60 years of it being hot in Thailand and I’m here now…

The end of Tuesday and time for another update.

Yesterday was I guess the first full day of training and it went pretty well.
Muay Thai in the morning, lots of bag work and some pads.
Breakfast was the Egg white omelet with veggies.... think I might mix it up tomorrow and get the pancake (No ice cream or syrup allowed).

The afternoon was stretching first up, and cardio, which was good... but bloody hot still.
Luckily they opened the big sliding gate and a fantastic breeze came in which easily took 10 degrees off the temp (Down to 30).

This was the point last time that I passed out, so from here on out was all new.

After the stretching and cardio and such was some Muay Thai Technique.
How to stand at the start, the six stances before a fight.
Everyone was standing in a line and we had to sound off in Thai, which was easy for me, remembering how to count.  If you got your number wrong you had to do 10 push-ups.  Safe in that respect.
Although, full honesty, I have reverted to doing "girl" pushups on my knees.  That's how damn hot it is.

The Technique bit was very interesting.
We didn't have gloves on, which was great, because they weigh your hands down something shocking.
We stepped out combos, punch, jab, uppercut left, knee right, superman elbow.
I really like that aspect, learning the moves and jumps.

That was Monday.

Then came Tuesday.

38 degrees Celsius by 9am.
Hottest day on record in 60 years.

So naturally, we train in it... and even the guys who normally last the whole time are taking long breaks.
I did some bag and pad work again and had to call it quits, way too much for me at the moment.
Meanwhile, the Thai's that sweep the walkways are wearing Jeans, plastic jacket, gloves, two hats and a towel across their face.

The afternoon session was still too hot, so I skipped the first part of it.  Waited for the sun to go down a bit before venturing into the heat.
Did a bit of cross trainer and chest presses on the machines.  My biceps are killing me.
Having to hold my hands in the boxing pose for soooooo long.
I thought I had some guns, but damn, this hurts.
So trying to get a few more muscles in that department.

After that, last thing as some people filtered out was some technique work in the ring.
And by the way, the rings are only about 2-3 foot higher than the ground, but with no breeze it's the hottest muggiest part easily.

So a few of us climb in one ring with a trainer and we go through what I would call the "Kata" of Muay Thai.... until someone corrects me.

Cycle through each of the moves for each body part.

Knees Blocking:
Low left block, low right block, medium left block, medium right block, high left block, high right block, stupid high left block, stupid high right block.

Knee Attack:
Forward, 45 degree to the ribs, slap to the ribs, to the chest to the leg connects, and finally a big jumping uppercut with the knee.

Ok, you get the point, lots of moves, lots of heat, sweating so much that at the end I was wearing sweat with elements of a singlet in it.

Dinner was good.
A nice clear chickenish broth with veggies, pork t-bone (thin) with a really nice gravy dipping with wilted spinach and salad, plus the standard serving of 6 slices of fruit that comes with each meal.

Time for a bit more reading, then wake up and do it all again.
Please Hanuman, make it cooler tomorrow.

Edit: Here's a nice sunset over my room.

Once you go black, you better come back

Yesterday was the first day of training, Friday.

Started off fairly straight forward.  A trainer wrapped my hands up, on went the boxing gloves and he showed me the stance, and how to throw the punches correctly.
One, two, one, two, knee, elbow, kick.

Then it was time on the bags with the one two punch.  Trying to keep my stance correct.
I got gotten a 1.5lt bottle of water from the kitchen and topped it up with this orange tasting electrolyte stuff, and was sipping from that when I could.

My arms were getting sore, naturally, and then it was time in the ring with the pads.
More one two elbow uppercut knee business.  Very fun though.

Then half an hour of stretching, which was probably harder than the actual Muay Thai training.
I am not flexible.

Then was breakfast, which was fruit, water, and a egg white omelet with veggies.  Quite nice, and from the looks of it, the standard breakfast, so that should be easy to get used to.

By this time it was about 10am and time for a break.
I stayed in my room, chatted on FB, listened to music and chilled out.

Two thirty comes around and time for lunch, more fruit and water.

Then an hours break before the afternoons training starts at four.

This was just functional training, gym stuff.
Lots of jumping jacks, waving arms around in painful directions, those tiny weights that end up feeling like a hundred kilos once you have to hold them out front for 30 seconds.

My arms were killing me, so I took a break and sat down on the edge of one of the boxing rings.
Then my vision started to go, seeing spots and such.

I called over the trainer and she rushed off to get me another dose of the electrolytes in a more concentrated form.
But it got worse, everything going black, can't see anything, blood rushing in my ears.
Three of the guys carried me off to the office area, sat me down, elevated the legs, cool towel on the back of my neck.
I'm freaking out because I can't see, my body's freaking out because I am, and it makes it worse.

