This is Long Overdue

Hey everyone, sorry for such a long delay between posts. Like I said in my last post, things have really picked up for me and I haven't had a lot of free time. I have been doing a lot of cool things though.

A lot of what I have been doing is training muay Thai. I am very happy with the gym that I am at. The guys at Lanna Muay Thai (known as Kiat Busaba Muay Thai here) have been busting my ass. Over the past week I have graduated from the strictly farang (Western foreigner) ring, to the ring that the fighters get to train in. Let me tell you, it is significantly tougher. In the beginners ring I would do 5 rounds of 5 minutes with no problem but after the switch to the big boy ring, my first day they only had me do 3 rounds of 5 minutes and I was dead. I have been doing that same protocol for all week until today when they bumped me up to 4 rounds. Jesus I was tired. Not only did they bump me up to 4 rounds today, but also for the day's warm up it was the mountain run. The mountain run was quite an experience. The group got in Andy's truck (the owner) and he drove us out to the park where the path up the mountain is located and told us to go. Run up the mountain for 20 minutes. Get as far as you can and the person that is the furthest up the mountain turns around after 20 minutes and comes back down and the group follows them as they come back down. I was the second furthest today which I was pretty happy about because it was my first time. The road up this mountain had absolutely no break in it. It was just a straight incline. A ridiculous incline on top of that.

In other muay Thai news, the past 2 weeks I have gone to Gawilla Boxing Stadium and watched the muay Thai fights there. They are a lot of fun to go see. Last night I sat with the other members of my gym over on the Thai side and it was a lot more fun. The Thais were going crazy because they were all betting money on every fight. The betting culture is absolutely huge here. Anyways, we had one member of our gym fighting last night and he fought awesomely. He fought a Thai fighter and it was their 3rd time meeting each other. Heading into that fight they were 1-1. The 1st round came and the Thai fighter completely outclassed him and beat him up pretty bad. Same in the 2nd round. After the 2nd round he came back to the corner and he had a massive mouse over left eye. I've never had one before but I have to imagine that it didn't feel too good this morning. He finally got something going in the 3rd round as he started landing elbows in the clinch and then in the 4th round he finally knocked him out. He landed a flush knee right to his stomach and sent him to the canvas and the Thai fighter couldn't answer the 10 count. It was a really good win and I was really impressed with the heart that he showed. Reminded me a bit of myself to be honest. The guy who will take a beating and keep coming all day. Seeing this fights the past 2 weeks has prompted me to do something that I told myself I wouldn't do when I decided to come here to train muay Thai and that is fight. Watching these fights has given me the itch to fight and I think it will be fun to do something completely out of my element since I am more of a ground fighter. I am planning my fight for November so I will be sure to keep you all updated on my progress as I train for the fight.

Another big story in my life is the tattoo that I had done on Tuesday night. I got a tattoo tapped in with bamboo, the traditional way. The tattoo is pretty good sized and it is on my left side. I believe the measurements are something like 30 cm wide by 21 cm tall. It is amazing how good it looks, especially considering it was all tapped in. The artist suggested that I break it up into 2 different sessions, 1 for the outline and another for shading, but I told him I would be able to finish it in one. The ribs are a sensitive area so I knew it would hurt but I also knew I could take it. He had my appointment estimated at 4 hours so it was a pretty good chunk of time that I would be sitting there getting stabbed repeatedly. The first 3 hours of the session were a walk in the park. The only real difference between the bamboo and modern tattooing is that the bamboo is much slower. You can feel each strike of the bamboo. It really wasn't too bad though. After 3 hours he told me he was going to take a smoke break. We came back a few minutes later to resume and from then on my cake walk was over. Hour 4 started to hurt a bit. Nothing too bad but I could definitely feel it significantly more than before but hour 5...oh man hour 5 was one of the worst experiences of my life. It was absolutely excruciating. Also, as you can tell from what I just wrote, it went over an hour over his estimated time. I'm not complaining because he did an amazing job but wow it hurt bad. I pushed through it though. He said that most people would not be able to handle that all in one session. I am very very happy with the finished product though. I will upload pictures of it soon. The tattoo is supposed to give me protection in battle. It is an amazing design and a perfect fit for me since "protection in battle" is exactly what I need for my job.

Outside of those things I have been busy with school. They keep us in the classroom way too long here. That is my only real complaint so far. Each class is a minimum of 1 1/2 hours. I understand that we are here through an academic program but I don't think that they realize that people don't study abroad for the academics. If I weren't such a bastard of a student I would probably be a hermit right now because there are huge readings every night and a paper due every week but in typical Jake fashion I have yet to do a reading and I reserve the paper writing for Sunday nights. The last one was even finished Monday morning, a few hours before it was due.

That is all I really have for now. Sorry for the long post. I'll try not to go so long in between posts. I hope everyone is doing well.

Sawwaddee