This great honor!

Hola people! Hope everyone is great after an awesome couple of weekends of fights and that crazy Superbowl. I first want to start out by saying I am in a great place right now. I have an awesome family, a passion for my career, and an amazing Muay Thai team. As we move through fight week I had to express what an honor it is to be in this position. It's really an unbelievable reality.
    To begin to understand why this is such a far fetched reality for a guy like me you have to first make some comparisons to major sports and how they affect the coaches and players that are involved in them. Take Basketball for instance. Started in 1891 by a P.E. instructor trying to figure out how to keep his students active on rainy days. Now basketball players of the stuff of myths and legends. Questions arise about who the best player is or was. Often these questions boil down to a handful of guys that are in my opinion the usual suspects. Boys and girls across the country have posters of their favorite player or players lining their bedroom walls or lockers. Basketball, with a few stars has changed the culture of sports and lives across the board.
     In 1869, American football was created. teams have come and gone and great players and coaches are once again debated by Monday morning quarterbacks around the world. Over one hundred million people watched the Superbowl this year. That is a huge tell regarding the love of football as well as the history from which it comes.
     In the U.S. and abroad baseball is no different . With a rich history dating back to the 1830's and maybe further, baseball is considered to be America's past-time. Players are making outlandish amounts of money and the game is played worldwide. Players even defect from their communist ruled countries risking imprisonment  and death for a chance to play in the big leagues.

      In sports around the world you often hear the players and coaches in championship victories saying things like,"I feel blessed to be here", "It's just an honor to have my name mentioned among the best", "I just love being involved with a sport with such rich history", and they are right. However, in my case and in the case of the other fighters and teachers(Kru) that are involved in Muay Thai, it is more than that. It is a spiritual undertaking filled with honor, humility, inner conflicts, and pain. This isn't a sport that you can look back and debate who the best is because he doesn't exist mainly because it isn't a sport as much as a lifestyle. The history is more rich than the sports of of today and had multiple applications in life as well as battle.
We don't have "bests" in Muay Thai, we have legends. This sport was being practiced and applied in military training in the 1500's and against the invading Burmese army in the 1700's. It is not a sport as much as it is a calling. It is a burning passion that I cannot hide and it draws many to me but only few can actually deal with the commitment even on a exercise and fitness level. It is complicated and yet simple, it can build you into a piece of iron or crumble you into sand but all the while it is connected to your very soul. I have been involved in it for 15 years now and only in the last 5 have I been somewhat comfortable as a fighter and only the last 2 as a teacher. I am honored and humbled to be able to share my knowledge with those willing to listen and undertake the huge responsibility of being a teacher. I am passing on methods and theories passed down for hundreds of years to students that have trusted me, in some cases, with their lives. This reality is not a joking matter I take it very seriously. I received my green belt in Taekwondo in 1983, I was 11 years old.
I have been a martial artist ever since. I was just some kid in the South side of Chicago that liked
Bruce lee movies. After all this time I am still in love with the arts and I learn something new everyday. I have conceded that this is the way it will be for me and I will continue to pay homage to the students, fighters, warriors, and teachers that came before me. I am Nak Muay, I am a teacher, I am Muay Thai!