named Kum. He asked me to put on my wraps, the binding fighters “wrap” around their fists and wrists for padding and protection. I rushed through it, doing it the old Harvard boxing way, with short wraps not going between the fingers, instead of asking him to show me the way they do it. He let me go on because, I sensed, he couldn’t care less. There was such frequent turnover of foreigners who couldn’t speak Thai and who stayed for only a few days that I could understand why trainers didn’t take new people seriously, at least until they showed something. Kum was arguably the best trainer for the foreigners, or farang, as they are called in Thai. The larger, and therefore slower, farang were unsuited to the Lumpini fighters’ style of kicking, which is very quick and precise. Kum’s style, with its emphasis on power and heavier, more deliberate kicks—every blow devastating—was much more effective for the bigger farang.
That first day, I managed only a few super-slow, barely moving rounds with a tall, thin trainer named Pepsi (a junior man), who cared even less about me than Kum did. My punches had no snap, my kicks landed poorly and hurt my own shins, and I was sweating like a horse—I was chubby compared to anyone else at the camp, even the other farang. I stumbled around, huffing and grimacing, trying to maintain an air of seriousness, as if I were a real fighter, too. I soon met the other farang, who were mostly hard-muscled, flinty-eyed Aussies who had done muay Thai back home and were here to gear up for fights. Everyone was tattooed, including me.
The camp operated as a big family, with Philip, the owner, and Anthony, the manager, the father figures. There were between thirty and forty Thais living there: fighters, trainers, and their wives and families; older fighters and their wives and children; and the workers who made training gear. They all lived in a row of dormitories at the camp, along with their fighting cocks and dogs. At Fairtex, everything fights—the roosters, the dogs, the men.
After a few days, I was in shape enough to train every day, twice a day; it became all consuming, the backdrop to all thought and action. It began in the early morning, with the youngest fighters waking us up, calling, “Jogging, jogging” in soft voices. I’d clamber out of bed and down the stairs in my shorts and running shirt. The fighters would congregate; we’d sit in the dawn glow on the edge of the ring and put our socks and running shoes on. We’d all walk in a line, usually a dozen or so, sometimes two abreast, with the Lumpini fighters in front, then the second-tier fighters, followed by the up-and-comers, and the farang would bring up the rear. After maybe a quarter-mile walk, we’d break into a jog. We’d run on paved empty roads through the rice fields, past temples and apartment complexes with birdcages raised high on poles for decoration; down red-dirt roads, past rice farmers and squatters’ huts; past shrines gilded and glittering with glass and stones, and shrines where garlands of flowers hung from tree branches and candles moldered in the damp. It was always hot and still, and as the sun rose, it got hotter. Depending on your level of fitness, you’d run anywhere from three to nine miles; the last quarter mile we would walk back into camp, where the trainers would be getting ready for us. The other fighters would silently put on their wraps. The human hand is a terrible club, full of moving parts and delicate bones and tendons that have to be protected. It’s far safer to hit someone with an elbow. The glove provides the bulk of the padding, while the wrapping pads keep the bones and tendons from spreading apart—especially after you’ve been punching for years and have learned to punch hard.
Apidej (AP-ee-day) Sit-Hirun, one of the trainers, would be eager to get going and we’d be out shadowboxing before anyone else. Apidej is a living legend, the greatest muay Thai fighter of the century, so proclaimed by the king of Thailand. He won a record seven titles, kicking harder than anyone ever had. None of his students—including his son—has ever been able to replicate his power. He wore a golden “dollar-sign” ring on his right hand, his “money” hand. There are statues of him ready to be erected in Bangkok once he dies. He was sixty when I trained with him, and his style of muay Thai was out of favor, much like the style of Western boxing from the thirties and forties is out of favor today. Apidej still trained fighters for Philip at Fairtex, although at that point he primarily taught farang. Somehow he picked me as a student during that first month, mostly because I’d been persistent.
