Recovery via Fondling
Next up on the Thailand learning-agenda is recovery. At Tiger Muay Thai I was confronted with mucho training—three hours in the morning, three hours in the afternoon, a couple of runs per day and a private lesson on top of that. I managed to do the lot a few times, but most days I skipped either a morning or evening session, or a run.
Every session I went to I found challenging. I nearly hurled a few times (particularly in the first week I was there). A lot of the problem was due to the heat, but even once I adjusted, it was still difficult on the body because I'd up the intensity.
Luckily I had a secret 'recovery' weapon—Thai massage. After the morning session I'd walk down to the local spar and take a one or two hour massage ($10 or $15 AU). The effect was amazing. Sometimes I'd be literally staggering down to the spar with one or both of my legs spasming. After an hour or two of getting pressed, prodded, pulled and poked, I'd walk back to the camp with a spring in my step.
The poor massage ladies certainly earned their money with me. I kept telling them to go 'hard' and 'strong'. They'd often stop and ask if they were hurting me—I lied of course :) I was actually amazed at the strength of some of the ladies, particularly the older ones. They really know how to hurt a fella—in a delicious, stop/don't-stop kinda way.
I've actually got a bit of experience at chinese massage (well, within a injury/fighting context), but I found Thai massage to be far superior (both theoretically and practically). From my warped perspective I sorta see Thai Massage as 'western' massage + BJJ + muay thai. By that I mean it's got body and limb locks (like BJJ) and it uses elbows, knees and shins (like muay thai). If that's not a winning combination I don't know what is!
The dude I took private lessons with—Master Max—showed me some massage techniques he called 'boxing massage'. It was a cut-down version of Thai massage. His English wasn't very good (and my Thai is crap!) but I think he was trying to say that massage is the best way to cool-down a fighter after a training session. I didn't need convincing! I've all ready started learning it.
:)
