You stop, you die!

As our main Bjj instructor says in training, YOU STOP, YOU DIE!

I have had the privilege of having Fernando Maccachero as my instructor in Brazilian jiu jitsu here in Tiger Muay thai. The guy is like a huge bank of Bjj information. He knows literally thousands of different technics from different positions. When he talks, people listen. Sometimes he might start talking from a small point and goes to talk about it for 30minutes. He's very humble, calm and loves to teach. Still he's training can be really though mentally and physically as well. Fernando usually runs the morning class. 

( I am the 3rd from the right, with the white rashguard)

   Evening Bjj class is being run by Wiktor Svensson, professional MMA fighter from Sweden. For th first month I did a lot of Wiktors night classes and do them still. Wiktor is a fun guy to talk to and good teacher as well. Wiktor doesnt talk too much in classes, so it's all business in night sessions! Lots of free rolling and sparring in the end. 

  For the past week Brian Ebersole has taken over the morning classes, because Fernando has been away. Ebersole is the main instructor for MMA here in TMT and currently fights at UFC. Ebersole is famous for his cartwheel kicks and sick guillotine choke defence! Actually I just came from the morning bjj session run by Ebersole. He likes to mix a lot of wrestling in the bjj, which makes the sessions totally different from Fernandos and Wiktors. Wrestling is a lot more explosive than bjj and the training is really though but I like it, since I dont have that much experience in wrestling.

Last saturday we had the monthly TMT bbq beatdown party. There was lots of Muay Thai fights, boxing fights and one mma fight as well. Free beer, food, good company and fights! What more can you ask for? Swedish dude Jens had a fight versus Alex in mma. The swede went in to the match as a huge underdog but managed to take the win in 2nd round by nice ground and pound. 

I have only two weeks left! Damn time goes fast. Have to get some sun and work on my tan for the last weeks! The thing is though, that when you train hard, lying in the hot sun doesnt feel too tempting afterwards. Much more tempting is to go to your room, switch the air conditioning on and fall to the bed! I am doing that now! Bah after writing this I am heading to the pool and try to work on that tan! 

Thanks for reading, see you soon Finland!

17.10.2012

Hello!

It's wednesday night as I am writing this, so far the week has been great. I have been tired like always, because of the crazy amount of training. So far no major pains or things to complain about my body for this week, which is rare!
   Some asked about my training schedule, so here is what I have been doing the past week and a half!

Monday       Bjj no gi night class 1.5h
Tuesday       Bjj no gi night class 1.5h
Wednesday  Bjj no gi morning class 2h & night class 1.5h
Thursday      Bjj no gi night class 1.5h
Friday           Bjj no gi morning class 2h & night class 1.5h
Saturday       Strenght training 1h
Sunday         Rest
Monday        Strenght training & Bjj no gi evening class 1.5h
Tuesday        Bjj no gi morning class 2h & Bjj no gi evening class 1.5h
Wednesday   Strenght training 1h & Bjj no gi evening class

Last weekend we went to the huge shopping centre in Phuket, called Central festival. Our plan was to see the movie Looper in the cinema at Central festival. There we found out, that the movie was dubbed in thai and original movie spoken with english only  aired the next day. We decided to skip it and just check out the huge shopping centre. Compared to shopping centres in Finland, there were so many restaurants around! So many different types of restaurants and all looked really good.. So where we decided to go? We went to this awesome icecream place! Portions were cheap and good. As a dessert, haha we went to KFC! Some chicken and then we were off to training again.

On the way back, we saw a motorcycle crushed by a truck, all messed up on the road. I have seen that many times on the Phuket news on the tv. They dont do much tv sensure in here, so the video on the
scene of the accidents looks brutal. 
So going to keep up with the training and try not to get killed! I need to get some more time on my visa at the thai immigration office in Phuket and buy return flight from Phuket to Bangkok.  Month remaining on my training before I head back to Finland! Time goes fast when you are getting your ass kicked! Hah

10.10.2012

Hello!

