You go to Thailand and there are some things you’re bound to do. You will visit golden temples and eat entirely-too-spicy yet delicious food. You will shop strange markets and take fascinating pictures for your friends back home. At some point, you will roller coaster through Bangkok rush hour in a noisy, dangerous, three-wheeled tuk-tuk taxi or, worse even, on the back of a moped. You will vow to never do that again. Maybe, some evening in a crowded stadium, you will watch a Muay Thai match.

Muay Thai fighters use their fists, elbows, knees, and feet as weapons for five rounds fought in a boxing ring. There are no pads or shoes: only boxing gloves, a mouthguard, and a cup. The spectacle grips tourists and Thais alike. Often the fighters are wounded and bloodied, sometimes knocked unconscious from a kick to the head. Always the violence is intense. Most travelers experience Muay Thai as spectators, but I wanted to learn Muay Thai for myself.

Backstage at Bagla Stadium, DJ is oiled by a trainer.

To train in Thailand is to train the Thai way. Traditionally, aspiring fighters leave their homes for monastic camps where they train incessantly, compete frequently, and hope to one day become national heroes. Such is the regard for great champions in Thai society. However, Thai boxing has become popular worldwide and Thailand, naturally, wants to maintain a reputation as the best place to learn the sport. Industry has compelled the methods, for foreigners, to be adapted slightly. Serious farang students need not live at the training camps anymore, and they are expected to suffer only two three-hour training sessions per day, six days a week. Drills include running, skipping rope, punching and kicking various pads and bags, full-contact sparring, and other activities to numerous to recount.

In the autumn of 2006, I joined a camp in southern Thailand for a month. The culture of fighting interests me, and I saw an opportunity to build my fitness. Perhaps I had a secret desire to enter a professional fight, should I learn quickly enough. I was zealous.

Before a match, Thai boxers perform “Wai Kru” to honor their teachers.

Immediately I was overwhelmed. The camp was a sweltering collection of punching bags, weight lifting equipment, and two practice rings under a tin roof. There were no walls so the wet, hundred-degree air taxed me as hard as the Thai staff, all current Muay Thai fighters with winning records. I was expected to learn by imitating them and sparring with other students at the camp. An earnest, hollow-faced champion named Fad took charge of my training, using a minimum of English. He lived for Muay Thai. He also liked large numbers.

"Okay, you. Okay. Kick bag, three hundred," he would say. I would kick until I could kick no more. I would try to sneak a gulp of water.

"Okay, good. Okay. Sparring! Five rounds!" came next. I would hurt some more.

DJ, or “Lakhai”, before the fight.

And then, "Okay. How many? Five? Okay, good very good. Sit-ups, one hundred."

And so forth. The sticky sauna air and Fad’s twice-daily punishment revealed my overwhelming newness to the rigors of prizefighting. I showed up for my sessions every day just the same, wondering if I would ever improve. One Saturday morning, I met DJ.

"Okay, running?" Fad said, grinning, and I said yes, I was ready for the five kilometers he demanded every morning. "Okay, good very good. Today run with him." He pointed at a blonde-headed guy who I hadn't seen around the camp and who, apparently, did not know the course through the jungle neighborhood. He was short, and his torso was thick enough to stop a truck. His arms and shoulders looked impossibly strong; he had no neck. I shook hands hello, learned his name, and we started off.

Cutting the gloves off, post-fight.

The next thing I noticed about DJ was, and I was happy to discover this, he was a very poor runner. I don’t like to run very fast myself, but DJ was barely scuffing along. Since Fad told me to run with him I had a perfect alibi to just plod along and talk a bit, and from our conversation, which DJ interrupted several times to pause and catch his breath, I learned these facts:

• DJ was 19 years old and from the United States, North Carolina.
• He had never before traveled outside the U.S.
• He came to Thailand mostly because he was curious.
• He had no training in any martial art, nor did he exercise at any sort of gym.
• He worked as a bricklayer.
• He had arrived in Thailand and joined the camp one week ago.
• He was fighting in Bangla Stadium in six days.

Because he was an American, a beginner like me, and clearly about to die, I decided to stick close to DJ. As I watched him train over the next few days I grew more and more concerned for his safety come Friday night. He was strong, unquestionably, and if an opponent tried a grappling move he found himself immediately upside-down and flying across the ring. But DJ was slow, and grappling is only a small part of Muay Thai. He couldn't dodge the zipping punches or block the whirring kicks he would surely face. Artful fighters move instinctively and with blazing speed, with power and grace. DJ, more barroom brawler, just rushed forward with his head down and jack hammered his opponents. I suspected that his bulk might protect him from damage, but he was hopeless to dodge a faster opponent. I asked him if he was worried at all and what was his strategy. "I don’t know," he said, "I'm just gonna keep hittin’ ‘em."