One of the guys training turns out to be an Pommie Iraq veteran Medic who is used to dealing with heat exhausted soldiers.
So I get the full rundown from him.  Taking my pulse, asking me how much water I've had, turns out.... not enough.

They take my shirt off, then put it back on, legs up, legs down.
At one point I start to lean to far to the right and the Medic gives me a little slap upside the head to make me focus.

Him and Christian (the boss) carry me off to my room, get the air-con going, pump me full of water and keep watch.
The sight has returned and I feel much better at this point.
I'm told to stay in bed for an hour before I do anything.
Medic guy stays for a bit and we chat, he did three years in the army before going Private Millitary and contracting back to the US army.
Apparently getting 85,000 pound a year, not a bad living I guess.

I'm much better now, keeping up the fluids and I've got today and tomorrow off training, and then on Monday, easing me back into it, morning and evening training only I think, none of this heat of the day for me.

Anyway, it currently is the heat of the day and I'm trying to climitise better by writing this sitting on my little veranda... but there are gnats, flys and sweat dripping down my ass like Niagra falls... so I'm going to call it a post, and head back to the bed for a bit of light reading.

Peace out.

No sleep till… *guitar solo* BROOKLYN

No sleep and much travel makes Toby go something something...

Fitfull sleep last night, nervous energy, afraid I would miss the taxi.  Didn't, wide awake much earlier than I needed.
Isle seat on the bus means nothing to lean on, means no sleep.
Get to the Airport smack on time, which was nice... but it's an airport, so no sleeping their either.

Had a bite to eat and drink, then waited in the departure gate lobby.

All the people queuing up early so they can be the first ones to sit in the cigar tube of disappointment for the longest time possible.

I get on as late as possible, three rows from the back, isle seat again.

Except this time I spot an entire empty middle row of 4 seats, and nicely ask the flight attendant if I can sit there instead, she glared at me, I sat down.

Then, the two girls in my row ask a nicer lady if they can sit there, and she agrees.  Which leaves me with an entire empty row myself... for about 2 minutes, until some douche nugget takes the other isle seat.

I lay claim to three of the seats, and as soon as the seatbelt sign off, I am horizontal across the three seats, which isn't easy.  Four would have been brilliant, but three.... no....
My heads at a weird angle, and the blinds are open, it's hell.
I slowly rotate trying to find a better position to sleep in, and end up napping on and off for half the flight.

Decide to watch some inflight entertainment for the last half, and just as Wreck It Ralph get's to that great line "You wouldn't hit a guy with glasses", the PA cuts in and we are about to land.

Make it through immigration, security, baggage, the whole lot, nice and easy.
After a walk from one end to the other, I find a guy with my name on a A4 paper.
I point, he points, I follow him to a crappy bombed out Camry.
Cracks in the windshield, the door handle on the inside is jammed in place, and even though it's an auto, it almost stalls a few times getting out of the parking lot.
And I'm fairly sure it needs new CV joints, it's not supposed to rattle like that when you turn.

Then I find out why.... the guys a terrible driver.  Smooth is not in his vocab.
He taps the throttle whenever he speeds up, surging the car, almost made me feel worse than the plane.  But we barrel down the highway at 120, no indicators for anyone.  Standard stuff.

Then we arrive, the boss man Christian meets me, he's wearing boxing gloves, so shaking is awkward.  He gets Barbara, and we sort all the paperwork out.
I meet the two pitbulls, Simba and Nala.  Nice docile doggies.

The rooms are arranged in an L shape with the gym in the middle, two boxing rings, one MMA ring, bunch of bags.

I check into my room and decide to have a shower before dinner... when I get a shocking update.
Seriously, I'm shocked.... by the shower.
They recently installed new inline water heaters, and it's not grounded properly and the faucet shocks me.

So I switch plans and have dinner while they change me rooms.
I meet Guy who is leaving in two weeks, who apparently started at 160kg and is now much less.  Beau just started yesterday, but he's here for the Muay Thai. They are both Aussies.
Peter (Piotr) something like that... he's Italian, and some other names I can't remember, but apparently it's a booked house.

Dinner was tomato soup with pork and veggies, watermelon and mango and a pork t-bone with salad and veggies.  Quite nice.

So that's where we are up to.  Alarm is set for 8:15, and I will probably hit Snooze once or twice.
8:45am start and all I need is a quick shower, into shorts and walk outside.

Anyway, I'm knackered.... night.

The pointy end of waiting

Really short post because I should be asleep by now.

