Muay Thai for a day
In January 2012, during a trip through Thailand I spent a week in Bangkok. Two days before leaving, I discovered a small Muay-Thai ring, few hundred meters from Rama VIII Bridge. Covered by a tent the ring was more a makeshift place – a very small tight-knit family gym built across the street.
The gym has taken the name of its initiator, Kankarit Boonchuay, who used to be a Muay-Thai fighter, until he broke his leg and had to stop. Ten years ago he started his own gym. In the beginning, he recruited kids from the neighborhood including his own son, Wanchana. His son is the whole reason he’s still running the boxing gym. He didn’t have much equipment, but he got some help from people living in the area. Kankarit is very proud of his son because he is a good boy and very committed to training. He had his first fight in the ring when he was 8. He won the fight in the second round. After that, he trained harder hoping to win next time. He did. He has always trained hard; thus, he gets better and better every day.
This is a brief history of this small gym, as I read it, with difficulty on some photocopies of a Thai newspaper that Kankarit himself gave to me. Unfortunately, none of the people there did speak anything other than Thai.
Every day all neighbors and family members are there. They altogether participate in everything that happens and all community share the joy when children fight. While Kankarit train children, his wife sitting on a chair in front of the ring and help the other kids to do their homework. The “mom” cooks for everybody and takes care of chores.
This place it supposed to be a space of struggle, but here, the clash is just sport and that’s all. Friendships are built for life and naturalness is the basic principle. Here is where the small community gathers, from the youngest to the oldest, from the weakest to the strongest.
I haven’t enough words to express my gratitude for meeting this wonderful and brave family. I often have been looking for any information about them but I didn’t find anything except a very nice short movie made by a very talented French traveler who doesn’t have any information about them, either.
Muay Thai for a day
In January 2012, during a trip through Thailand I spent a week in Bangkok. Two days before leaving, I discovered a small Muay-Thai ring, few hundred meters from Rama VIII Bridge. Covered by a tent the ring was more a makeshift place – a very small tight-knit family gym built across the street.
The gym has taken the name of its initiator, Kankarit Boonchuay, who used to be a Muay-Thai fighter, until he broke his leg and had to stop. Ten years ago he started his own gym. In the beginning, he recruited kids from the neighborhood including his own son, Wanchana. His son is the whole reason he’s still running the boxing gym. He didn’t have much equipment, but he got some help from people living in the area. Kankarit is very proud of his son because he is a good boy and very committed to training. He had his first fight in the ring when he was 8. He won the fight in the second round. After that, he trained harder hoping to win next time. He did. He has always trained hard; thus, he gets better and better every day.
This is a brief history of this small gym, as I read it, with difficulty on some photocopies of a Thai newspaper that Kankarit himself gave to me. Unfortunately, none of the people there did speak anything other than Thai.
Every day all neighbors and family members are there. They altogether participate in everything that happens and all community share the joy when children fight. While Kankarit train children, his wife sitting on a chair in front of the ring and help the other kids to do their homework. The “mom” cooks for everybody and takes care of chores.
This place it supposed to be a space of struggle, but here, the clash is just sport and that’s all. Friendships are built for life and naturalness is the basic principle. Here is where the small community gathers, from the youngest to the oldest, from the weakest to the strongest.
I haven’t enough words to express my gratitude for meeting this wonderful and brave family. I often have been looking for any information about them but I didn’t find anything except a very nice short movie made by a very talented French traveler who doesn’t have any information about them, either.
