|
| Patrick at work |
Patrick Kay lives in Korea, where apparently he fights people and also teaches children. I did not know either of these things. Here he explains what it feels like leading up to a Muay Thai fight. Check out his previous posts on PTSOTL here.
48 hours to go. I realize with something approaching despair that I haven’t eaten anything for two days – and I still have another day to go. Worse, I won’t be drinking anything before the weigh-in either. Anything.
Cutting weight is the worst part of fighting. At first, you’re just really hungry and thirsty (duh). After a while the physical cravings recede and you sink into a deep pit of despair. Your head is thick and cloudy. The fight seems pointless. The thirst is the most difficult thing to deal with; we’ve all been hungry, but not being able to drink water sucks.
36 hours to go. This day at work is stretching out for weeks. My patience reaches the breaking point. I become incredibly ratty with the kids I teach; normally overly-indulgent, when I’m cutting weight I snap at the slightest provocation. Over the course of the day I send three kids out of the classroom at various points for minor offenses. I make them do punishment press-ups during breaktime.
24 hours to go. Weigh-in. “You look like a holocaust survivor. Only paler,” Boris says. Boris is another mighty whitey who trains at the gym organizing the fight. I grin and step on the scales.
The fight’s at 74kg. That’s 163 pounds in ‘Murrican.
I hit 73.8 kilograms.
Let’s rock.
Professional boxing and MMA features plenty of trash-talking and disrespectful behavior, but the atmosphere at Korean semi-pro Muay Thai events is assiduously polite. You’ll often be introduced to your opponent and anything less than utmost courtesy would be unacceptable. Not that I ever bear any malice towards opponents, but it’s a strange dynamic: nice to meet you. [You are literally going to be trying to kick my head in tomorrow]. Good luck [trying to kick my head in]. I don’t see my opponent – he hasn’t arrived yet - but I’m too hungry to wait and see him. Whether he’s made weight or not, I’m fighting him. I’ll see more than enough of him tomorrow.
I down 2 litres of water, a bottle of Gatorade and a carton of chocolate milk. On top of that comes two bananas and two bars of chocolate. After an hour, I have rice and pork soup. I literally feel hope and power flood into me with every mouthful. From now until the fight I’ll try and drink at least 8 litres of fluid.
16 hours to go: the day before a fight is a bit of a wash. What are you going to do? I bum vaguely around my apartment. Eventually I go to sleep.
7 hours to go: I wake up and go for a jog. Get the blood pumping. I have to break off my run mid-way for a massive dump in a subway station toilet. I’ve been eating more or less constantly since the weigh-in. This is my first shit in about three days; all I’ve only eaten are eggs and broccoli for the week beforehand so the results aren’t aesthetically or olfactorily pleasing.
Pre-fight’s a funny thing. Train enough – and you know in your heart whether you have or not – and there’s no tension, no fear. Just excitement and anticipation. If you haven’t trained enough you’ll be dreading it. This time I knew I was ready. Hours after work each day in a freezing gym hitting pads, hitting bags, hitting other people. Getting hit. In the six weeks leading to the fight I’d racked up black eyes, torn toenails and huge throbbing bruises on my shins. These are good signs. You take your lumps one way or another; in training or during the fight. Train hard, fight easy sounds like something from a Nike t-shirt but it’s true. Every time I’ve been injured in a fight has been after slacking off in training.
3 hours to go: we arrive at the venue, a middle school gymnasium. I note with annoyance there’s no photo of me on the poster. There are two foreign fighters, myself and a Kazakh guy. Borat’s on the poster but I’m not. How are you not going to put whitey on the poster? Amateurs. My trainer wraps my hands. Possibly the most painful part of my entire Muay Thai career is ripping the bandages off my unfeasibly hairy forearms after each fight. He starts to bind them so tightly the tips of my fingers sing and turn white.
While I’m sitting there a wave of sheer frozen terror sweeps across me. For perhaps 30 seconds everything – hall, my trainer, my legs - recede into the distance as if I’m looking the wrong way down some binoculars. I feel like someone has thrown a bucket of cold syrup over my shoulders. This always happens. It’s half past nine on a Sunday morning; sane people are in bed.
The fear ebbs away and leaves me feelin’ fine. Seriously. Relaxed and mildly excited. The thing I love about fighting is the responsibility it gives you. Team sports can see you play well and put 100% in and still get horribly thrashed. Alternatively you can play badly or not try and still win.
In a fight, it’s all on you.
One hour to go. I half-watch other fights, half-warm up. With envy I see Koreans effortlessly doing the splits and stretching their legs behind their heads. As an Irishman every inch of my flexibility is hard gained and easily lost.
Thirty minutes to go. My friend Hee-gyeong beckons me breathlessly: there’s a problem with my entrance music. I’ve brought by Big Bang, but the sound guy’s rig can only play audio CDs. No MP3s. I tell him to put on whatever he wants. I don’t need to be talking to anyone just before a fight, particularly not a jaded soundman.
Three minutes to go. The music starts. It’s some sort of dramatic orchestral piece. It sounds like a car advert. I walk out slowly, wrapped in a Korean flag. I raise it just it in front of the ring and there’s a mortifying pause before the place erupts in cheers.