In five hours I wake, catch a cab for a 3 hour bus ride for a 9 hour flight.

And then I arrive in Thailand, and start my transformation.

It's going to be fun, scary, interesting, insightful, and all the other adjectives.

I hope I do everyone proud.

See you in the flesh in 86 days.

Peace.

Last day of work, T-Minus 6 days

It was the last day of work today for the next 15 weeks, and that makes less than a week until I leave to start the big transformation.

A few people asked if it was one of those cruisey last days, like the day before Christmas, but it was the other... panic turned up to 11 trying to get the two huge projects I've been working on to a point where they can be finished or delivered without me.

Going line by line of code explaining why I made the decisions I made... and most of the time the answer was, "I did it like this, and it works, and I'm afraid to change it now."

But enough of work, no need to worry about that for over one hundred days.
Unless I get calls and emails like I did last time, which I'm sure I wont.

There was lots of people congratulating me today, and how proud they are of me, and how they could never do it, or how it sounded amazing and they want to do it.
Well, it's not that hard really.

If you really want to, and I mean REALLY want to, there is only two things you need to do.  Organise the time, be it lucky as I was with getting Leave Without Pay so I still have a job when I get back, or something more drastic as quitting, which I was ready to do if I had to.
Work to Live, don't Live to Work.

And the other is the cost.  I'm again lucky that I have such great parents and family that are all rally around and helping out.  But when you think about it, in some aspects, I'm going to be spending much less money that if I didn't go.
I will be saving $900 in parking vouchers, $1500 in breakfast and lunches, petrol, and more that I can't think of at midnight.

Put your health ahead of everything else.  It's the one thing you can't do without.
Healthy and broke, or Dead and rich.
I know which one I was ready to choose.

Six days left..... it's getting close.... it's getting real....
Next week will be a blur, and suddenly I will be typing this, not on my nice big bed, covered in blankets and doonas... but on a single bed in a small air-con room, with probably just a sheet.
The other side of the equator.  A different life for 85 days.

It’s all an illusion

Once there lived a village of creatures that lived along the bottom of a great crystal river.

The current of the river swept silently over them all. Young, old, rich and poor.  Good and evil.  The current flowed it's own way knowing only itself.

Each creature in it's own manner clung tightly to the twigs and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of life, and resisting the current was what each creature had learnt from birth.

But one spoke up at last, 'I am tired of clinging to the bottom.  Though I cannot see it with my eyes, I trust that the current knows where it is going.  I shall let go, and let it take me where it will.  Clinging here, I shall die of boredom or worse.

The other creatures laughed and said 'Fool!  Let go and that current you value so much will throw you tumbled and smashed across the rocks.  You will die a quicker and more painful death than staying on the bottom.'

But this creature did not listen to the others, and taking a breath, let go.  And was at once tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks.

Yet in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the current lifted him free from the bottom and he was bruised and hurt no more.

And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger cried 'See, a miracle!  A creature like ourselves and yet he soars above in the crystal current!  He is truly an amazing creature!'

And the one carried in the current said, 'I am no more amazing than you.  The crystal river delights to lift us free, if only we dare to let go.'

Paperwork and Nerves

Well, I managed to get the Visa paperwork in with minutes to spare, and found a secret 90 day visa for people travelling to Thailand for non-academic training, example: Thai Boxing.

Perfecto.

No need to extend it while I'm over there and I can bug out on day 85 and be all good.

I'm going to change up the goals a little bit after some reflection, after all, they need to be SMART goals.

Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Realistic
Time-based

So they will be broken down into to better suit that style.

I also got, in the words of Lil Jon and LMFAO... shots shots shots, shots shots shots, shots shots shots and shots.

Get me some of that mercury and formaldehyde in me, keep that Polio at bay. Delicious Autism.

Also launched a new site, which is a nice bit of extra coin.

Time for more Entourage, peace out.

First post

Blog created, horray.

So this will be documenting my "journey" in Thailand to loose weight and learn a martial art.

For those that don't know, I'm currently an alcoholic 28 year old, 145 kilo web developer.
I hope to return after 85 days in Pattaya as a reformed-alcoholic 28 year old, 99kg web developer and cage fighter... but lets take that one day at a time.

I will also be posting lots of photos, probably via Instagram and or Flickr or Picasa, whichever is easier.

I've paid the deposit, have booked the mini-cab to pick me up at the airport.
Flights booked, passport found.

Last bit of paperwork is organising the Visa, which I will do tonight.

Then I just need to prep my new Asus EeePC with all the required applications and accounts so I can easily communicate how much pain I'm in while over there.

So, in closing, 18 days before I land.

Game on.