I come on over and have breakfast ready on the table when she has a half hour between the yoga and our first session this morning. The food is still good at the Tiger Grill and we enjoy a good and hearty breakfast.

At eight we’re on and understand that every class is based on the same pattern:

What we do in pair work and therefore practice in sparring is different. There’s a theme for each day of the week. Today’s clinch day.

It’s very varied how cool/good people are to train with. The more ego, the less fun. Most of the people here are great partners, but there is always someone that takes everything as a competition and will try to best you. I need some work on my own personality to handle people like that. I just wanna smack them up. But I’m all peace on the outside when I know I will change partner in under three minutes.

After training we do take away lunch and go back to the hotel. We actually spend most of the day indoors and just cool down. Man, the heat is hard and I think I loose somewhere around three liters of sweat on any session. That’s hard to replenish, but it has to be done. It’s about 34 degrees here, so staying by the pool is a battle to get the parasol and to stay in the shade.

We go back for second session and do another round of clinching. There are less people on the afternoon session. No less sweat, though.

We’re pretty beat when the day is over and decide to skip the first session tomorrow. Burning out in the first week would be rather stupid.

I think we pass out at nine. I’m not sure, my eyes are all watery, but I’m not crying. I promise.

Camels can go many weeks without drinking anything at all. The notion that they cache water in their humps is pure myth—their humps are made of fat, and water is stored in their body tissues. While other mammals draw water from bloodstreams when faced with dehydration, leading to death by volume shock, camels tap the water in their tissues, keeping their blood volume stable. Though this reduces the camel’s bulk, they can lose up to a third of their body weight with no ill effects, which they can replace astonishingly quickly, as they are able to drink up to forty gallons in a single watering. 

– Michael Benanav, Men of Salt: Crossing the Sahara on the Caravan of White Gold