Wai Kru, the elaborate dance Thai fighters perform before fights to seal the ring against evil spirits. At fights in smaller regional stadiums, fighters often perform a truncated version. My opponent stopped after circling and returned to his corner. I dropped to my knees and started the dance’s rhythmic bows, touching my forehead to the canvas. Normally I enjoy the Wai Kru. It’s meditative, an opportunity to center yourself before the fight begins. This time nerves got the better of me.

Bowing to Ten

“Fuck it.” I got up, cutting the dance short, and returned to my corner. I bowed to Ten as he recited a short prayer in Thai, put in my mouth guard, and removed the Mongkol. I turned towards the center of the ring, and the ref brought us together. He warned us in Thai and then repeated in English “No foul.” We walked back to our corners. The bell rang.

My opponent walked forward throwing elbows. They sliced towards my face, but I took them on my forearms. We grappled. He hit me on the forehead with an overhand elbow, and I responded with a short uppercut to his temple and an elbow of my own. But my arms were jammed, and they had little power. After a half-beat of inactivity, the ref separated us.

His punches kept landing. My hands were low, inviting more punishment, but I didn’t realize it, or hear the screams from my corner to keep my hands up. Sometimes the simplest things break down in a fight. The gamblers’ shouts grew to a roar as they calculated the shifting odds.

He threw a left kick. My leg failed to block, and his shin thudded into my ribs. A well thrown roundhouse has the force of someone letting loose with a Louisville slugger. For a moment, I didn’t feel anything. Then my lungs tightened and a dull throb swept through my left side, before dissipating in a sea of adrenaline.

He threw another kick and I blocked, his shin clashing against mine. An elbow to my temple followed. I smiled. “Deception” my trainers had yelled at me in the gym. “When you tired, when you hurt, smile!” My opponent smiled back but his pupils dilated. I like to think he broke, that in our clash of wills, I came out on top. But maybe he just figured it wasn’t going to be worth it to take the damage required to beat me. Injuries mean less fighting, and in Thailand, if you don’t fight, you don’t eat.

I took a deep breath, put my hands high, and tucked my chin. I threw a jab to his head and stepped in behind it to land a hard cross to the body. It was a right hand I’d spent weeks perfecting, throwing one-twos and single rights until all my weight was balanced behind the punch every time. I started to shift my hips to follow with a left kick, but he wasn’t there. He’d crumpled, clutching his ribs, writhing on the ground.

The ref waved me off and I stood awkwardly in my corner, not realizing what had happened until the ref pulled me to the center of the ring and raised my hand high. I’d prepared for a war, but the fight had ended in minutes. Dazed, I clambered out of the ring. Tourists clamored at me to take photos, and I smiled for a legion of cameras. I wondered how pro-fighters handled press conferences after fights. All I wanted to do was lie down and turn off.

The messy reality of the ring never aligns with my grandiose vision. I’ve fought seven times now in boxing and Muay Thai and I still haven’t had the fight that tests me to my limits — the kind of fights that shaped Phil and Yodwandee and Prakaypet and others I met along the way. My hardest tests have all come in training. But each time I step in the ring, I leave a little more grounded and a little more comfortable in my own skin. That’s worth losing a couple brain cells.

Thoughts from the Arena

Lessons from the ring, the gym and beyond

Jacob Blair

Written by

Thoughts from the Arena

Lessons from the ring, the gym and beyond

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