Sports

I got properly hooked on Muay Thai years ago. Full-contact sport from Thailand, and compared to Western boxing you get the full package: knees, elbows, shins. Before the fight, both fighters perform the Wai Kru to honor their trainers. People ask me all the time what the appeal is. For me, it's many things at once: stepping out of messy everyday life into something brutally clear, the discipline of preparation, and that sharp intensity in competition. What I love most is the honesty of it: you prepared or you did not. It became part of my life and never really left.
If you have a few minutes, watch Best of Siam 2. It captures the respect and passion pretty well.

These days I stay in Muay Thai mostly as a coach. Time does what time does to the body. But the connection to Thailand, to the sport, and to the values it taught me is still there. For the last years I've also trained Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, very methodical, very logical, and usually friendlier to the body. Keeps me fit and clears my head after heavy development days. That mix of pressure and respect keeps me grounded.

Since becoming a father, I see all of this from another angle too. My son is four right now, and I bring him to Judo. Not to turn him into a fighter early, but to prepare him for life in a safe frame: rules, fighting spirit, sportsmanship, competition. For me it's about giving him solid fundamentals early, without drama. The same values, just without the baggage many of us had piled onto us in our youth before we learned them.