Skill is the Word
First up I'd like to talk about skill—I encountered a shit-tonne of it in Thailand. On both a fighting and teaching level, the dudes at Tiger Muay Thai fair-reeked of it—there were Lumpinee champs, WMC champs, coaches who've trained champs—damn, the camp needed an enema it was so constipated with skill.
So what did I learn
from these skilled nak muays? Outside of the obvious technical lessons,
there were two main life-lessons I learned about training . . .
Attitude.
When I'm training muay thai I tend to get my serious face
on—I try and focus and get serious about what I'm doing. At camp all
my trainers were continually telling me to smile and relax. I didn't
realize how much tension I brought into my body just by trying to
'focus' and 'get serious'. Relaxing and enjoying training is a far
superior way of learning muay thai than 'getting focused', 'aggressive'
or 'trying to go faster, harder etc'.
What's particularly ironic about this 'new insight' is I've always had a relaxed and happy approach with other types of training and conditioning I do. But for some reason I've always treated muay thai differently—more serious. So my new training formula is . . .
Passion.
At camp I watched my trainers and teachers like a hawk. I was careful to catch
everything they said or did (I'm talking 'stalker'-style learning here).
The main thing I noticed was that they all LOVED muay
thai. They loved training it, teaching it, talking about it, watching
it . . . I wouldn't be surprised if they incorporated muay thai (well,
the grappling aspect) into their love-making.
That
kind of passion is infectious. They really helped me see the tremendous
joy that's associated with a training lifestyle. Being around such
passionate people has encouraged me to delve deeper into my training
experience.
:)