After a week not doing any bjj or gym sessions, I have hit the bjj sessions hard on this week. Most of the last week, I spent healing my elbows and only did some running and stretching. This week I am doing 1.5-3.5h bjj a day. That includes the 2hour morning session and the night session which lasts for 1.5h. In the middle of our night session today (wednesday), my left elbow started to hurt again, it was shaking and I had to put some Tiger Balm on it. I still did the sparring, which wasnt that smart, because it started to hurt even more. After the session, I went to buy some painkillers from a pharmacy. When at my villa, I put some ice on my elbow and took a painkiller. After a while it started to feel fine. We went to eat a pizza with friends and I am writing this now with a full stomach.

I am just going to learn and deal with the pain on my elbows for now. Already had a week off and it seems, that didnt help very much.. Going to continue doing lots of stretching, avoiding pull ups and stuff that hurt. My goal for this week is to do 12-15h of bjj in six days. That is a looot of bjj but I am loving it. Feeling really tired between sessions and after I get to my place from the evening class. No need to do running since cardio is really put in to test at every session thanks to sparring. My body is covered in little and big bruises pretty much all the time, my feet and toes specially are pretty busted up. You get used to it pretty fast, scratches and bruises heal fast, too bad my elbows dont! Oh by the way, I shaved my head today also. My hair started to look pretty long and random looking. People telling shaved head fits me. Dont know about that though..

Thanks for reading I am going to pass out now probably, got 8 hours to sleep and then, bjj again!

                                          Haaaambuuurgeeeer!

5.10.2012

    Hello!

I have been staying in Floraville for the past week now.  I really like the place, its clean, close to tiger, has a decent restaurant and its quite well priced. They even change sheets, towls and clean your villa EVERY day. At Cocoville its happened once a week. I have used the restaurant at Floraville quite a lot. I eat porridge with honey and banana, fruit salad and tea/coffee every morning here. Its called Healthy breakfast and it costs 100bht = 2.5e.

Last week I did a lot of jujitsu and felt really progressin skillwise. This monday there were many new people in the bjj session. First time I get to try my skills on people with no bjj experience. One dude from Sidney (some of my friends said, that he looks like Thor from the movie and he weight like 90- 100kg) had no experience and I got to roll with him. Even though he had like 20kg+ on me, I 
managed to completely dominate him. I had him in probably 5 different submissions before our 
sparring round ended. Did well against everyother opponent I roll with also. Even the warm up clinch work, in which I have been struggling, I did really well this time. 

So as I felt really good in jujitsu at the gym it was a whole another story... My elbows and triceps have been hurting for many weeks. It doesnt normally hurt when doing bjj but tuesday morning at the gym, again it hurt like hell after I did pullups. After using google and asking friends for advice, I
came to an conclusion that, I might have the so called Tennis elbow. It hasnt healed and could really 
turn nasty if I just ignore it. So after Tuesday gym, I have been resting my arms, using icepacks and doing spesific stretches that, might help them to heal. So 6days of rest for my arms. Next week's 
monday doing jujitsu again and going to start slowly on the pullups, push ups and stuff. Going to do a lot of running meanwhile, abs and some lower back moves. It sucks so bad, when you make so much progression here and you have to rest. This is one of those places where it is really benefical to have 
routines.

Saturday we went to the beach with some friends from the tiger. There were 4 of us and we had 2 scooters. I managed to stay on back of the scooter for the trip, that went over mountains and some reaaally steep hills. The views were amazing, breathtaking and straight from a postcard or something. Traffic was what I expected, really scary. It takes a while to get used to it. On the first steep hills, I basically held on for all of my strenght and just kept thinking about my girlfriend back home. On those hills maany people have died and still do. At the beach it was sunny and the waves were huge. Felt great to go against the big waves and just flout around. Water was also really warm. Two of the four of us, had their first mma matches later on the same evening, so we were a bit exited about that.

Later at the same evening Tiger Muay Thai hosted monthly BBQ beatdown party, with many Muay Thai matches and 2 MMA matches. My friends from England and Iceland had fights. Also included on the bbq entrance fee, was all you can eat buffet and free beer. Matches were amazing! Night started with Muay Thai matches and ended with my friends matches. The feeling when your friend, whom with you hang out and train is fighting was crazy. We screamed from the audience for our friends and I filmed the other guys match for him, with his videocamera. Semi from Iceland won his match but Zach from England lost his really close and though match.
 After the matches our posse which consisted of 9 guys went to a bar and later in the evening to a nightclub. Me and Kyle from Canada ended up walking from the nightclub, because we wanted to save on the tax fee and get a cheaper tax further away... We walked probably like an hour, no taxis in sight. We asked from 3 7/11 shops do they know taxi number or can they call one for us. But no.. Finally some random British expat drove next to us, as we were walking on the side of the road. He had a old scooter and a sidewagon made out of wood.. So we hopped on the sidewagon. He gave us a ride to Kyles place, where I ended up sleeping the night. In the morning I took a taxiscooter to
Floraville. Heh quite a night... 

