Had a very open and honest conversation today with the club manager. It was after I had just killed my morning run, pushing myself perhaps too hard. I had ran so hard partly out of fear of not making weigh-in.
We had ran out to a neighbouring pond today and The Kid and I had just done 10 laps when the club manager called us over to talk to us. He told us more about the politics of boxing with regards to Korea and Thailand and mentioned to me that no promoter in Korea wants to promote me. I already knew this but the reasons as to what I assumed and he mentioned were different. To hear someone on the other side, the business side of it, explain it to me was rather a harsh reality check but I think I needed to hear it. I already knew that me being a foreigner and fighting out of Korea would come with opposing opinions. I am not Korean, they want a Korean, and I get that. But the point that hurt was when he said no promoter wants to promote me because I am considered old in the industry and thus they don't think I have much of a boxing life left. It's true, at least for a boxer's life in Korea. Boxing in Korea is for the young, the high school students and university students who can afford to dedicate the needed time and effort without having to rely on the money, and lack there of it for most, that comes with fighting professional. Professional boxing isn't considered a real job here because its fight money isn't sufficient enough to be considered a solid, reliable income. Most pro boxers here that are older are employed elsewhere and boxing gives but a bonus to their already steady paycheck.
And on that note, that harsh but honest truthful note from him instantly changed my opinion of him and I felt bad for not trying harder to enjoy the things he had planned for me. Don't get me wrong, I still vouch I should be training and eating better, but at that moment I realized that maybe he is one of the few in power in my industry really trying to push me to the next level. He may not be going at it the way I would have wanted him and we're agreeing to disagree on that but none the less he is pushing me out there.
I am scheduled to fight this Friday and despite all that has gone down -- the good, the bad, the ugly, and the down right wrong -- I will fight whomever they put in the ring with me. I am determined to see this through and show KBC, KBA, KBF and K-I-don't-know-what-the-heck-initials that I still am here fighting hard, fighter harder and better than before.
52.8kgs upon waking up.
51.3kgs after my run
50.5kgs after my boxing
51.3kgs after my run
50.5kgs after my boxing
At this point I have pretty much mastered manipulating my body weight. Thailand is making it super easy for me to shed weight thanks to it's high temperatures and blazing sun. Every workout feels like I am doing it in a cranked-to-the-max hot sauna room. Thailand's hot weather mixed with my almost-all raw and "super light" eating means weigh-in won't be a problem as long as I stick to eating lighter foods (by lighter I mean physically lighter) and avoid drinking extra liquids. I am a ton of food today, mostly consisting of raw fruits and veggies and pretty much the only liquids I consumed besides the juices of the fruits and veggies I ate was a cup of milk mixed with coffee in it. Over 70÷ of our bodies are said to be water and I am definitely tapping into that to shed the weight.
Am very curious as to what my body composition is at this point -- my muscle mass and body fat percentage. My extra small leggings aren't so small on me and my sports bra is no longer tight. It's a Korean sports bra too so you know it's not exactly sporting extra material in the first place. I think it is pretty much to safe I have lost most of my "volume" up top, as Snickers calls it.
Today was the last full day of training so I had a brutal morning run and then boxing in the afternoon. I trained with the other coach today, Coach Jake. He speaks neither a bit of English or a bit of Korean like my other coach here, Filipino Coach Dadung. I think I prefer training with Coach Dadung because he tries to explain things to me in the ring and give me extra pointers. Coach Jack killed me though we going round after round without stopping. At least with Coach Dadung I get random little breaks when he is explaining something. Coach Jack just keeps in yelling out the punches and trying to hit me with the pads. I like training with both, they both definitely gave me some food for thought.
I also spent part of my afternoon at the Crocodile Park, that was very cool. We saw this one trainer that could only be described as clearly insane but his head into the mouth of a crocodile he had just overly teased and egged on. I caught some of it on video as I was convinced we seriously were going to see something bag happen. Nothing bad happened though...darn...hahaha. It was a pretty cool show. They didn't just have crocodile s at the park, though they did have a crazy abundance of them. They also had tigers, horses, elephants, catfish, giraffes, and elephants. The elephants were my favourite and the giraffes would have been my second had one note licked my finger and licked the side of my neck by surprise. I spotted a random, single pony standing around in a grassy area and it was like love at first sight. Without even thinking I wrapped my arms around it and kissed its head. It just continued eating the grass but my buddies snapped pictures and giggled.
It's weird visiting zoo and parks like these now, now that I am older and my viewpoint has changed. When I was a kid it was just as if I was visiting the house of all these animals and that was that. Then visiting a zoo became a matter of questioning how the animals are honestly treated and if they are better off here or in the wild. So many animals year by year are becoming extinct and so while zoos may get a bad rap for keeping these animals kind of like hostages, maybe zoo animals will be the only ones that make it in the future. Now days however, my viewpoint has been added upon. 30amd when I looked at the beautiful tiger and its trainer, I wondered if the two shared a special bond, a friendship and love, or was it just trainer and animal. I think animals most definitely have feelings, understand love and have their own personalities. I see it in my three pups back home and so today I walked around the park trying to catch the personalities of certain animals. I stood there looking at this one tiger today. I was pondering if he was happy or not and then he suddenly opened its eyes at me as if to acknowledge it knew what I was thinking. I just stood there starring -- me at him and him at me. He looked so majestic and regal. I felt so humble and small standing there so I smiled at him and then walked away. It was like we had a moment of connection there and it was powerful.
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