My name is Marc Aplin, at the age of 21 I moved to Thailand to train and eventually fight in the countries national sport of 'Muay Thai' or to many westerners 'Thai Boxing'.

Known as one of the most devastating sports in the world and trademarked by its lasting inuries and painful / exhausting training regime, the first question I am often asked is why I would do it. Why would you give up a near perfect life in the UK where I was surrounded by my family, working full time in a very well paid job and my own apartment?

I think it all comes down to 'ambition' and pursuing your dreams and what you love. Far too much in England we push things back "I'll do it one day" or "I couldn't do that, I don't have the time..." and every other excuse we can thing of not to do something. Life is for living and if something is possible, no matter how difficult, we should give it our best shot because we only get one chance...

Anyway, I don't want to go all Bruce Lee style philosophical on you, feel free to click 'read more' for a full story about how I ended up coming to Thailand, as well as my plans and aims whilst over here.

In November 2007 I started getting a bit fed up of the UK, the life there flies by so quickly and you really don't accomplish anything except working 9-5 and paying a shed load of taxes to the government. At the same time I had just arranged to fight a kickboxing fight in February 2008 against a guy who had been training quite a bit longer than me so decided that I would carry on working, but train my ass off for 3-4 months to get ready for this fight.

And so i did... I trained two hours a day, 5 days a week and I loved it!!! Never before had i been so fast, so strong and so fit, it really was a shock to me how much my body changed and my fitness level improved. I had the fight in February and lost it narrowly, to this day i get the odd email from someone who was there saying 'you should have won' or 'I couldn’t decide either way' and even my opponents supporters said 'it could have gone either way', so that was good to hear.

However like any martial artist I began to question myself, why had I lost? Why when I trained this hard did I lose? After thinking about it, it was obvious. I believe I was fitter, stronger and generally more prepared, but there was one difference between myself and my opponent... I had been training contact kickboxing for 6 months and my opponent 2 years. After working this out for some reason my emotions turned to anger, because one thing you cannot do is change the past, I wished I could have started kickboxing earlier, but unfortunately it was done and I couldn't change. When I watched the DVD I could see this was why I lost, I hit him harder, threw more punches, but his skill level meant he was hitting me right and looking good whilst doing it (i.e. why he won by judges decision).

As soon as the DVD finished my first thought was 'How do I make up 18 months?' I though about it logically and then mathematically:
'If the average person trains 5 hours a week, which is 20 hours a month' so I worked this out for myself:
Marc - 6 x 20 = 120
Safa - 24 x 20 = 480
So Safa had about an extra 360 hours of training on top of me in terms of kickboxing... I thought about how many hours a week I would need to train to make this up and without a calculator I worked out it would take an extra hour of training a day for a whole year and found this thought a bit depressing. Obviously I would love to do it... but fitting an extra hour a day of training in on top of work was going to be difficult and obviously I would have to have to do my 5 hours a day training as well so basically I would need to find 2 hours a day to train for the next year to get to Safa's level.

And so I began to do just that... I would do cardio in the morning (45 minutes on an exercise bike) and then an hour and 15 minutes in the evening at 'Combat Gym' in my home town of Weston Super Mare. And I definitely noticed an improvement in this time, but it didn't take long before I started getting tired from working 8 hours and then training 2 hours, which after travelling gave me hardly enough time to eat and sleep. I kept training and training, but in the back of my mind was constantly thinking 'There must be a way I can train without feeling this run down...'

It was about the end of February when my goals changed from wanting to be as good as my last opponent to wanting to be a champion and realising what had to be done...

One of my best friends and training partners at Combat Gym was a guy the same age as me called 'Kadeth Sherlock', when at the gym we'd often do a lot of sparring and then once we'd bashed each other up enough we'd talk Martial Arts and often Philosophy too.

Kadeth and me would have some real good scraps in the ring, although mainly boxing, not kickboxing. I remember once in a boxing class run by an ABA coach he hit me so hard I thought my teeth had fallen out and then just as I was sure they infact were still there he hit me twice more, both times even harder and I would say that was the first time I have felt close to being knocked out to date...

Although me and Kade had good scraps in the ring, it was only because Kade would drop his level to match my level and fight using my style rather than his style. What I mean by that is because I was very aggressive, hit hard and constantly moving around (decent cardio) .Kade would fight me this same way, rather than use his style, which is far more waiting for you to punch and then when you miss hitting you about three/four times and following up with a Kick.

Never more did I learn this than when I was sparring with him about a week before his 'ISKA South-West title' match in early March. Because Kade was training for a fight, he was training and sparring 'his' way, not 'my' way as he would when we were just training in general or for my fights. It was a Friday evening and Kade had just done two rounds, however when I stepped in the ring he was far fresher than me and gave me a real pasting. I threw a few shots at him, but he blocked one, ducked under another, slipped the final one and then hit me with a jab, cross, hook, cross followed a round house kick straight across the bridge of my nose which sent me face first to the canvass. I wasn't knocked out or anything, shocked and in pain, more worried that Kade would hit me again and break my nose further, which I was positive was broken.

Andy who was overseeing the sparring jumped in and checked it, and although it was bleeding slightly it wasn't broken, God only knows how because his shin caught me full force across the nose, but I consider myself lucky! I finished another round and a half with Kade, continually getting hit after missing and generally being made to look an idiot... Kade reminds me a lot of Prince Naseem, he can bob, weave, duck, slip, take shots, block shots, it just depends what kind of mood he is in and then just as soon as you let your Guard down or show the slightest opening he will pick you apart and make you feel ridicules. Literally you can't hit him, you throw a hook at full speed and he has seen it and ducked, many times I have questioned if he see's faster than the average human being, but after numerous times of asking myself questions like this I came to the same answer as I did with Safa 'he has just been doing it longer and therefore developed a higher level of skill'.

