THAI BOXING THURSDAY'S

E. McPhillips
Nov 24, 2016
3 min read

Well...shit.

It's literally one month til Christmas, which means one month and a few days until we board our much anticipated flight to Thailand. I'm currently trying my best to avoid thoughts of savings and spending money from entering my mind. I'd likely have a breakdown. I do this before every trip, stress about the fact I haven't saved enough when really I'm always fine. Right now I'm focusing on getting fit, and used to training in the heat. I'm overthinking so much already, I can tell. I won't be training intensely, I want a holiday too so will most likely do a week training and a week relaxing. We'll see; as long as I get the opportunity to try out a gym I'll be happy.

This morning I reluctantly woke up to my 5:00am alarm and got ready for the gym. I was a complete zombie this morning. It was an internal battle to make sure I didn't go back to bed. I'm glad I pushed through too because I feel a lot better than I would have if I'd caught a few more z's.

Azza's class started as usual, 5 minutes skipping and a warm up on the bag - 3 rounds of uppers, straights, hooks, over heads. We then got into combo's. There weren't many people at the gym so I jumped on the bag. The first two rounds started with 50 kicks left and right, and finished with 50 pulse push ups while the second two rounds were 40 kicks left and right, and finished with 40 pulse push ups. Combo was fun today, it usually is:

- Jab, right kick, left hook, leg kick, right hand, inside leg kick, right hand switch kick.

After two rounds of that we added a right hand, right elbow, spinning back elbow to the end. Two more rounds of that before we finished on pads.

Everyone grabbed a bag and we began 'punch ons' for 5 minutes straight. This is just a freestyle bag workout, hard and fast. When Azza called for it we had to stop and begin moving around while checking until he said back to punch ons.

To finish the class we did some ab work. Holy, lordy. My abs were on fire, I won't lie.

After class I contemplated ripping my wraps off and heading home. My stomach was burning from the workout, my muscles were completely exhausted. My second internal battle for the day; I snapped out of it and asked Moon to hold pads for me. We did three rounds, I felt pretty good. Need to move back out after combos more though. I also need to step into my low kicks more. Moon just held the pads at his own discretion so I can't tell you what combos we did. A lot of kicks, knees and elbows as I'm sure you'd assume.

A Little Sellef Love

I'm pretty proud of my progress to date. When I first joined this gym I would come to class, and then wouldn't show my face for a month. It got me down, you know? I had no dedication or consistency, I was a flaker; I gave up easy. That makes you feel like shit. You have no self pride. Letting yourself down has more of an effect on your mental health than you'd imagine. At the beginning of this year, after struggling with some mental health issues, I put my foot down and made a commitment to myself that I would learn and better myself at the sport. To do that I needed to train consistently, which I have done...most of the time. I still get lazy now and then; sue me. Even more recently I began doing pads after class, and I completely threw myself in the deep end and started sparring. It's pretty awesome to look back a year ago at yourself and see your progress. I was someone who used every excuse they could find to avoid training. Now I'm trying to fit more sessions in where I can, and actively seeking to improve and learn more by trying new aspects of the sport. This time last year I was a mess, mentally. Now I can safely say I'm so happy, I'm in a good place both physically and mentally - I feel stronger in both areas and that's definitely a result of exercise, but also finding purpose and self pride :)