A New Year

I made several New Year’s resolutions this year. This first was to update my blog!!! Another one was to take a picture every day (which is easy, I usually take several) and create a photo album of a picture a day to see what changes happen in my life over the course of this year. A friend of mine did something like this a few years ago, and I think this is a good year for me to do it, because 1. this will hopefully be a big year for me if I get into graduate school for the fall, and 2. I think 13 is a lucky number thus 2013 is a good year to try this out. Of course getting into grad school was on my resolutions list. We’ll see how that goes. I’ve been pouring my heart into these applications, and as of today I have sent my heart to Berkeley, MIT and Pratt, with University of Washington and Tufts in the works.

My last resolution was to fight in a real Muay Thai fight. This resolution was easy to fulfill, because I had promised my Muay Thai trainers that I would fight on New Year’s Day, though the whole time I was crossing my fingers it wouldn’t happen. I was still scared to actually fight. I had backed out of my first fight, it having been scheduled 3 days before my application to Berkeley was due. But I couldn’t back out of my next fight, which was actually scheduled two days before my MIT application was due. So New Year’s Day. I fought in my first Muay Thai fight. It required a ton of training. I was running about 7 miles every morning I had time to, and training every afternoon I had time to train. Leading up to my fight on January 1^st, I was a mental wreck. I was spending every last brain cell worrying about either my physical preparedness to fight, or my mental preparedness to finish the MIT application. Both were wearing me down. On top of that, I had broken up with my newly acquired Thai boyfriend, and so I was also an emotional wreck. It was a holiday from school, Bryan’s family was visiting from the Philippines and went on a trip to Chiang Mai for New Years, and I was all alone in our house for four days…training like mad for the fight and spending every minute in between writing essays. It was not a fun time in my life.

For New Year’s Eve, the night before my debut as a Muay Thai fighter, I went back to some old friends. I had spent the afternoon helping my first friend in Sawankhalok, Mint, get away from her crazy family. We took an impulsive road trip to the national park, over an hour away, just to turn around and drive back because she was worried her parents would get mad she was gone for so long. So we came back to Sawankhalok and had Khao Soi for dinner.
 
Then I went to see P’Chompu, and P’Dii, friends I haven’t had time to visit in way too long. I made up with my boyfriend, though things aren’t the same and never will be with him. And I spent the passing of New Years with my best ever friend in Sawankhalok- BaNee. When I knew I wouldn’t be spending New Years with my boyfriend, and that Bryan would be away, I went to BaNee. She saved my New Years by inviting me to go to a temple with her for the passing of the New Year. She picked me up, and three of us, BaNee, her sister and myself, went to Wat SawangAram around 10PM. Everyone dressed in white, I saw many of my students and acquaintances from Sawankhalok, and immediately felt welcome.

 We picked up the evening’s prayer books, sat down with me in between my two aunts, and started chanting. I didn’t realize we would make it through all 40 pages of the book, but we chanted through the whole thing, BaNee’s fingers tracing almost every word for me so I could keep up with the quick Thai. After an hour, I really couldn’t read the Thai anymore, but that didn’t stop BaNee from leading me through the whole session. The chanting escalated as it approached midnight. The sounds of the fireworks, the birds chirping in the trees, and the monk’s echoing voice became almost deafening. Just after midnight, we were supposed to go into meditation- but I was so distracted by everything happening around me, plus I didn’t exactly notice it was supposed to be meditation time because I was busy watching the fireworks and listening to the birds go wild. After our last set of chants, BaNee rushed me into the temple to go pick up a gift from the monks, and finally we went home around 1. That was definitely a New Year’s I’ll never forget.

Then came January 1^st, 2013. Another day I’ll never forget. I didn’t tell many people I was going to fight- I didn’t tell any of my students. I didn’t really want anyone to come watch because I was scared I would get into the Muay Thai ring and have no idea what I was doing. That was partially true. I got into the ring, and looked around, then turned back to P’Sua, my trainer, and asked with pleading eyes to instruct me. In my training, I never actually fought. I never actually blocked. I learned how to kick and punch and kick and punch, and I could do those things in my sleep now. But without someone commanding “punch 1, 2, elbow, punch 1, 2, kick”, I had no idea what to do. But it was okay, because I’m farang. I had all of Thailand on my side, because I was a farang girl, fighting a Thai girl, in the middle of a small town in rural Thailand with only 3 months of training. I could hear the announcers going wild over me and my Thai name, Mali, as I performed my “wai kru”, the dance to intimidate your opponent before the match. Singh, one of my trainers, taught it to me only a few hours before the match. Learning the “wai kru” was one of the most important parts of the Muay Thai fight for me, particularly as a dancer. There is a set of versions of the dance, and your trainer usually picks one that represents you best. They all take after an animal, and mine was a bird. And I performed the shit out of it. I didn’t care if I lost the match as long as I got my “wai kru” down. And the whole town of Sri Satchanalai (that’s literally how it felt- I think there were hundreds watching) was on my side. They went wild over my dance, and my confidence grew when my opponent didn’t have a dance to return (not everyone does the “wai kru”, especially if you’re new). P’Sua put my mouth guard in my mouth, and told me- just 5 rounds. You’ve won already- everyone is behind you. I felt bad for my opponent. I’ve gotten several versions of her story- that she’s 16 and fought once before. That she’s seventeen and has fought many times and won every time. Or that this is her first fight. Whatever her story, she was bigger than me, prettier than me, and way more experienced. That was obvious in the first two rounds. I came off the first round exhausted, but exclaimed to P’Sua, this is so easy! I know she’s winning, but I can do this! I can fight. I was amazed- even though she was punching me probably with all her strength, nothing hurt. Punches to the face, knees in the gut- I felt nothing. At the end of each round, even though she was clearly winning, as soon as the bell rung P’Sua held his arms up in triumph, turned to his friends and shout “mali’s got this” (but in Thai) and would run onto the ring to stretch me out. Entering the third round, I was so tired, more physically tired than when I sprint the end of a 7 mile run. But she was more tired, and I was starting to figure out how to fight. She could punch, but my knees and kicks, thanks to my 15 years of ballet training, are better. In the 4^th round, she surrendered, too exhausted to continue to fight. I ran to P’Sua and gave him a huge hug before the referee took my arm and lifted it in victory and walked me around the ring. I came off the stage to hundreds of cheering fans, my biggest fans being Kirk and Bryan. People came up to shake my hand, or had their kids shake my hand. Drunk teenagers wanted pictures with me. And avid Muay Thai followers asked me to fight at another festival the next night. I was famous. Maybe only for one night. Maybe only in this small town in Sukhothai. But I was famous.

My Muay Thai family, and our New Years party after New Years