Muay Thai Boxing (a descriptive story)

Driving down a dark road, wet and glistening with recent rain, feeling a bit anxious but also excited. What was promised to be a half-hour drive has turned into an hour and a half long stop-and-go journey: buying sticky rice, sausage, and spring rolls at a bustling night market for a late dinner, dropping by a 7/11 to pick up some beer, stopping at a gas station in the countryside to eat and wait for the man who is bringing us to the event, and the final leg of the journey in his car, across the provincial boarder to our destination.

Finally, the car slows down for a left-hand turn, and then there’s the familiar jolting and jostling characteristic of pot-holed dirt roads. This can’t be a main road. We must be arriving.

As we approach the building, I quickly survey the place and the people. Many cars—and even more motorbikes—are crammed into every parkable space. There are a few incandescent light bulbs lighting the scene outside, revealing the faces in the crowd. First thing I notice: very few women. Next: zero farangs. My nervousness increases, knowing how out of place I’ll be here. I reassure myself that everything will be alright, and when I hear the car’s engine grumble to a stop, I open the door and step out into the hot, humid night.

Walking from car to destination, I try not to look too much like a deer in headlights, and follow close behind the two men who are regulars at the scene—both muay thai boxing officials, one of whom was a former fighter himself. We pick our way across the muddy driveway, snake through the jumble of motorbikes, and walk past the people hanging around outside. A quick word between our chaperone and the young man sitting at the entrance, and we’re in, free of charge.

Rounding the corner of the building, the ring comes into sight. It’s a typical boxing ring, raised to be at fans’ eye level. Moths and bugs are teeming around the bare light bulbs that hang from the tin roof covering the ring. The area around is open-air and dimly lit; the floor is dirt, and muddy in places from the recent rain. The ring is surrounded by fans who’ve driven anywhere from five to a hundred kilometers to watch their friends, brothers, and sons enter the arena. I get many double takes, but am relieved to see that the fans are more interested in the fighters than the farang.

One fighter, then a second, hops up into the ring. These two are in their early teens. Their skin is glazed with Thai oil, and they wear nothing but a colorful pair of boxing shorts and boxing gloves—this is international style, so no padding. Each fighter also dons a mongkhon (a decorative headband), pra jiad (armbands), and a lei of bright yellow flowers for the wai khru ram muay, a traditional warm-up activity performed by the fighters when they enter the ring. Traditional muay thai music begins to play from an old but powerful sound system; a high-pitched reed instrument, a tambourine, and drums beat out a steady, driving rhythm as the two fighters perform their ram muay, each routine unique and beautiful.

Then the music pauses briefly, and the bell rings. The match has begun. It’s a beautiful, violent, captivating dance between the fighters. At the onset of this Saturday-night adventure, I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about watching live muay thai boxing. I find I can’t turn away. Things start slowly, a probing kick here, a testing punch there, but as the fight progresses through the 3-minute rounds, things speed up; more parts of the body are used, contact made between fighters becomes more powerful, and through the crowd’s cheering I begin to hear the sound of foot on ribs, knee on ribs, glove on ribs and glove on head. The movement is dramatized by the water and sweat that is flung off of the fighters as their bodies are jolted this way and that.

Towards the end, it is clear that both boys are exhausted, but although they must be feeling it, their faces do not convey pain. As the punches and kicks become slower and less accurate with fatigue, one boys’ slow down more than the others’. A last hit, and the slower boy falls to the floor, unconscious. After he has been revived, the referee grabs the standing boy’s arm, raising it high in the air, signaling him as winner. The boys respectfully acknowledge each other and leave the ring. Before long, the next two hop up, and the dance begins again.

[Photos courtesy of one of the other teachers at Assumption College, who came along on the adventure]