The bag
Gunnery Sgt. Ismael Pena · Public domainกระสอบทราย
Rounds on a heavy bag: power, and the bone.
Training
Two sessions a day, in the order they happen, and what to ask before paying for a month.
Gunnery Sgt. Ismael Pena · Public domainWhat actually happens, in order, at a gym in Thailand that takes walk-ins.
Two things nobody tells a first-timer.
The shin hurts before the lungs do. A shin that has never hit anything will bruise on a pad on day one and the bruise is on the bone.
Two rounds of pads is not a small amount. A pad round is three minutes of throwing everything you have at a man who is also hitting you back with the pads. Two of those is the ceiling for a beginner and a trainer who gives you five is not being generous.
Inference — the second morning is the test. Everybody gets through the first session on adrenaline; the gyms are full of people who did one and full of people who did sixty, and almost nobody in between.
Run. Skip. Shadow. Wrap hands. Oil on the legs. Two rounds of pads, or three. Bag. Clinch if they clinch beginners. Sit-ups nobody counts. Stretch. Two hours.
Full record — Your first session
Two hours
Gunnery Sgt. Ismael Pena · Public domainThe shin hurts before the lungs do
A shin that has never hit anything bruises on a pad on day one, and the bruise is on the bone.
Training
What two sessions a day actually consist of, in the order they happen.
Clinch
Gunnery Sgt. Ismael Pena · Public domainซ้อมวงใน
Two people fighting for the inside position, over and over, until the session ends.
Pads
Gunnery Sgt. Ismael Pena · Public domainเตะเป้า
Rounds with a trainer holding Thai pads — thick forearm shields — calling combinations and hitting back.
Roadwork
Gunnery Sgt. Ismael Pena · Public domainวิ่ง
Running, twice a day, before the heat and after it.
Skipping and shadow
Gunnery Sgt. Ismael Pena · Public domainกระโดดเชือกและชกลม
Rope, then shadow boxing — the movements thrown at nobody.
Sparring
Gunnery Sgt. Ismael Pena · Public domainสปาร์
Light to medium contact, because a fighter with a card booked cannot afford to be hurt in the gym.
Kit
Rope, gloves, shorts, anklets, oil. What each is, what it costs, and what it does to a fight.
The cup
กระจับ
A hard steel groin guard, worn under the shorts and tied with a cord.
Gloves
Victor Soares Cardoso · CC BY-SA 3.0นวม
Padded gloves, plus a hard groin cup, adopted in the late 1920s. Modern fights use 8oz or 10oz depending on weight; a gym will hand a beginner 14oz…
The rope
Hem Vejakorn · Public domainคาดเชือก
Hand-wrapping in hemp rope or raw cotton thread, used instead of gloves until the late 1920s. *Khat chueak* is literally to gird with rope.
The oil
น้ำมันมวย
The camphor and menthol liniment rubbed into a fighter's legs before a fight, and sold in every pharmacy in Thailand in a small yellow bottle.
The shorts
Kru Tony Moore · CC BY-SA 4.0กางเกงมวย
Short, wide-legged satin shorts with a broad elastic waistband, carrying the gym's name in Thai across the front.
Takrut
19th century artist · Public domainตะกรุด
A sheet of metal — often copper, sometimes lead, silver or gold — inscribed with a yantra and rolled into a tube, then bound with cord and worn on…