With my dog’s costume lost somewhere in the mail, I dressed up as my Muay Thai coach this year. I sewed on the fringe to my shorts, found a jersey (he wears soccer jerseys other days), and hid my mustache under a mask while I walked to the gym.
My coach just shook his head at me.
A few Saturdays ago, I was curled up in a corner, gasping for breath as I got lightly tapped on the top of my head, arms, sides, then took a knee to the stomach. “TKO,” the attacker said triumphantly, “TKO! TKOTKOTKO!” I managed to emit a strangled wail as the assault continued, finally ending with me laughing at my own ineptitude as I was tossed aside after a final knee tap to the liver. Two minutes and thirty-eight seconds left.
In early May, I had the idea that I should try something new. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu seemed appealing enough to require research into local gyms, until a best friend showed me an article on Mark Zuckerberg’s love for the sport. I looked into Muay Thai and called a gym recommended on Reddit, conveniently only a train stop away.
“Do you offer trial lessons?” I said.
“Yes, when are you coming,” the woman on the other end demanded.
“Um, this Saturday?”
“Ok, what time.”
“Uh…noon?”
“Ok, see you then.”
I hung up, now obliged to actually follow through. A crushing fear of disappointing people I didn’t yet know and somehow developing a reputation for unreliability led me to a Muay Thai gym that Saturday. It was a small space; sparse and utilitarian in the way you’d expect a serious gym to be. There were two heavy bags, a small ring, and shelving piled high with strike pads, gloves, shin pads, and belly pads. Over the course of the next 90 minutes, I learned that keeping my upper arms parallel to the ground for more than 20 seconds can be excruciating. I also almost died about ten times.
You hear it all the time – “it got me in the best shape of my life” – and usually it means that if you’ve been spending the last six or more months melting into a couch, some activity will change you for the better. Rarely has that phrase rung true for me absent some dedicated effort. Cycling required hundreds of miles and constant starvation. CrossFit got me reasonably fit but also rendered me perpetually injured. Weightlifting was great for my butt but would never help me run from perverts or natural disasters.
The issue was likely that all of the sports I’ve previously poured myself into didn’t ask much of me, so I consequently only gave just enough. I could cycle, CrossFit, and lift on low energy and little sleep as long as I had some supply of Coke (the drink). I could eat too little the previous day or fail to hydrate properly or subsist on cereal and still bang out a ride, a WOD, or a heavy snatch session. Even when I treated my body a bit better and prioritized sleep, nothing had significantly changed my physique. My body remained the same; so much so that an older gentleman at my local Gold’s Gym exclaimed that I “haven’t changed at all!” after nearly a year away at a CrossFit box.
Evidently, what I needed all along was a sport that required constant and adequate hydration, nutrition, and sleep with the alternative being certain incapacitation and/or the kind of embarrassment you can’t recover from. I dropped 1.5kg in a month – likely due to a coach that excels in gassing me out over the course of every session – despite eating significantly more. The twisting and continuous movement of Muay Thai worked muscles I didn’t know existed. My shorts got looser and for the first time in years, my progress pictures showed visible changes. At close to 40, a pop soundtrack and a ruthless Thai man are getting me into the best shape of my life.
Between smacking strike pads and my labored breathing, my coach has half hummed, then broke out into song, to the Justin Bieber classic, “Baby.” I’ve wiped my face, wet with sweat, on equally wet shoulders between dodging, blocking, and getting tangled up in the coach’s grabby feet to Anne-Marie’s “2002.” Akon’s “Smack That (feat. Eminem)” has been the soundtrack to trying to spar, which, at least half the time, has ended up with me getting gently wiped out on the ring floor. However hard those three-minute rounds are, however inept my movements are on any day, I always end up laughing. I am completely hooked.
A week after I shuffled around the ring in a standing fetal position while being battered from all directions, my coach left for vacation. “Have fun!” I said, “I’ll be stronger when you get back.” He nodded, deadpan, crushing my unrealistic dream.
His estimation of my abilities is likely accurate, but given that I’ve started Muay Thai at 39 with zero previous martial arts experience, it’s equally optimistic for my coach to expect me to understand reality. Besides, where would the fun be in that?
