This post is a "how the day was."
Its purpose is: were I you, imaginary reader, and when I say "imaginary reader" I am imagining a a physically active person with no particular interest or exposure to the world of amateur Muay Thai/boxing/&c., I might have some misapprehensions about how the whole things works.
"How the whole thing works" is basically this: friendly bureaucracy, and lines.
Herewith: Fight Day, March 22nd 2014.
Wake up around 930 a.m. I slept in till then deliberately, because Coach said "don't eat anything on fight day" and I knew I'd be hungry. Friday night, I'd had a personal pizza at Evo Kitchen (terrific); I was hoping that'd see me through and that the complex carbs (multigrain crust) would give me some much-needed energy on the day. Everything was feeling gassed out and tired, particularly my quads, which concerned me given that the right leg is kind of important in "kick"boxing.
[long sidenote: my right shin was all f***ed up, anyway; not the shin exactly, but kind of the meat outside the shin, soft-tissue swelling deep in the leg that hummmmed painfully for the first few kicks of the day, and after that when I contacted wrong on a kick, meaning struck too much towards the outside of the leg... which is actually how you contact right on a low kick, which was bad news because low kicks are something I like to do:
Hook
low-kick
hook
low-kick
end long sidenote]
Woke up around 930 a.m. Tussled around, sort of pre-packed. I had a piece of paper with all the things I'd need for fight day written on it:
-- towel
-- cup*
-- $$
-- shingaurds
-- bananas**
-- music, reading, 3DS
-- shorts***
-- shirt
-- change of shirt
-- change of boxers
* athletic cup
** this came to mean "that food bag" that I had in the fridge: bananas and some whey protein for muscle recovery after weigh-in that I wound up needing before weigh-in to make sure I wasn't too under weight
*** traditional Muay Thai shorts, for the fight
I drank 1/3 of a chocolate almond drink thing. Then I went to yoga from 1030-12, which may or may not have been smart.
I did another thing before coming home from yoga. I don't know what it was. I was kind of delirious by this point. I had about 8 fl. oz. of water: all I was going to allow myself to consume before weigh-in because I am a moron who trains for a fight without owning a m*****f***ing scale and didn't really realize I was seven pounds under weight.
2pm: headed out. Plan was to meet Coach and N--- at TBI at 2:30 for Coach to drive us up; weigh-in was scheduled for 3 p.m., long before the scheduled 8 p.m. start, which itself could be long before our fights (we knew there were 11-12 fights on the night, but did not know where we'd be in the lineup).
2:15 p.m.: arrive TBI. N--- arrives around 2:25. Coach is a few minutes after, arriving a little stressed, and something is wrong with his tire so we take my car which means we listen to my "fight" mix which means Coach and N--- get to make oblique and then direct comments about my musical taste throughout the rest of the day.
3:10 p.m.: arrive at the venue. Ostensibly 10 minutes late, but earlier than most, clearly.
Now: lines.
So, here's a thing you may not know. The difference between a "smoker" and a "fight" is this: a "smoker" is an informal event, a back-alley brawl, an arrangement between two gyms run under whatever rules they like. I don't know that it's illegal -- you're allowed to spar at a gym, of course, so why not fight with another gym? -- but it's definitely not a licensed event. There's no regulation, no state officials, and it doesn't go on anyone's "sanctioned" record, though people do record their wins and losses.
A "fight," on the other hand, goes on your sanctioned record (0-1 0-1 0-1), because it is -- wait for it -- sanctioned by the state of California. And what that means is that people from the California State Athletic Commission are running the show.
So, you get to the gym in Van Nuys. It's nice: an elevated ring in the center of a large warehouse space, folding chairs set up around it maybe 150 or so, bags around the side all marked with tape "OUT OF ORDER" "DO NOT HIT", I assume especially for the event or else this is a pretty bad gym.
They mark your hand up at the door when you register; I think the "K" is for people who are participants (fighters and coaches).
In the gym, you're guided to a small waiting room off to the side where officious but friendly people from the Commission sit behind a fold-out table. There's an avuncular middle-aged-old guy whom everyone knows, wearing a polo shirt with the Commission's logo. You get some forms. You fill them out. By this point more fighters are arriving; lean guys in hoodies with sharp eyes, everyone talking to their own people, a lot of nervous energy.