So that was my week... Now going to rest for the weekend and hopefully can continue bjj in monday.

4 weeks in Phuket!

Hello! So I have been 4 weeks in Phuket so far. Switching accomendations in friday. Going to stay in Floraville for the rest of the trip. The place is about 100m from Cocoville and like 150m from Tiger. So really close to the place I am training at. The place looks almost the same as Cocoville, since it is also build on top of huge garden. Lots of green stuff all over the place :D It also has a nice pool and wifi. The room is probably half the size of where I am staying at, which is good since I dont need the space. The big deal is that Floraville small room only costs 10k atm, compared to 18 in Cocoville atm, so huge save there. I was lucky there was one room left.

When Im not doing training or eating outside, I mostly watch tv, read books or do stuff on my Ipad and I do it on my bed so no need for desk or sofa. It has been raining a lot for the past couple of weeks. Some sun almost everyday but it normally doesnt last long. So much time is spent inside.

After fridays bjj session I did some resting and recovery. Saturday, sunday and not until monday late evening I did nothing physical, except some abs. Monday night did bjj and today also, tuesday. Been making already huge progress in bjj. Lots of guys with so much more experience tell, that I learn really fast. Monday training was great, first session in a while, when none of my muscles hurt! In sparring I do better all the time. I have managed to do kimuras, armbars, armtriangle chokes, rear naked chokes, guillotine chokes and many more during sparring. I was mentally prepared to get owned atleast for month, before I manage to submit anyone... Of course I lose to most guys hands down but the time I can survive, without getting submitted gets longer as I learn more. Today in training my arms started to hurt again like crazy. I put some Tiger Balm on them and fought trough the pain. Wanted to do the sparring even it hurt. Tomorrow morning going to take a massage, its going to hurt I am sure of it but it should help with the recovery.

For now, I plan to do bjj everyday but not saturday or sunday. With couple of gym sessions, swimming and a Muay Thai session every week my training schedule is staring to form up. The sparring is kicking my cardio up pretty quickly, so no need to run every day. About 7 weeks training left. I am going to work really hard, so when I get back to Finland, my cardio, fitness, muay thai and specially bjj are going to be sick, compared to what they were before. Also I dumbed using sugar.. So no more coke,  pepsi max, chocolate, ice cream or anything with added sugar. Only lots of sweet and awesome fruits and proper food!

Thanks for reading! Keep it up! Some blurry images follows.

Argh!

So in my last post I told about pain in my triceps. I took a day off and did jujitsu again in friday night. After the warm up, doing technique and my arms start to hurt like crazy. I take a couple a painkillers. Still before we start rolling and doing sparring it hurts really bad. So I decide no way im rolling with this much pain, even if it is annoying to do warm up and technique but skip the most important part, that is sparring. I talk with the instructor, he says I should take 3 days off and use lots of ice. So I figure my arms havent been getting enough time to rest a.k.a I have been over training them.

So I am going to take it easy until monday night, the next bjj session. This week we did a lot of armbars and how to escape from them. We also did transitions to guillotine choke from armbars and omoplatas. Raining again as I write this, drinking coffee in Cocoville lobby. So I figure, I will be reading and watching movies for the next couple of days.

Met a couple of guys from Sweden last night in bjj. They arrived just before the session and were doing the session in jetlag. Haha looked pretty tired in warm up.. Nice dudes, they are staying at 2 home bungalows. I am going to probably check it out, since it costs 12-14k a month, compared the 18k in Cocoville. 5days left in Cocoville, I recommend the place for everybody. Next time when I come here, I am going to stay for month and in Cocoville. 3months is just too long in a high quality place like this. Prices range from 4000-20000bht a month on averag near the Tiger. Of course the island is full of real hotels, which cost a lot more. But in general, 10-20k bht = 250-500e a month you will find a great villa/bungalow with pool, tv,  ac, wifi, huge bed  and stuff. If you are travelling with friend or girlfriend you can save HALF. There is easily room for two in every accomendations and they wont charge extra for it like on Finland..
Hope you enjoyed my wall of text! Gl hf!

