Riding with Karuhat - Playlists (Patreon Magazine) (Patreon)

I keep pulling at the fabric around my fingers, underneath the white rope wraps and tape that bind my hands (Kard Chuek). There’s a semi-padded sleeve that goes underneath the binding of the ropes, which kind of bulks them up but also protects the hand with about a half-inch of padding. They’re too big for my small hands and the fabric around the fingers is slightly folded, the way your winter gloves fold in on themselves when you slip them off from the wrist. My cornerman, trainer and hero is watching me fidget with the fabric but he doesn’t say anything. He wrapped my right hand and left hand differently from each other, because he gets ideas and makes it up as he goes along. It’s one of my favorite qualities about him as a teacher. He’s interpreting strengths and weaknesses, openings and defenses as he goes. It’s an endless game of improv, which is how he lives his life as well. On my left hand he’d added some extra tape around the knuckles before starting to wind the ropes around my knuckles. I’m not sure whether the wrapping is actually too tight or if it’s simply that it feels different from my right hand. Or maybe it’s just nerves.

Karuhat is sitting on a white plastic chair that he pilfered from the rows around the ring a hundred feet away. He stands up and extends his arm toward the chair, indicating for me to sit down. He’s cornered for me probably 10 times by now, here and there, for a little over a year. He’s an exceptionally good cornerman, pee liang in Thai, as his energy is very even and calm. He pays attention to my energy as well, even before he really knew me. There’s this fantastic video Kevin shot of me before a fight, where Dieselnoi – another hero of mine – is energetically telling me how he wants me to fight. He’s got this booming voice and speaks with a kind of exasperated power, regardless of what he’s talking about. He’s just high energy, high intensity all the time. I love him. I’m seated, facing Dieselnoi and listening intently. A still photograph of this is hanging on my wall as a moment that I want to remember forever – face to face with my hero before a fight, getting focused advice. In the background of the video you see Karuhat stroll into view. He kind of watches from afar, pacing around like he’s keeping distance but assessing the scene. At some point after the video ended, he decides this Dieselnoi blast of energy is enough and he comes over, takes Dieselnoi by the shoulder and slowly guides him away to distract him and give me some time to chill before my fight. It’s a very funny video - see it here, because Karuhat is checking how I’m responding – he knows I love Dieselnoi – but he is always and forever present with what fighting is like and he made a call. Now, at this fight, he’s inviting me to sit in this chair as a way to chill out. He never says, “quit fidgeting” or anything like that. He just wordlessly guides me.

I sit on the edge of the plastic seat, so that my back is to the mats next to ours, where a group of western men are lying around. I feel nervous, but not necessarily in a bad way. It’s just a jumpy feeling, like my skin is quivering. It’s been maybe 8 months since I fought Kard Chuek, this style with no gloves and just the ropes around the fists, and I have a fresh scar on my forehead from a cut 9 days ago. I’m sure it will open. I’m staring at this table that has a row of water glasses on it, waiting to be put on a tray and ushered up to the VIP stage to my left. I’m not looking at anything, just kind of soft-focused as I turn thoughts over and over in my mind. In the 10 fights or so that Karuhat has cornered for me, I’ve lost every single one. Part of it is that he’s helping me change my style, and I try to fight like how he trains me, which means there’s a learning curve. But part of that is a problem, too. I know I try to please him, to be “good” in the way that he’s trying to guide me. He never says anything about this to me, just as he never says anything to me about calming down. He just guides me. I’m nervous about this fight because I feel bad for losing all the time with him. He’s never given up on me. As a superstar who keeps a pretty low profile, he’s always pointed out by the announcers as being in my corner, which means he’s got this spotlight on him and I’m representing him in some way, so when I lose I feel bad. He never does. But I actually think to myself, my fingers finally growing still from picking at the fabric under my ropes, that maybe I won’t ask him to corner for me the next time I fight on TV. I think that I’m sparing him, but it’s my ego; in truth I just don’t want to feel bad about thinking I’ve disappointed him, even though he’s never once acted disappointed.

On the drive home from the fight, Kevin and I switch seats. He sits in the back with Jaidee and I roll the seat forward and adjust all the mirrors to account for our height difference. Karuhat is in the front seat next to me, peering through the reading glasses we just bought him from a drugstore, scrolling through photos on his phone and lamenting that his camera is no good. They’re all blurry. It’s only evening, maybe 6:00, but it’s darker than it should be because it has started to rain. Tiny droplets smack against the window and Karuhat keeps time with his hand against his nicest pair of jeans, tapping out the rhythm of the Thai Country Music that plays on the stereo. Every now and again he sings a bar or two. I twist the nob on the side of the steering wheel and the headlights flick on. This is the calm he’s always guiding me toward.

And I realize in that moment that I almost robbed myself of this experience. The real gift of having Karuhat in my corner has nothing to do with the fight. In the same way some of my favorite memories of training at my home gym, Petchrungruang in Pattaya, will not be days when I did really well in clinch or on the pads. Those feel good, but I forget them. They blend together – they’re of the same “stuff” that everything else is made. The memories I’ll keep forever are hearing Pi Nu singing along to the Thai songs I put on the stereo, or watching Bank practice his skateboard tricks on the blue mats of the weight room while his dad and I lift weights on Sunday afternoons. It’s watching Bamrung, the grandfather, as he watches training, and I imagine the whole room dissolving into the farm space that it was when he first founded the gym 30 years ago. Now, with my hands on the steering wheel and the glow of headlights turning the specks of rain on the windshield into screen of stars, I see Karuhat out of the corner of my eyes as he holds his hands in front of the air-con vents and fiddles with the angles of the plastic. I push the tail of my mongkol, hanging from the rear-view mirror – an item we had to turn around to go fetch when it was left by accident at the venue – out of the way so that I can push the control buttons behind it. The air softens and the temperature slowly rises; warmth and rain go together in a beautiful way. Karuhat nods his head, first in agreement to this change in climate, but then in rhythm to the song that has started on the morlam playlist. Caring whether or not I win my fights with him is like caring whether the song on the radio is “right” or not. You just sing the words you know and tap out the rhythm to the parts you don’t. Today I knew a lot of the words, and so it was fun to sing along. But to skip a song because you don’t already know it means you never learn it. You can only sing the songs you already know. Karuhat knows almost all the songs; Pi Nu knows them all. It’s from letting the radio play. Just let it play.

If you enjoyed this article, check out my other patron-only articles:

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.

Little Blue Champion - The Next Generation of Fighters As I watch two young girls, the next generation of female fighters in Chiang Mai, I'm completely won over by the small, round underdog. - read it here 

Alley Tears: The First Time I Cried After a Fight In a Long While - it had been years since I had cried after a fight, maybe even ever, but something in me broke down after a loss to a World Champion several weight classes above me. read it here 

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