From hating the kicks to learning to love them

Learning to give myself to the martial arts

I stopped doing muay thai in February and I never thought I would miss it as much as I have. I knew when I finished that I wanted to return to the ring. Here I am thirty four not so young and besides writing all I want to do is train and push as far as I can.

I fell into the world of martial arts as something to do, to learn and little did I know how much it would mean to me.

It took it slowly at first, I sucked at muay thai and I knew that it would and it would take months to give my kicks power and to make my punches fly.

Taking some time away from muay thai made me realize how much I missed it and how during that year and a half ho much it became apart of not just who I am but who I want to be.

Now more than ever I don’t just want to do muay thai I want to learn other martial arts the first one being Brazilian Jujitsu and the next being kung fu.

Out of all people I would have never expected to want to shift gears into martial arts. I think its because I never defined myself physically I just thought I was inept and for the first time in my life after having done muay thai for a year and a half straight and getting in the best shape of my life I don’t want give it up and I want to continue to push myself to redefine who I can be.

I saw my friend doing Brazilian Jujitsu at The Martial Arts Academy in Taurangu and it sparked the hunger to learn how to get in and take control on the ground.

I went back to doing muay thai last month and all I want to do is go and kick the bag. All I want to do is punch because it is so freeing. I’m not a good fighter, I am no natural and because I have to work twice as hard I need to continue to work at it.

Leaving it behind I was worried about loosing my technique but I also learned it comes back quickly and that I can’t wait to learn other martial arts.

The pain in kicking the bags was hard but I love feeling the kicks, of taking the rage and giving it to the bag. When you start to learn a new skill it just puts you back at the beginning where you have to see everything differently and begin again and that is fun.

I had to be stubborn as I learned the muay thai basics because it didn’t come easy, because it was hard and to get past the hump.

I need to do this not because I am a fighter because I ain’t but because I want it to be part of my life on an intrinsic level. I am passionate for it because I have never been comfortable in a normal gym but on the bag I can forget about everything around me and just go. Sometimes its that simple, sometimes nothing else matters but just doing it because you must because it is the fire and that’s what muay thai and martial arts are to me and that’s a gift.