this trip has been great for understanding where i am, what i'm good at, what i need to work on and most of all who i am when it comes to fighting and who i want to be. how i move, how i want to move, what i see, what i do, what i feel. all of this is malleable and must be put through the fire of judgment and go under the hammer of refinement. i have so much time to focus on fighting; thinking about fighting in addition to spending my day actually fighting.

i sparred twice today, which is what i desperately need. working the pads with oron in between, one of the old dudes came over to me and told me in the month he's been here he hasn't seen anyone as good as me at working the pads on boxing. that's great, but connecting with this shit on a moving, blocking opponent who doesn't want to be hit is something else entirely. particularly when they're also kicking you when you're punching them. i land some punches here and there but the importance of setting this shit up, of moving, of feinting, of changing things up has really been impressed upon me. i've been trying to work my movement more than anything but the footwork is so much different for muay thai than it is for boxing (and has to be depending on if you're basing your weight more on your lead or rear leg). i frequently use a much more dutch style of kickboxing and it just infuriates the trainers here, which is understandable. i have to remind myself i'm here to learn muay thai, not out-box people.

my clinching and boxing are both excellent relative to the other people here and based on trainer's feedback. none of them have tried to change anything about how i punch, and the clinching is all little details for better execution.

my kicking largely sucks. i feel like i'm on page one of my kicking 060 textbook going "uhhhhhhhhhh".

that's probably an exaggeration for effect but every trainer i work with wants to change something about how i kick. it's good, kicking is probably the single greatest element of muay thai in my eyes and the thing they do better than anybody so i want that correction, but i feel like i'm actually losing power in my kicks trying to do it the right way, which is incredibly frustrating. although not unexpected: it makes sense that i've gotten comfortable with how i kick and can kick with a relative amount of power even if my technique is ugly. learning a new style, of course i'm going to be awkward and uncomfortable with it until it's natural and i can swing it without muscling it.

however, currently my kicks suck and oron is still hitting me regularly with a stick. he found a bigger one recently.