"I Kill You" (ft. Roy)
If they don’t want me at my worst, they don’t deserve me at my best — Marilyn Monroe
I arrived at Blu Monkey Nai Harn Hotel feverish, dehydrated, and barely functional after a thirty-hour journey from Senegal.
Three weeks earlier, Isaac and I had driven a dying Toyota IQ from London to Dakar through the Sahara. By the time I got to Thailand, I’d spent weeks surviving on military rations, Chinese cigarettes, and whatever water we could find.
Roy knew something was wrong when I stumbled through the doorway. He mixed electrolytes and meds for me, and I stomached whatever food I could. Despite his efforts, I couldn’t stop shivering.
The next day, we climbed out of bed at 5:30 a.m., lubed up with Thai oil, and ran two laps around Nai Harn Lake before morning training. Monks walked barefoot along the road with bamboo rods slung across their shoulders, and the lake was empty except for us and a few Thai fighters. I felt hollowed out, but I only had two weeks to learn why Roy loved this sport so much.
And boy did they teach me.
Cookie’s Muay Thai gym is owned and run by Wanchai “Cookie” Lokwichit, a legendary fighter with more than 160 fights and a training roster to match. Friends and cousins formed his superteam of instructors, giving the gym a small family feel. But this was no ordinary mom-and-pop. Fighters like Daniel Rodriguez, Liam Harrison, and Kompatak came here to train, and there I was, the only baby-cheeked beginner who didn’t know how to shadowbox or wrap his hands.
The 90 degree heat and humidity draped over me like a wet blanket, and I was drowning in my own sweat halfway through warmups. Two hours in, blisters formed under my feet, and bruises decorated my legs from top to bottom. When I finally made it back to the hotel, I dropped dead on the shower floor. Sweat, blood, and backwash pooled around me, and I wondered how I’d make it through another session, let alone the rest of the week.
With the exception of Sundays, Cookie ran two-a-day training sessions, but when 3:00 p.m. rolled around, my body was so jacked up that Roy and I called an audible and skipped.
Big mistake.
The next morning, whether as a rite of passage or because they thought I was soft, the instructors dragged me into hell. In the States, fighters usually train for months before they’re allowed to spar. So when they transitioned the class to sparring that second training session, it came as a shock when my name was called. I spun around, looked where the trainers were pointing, and felt my stomach drop.
Standing at six foot three with at least fifty pounds on me, the Russian looked like a European James Bond. He had years of martial arts experience, and I hadn’t bought a mouthguard because I didn’t think I’d need it. Then his right hook connected with my face.
By the second round, I was gassed. My guard kept dropping, but that didn’t make a difference since I never learned how to protect myself. My blood slickened the mat, and when he asked if I wanted to continue, I told him to come get some.
Those first few days were the worst. My swollen legs went from red to purple, and my shins looked like someone had taken a bat to them. I got my shit rocked on pads and the bag, and sparring didn’t get any easier.
Despite the broken state of my body, Roy and I continued our runs before dawn, and I kept showing up to class. For some reason, Kak took me under his wing. Kak looked like a short Thai version of Chuck Norris, and he led class with an intensity that left no room for bullshit. He held pads for me, watched me closely as I practiced on the bag, and beat the shit out of me whenever I made the same mistake twice. One time, I kept stepping out of line, so he corrected my stance by stomping my toes black and blue. Under his tutelage, I learned to defend myself and fight up close.
To refuel after class, Roy and I would stop by Kwon’s for the best protein smoothies on the block before biking to Nui’s, where we took over a table and hosed down thousands of calories apiece.
Nui was the owner and one-man army of the restaurant, single-handedly cooking in the open for all her customers. She quickly became our Thai mom.
Whenever we showed up more dead than alive, there was always more than enough to go around. While we ate, she’d show us pictures of her family farm and give us coconuts free of charge. Bellies full, Roy and I would zoom off to the spa for massages, dry sauna, and ice bath.
Eventually, I settled into a rhythm of eat, sleep, train, and repeat. Most days we’d lie in bed after class, Roy on FaceTime with his girlfriend and me scrolling reels. I started learning how to shadowbox on my own. My shins started hardening, and my time in the ice bath went from ten seconds to a minute, then two. The community of fighters at Cookie’s started growing on me, and when they weren’t killing me in sparring, they’d teach me technique. Over the weekend Roy and I would relax at the beaches, where we swam in the ocean and watched the sunset from Promthep Cape.
The Tuesday before we left, Cookie asked Roy to fight at Rawai Boxing Stadium. I watched from the stands with the rest of the fighters from the gym who came to support, and when Roy began the ceremonial Wai Kru, I realized that Roy’s life was in Kong (his main trainer) and co’s hands.
Initially, Roy hadn’t planned on fighting. He was still getting back into shape and recovering from a recent back injury, so when I saw him stumble after eating an elbow to the face, part of me wanted it all to stop. Nevertheless, we cheered him on, and Roy took home the win after what seemed like the longest fight I’ve ever seen. The two of us celebrated by exploring Tiger Street (home of Muay Thai tourism culture) and the Rawai night market at the peak of Chinese New Year, where we indulged in the freshest seafood in the East.
On our last day, Nui closed down her restaurant for the day just to cook for us, and I had the best mixed seafood salad and Pad See Ew of my life. She made us dragonfruit smoothies hand-picked from her family farm, and hung out with us while we cleaned out plate after plate. Every time we ordered more food, she’d smile like she knew something we didn’t.
Since Roy and I were leaving that evening, the trainers didn’t hold back. Kak called me into the ring for pads, and when I told him that we were leaving tonight, he smiled and cheerfully told me “I kill you.” I had blisters the size of half-dollars on my feet, my legs hadn’t fully healed, but I wasn’t about to tell him that (nor did he care). Kak then spent the next four rounds beating whatever was left out of me. By the time he was done, I could barely limp my ass out of the ring. The trainers didn’t care who I was, where I came from, or how much experience I had. All they cared about was that I showed up every day and put in the work, and I wouldn’t have had it any other way. When class ended, we took pictures at the front of the gym, said our goodbyes, and promised that we’d see them again.
I’ll miss those guys.
Special thank you to Kak and the rest of the team for making this possible. To Nui for keeping us full, and to Kwon for killer protein smoothies. And to Roy for introducing me to such an important part of his world.