Gradually the mood thaws, because waiting on lots of lines together does that to people.
You fill out the forms and wait on line to show them to the Commission people. Then you get on line to get the required physical from a doctor. Here's where everyone begins to thaw; it's going to be a long wait. You meet some other competitors. At one point, one of the Commission people -- a small young-faced guy who will be the announcer on the night, driving everyone a little crazy with the length of his pauses before announcing the judges' decisions (every fight but the first is decided on decision) -- checks you in again, and he has a sheet with all the fights in order on it. You ask your order: 6th, out of 11 fights (there are always cancellations). You take a peek at his sheet and find your opponents' name; you've heard some talk behind you and are pretty sure that he's three behind you in the line to see the doctor: blue hoodie, kind face. You've got half-an-inch on him, and he really does have a kind face. You feel good about your chances.
You get your physical. It's quick; the doctor is friendly and efficient. You're nervous and concerned that your heart rate -- a self-accelerating problem -- is going to make him think you can't fight. Turns out a blister on 2nd right knuckle from bag work is a bigger problem; you have to answer several questions about it, as well as about your lymph nodes, which seem inflamed because they have always seemed inflamed your whole entire life since you were a little kid, which is exactly what you tell the doctor.
You get a clean bill of health. You head back out to the gym. On the way, you introduce yourself to your guy: "L---? Hi, I'm James. I think we're fighting." You shake hands and he wishes you luck, which strikes you as classy.
45 minutes pass, sitting in folding chairs with Coach and an old friend of his who knows a lot about luxury watches. The fighters have mostly arrived and there's now a scraggly long line to see the doctor. You start calculating how long the line will take, because you are hungry as hell and want time to eat and then eat and digest after weigh-in. At 5 minutes/person, because apparently they aren't going to do weigh in until everyone's had a physical, it's going to take a long time. You start to get irritated and concerned about eating and food.
L--- and his coach come and sit with you guys at some point; the coaches know each other, and it's a sort of collegial atmosphere. L--- is friendly and easy and you feel friendly and easy with him. You're both honest about how long you've been training, about being "old guys" in this game. It's relaxed.
Around 5 p.m., the folks from the Commission -- the avuncular older guy in the Polo leading -- actually do smartly start weigh-in before everyone's had their physical. At this point you've switched tactics after L--- weighed himself and was much heavier than you; you've snarfled some food in order not to be too much under weight. You go up for weigh in together, whipping off your warm-up gear to get down to boxers. L--- @ 164.x lbs. You @ 161.4 lbs. You're among the first to get weigh-in over with, and afterwards the coaches take a couple pictures of you together. L--- continues to be conspicuously classy, wishing you "good luck, brother" as you part.
N--- weighs in, and then you, he and Coach go get thai food at a delicious place nearby. Coach hassles you about ordering spicy catfish, because he's over and over said nothing spicy about this carb-loading pre-fight meal, so you ask them to make it mild, and you save half of it and half of your Pad Thai. In about 4.5 hours, after your fight and feeling sad about 0-1, you will nonetheless voraciously inhale these leftovers in the parking lot outside the gym with a need that surprises you. Coach gets a Beef Fried Rice and takes it to go. The future fate of his leftovers is this: he will forget them in your car, and the following evening, while writing this blog post, you will pick the beef out and feed it to your cats while eating the greasy rice yourself.
During dinner, Coach and N---'s opinion of your music is piquantly expressed. You call Coach a "curmudgeon," get flack for using the word (later: "what'd you call me? a 'turducken'?"), then flack for remarking that it isn't that unusual a word. Apparently, something about it sticks in Coach's impressions of the day.
You're feeling good about your fight.
Everyone is supposed to be there by 630 p.m. for check-in no exceptions or we cut your fight. You get back well before then and relax at the back of the gym until 645 or so, when the Commission folks (Polo daddy, once again) come out and give a pretty expected rules talk: do what they say, fight fair, don't be a jerk and jump around if you win, safety safety safety safety safety. Then D, a trainer who's important in the Muay Thai community, talks about the rules in a more technical detail: elbows [not unless agreed on], when can you knee someone in the head [only if they duck out of the clinch], etc.