Students train twice a day at a Muay Thai camp. Here, working the heavy bag.

Friday night came and I met my trainers and fellow students at the sleazy former-disco that was now Bangla Stadium. The ring rested amid metal bleachers on a dirty concrete dance floor. No one ever bothered to remove the disco balls, and Europe’s forgotten hit "The Final Countdown" boomed over and over on a deafening sound system. A few hundred people had packed into the club to watch the show. I checked the program for DJ’s fight. In blue ink, it showed head shots of all the boxers for the evening’s nine fights, each with a tagline like "Elbow Master From North Thailand" or "Knock Out Specialist". DJ’s photo had the caption "’Lakhai’ Strongest of USA". Fad explained that an enterprising boxing promoter had changed his name on purpose, and that this was not unusual. The actual Lakhai was a former champ from Bangkok who was famous throughout Thailand. "Lakhai have same-same shape DJ," he said, spreading his arms in an ape-like pose, "and him fight same-same: only punch, no kick." DJ arrived then, looking refreshed and ready, except that he had crashed a moped that same afternoon and scraped much of the skin off the side of his right calf. "Yeah, it hurts, but it don’t matter," he said. Fad took DJ to prepare.

The pre-fight ritual is the same for everyone: trainers ready their fighters by first layering knuckles and wrists with athletic tape for support and protection. They then fit boxing gloves over the new-formed mallets. Finally, the trainers rub a greasy, herbal liniment over the fighter’s whole body to loosen muscles and make a slippery target. All this happens quietly in a back room and DJ, like most, was solemn.

When the fight was announced, DJ made his way to the red corner. His opponent, in blue, arrived wiry and confident. The crowd sensed a good fight and rushed to place their bets. An MC in an immaculate white shirt mumbled details of each fighter’s history with his microphone mashed to his lips so that no one understood a word. The bell rang, and DJ plunged headfirst at the blue corner. He nearly toppled the blue boxer in his first charge.

A student working with a trainer at the camp.

Bangla Stadium roared and leapt to its feet. Everybody was screaming at Lakhai from the USA. Those who had bet on red were ecstatic and everyone else screamed for his head. I yelled too, with Fad and the other trainers. DJ charged a second time and a third, then stopped because he was desperate for breath. We yelled, "Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go!" whenever he stopped his attack to rest. We yelled louder the less difference it seemed to make. We screamed for him to deliver the most powerful blow in Muay Thai, "Knee! Knee! Knee! Knee! Knee! Knee! Knee!" which he never did. At the end of Round One, DJ was pure exhausted and, like his namesake, had thrown nothing but punches.

In his corner, DJ slumped and gasped as Fad rubbed ice on his head and squirted grubby water in his mouth. He would not last five rounds. He was too tired already and his only hope was to knock Blue out as soon as possible. DJ seemed to know this, too, as the bell rang and the match resumed. DJ spent the next round landing nothing but straight shots to Blue’s nose. Blue sneered back disapprovingly over the nose, now bleeding freely. When Blue sped a kick through DJ’s sluggish defenses, he paid for it with more pounding of his skull. Round two ended with Blue looking shaky and DJ nearly collapsed with fatigue.

A student kicking Muay Thai pads with a trainer.

As round three sounded, DJ attacked furiously. He had to, because he only had about twenty seconds left in him. He slammed Blue’s face with an unbroken barrage of his hardest punches. The crowd erupted. I had no voice left to shout with, and it didn't matter anyway. Blue faltered, staggered backwards, and finally dropped to the floor. DJ grabbed the rope for support and had no energy to express relief.

The ref held DJ’s fist in the air to declare him the winner, and the next pair of fighters climbed into the ring as DJ and Blue, now revived, left. DJ, puffy and bruised and greasy, returned to the room where he prepared to catch his breath. When he was clean and ready, we left the stadium to celebrate.

The next day I showed up for my training just the same. "Okay, running?" asked Fad, and I said yes as usual. "Okay, okay. Today no DJ." He was expected to rest a day or two after winning a fight, but I never saw him again during my remaining weeks at the camp. The rumor formed that he had found a girlfriend and given up fighting. I continued to train, but I did't think of fighting so much anymore, either. Fad could't make me a great boxer in only a month, though he tried.

"Okay, good very good. Kick bag! Three hundred!"