In muay Thai, the better the fighter, the more humble and good the person; and you could feel goodness, humbleness, and happiness radiating off Apidej. He had an infectious laugh, a deep sense of glee, and the gentle manner of a lifelong Buddhist. He had a trick that gave him great pleasure: He would beckon me over with something hidden in his hands, motion for me to put out my hands, and then he would gently, quietly deposit a tiny frog into my palm and chuckle.
And yet there was the other side, the fighting side. Apidej would show me how to move, sliding around the ring like a leopard, his eyes dark and serious, his motion effortless, his aura menacing. His eyes would go flat and cold, the naked enmity toward another man in the ring just under the surface.
The fighters warmed up by shadowboxing. The other fighters generally took it easy at first, shadowboxing lightly, going through the motions without focus, but Apidej wanted me to actually work, to move crisply, to throw fakes. He was always serious in the ring.
In muay Thai, whoever is in better shape wins. The primary tool to get you there is the pad rounds, which work like actual fighting rounds: You kick and punch and knee continuously for five or six minutes with thirty-second breaks between rounds. I would, at my best, do five or six rounds of straight pads with Apidej, followed by two or three rounds of just punching the smaller “focus pads” that were used to improve my accuracy. The strenuousness of the workout, the “maxing out” of your system, is why so many fighters get sick, why little cuts take weeks to heal and often get infected. The training is so hard that the immune system can bottom out, the fighter’s body pushed past the edge of its abilities.
After the pad rounds, you went straight to the heavy bags and did about five or six rounds on them. This was still pretty hard, but you could relax, as often your trainer would be distracted doing the pads with someone else. If you had a fight coming up, the trainer would come and stand behind you and say, “Lao lao,” which means hurry up, and generally make your life miserable. Then you would take your wraps off and either spar or clinch. Because the Thais fight every month, they essentially learn to fight in the ring, in real fights, from a young age. This makes their sparring very laid back, the priority being not to get hurt while refining their timing and trying things out. This lack of intensity was bad for us, the farang with no fights under our belts, but it was the way they did things.
The clinch was different. The clinch is an essential part of muay Thai, and it is often neglected by farang. It’s where most of the points in a bout are scored, and where many of the knockouts happen. To practice the clinch, two fighters without gloves or wraps, of more or less equal size and strength, come together and work for position, trying to get their arms around the other man’s neck and inside his arms, taking control of his head and body. It’s a little like wrestling, but with both feet on the ground. When a fighter achieves position in the clinch, he then throws a knee into his opponent’s stomach or side. A fighter also tries to pull his opponent’s head down, which can lead to a knee in the face, and then it’s lights out.
After the sparring or clinching, the session was over. On my own I would do three sets of pull-ups and sit-ups, as would the other fighters. Toward the end of my training, I would do five hundred sit-ups of various types a session—more than a thousand a day—but I never got a six-pack. Then we’d head to the big shower room, where, out of either respect for one another or modesty, the Thai fighters all wore their underwear, so we farang did too. Then Apidej would fill a large, square concrete bath with the hottest water you could stand. It was better than a massage, he’d say, and cheaper, too. The tub room was cavernous, like a grotto, despite the thick beams overhead and the dirty, slatted windows that let chinks of light in. Sometimes I would get the tub to myself, and I could submerge my whole body in it, as if returning to the womb. I would hear my pulse, a feathery thudding in my ears.
Afterward, shaky from the heat and exhaustion, I’d shower again and eat breakfast. The food was good, but never enough: soup and rice and chicken and noodles and some sliced pineapple or lychees. And always a lot of water, twelve pints a day. I’d rest a little, wander over to the office to check e-mail and chat with Anthony, who would be dealing with business. After e-mailing, it was time for the one-hour afternoon nap through the hottest part of the day. Exhausted and feverishly hot, I would burrow into bed, my body aching. I dreamt strange dreams and punched in my sleep. I would sweat into my mattress, and when I got up, it looked like an invisible man was still sleeping in my bed.