watching my first Muay Thai fight

I watched my first Muay Thai fight in Bangla stadium Phuket. Muay Thai boxing is huge in Thailand and in Phuket there are vans driving around every day with speaker phones announcing: Super real fight, monday night, monday night, 9 pm at Bangla Stadium.

The crew and I still copy the announcers very deep and low voice... Suuuper realll figgght, 9pm, 9pm!

The fight started at 21:00 and it was already full when we walked into the stadium. There were not just local people, but there were a lot of foreigners too. The stadium had two levels and Erik and I were sitting in the front row. Exciting we thought, not knowing that we would be splattered with water and sweat and saliva during the fight...

It was hard to watch the first few fights...They started with really young fighters who were probably 8 or 9. Even though I didn't know them, I still felt 心疼...(xin teng)

By the time the 4th fight started they called me to the ring!

I was not allowed to step over the ropes, I had to crawl underneath them to show respect for the trainers and fighters.

I was privileged to give the next fighters necklaces made of flowers...The fighters were WOOT and another boy. He looked so cute... It was hard for me to imagine that he would be fighting in a few minutes...

During the first few fights I was biting on my nails, something I normally never do, but when Woot's fight started, I was no different from the other people in the audience! I stood up and cheered like crazy! Woot did an awesome job! He lost on points though, but the other boy was much bigger then him and Woot didn't show any fear at all! I was so proud of him!

After that there was a fight between two girls...I was trying to get some inspiration from them. Pretty interesting, the Korean girl KO'd the other girl.  The next fight was between two boys around 14. One got an elbow in the eye and started bleeding...We left after another couple of fights between adults.

In my previous blog I wrote that one of us will be picked after the training to do a real fight, well, I got picked!

Scary and exciting at the same time! Erik will be my cornerman

The boxing stadium

Being splattered on with sweat...

Blood stains...

What an honor!

Cute and dangerous Woot

Learning the Wai-Khru dance, also called the boxing dance. It's a ritual before every fight. The fighters show respect to their trainers in this way.

The chosen one!

Checking out my new bruises. Not too bad today.

Training on the beach

Erik goes through the Wai-Khru with me. I have to be able to do it perfectly before for my fight!