You're confident.
After a little more shilly-shally and waiting around, the corners separate to prep: you are "red corner", which means you go to the rooms where the Commissioner were set up; "blue corner" preps at the back of the gym where all these rules meetings have been taking place.
More waiting. Waiting waiting waiting. Then hand-wrapping begins. This is it's own thing. Here is how hand-wrapping usually works: time to train a little late okay four minutes here we go whap-whap-whapwhapwhap hands are wrapped cool good to go. Here is how hand-wrapping works under the care of the Commission, the Commission's dual intentions being (insofar as I could tell) to assure the safety of both fighters with wraps that are stable (wrists, knuckles of the person hitting) and not packed/edged/hard (bad for the person getting hit): Coach has gauze and gauze and medical tape and scissors like a freaking paramedic. There is an ongoing rigmarole regarding whether he has the right kind of gauze (he does not, apparently, but it's "okay this time"), how tightly he should be wrapping, how these odd little tape lines that he puts between the fingers to stabilize the knuckles should be, etc. etc. etc. A woman from the Commission, jocular but particular, oversees all of it, and makes Coach repeat things several times as he wraps up N---. This irritates Coach.
Once the wraps are done to the Commission's satisfaction, the woman takes a marker and makes a remarkably complicated sigil over them, validating her approval in what I suppose is a hard to reproduce fashion.
You get your wraps done after N----'s.
The fights start, not too late: by 8:15 or so. You are still fight six, so you kind of loosen and warm and half-watch the first 2 or 3, then begin more actively stretching. By fights four and five you are gearing up. The woman from the Commission checks: cup [you tap it twice knock knock], mouthpiece [you have to put it in, show that it fits], shin guards [not broken -- you can tape the top but not the bottom], and toenails [Commission lady: "I've seen things: cuts, cut eyes."]. Then a man from the Commission does your gloves. It's all standard issue, you don't bring your own: regulation red Everlast Pro-Fight gloves, smaller than you're used but fine. The Commissioner tapes you in, checking that it's tight-enough-not-too-tight, adjusting to your requests, checking in again that it's good. Then more bizarre marker glyphs on the tape he's just used to wrap you into your gloves, verifying that you are safe and that, presumably, he has overseen these gloves and there's nothing shady going on.
Then you warm up: pads pads pads, stick and move, light to get the blood flowing with some hard hits to get it rolling.
And that's about it. It's 9:25pm or so. Time to fight.
Its purpose is: were I you, imaginary reader, and when I say "imaginary reader" I am imagining a a physically active person with no particular interest or exposure to the world of amateur Muay Thai/boxing/&c., I might have some misapprehensions about how the whole things works.
"How the whole thing works" is basically this: friendly bureaucracy, and lines.
Herewith: Fight Day, March 22nd 2014.
Wake up around 930 a.m. I slept in till then deliberately, because Coach said "don't eat anything on fight day" and I knew I'd be hungry. Friday night, I'd had a personal pizza at Evo Kitchen (terrific); I was hoping that'd see me through and that the complex carbs (multigrain crust) would give me some much-needed energy on the day. Everything was feeling gassed out and tired, particularly my quads, which concerned me given that the right leg is kind of important in "kick"boxing.
[long sidenote: my right shin was all f***ed up, anyway; not the shin exactly, but kind of the meat outside the shin, soft-tissue swelling deep in the leg that hummmmed painfully for the first few kicks of the day, and after that when I contacted wrong on a kick, meaning struck too much towards the outside of the leg... which is actually how you contact right on a low kick, which was bad news because low kicks are something I like to do:
Hook
low-kick
hook
low-kick
end long sidenote]
Woke up around 930 a.m. Tussled around, sort of pre-packed. I had a piece of paper with all the things I'd need for fight day written on it:
-- towel
-- cup*
-- $$
-- shingaurds
-- bananas**
-- music, reading, 3DS
-- shorts***
-- shirt
-- change of shirt
-- change of boxers
* athletic cup
** this came to mean "that food bag" that I had in the fridge: bananas and some whey protein for muscle recovery after weigh-in that I wound up needing before weigh-in to make sure I wasn't too under weight
*** traditional Muay Thai shorts, for the fight
I drank 1/3 of a chocolate almond drink thing. Then I went to yoga from 1030-12, which may or may not have been smart.
