Afternoon all. I thought I’d take the time to check in. I started off my day with a good run and as it’s bank holiday here have spent the best part of the day enjoying the extended weekend. Being honest, that’s why I never took the time to sit down and write yesterday.

Speaking of yesterday and being reflective as I can often be it was good to get some decent training time in. I spent a couple of hours over the park with a pal from Thai boxing just doing some pad work and some basic drills with a little bit of Wing Chun thrown in for good measure. I finished off Sunday with a decent hour working on my hands which finished with some half decent rounds of boxing sparring.

It was a nice to round the week up after my usual Tuesday and Thursday Thai boxing sessions. I’ve started incorporating Friday nights and Sundays to put the hours in that I need to progress and I still enjoy training with people at all different levels and with all kinds of backgrounds in the arts.

When I first started my martial journey, a friend of mine introduced me to some basic self-defense which was a mix of karate and Ju-jitsu pressure point striking. From there, I spent some time training in Ninjitsu for around 6 months which being honest is a pretty well-rounded fighting system that does borrow from other martial arts but at its core is pretty formidable.

My friend left me to my own devices at this point and after I walked into a Thai boxing gym way back in the mists of 2007 I never really looked back. When I first started training I had no interest in fighting. Even sparring seemed like something fighters did. I’d really turned up to learn what I could for self-defense and had an interest in the art anyway.

Eventually, I broke away from the Ninjitsu crowd I trained with and found myself training in Muay Thai not just once or twice a week but three times and then four. I could tell then it wasn’t going to come to easy to me but it was keeping me in good shape and I was getting better at it.

I trained in my home town then in Bournemouth where I ended up dedicating most of my free time to boxing for a good four years.  Two and a half hours a day, 5 days a week. Running every session if I was fighting and usually training with the fighters if I wasn’t. Things were a little different then from now I guess, and I wish my current gym had a few more Thai sessions on in the week but it’s fine because I can compensate. I’ve been training at my current camp for close to four years and I like it here. It’s good to have a home.

I’ve trained with some good people over the years including world champions. I’ve been lucky enough to spend time in their company and have been humbled when they’ve told me that as fighters we are, all the same, it’s just that some of us give a little more. I wonder if I still want it enough to keep fighting and succeed and I think that I do. It’s possible to push yourself and achieve most things when you put your mind, body, and soul into it.

Muay Thai is my foundation but I have a love for martial arts as a whole. I remember the Seni expos I used to get myself to at the London Excel and can remember being wowed watching the Wing Chun opens with Alan Or and the Eskrima stick fighting competitions, and ok Grand Master Sken’s MSA show was pretty awesome too.

As martial artists, we often share and exchange techniques and knowledge and I am still a firm believer that its important to think outside the box, or in my case outside the ring. Competing teaches you a lot about yourself and it makes you tougher inside. I’m sure I can win a few more fights before I decide to train for training’s sake but I know when that happens the journey doesn’t stop. It just continues. There’s a lot of information out there and there’s a lot to be learned from good people I train with week in and week out. It’s down to me to make my journey an investment in myself.