Kaimuay Diary - episode 2 | At the Edge of the Gym (Patreon)

This is my second episode of Kaimuay Diary, which is something new I’m trying, as a way to share what the daily life in my gym looks like. As much as I share of my own journey online I seldom have talked in depth about my gym. Part of that is that I'd like to keep the gym my little secret. I don't want it to change, I selfishly has not wanted lots of westerners of various motivations and levels of dedication coming and changing the culture, so I stay comparatively quiet about it. In the last year I've opened up more online about the specialness of moments, but sometimes I’m sharing a photo or a story about something at the gym and I realize that there’s no context to the person I’m writing about. The few times I’ve shared longer videos or stories about Pi Nu, people absolutely fall in love with him. As it should be, the people at my gym are awesome. So part of the aim of these Diaries is to sharing these people for my patrons. The Petchrungruang gym is the 2nd oldest gym in Pattaya, and one of the last that is still a real kaimuay focused on raising Thai boys to become stadium champions. In Thai law there is actually a license that registers a gym as either a kaimuay for a gym for tourists/westerners, Petchrungruang is one of the very last in Pattaya licensed as a kaimuay. Western fighters and students are able to come and train and fight alongside all of this, but it fundamentally is a Thai camp for Thai fighters. That kaimuay reality is what these diaries are about, the lives and people that live Muay Thai. 

At the Edge of the Gym

This episode focuses on two teenaged boys, Geng Gat and Carabao (Bao). They’re cousins but they’re raised together in the same home, by Geng Gat’s parents, as if they’re brothers. They’re incredibly polite, disciplined, both quit but in different ways. Geng Gat is talented, shows a lot of promise and is the most recently signed fighter to the gym name – that was a couple years ago and he’s really starting to hit a stride with his development. Carabao is not signed to the gym; he got much taller and gained a little weight in the last year, but he’s kind of still waiting for a significant “growth spurt” in his Muay Thai. I love his heart though. He’s one of these kids who is the smallest at the gym for a long time and so he’s sharpened by the pecking order. There was a boy like this at my first gym in Chiang Mai, named Off, who looked 7 years old when he was 13 and the process of being the little one made him very volatile. He’s cool now, but it took a while. As the youngest in my family, I understand this process. But unlike an individual family, the gym is a family that adds new members, subtracts some, cycles through, etc, and these two boys are in the process of being folded in. So you might sometimes have a younger sibling to pick on and sometimes you’re the youngest. It toughens you up, that’s for sure.

The backdrop is mostly padwork and clinch sessions, revealing the different attitudes, relationships and styles of padholder and fighter, and the growth between partners in the gym, as my voiceover moves to the the deeper meanings.  And don't miss the little clip at the end that, to me, really expresses the personalities of Geng Gat, Carabao, and my trainer Kru Nu.

If you enjoyed this episode, check out episode 1:

Kai Muay Diary - Episode 1  | Maintenance Mode (29 min) - a quiet look at the top stadium fighters at the gym in a typical maintenance mode day. With no fights coming up the training is light, communal and playful. watch it here 

 This is the full Table of Contents of what is exclusive to patrons!