Photos!

So decided to post some pics of TMT. Yesterday was a recovery day, only did some abs in my room. I was pretty tired from last bjj session tuesday night, I also swam 1.5km before it. Today had some what lackluster gym session. My triceps where hurting like crazy, when doing pull ups. Managed to  do almost all back excercises of the day. I took these pics after that painful gym session.

Oh by the way, not sure if my nose is broken. Its been bruised and black for 2days, hurts when I touch it. It doesnt bleed and it should be pointing in the right direction, so I guess im fine. I still have a week remaining in Cocoville, its really great but I am going to start looking a bit cheaper option soon.

Another week begins!

So its monday and a whole new week! Last week, friday was my rest day. Week consisted of 6gym sessions, did two running sets, 2 times swimming and two muay thai sessions. My legs were destroyed for the most part of the week, so couldnt do much muay thai. Not going to do squats anymore :D Atleast not with much weight.

Im so impressed how much my swimming has progressed in a couple of weeks. Swam 1200m yesterday, before this trip 200m and I was dead.. Next week going to do 2km. The weather has been very cloudy and lots of rain for the last week. Yesterday, I think was the only day, when you could see the sun. Still in less than an hour of swimming, I managed to burn my back.. Again!! Also started running. First times I ran the street towards Chalong pier and back, lots of ups and downs. Now decided, that its better ( safer ) to run around TMT, than on the public street. If you run on the street (no such thing as sidewalks) you have to be alert, so that you dont get hit by a bus, scooter or a streetkitchen going 60km/h.. Much of the ppl running here, run the TMT lap, which is about 200m. So if you run it 10-20times, you get a good warm up.

Talking about street safety, talked to a nice dude from Egypt. He arrived 2 weeks ago but started training yesterday. Why? He showed his arm, which looked still pretty nasty. Phuket street tattoo.. He had an accident with his newly rented scooter.. So he hasnt been training for two weeks.. Sucks if
your trip lasts for month. He said that in Egypt, they drive on the right side, like in Finland. So it is very confusing at the start and the traffic rules? What rules, hah. Read an article before coming here, that in Phuket, on average one turist dies on every other day from traffic collisions.. Pretty damn scary sounding statistic. So decided, that im going to keep my own ass safe! What also suprises me, is that pretty much nobody wears helmet when driving. It is recommended and looking at the facts, I think stupid if you dont wear any. 
Just came back from training, had a nice fish filet and now going to take a nap. Going to no gi bjj 
later tonight. Stay tuned! When the weather gets better, Im going to take more pictures ans post them here!

Im baaack!

Been training hard for the past week and a half. Only saturday has been a total rest day so far. Everyday I have been swimming, running, doing muay thai, gym or the combination of two of them. My legs were feeling like they were destroyed for like 4days after doing squats with weights. Not a good idea when you are running, doing muay thai everyday. Barely could walk for the next 3days. So only been doing gym and swimming most of this week. Swimming is great, even though my body was destroyed, its still easy enough for your body. Been doing looots of pull ups. Want to be able to do 30 in a row, before end of this trip. Like a month ago, I think my weight was around 74kg, now foe the past days it has been 70.4kg. Been losing fat around my waist atleast, even though I didnt come here to lose weight.

Some videos I took. I dont speak english in them though. In the first one my plan today was, that I go
 swimming 1.2km and take some sun. Weather was great. So I pack my things and step outside... Sky breaks and huuge rain starts pooring in... So I decided to go and do pull up excercises at the TMT gym and stretch my body properly. 2nd video I took in the MMA area, when doing stretching.

,

Okey, so some problems with video not showing. In the meantime pics!

Training!

So I decided to post how my first week of training has gone. One goal for this trip was also to swim a lot, because I have always sucked at swimming. Before this trip I managed to swim 200m, never probably even tried to swim longer. When arriving here I started by swimming 5x30m (the pool is 15m)= 150m. Now after a week I just swam 750m in 30 minutes and did it easy!

