Alley Tears - The First Time I Cried After a Fight in a Long While (Patreon Magazine) (Patreon)

The tape around my wraps is wet and the glue has melted in the heat of being inside the gloves, and my fingers shake as I try to pick at the ends enough to pull the strips away from my wrists, thumbs and hands. My back is to the warm-up area of the stadium and I’m facing a back gate, where cooler air from outside blows in from time to time. The trashcan in front of me comes about waist-high and I drop pieces of tape into it as I free my hands from the fight wraps. My corner, Pi Daeng, comes and stands beside me and I see his expression change to one of surprise as I meet his eyes. My face is hot and the edges of my mouth are pulling down on their own; I’m on the verge of tears but I’m also angry, and the anger is keeping the tears just under the surface for now.

“You okay?” Daeng asks, the expression of surprise on his face turning a bit toward concern. I keep staring at my busy work of taking the tape off my hands and mutter that I’m fine. “It okay,” Daeng offers, “she big.”

My opponent outweighed me tonight by a good 6 or 7 kg (13–15.5 lbs) and has been WPMF world champion for multiple years - for a long time at 48 kg, now at 51 kg. There’s absolutely no reason I should feel bad at all for having lost to her, but I’m deeply frustrated by my performance. “She’s always big,” I say, looking up at Daeng now, “every time like this,” (I’ve fought her maybe 5 times now), and then I switch into Thai to make my point very clear, “I can fight better than this.” My left arm is outstretched as I point, kind of with a claw in the air, at the ring in passionate displeasure at the stage upon which my failure just played out. Daeng has seen me lose many times – many, many times – and his surprise is in how much I’m affected by this one. Before the fight, about a week ago, when I told him I was facing Thanonchanok he had actually protested, saying she was “too big,” and that it’s not fair for her to have all the advantages. I had told him, in text, at that time that I don’t mind. Fighting her makes me better and I just want to get better. So, it’s reasonable for him to be looking at me with surprise as I fight back tears and sulk into the garbage can with my wet, melted wrap tape.

It rained earlier in the night during my fight and the streets are now glowing silver like old Black and White movie nights. The air is cool but with a heat just behind it; it feels thick, like we’re walking through a tunnel even though the streets are largely empty and somewhat open. It’s just before midnight, so there are still a few people out at tables drinking as we pass restaurants and little pubs as we walk toward our hotel. Chiang Mai is quiet, it's “low season,” and there’s a sleepiness all around as we turn right down this alleyway that will lead to the cluster of hostels at the bottom of the Old City. Here, on this more cloistered street, hole-in-the-wall bars that were open and entertaining only one or two patrons as we had walked to the fights a few hours ago are now shut up and dark, the sound of the traffic on the moat grows more distant as we stroll deeper into the narrowing streets, and the only visible souls besides me and Kevin are cats, who slink into the middle of the path, crouch to look at something and then hurry to the darkness on either side of the street.

Kevin is trying to tell me that the fight was good. “You know I never tell you anything is good if it wasn’t,” he says, as proof of the sincerity and accuracy of his insistence. He’s about an arm’s length away – we’re not really walking together, as I’m totally lost in my head, and he’s maybe two paces behind me. I can hear the raucous chatting and laughing of the cluster of hostels ahead of us, although it’s muted by distance and you can’t see it yet. Something in me registered the short window of time that we would be moving through the empty alleyway before arriving at that group and like a swell of panic, the sorrow I felt after that fight just bubbled up and stopped me in my tracks. I began to sob, audibly, and couldn’t choke it back. I surprised myself, really. I’ve been on the verge of tears many times, but actually feeling the wall that keeps that inside start to crumble isn’t something I’ve experienced in a long while.

Kevin put his hand on my shoulder and pulled me into his chest, so I could sob into his shirt. “It’s okay,” he said softly. His kindness and acceptance of my weakness seemed to invite the well of emotion to just erupt freely and I felt the edges of my mouth contorting and pulling my face into a desperate cry face and wailing sounds drifted into the quiet of the alley. Cats slipped in and out of the light at the visible distances, startled and enticed by my crying. My stomach contracted hard from the effort of crying and I pulled away from Kevin’s chest, buckling at the knees and crouching down to the ground where I could forego the difficulty of holding myself up under the weight of this breakdown. 

On either side of us were these cement walls, behind which are residences with soft lights and stirrings of families not yet in bed for sleep. I was aware of how my alley-cry might create concern for these people, but also reasoned that the number of drunken tourists frequenting these alleys might also make such an occasion far less unusual than the experience is for me, as the one having the breakdown.

