Author Trains for 1 Month in Thailand at 48, Finds Muay Thai Humbles Him

3 articles · Updated · The New York Times · Jun 22

$1,300 buys a month at Tiger Muay Thai in Phuket and a three-round bout with another student, drawing the 48-year-old author to test whether he could still remake himself physically.
Tiger instead exposed the limits of age and injury, undercutting his private hope that he might prove a natural despite a history of broken bones, a detached labrum and torn abdominal muscles.
Muay Thai appealed to him as both self-defense and resistance to aging, with its punches, kicks, elbows and knees helping make Thailand a global destination for combat-sports enthusiasts.
Phuket's Soi Ta-iad—'Fitness Street'—shows that boom in concentrated form, with 10 fight gyms, six fitness gyms and a training culture that mixes perceived safety with frequent scooter-crash tales.