Doesn’t this latest lockdown feel like purgatory?
Most of us are barely over March 2020. Now March 2021 is looming and it’s the same shit, different year. January is always a little blue, but when every day feels the same as the last, the winter cold bites harder than ever.
I’m also dealing with my own personal purgatory. I’m still not fully healed from my surgery. I assumed this could well be the case - it was part of the reason I didn’t want this surgery in the first place - but I feel less and less hopeful every time I change my dressings. The surgeon I saw last week for my follow up appointment said it could be another four weeks - maybe more, he grimaced. The goal posts keep changing. When I got this surgery, they told me six weeks. Then eight weeks. Then a shrug. All this, and I’m paralysed by the fear the problem could just come back for whatever reason.
One positive is I’ve been given the go ahead for really basic exercises, so I’m here doing long walks and puffing my way through exercises which would have been a piece of piss pre-surgery. Gyms still being closed have been a small blessing for me, because at least I don’t have to watch everyone else train as normal while I’m stuck at home.
Between this and the pandemic, I’m panicking. What if I never get to fight again?
Like any sport, Muay Thai is dominated by young fighters. Take two of One Championship’s latest signed fighters - Supergirl Jaroonsak, known for her piercing knees, is just 16 years old. Then there’s Fairtex’s Swedish phenom Smilla Sundell, who recently won against one of the best of the best Sawsing Sor. Sopit, is 17 years old.
Me? I’m 31 and still just starting out. The plan for 2020 was to fight as much as possible and perhaps make my C-class debut in November. For those who don’t know, C Class is when the shinguards come off in British Muay Thai. You’re still not allowed to knee to the head or use elbows, but it’s an important stepping stone to professional Muay Thai. The next step after that is B Class - when you’re allowed to knee to the head, and then Pro-Am rules, when the fighters wear elbow pads. Full Thai rules fights, which is where you’ll see bare elbows thrown, are known as A Class matches in the UK.
Listen, I’m not an idiot, I know I’m unlikely to ever build a full-time career in Muay Thai, but I was hoping to get to Pro-Am bouts at least. Honestly, I just want to fight as much as possible before I’m too old to do so. And I’m terrified that my time is running out the longer our lives are all on hold. Coronavirus has paused everything that we know and love, but the time still ticks on. I’m not getting any younger. It’s hard not to have huge anxieties around this in a sport where a lot of the teens could probably beat me up.
Sometimes I wish I’d found Muay Thai sooner, but I don’t know if I had the mental fortitude or discipline for a fight camp in my early 20s. Part of me wonders if I’m just wishing, with hindsight, I’d never pursued my career in journalism so earnestly, because perhaps I would have saved myself a lot of needless trauma. It gave me a purpose when I needed it most. Everyone keeps telling me it’s just been taken away temporarily but sometimes I think… what if this is it?
This is all I think about right now because, well, we’re all sat at home with nothing else to do.
I wish I could just let go of these anxieties - there are plenty of fighters in their 30s with incredible careers and fights on their records. It’s just a little more uncommon, I guess.
For now, I’m looking towards the weather getting warmer and the goddamn vaccine giving us some hope for the future.
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Keep thinking about this tweet from my pal Nicola who has a great newsletter called The Single Supplement. If you’re also single and struggling in this lockdown, check it out. I haven’t really been very consistent with this newsletter because, well *gestures*. And today is definitely more of a howl of pain than an actual thought-out edition so I can only apologise. But this is your chance to tell me what you want to see. If you have any questions about things you want to know about combat sports and mental health, let me know. I’m going to try and be a little more consistent and timely, for one thing. I’ll shoot for every other Wednesday for the time being, so keep your eyes peeled on Wednesday mornings.
In other news, I did a thing!
To finish, an annoying thing.