I haven’t cried after a fight in a long time. In so long, in fact, that I can’t remember the last time at all. Not from the emotional pain, anyway. And I couldn’t tell you now what exactly was so difficult about this loss. It’s a fight I had no business winning. Even though I completely think I can beat Thanonchanok (and have), the obstacles I have to overcome to do so are significant. But I’m in the midst of trying to change myself, to reshape my fighting in profound ways, via the intensive work with my hero (Karuhat Sor Supawan) and the ways in which I’m always trying to develop and improve. Facing larger opponents limits one’s options; you can’t really experiment and what I’m trying to learn right now requires a great deal of play, experimentation, and trial and error. Facing not only larger opponents, but very experienced, skilled, smart, world-class opponents to boot, means that you get a lot of error. It’s like trying to experiment and perfect new swim-strokes while wearing a winter coat in the water. You never get to “forget” about the coat and just swim; you are always swimming in that fucking coat, despite that coat, or more accurately shaped by that coat.

Every time, before I enter the ring for a fight, I kneel down at the stairs on the corner of the ring and say a short prayer and kata. Then, I touch my glove to the ground to pick up some dirt and then rub that into my hair as I ascend the stairs and duck under the ropes into the ring. It’s a reminder of humility and mortality, and for me a connection to the spaces and locations in which I fight. I’ve done this over 200 times; I reckon I’ll do it 200 more. With my knees folded into my chest and my head bent forward, my gasps and tears splashing onto the pavement to be mixed into the rain that had collected there throughout the night, I was in the same position I’m in as I ask for strength – or remind myself of strength – before climbing into the ring. I’m very fortunate to have a husband who doesn’t permit me to be weak when it’s unnecessary, but holds me up when there are those moments when the weakness is important. When it’s changing you, rather than cementing old patterns. As I sobbed in that alleyway, I might have taken some of that rainy pavement and pushed it into my hair, to keep with me this space where I had to fight and be strong when my opponent was only myself. I didn’t, but somehow that snapshot of the darkness, the muffled sounds and thick air, the skulking cats and the sleepiness of the hour at night, the sticky residue of the tape and the stink from the inside of the gloves clinging to my skin… somehow all of that has overwritten the emotions I felt that brought me to my knees for those alley tears. Because, I guess, those elements are more important. They’re the part worth keeping.

If you enjoyed this article you may like my other patron-only articles on my experiences in Thailand:

ARTICLES - Patreon Magazine

• Patron Only Articles - These articles are written specially for my patrons and are my attempts to expand as a writer. They are full of richer descriptions, and take on themes not always talked about in the experience of being a fighter. At least one is published a month, if not two.

The Storm That Overtakes The Boy - Giving In | The storm within us, the storm outside of us. It is our choice. Or, this could be called "Learning to ride the donkey, and not look for the donkey." read it here 

Insisting On Left - The Space Between Pi and Kru | The story of how it is a delicate balance with my Kru when insisting on changing my stance to southpaw read it here 

Arjan Surat: The Unbreakable Breaker of Bangkok | Maybe the toughest, hardest man in Thailand. Arjan Surat is 63 and made of the stuff that feels like it's from 100 years ago. The unbreakable breaker. read it here 

When I First Met Dieselnoi: A Giant in my Soul | The powerful impression the legendary Dieselnoi made on me right from the start, a resonating impact that has made on me as a person. read it here 

The Perfection of Festival Fights in Thailand | A trip to the clinic to receive a boosting IV leaves me drifting through thoughts of belonging, as I listen to my kru talk about me to the nurse. read it here 

Cheet Yaa - "if there were no cuts it wouldn't be Sylvie" | A trip to the clinic to receive a boosting IV leaves me drifting through thoughts of belonging, as I listen to my kru talk about me to the nurse. read it here 

The Hurting Game - The Psychology of Hurt | Even though I've fought over 200 times being the one who hurts others, that the game is hurting, is still a psychology I need to embrace. read it here 

A Girl and Her Bag - the Intimacy of Work | Every fighter who has spent a long amount of time in the gym has to fall in love with their bag - how bagwork contains its own beauty. read it here 

Jai Rohn - My Story of Blood, My Pride and Stitches | My heart was racing, I was upset at my performance, and then there was the pain of stitches, more painful than any stitches I've had before. read it here