Frustrated with this answer because I knew what it actually meant I did the maths and this wasn't so kind, because Kadeth was a true kick boxer, if you were to add up all Kades hours in the gym, it would total about 6-8 a week on average, so I took the mean of 7 and decided that I'd add up all 7 years of his training (boxing and kickboxing) and work out how many hours he'd put in.

7 hours x 4 weeks = 28 hours a month.
28 hours a month x 12 months in a year = 336 hours a year
336 hours in a year x 7 years = 2352 hours Kadeth has spent inside a gym (nearly 100 days)

So to make that up in a year I'd have to do about 6 1/2 hours training a day (7 days a week) plus my 5 hours a week. Obviously this wasn't going to happen... but it got me thinking of the level / intensity / amount of training I would need to get towards Kadeths level and with kade being a contender for a title I decided I wanted to do it, somehow... no matter how long it took and began to look into ways of training at that length daily. Of course living in the UK I quickly found it would be impossible and worked out I'd need to work 8 hours, train 8 hours and sleep 8 hours a day, meaning I'd have no time to eat, socialise or anything really and couldn't do it.

Then something happened that made me determined to reach Kadeth's level... I was sitting at home on Saturday night getting ready to leave for Kadeth's fight, where I'd sit in the audience and cheer him on. My phone rang
'Marc...?' it was Kade
'Hi mate, how you feeling' I asked
'Great thanks, excited. You wanna come down and be in my corner?' he asked
'erm... wow... yeah, please, sure, that would be great' I was slightly taken aback (our gym is huge and Kade has a lot of friends)
'Great, well I am not on until 9th, but if you wanna get here in the next 30 minutes I'll meet you at the door' he said

I hung up the phone and was suddenly really excited; I was going to corner one of Westons greatest fighters in a title match! I quickly got changed and legged it down to the venue and met Kade out front. The first thing that struck me was Kade was different, he was smiling, excited, and twitchy almost, he couldn't wait to get in there and fight. 'This is it' he said, 'I've wanted this for so long now. I can't wait to try on that belt', slightly confused I just smiled and thought to myself 'How can someone feel like this, how can someone be so sure they will win, isn't he scared he'll get hurt?' and then it dawned on me... Kade had spent nearly 100 days in the gym over 7 years and fighting was a much part of his life as eating, working, etc... Skill and experience.

The 8th fighter just went on and Kade was still excited, which totally reflected my thoughts and feelings from February when I thought, I was bricking it 'Why did you agree to do this!?' was the thing that kept running through my head 'Hurry up and let me get out there' is what was running through Kade's head... maybe this was one of the reasons I lost... The steward came in and told Kade it was time to go on and win his title, Kade smiled, nodded and walked into the hall as if he was walking to the local shops, all be it with a pair of boxing gloves on... my boxing gloves in fact!!! (Kade's were 12oz and the fight was 10oz so he borrowed my fairtex ones).

Smiling Kadeth walked down past all the cheering fans as if they were non-existent, up the stairs, into the ring and let out the biggest grin I have ever seen, Kade somehow knew he was going to win, I could sense it. He looked at his opponent (Dean Kelly) and nodded, before the referee bought them to the centre to begin the match. The bell went and Kade was letting the guy throw shots before catching him with a couple of shots and then moving out of range, first round Kade. The second round the guy landed a flurry, which Kade took and was not hurt by, but was left on th back foot for most of the round, second round his opponent. Third round Kade came out strong and hit Dean a few times hard, twice in that round he hit him cleanly so hard I thought Dean would be dropped, but he managed to take both and last the round, which went to Kade again. Forth round both were tired, but Kade was hitting the guy left, right and centre with straight punches followed by kicks to the head and easily took the fight 3 rounds to 1.

Kadeth came to the corner and let out a huge 'whooooooooo' and then went to the centre to accept the offical decision 'The winner and NEW ISKA south-west champion........ Kadethhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Sherlockkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk'. Smiling Kadeth ran over to the corner and I congratulated him and told him I wanted his belt. Which was true, right now all I could think about was how proud of Kade I was and how much i wanted to do what he had done and win a title... This feeling was only elevated when his parents came in the dressing room afte the fight and hugged him telling him how proud he was and then even more so when his trainer (my trainer) gave him his thoughts of the fight... I wanted to bring the same pleasure and accomplishment to my family and gym as Kade had done, but knew unless I sorted my training out it would be a long way off...

I told Kadeth after the fight 'I want your belt...' and he just smiled saying 'Marc... you'll have one sooner than you think, I know it' and that was pretty much all he said on the matter, but for me it was enough. Kade wouldn't say it unless he meant it, he had trained with tons of people and knew not to give people false hopes or promises, if Kade said I could do it I believe him and I knew I could do it... the first thing to sort out was how on Earth I would get to such a level working how I do and then it hit me... I have to quit work... but how could I quit work and still live and train? I thought a lot about it and then I watched a program about Thailand. Thailand is one of the poorest countries in Asia and yet still the people are known for being the happiest race in the world and even more so they are known for their ridiculously intense training in the national sport of 'Muay Thai Kickboxing'. This was it I thought... I have to move to Thailand!!!

Marc Aplin trains Muai Thai in Thailand and is the features editor for www.muaithaiboy.com

This piece was kindly syndicated by www.muaythaiboy.com  

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