First Blood!

I've watched countless MMA fights and am what some may consider a fanatic, so when a little blood is spilled I'm the first to yell 'keep fighting!'. Nonetheless, when I was confronted with the same situation, I was a little surprised that there was no pause in the action -- "A little blood never hurt anybody" announced the head trainer, Ray. It was a pretty rude awakening and a well overdue blow to the ego to get that blow to the face and scramble my brains a little bit.

Having trained in Montreal and shadow-boxed until the cows came home, I had yet to have any actual fight experience; as such, a small MMA sparring 'drill' was a bit of a change of pace for me. The Irish fighter with many times the experience of myself decided to keep it standing and I was nobody to argue after getting popped in the nose and a little shell-shocked. In retrospect, maybe using my wrestling would have been well-advised, but at the time, the thought was a distant second to, what the hell is all that pouring out of my nose!? He also did a very nice job of working the kicks on my 'heavy' front leg, leaving it black and blue for the next day.

With all that behind me, I started training again the next day, in regular fashion, surprisingly unscathed for the morning session. In the afternoon, I decided to try the muay thai class for the first time, rather than my usual MMA session and found myself surrounded in a gallon of sweat - having drank the equivalent and not having to go to the bathroom is usually a sign of a rough workout!

I'm slowly getting into the rhythm, but it's really too hard-going to be enjoyable at this point. I'm going to need a little longer to get my own pace set and let my body get used to the beating. Hopefully all of this humiliation will toughen me up a little bit - it would be nice to see something in return!

A belated Happy Canada Day to everyone back home - mine was spent rolling around with sweaty, shirtless men -- so it sounds pretty similar to most of yours. Let just hope you all partied enough for me as well. Take care and drop me a line; south east Asia can get a little lonely.