Music Du Jour

I just added a video bar so that you can watch/listen to the song that's ringing in my ears these days - "I'd Like" by Freshly Ground. Look below the posts.


Love it.

Hmmm..A Little More 'Bout Me

Yep, that's me.

I've been doing muay thai for more than a year now. Not continuously - I've been kind of klutzy with practice before so my schedule was kind of touch-and-go whenever I injured myself. So in terms of continuous practice, I feel like I'm starting again.

I started November, 2006 but got sidelined immediately for a month after severely straining my leg. It's been touch and go but I enjoy it anyway (masochistically, Eric might think). I like the discipline that you have to enforce on yourself so you'll get better and avoid injuries. I brought Eric to a practice session one time at my old gym but the physical nature of the sport turned him-off. As I told him later after diplomatically refusing to go back to Bikram Yoga with him "I like active sports - you like passive." Which also applies to us in areas outside sports.

A friend of mine wrote about my sport last month - it was all informative: "The Art of the Eight Limbs" and all that but let me tell you unless one is actually doing it, it's all academic. As someone who's a relative newbie to the sport, let me try to describe to you how it feels.

The first lessons I learned involved hitting with my fist and elbows. Knees and shins followed afterward but the two most important things I learned during those first lessons were hitting properly and tolerating pain. For the record, I don't enjoy pain. But somehow, I got past pain and focused more on the knowledge I was gaining. Everytime I learned to execute a move with a certain degree of certainty or kick higher and with more power I felt more confidence in myself, that should the need arise and I needed to defend myself, I wasn't going to totally suck at it. With every hit that was more assured I felt more ready to take on anything (well, obviously not everything but at least anything that may be threatening to my life and limbs). I learned too that technique counted as much as power as close combat was more determined by how you were able to staretegically place your hits than how much power you applied to your kicks.

Finally, I learned that one never really stops learning the moves of The Art of the Eight Limbs - you learn from the best and you take in little by little the knowledge passed on to you and apply it to your own moves. My next step is to try to start competing - May 10, if I can find a willing opponent who will push me to the next level.

Namaste.