Fight head space is difficult. Focused but relaxed is the ideal – two diametrically opposed states, it sometimes seems. Focus too much and you’ll start to panic. Relax too much and you’ll be caught on the hop once fists start flying your way.
I’m overly annoyed by the change in music. It’s a bad omen. I’m annoyed with myself for getting annoyed, too. I climb into the ring and see my opponent for the first time.
Jesus.
He’s in superb shape. I’ve been fighting long enough not to judge a book by its cover - I’ve had my arse kicked by chaps who looked like they play World of Warcraft all day - but at the least I know this guy has been training hard. I want a photo of him afterwards. He’s so buff that it’ll be sure to impress people. He looks like a fighter. I’ve fought everyone, highschoolers, policemen, trainers, mafia guys, and friends are always ripping me for throwing down with fat or old or teenaged opponents.
I should probably be thinking about the fight.
Zero seconds to go. Ding ding. When the bell rings for a fight it’s almost unbelievable – something you’ve been thinking about for a long, long time is finally happening. And oddly, it’s not that big of a deal.
I block his first low kick with my shin in textbook fashion, but he’s kicked me so hard it sends my leg flying in the opposite direction.
Next thing I know I’m standing in the center of the ring. There are dark blurs at the edge of my vision. Time has passed, but I don’t know how much. I’ve lost consciousness for an undetermined amount of time. The ref shouts “box” and we’re at it again.
A week later I find out what happen when I see a video of the fight. I’d circled to the right after the low kick, pumping my jab. My opponent had launched a vicious high kick at my head which I’d blocked, but he’d followed up with a spinning back elbow to my jaw which had dropped me onto one knee. It’s the elbow which knocks me out briefly. The ref thought I’d slipped and had separated us before restarting. In the video I appear to be fully conscious but there are a full fifteen seconds which are gone. Completely absent. Not even a black space – it’s like someone edited the fight forward. I can see the events on the tape but they’re not in my head.
It’s clear that this dude has a huge edge on me kick-wise; he’s probably been in taekwondo since he was able to walk. I take it back to the Irishman’s shovel. The straight jab. He’s blurry and I can barely make him out. It doesn’t matter. All I am is a left hand and two knees. He tries a spinning roundhouse, barely missing, but he stumbles on the backstep. I’m straight in with a solid knee to his temple while his head is down. I finish the round with another toe-stiffening jab to his jaw.
Big Brother’s advice at the corner during the break is incomprehensible at the best of times; he doesn’t speak English. When I’m half-concussed it seems laughably irrelevant. I chuckle madly to myself and walk back out to the center before the bell rings.
There are a few Canadians watching. They’re vocal and supportive. One guy keeps shouting “he wants it, give it to him” which again makes me giggle. It sounds majorly gay. In the second round I don’t give my opponent a second to rest. The only way you can win a fight, the only way you can win any contest between yourself and one person, is by setting the pace, by pushing your rival. He turns around, jogging away, fighting for space when the ref breaks up our clinches. I’m right behind him every time, knees and jab in his face. I don’t throw a single kick in the second round.
I feel completely carefree. I feel like a lamb gamboling in a spring meadow.
Il dae il, Big Brother says at the break. One round each.
The third round starts with the customary manly hug. I’ve had dozens of fights and I’ve never come away from one without feeling deep respect and affection for my opponent. Fighting someone is seeing them at their rawest, a part of them most people will never see; it’s more intimate than sex in some ways. I can tell he’s exhausted because at any break in the action he’s looking to touch gloves or bow, looking to get a second’s rest. That’s fine with me but the concussion has removed me almost entirely me from my body. I don’t feel tired or hurt. I could fight all day. I keep pushing. My fight style is utterly one-dimensional but I’m executing it well. Each breath bouncing through my lungs fills me with power and purpose. He scores a rasping low kick on my thigh which will hurt like hell in the next few days. Otherwise I keep to the same routine; jab and knee. Knee and jab. I know the fight is mine when the referee stops it temporarily with 30 seconds to go. My opponent has blood pouring from his nose and his corner wipes it off before the restart.
I win. It seems like everything is happening a long way away, behind a gauzy veil. For the rest of the day I float in a fug of serene detachment. I babble nonsense at Boris’ charming girlfriend, speaking a chewy paste of Korean and English. She cuts my bandages off and I fall in love with her for a few minutes.
I never managed a photo of my opponent. He was gone straight after the bell. I got a photo of him after our rematch a few months later. He won and broke my nose in the process.
--PATRICK KAY
brought to you by
6 comments:
wow, sounds insane. reminds me of this thing that happened to me yesterday, where i played playstation for 2 hours.
Good piece! Really entertaining.
"fighting is still dumb though no offense", ha! Where's the screencap showing my sweet abs?
Oh, I guess I posted the same pic twice. Eh, seems like it would be a whole thing to fix it.
I enjoyed this as well.
Yeah, keep it under wraps. You can make it premium subscriber-only content.
Awwww shit, PK. Writin' and fightin' and keepin' it whitin'. Koreans are some no shit tough bastards. Next time Sgt. D goes east, whip his MMA ass. Irish style.
Post a Comment