First week of training ( started swimming before though)

Monday         Muay Thai 2.5h

Tuesday         Swimming 600m 20x30m

Wednesday   Muay Thai 2.5h & Thai massage 60min

Thursday      Swimming 750m 25x30m &  gym session 60min

Friday           Muay Thai 2.5h

Saturday        Rest

Sunday          Swimming 1050m 35x30m

My body has already started to recover in really small time. I think the swimming, stretching, massage and lots of sleep make it possible. Back home this would be very hard to pull off. Muay thai second training session went better than the first. It was raining really hard, so there were only 10-15 of us training. Also the owner of Cocoville showed me a bookstore, that sold used books. Bought a couple. Also tried Pizza here, with Coke it was great change to thai food. Thai massage was also great, altough I almost screamed when she massaged my triceps and feet, as those were pretty bruised.

The day after

Hi again!

I had my first Muay Thai training session yesterday. It lasted about 2 hours and 45 minutes. It consisted of warmup, stretching, then following technique, sparring, pad work and fitness excercises. The session was brutal to say at least. I probably lost like 1000-2000kalories and couple of kilos in that. 

   The warm up was hard but mainly because it wast my first session in this weather, temperature was like +30 celcius, eventhough it was morning. Some people were throwing up middle of training and some had to keep pauses a lot, some were only doing part of the training, like technique. There were about 25 students and 5-7 teachers. Students were from 20 different countries, talk about meeting different cultures. 

    We did a lot of push ups through the training, which I liked, one thing I managed to do quite easy. Pad work with the coach was best part of the training. He gave good instructions and they were supportive. Sparring sucked, though. It was my first time doing Muay Thai in a long time, so wasnt feeling too confident. I did good against two dudes but the last one from Australia, did take it a bit too hard on me. Couple of good shots to my stomach and I gasped for air. I told him to take ot easy but I quess he didnt know the meaning. 

   We also did a lot of bag work and shadow boxing. In the end, when everybody was exausted, head coach ordered us to do 300 sit ups.. When doing them, coaches hit our abs, which was bruutal but I still liked it. One dude from Florida was ordered to come in front of everybody. Headcoach then told us, that he was slacking and needed to be punished. One hard hit with a bambustick to the lowerback later, everybody suddenly got more energy to do knee strikes to the bags. One Spanish dude also got 
some "special" attention, because he didint speak or understand good enough english from the headcoach...

Morning after, when I woke up, my back was suprisingly the only place which was hurting. After I 
did my first Muay Thai training session in Finland 5 years ago, every muscle in my body was screaming for a week. Thank god, I came in at decent shape at least. Today I swam 600m at the pool 
and did a lot of stretching. Tomorrow again Muay Thai! I also bought new Top King 16oz gloves, which cost half the amount compared to Finland. Also bought sweet Hayabusa rashguard for no gi bjj. Some pics of great and cheap food at the end!

Rough start?

Starting to adapt to the weather and my surroundings. I have been a bit ill for the last couple of days, seems like the new type of food made my stomach go upside down. After getting rid of it and the jetlag, maybe now I can finally start to plan what to do next. I have been swimming on the pool for laps and tomorrow Im going to run, when I wake up. Feels so much harder than in Finland.

   Weather has been great, no clouds, just a blue sky. Been trying to work on my tan, cant be on the sun too long though, dont want to get burned too bad. Bought some Aloe Vera aftersun lotion, that feels great. Oh, even though most things in Thailand are cheap, sunscreen lotions etc are really expensive compared to food example. Probably around same as in Finland. I dropped some of my clothes to be washed at the reception, got them back the next day. Cost was 40bht. Not much.

   The food though is really cheap, especially if you eat Thai food and not western dishes. Most meals cost around 60bht=1.2e like noodles with chicken, prawn, tofu or beef and rice dishes. I have been eating those for now. If you look at the menus, the more expensive stuff is around 120-220 bht, like pizzas and steaks. Still pretty cheap. Beer is around 30-80bht in restaurants depending on the label, Heineken is 60bht. I have bought only one beer so far, hard to believe is it? The orange and pineapple juices are awesome and the fruits are even better. So much more sweeter, than back home. Also shakes ans protein shakes taste really good and cost only 40-100bht.