I did another thing before coming home from yoga. I don't know what it was. I was kind of delirious by this point. I had about 8 fl. oz. of water: all I was going to allow myself to consume before weigh-in because I am a moron who trains for a fight without owning a m*****f***ing scale and didn't really realize I was seven pounds under weight.
2pm: headed out. Plan was to meet Coach and N--- at TBI at 2:30 for Coach to drive us up; weigh-in was scheduled for 3 p.m., long before the scheduled 8 p.m. start, which itself could be long before our fights (we knew there were 11-12 fights on the night, but did not know where we'd be in the lineup).
2:15 p.m.: arrive TBI. N--- arrives around 2:25. Coach is a few minutes after, arriving a little stressed, and something is wrong with his tire so we take my car which means we listen to my "fight" mix which means Coach and N--- get to make oblique and then direct comments about my musical taste throughout the rest of the day.
3:10 p.m.: arrive at the venue. Ostensibly 10 minutes late, but earlier than most, clearly.
Now: lines.
So, here's a thing you may not know. The difference between a "smoker" and a "fight" is this: a "smoker" is an informal event, a back-alley brawl, an arrangement between two gyms run under whatever rules they like. I don't know that it's illegal -- you're allowed to spar at a gym, of course, so why not fight with another gym? -- but it's definitely not a licensed event. There's no regulation, no state officials, and it doesn't go on anyone's "sanctioned" record, though people do record their wins and losses.
A "fight," on the other hand, goes on your sanctioned record (0-1 0-1 0-1), because it is -- wait for it -- sanctioned by the state of California. And what that means is that people from the California State Athletic Commission are running the show.
So, you get to the gym in Van Nuys. It's nice: an elevated ring in the center of a large warehouse space, folding chairs set up around it maybe 150 or so, bags around the side all marked with tape "OUT OF ORDER" "DO NOT HIT", I assume especially for the event or else this is a pretty bad gym.
They mark your hand up at the door when you register; I think the "K" is for people who are participants (fighters and coaches).
In the gym, you're guided to a small waiting room off to the side where officious but friendly people from the Commission sit behind a fold-out table. There's an avuncular middle-aged-old guy whom everyone knows, wearing a polo shirt with the Commission's logo. You get some forms. You fill them out. By this point more fighters are arriving; lean guys in hoodies with sharp eyes, everyone talking to their own people, a lot of nervous energy.
Gradually the mood thaws, because waiting on lots of lines together does that to people.
You fill out the forms and wait on line to show them to the Commission people. Then you get on line to get the required physical from a doctor. Here's where everyone begins to thaw; it's going to be a long wait. You meet some other competitors. At one point, one of the Commission people -- a small young-faced guy who will be the announcer on the night, driving everyone a little crazy with the length of his pauses before announcing the judges' decisions (every fight but the first is decided on decision) -- checks you in again, and he has a sheet with all the fights in order on it. You ask your order: 6th, out of 11 fights (there are always cancellations). You take a peek at his sheet and find your opponents' name; you've heard some talk behind you and are pretty sure that he's three behind you in the line to see the doctor: blue hoodie, kind face. You've got half-an-inch on him, and he really does have a kind face. You feel good about your chances.
You get your physical. It's quick; the doctor is friendly and efficient. You're nervous and concerned that your heart rate -- a self-accelerating problem -- is going to make him think you can't fight. Turns out a blister on 2nd right knuckle from bag work is a bigger problem; you have to answer several questions about it, as well as about your lymph nodes, which seem inflamed because they have always seemed inflamed your whole entire life since you were a little kid, which is exactly what you tell the doctor.
You get a clean bill of health. You head back out to the gym. On the way, you introduce yourself to your guy: "L---? Hi, I'm James. I think we're fighting." You shake hands and he wishes you luck, which strikes you as classy.
45 minutes pass, sitting in folding chairs with Coach and an old friend of his who knows a lot about luxury watches. The fighters have mostly arrived and there's now a scraggly long line to see the doctor. You start calculating how long the line will take, because you are hungry as hell and want time to eat and then eat and digest after weigh-in. At 5 minutes/person, because apparently they aren't going to do weigh in until everyone's had a physical, it's going to take a long time. You start to get irritated and concerned about eating and food.
L--- and his coach come and sit with you guys at some point; the coaches know each other, and it's a sort of collegial atmosphere. L--- is friendly and easy and you feel friendly and easy with him. You're both honest about how long you've been training, about being "old guys" in this game. It's relaxed.
Around 5 p.m., the folks from the Commission -- the avuncular older guy in the Polo leading -- actually do smartly start weigh-in before everyone's had their physical. At this point you've switched tactics after L--- weighed himself and was much heavier than you; you've snarfled some food in order not to be too much under weight. You go up for weigh in together, whipping off your warm-up gear to get down to boxers. L--- @ 164.x lbs. You @ 161.4 lbs. You're among the first to get weigh-in over with, and afterwards the coaches take a couple pictures of you together. L--- continues to be conspicuously classy, wishing you "good luck, brother" as you part.
N--- weighs in, and then you, he and Coach go get thai food at a delicious place nearby. Coach hassles you about ordering spicy catfish, because he's over and over said nothing spicy about this carb-loading pre-fight meal, so you ask them to make it mild, and you save half of it and half of your Pad Thai. In about 4.5 hours, after your fight and feeling sad about 0-1, you will nonetheless voraciously inhale these leftovers in the parking lot outside the gym with a need that surprises you. Coach gets a Beef Fried Rice and takes it to go. The future fate of his leftovers is this: he will forget them in your car, and the following evening, while writing this blog post, you will pick the beef out and feed it to your cats while eating the greasy rice yourself.
During dinner, Coach and N---'s opinion of your music is piquantly expressed. You call Coach a "curmudgeon," get flack for using the word (later: "what'd you call me? a 'turducken'?"), then flack for remarking that it isn't that unusual a word. Apparently, something about it sticks in Coach's impressions of the day.
You're feeling good about your fight.
Everyone is supposed to be there by 630 p.m. for check-in no exceptions or we cut your fight. You get back well before then and relax at the back of the gym until 645 or so, when the Commission folks (Polo daddy, once again) come out and give a pretty expected rules talk: do what they say, fight fair, don't be a jerk and jump around if you win, safety safety safety safety safety. Then D, a trainer who's important in the Muay Thai community, talks about the rules in a more technical detail: elbows [not unless agreed on], when can you knee someone in the head [only if they duck out of the clinch], etc.
You're confident.
After a little more shilly-shally and waiting around, the corners separate to prep: you are "red corner", which means you go to the rooms where the Commissioner were set up; "blue corner" preps at the back of the gym where all these rules meetings have been taking place.
More waiting. Waiting waiting waiting. Then hand-wrapping begins. This is it's own thing. Here is how hand-wrapping usually works: time to train a little late okay four minutes here we go whap-whap-whapwhapwhap hands are wrapped cool good to go. Here is how hand-wrapping works under the care of the Commission, the Commission's dual intentions being (insofar as I could tell) to assure the safety of both fighters with wraps that are stable (wrists, knuckles of the person hitting) and not packed/edged/hard (bad for the person getting hit): Coach has gauze and gauze and medical tape and scissors like a freaking paramedic. There is an ongoing rigmarole regarding whether he has the right kind of gauze (he does not, apparently, but it's "okay this time"), how tightly he should be wrapping, how these odd little tape lines that he puts between the fingers to stabilize the knuckles should be, etc. etc. etc. A woman from the Commission, jocular but particular, oversees all of it, and makes Coach repeat things several times as he wraps up N---. This irritates Coach.
Once the wraps are done to the Commission's satisfaction, the woman takes a marker and makes a remarkably complicated sigil over them, validating her approval in what I suppose is a hard to reproduce fashion.
You get your wraps done after N----'s.
Then you warm up: pads pads pads, stick and move, light to get the blood flowing with some hard hits to get it rolling.
And that's about it. It's 9:25pm or so. Time to fight.
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