Here are some pictures around the place Im staying at.

 

29.8.2012

Breakfast baby!

Its nice and hot weather. Last night I think we had a storm on top of us. Probably normal since its a low season. On my way off to look around, need sun lotion and training gear. The pools looks so good. The Cocoville is basically a huge green piece of wildlife, trees, flowers and tropic plants in which the villas are built-in.

                                          Sea bass with chili

Ok so I found out now, that the newest photos arent showing. Been trying to fix it.
In the meantime I burned my back today, not too bad, since I was sure everything is burned. 30+ sunscreen.

Finally in Phuket!

Hello!

After about 24hrs of travelling, Im finally in my huge bed and I am exhausted.

First I took a bus to Helsinki-Vantaa airport, waited for my flight 3hrs and boarded Finnair, which took me to Bangkok in 10.5 hours. In Bangkok, I waited again 3 hours for my flight to Phuket, at which point the lack of sleep started to kick in. I maybe slept an hour onboard.. But I watched The Hunger games and The Avengers movies onboard Finnair!... Not very clever. 

Helsinki-Vantaa airport.

   At Bangkok Airport I was little lost, even though I have been in Bangkok before, but the airport is huuuge compared to Helsinki-Vantaa. AirAsia was fine and the flight took only 1.5hrs. There should have been a taxi driver with a sign, that has my name on it waiting... After 20min nothing. Loads of taxis and all ofcourse want me to hop in, but not the one Im looking for. Finally I take some random taxi, agree the price and in the end get to Cocoville Phuket. Sounds easy? Well the driver didnt know the place, so he asked advice from another taxi driver and they ended up switching driver... 
Awesome when you are tired like shit. In the end, we somehow mixed the arrival time with Cocoville, they had made a sign for me though but thought I would arrive later.

My own villa is awesome. Huge bed, ac, very clean, bigger fridge than we got back in Helsinki, big tv, satellite channels and the villa is quite big. Last time I was in asia, I stayed in the cheapest possible bungalows but now in here. There was nothing wrong with the cheaper ones, but the main reason is, that I will be training and want good place to recover = air conditioning, good bed and showers etc. 

I already ate at the restaurant in a Cocoville. I was starving and really ate to the breaking point.  
I had a Pad thai with chicken(60bht), freshly squeesed juice, bottle of water and a big chocolate banana protein shake. Cost combined 250bht = 5-6e. Pad thai alone made me full... Welcome to Thailand!

I will be writing most of this with my Ipad, which isnt exactly best suited for it. I will be updating with photos, when I figure out how to do it with this thing... 

Off to bed for like 24 hours...

Welcome to my blog. 4 days to go!

Hello and welcome to my blog!

My name is Jesse and Im a dude from Finland. In this blog I will write about my trip to southeast asia!
My goal for this trip is to chill and enjoy life, as well as train hard and learn martial arts like Muay Thai (Thai boxing), Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and mma. Im kind a workout freak! I will be returning home in 3-6 months.

    What to expect! From my last trip in 2008.

In my blog I will tell you about the beaches, food and overall atmosphere in Thailand. As well as what its like to sweat like a pig, be bloodied and bruised doing Thai boxing. I will talk about prices of living here and the differences between our cultures.

100h!
The clock is 9.18am and the day is 23.8.2012, which leaves about 100 hours left and this dude is off to Helsinki-Vantaa airport!
My flight takes me to Bangkok, Thailand. From Bangkok Im taking AIRASIA flight to Phuket, Thailand. I will be living and training for the first month atleast in Phuket. After probably going to northern thailand, maybe to Chiang Mai. Laos and Vietnam are another possibilities.

My final checklist for things to do before flight date is done. I have taken vaccines, bought Visa for Thailand, which is needed if you are planning on staying for more than 35days. I got travel insurance, which also is very important, since I am sure, that I will get atleast some minor sports injuries while training. I also bought a cool new travelbag. I dont plan on taking too much clothes, since those things are so cheap in Thailand, Im going to buy most from Thailand.

    Border crossing point between Thailand and Myanmar. I visited Myanmar in 2008.

I havent been writing in english that much, so there will be some (a lot) misspelling. I will be updating the interface for my blog, since Im just getting started.

Doing next blogday from the airport! Keep tuned!