Day four. Sore legs, stiff muscles, wet and smelly shoes, heat rashes, blisters in the hands, sore knuckles and a big smile. Let’s go running on the beach!

We don’t run far today as we bring Joe’s gym, the rubber band, with us. The locals that use the beach in the morning, before it gets to hot, look at us and shake their heads. Some take photos, others stop and watch. About forty people hitting with sticks, jumping like maniacs, using rubber bands as weights and roll in the sand. For us it’s all part of a good morning workout. Though my blisters don’t get any better when I do stick work with sandy hands.

After breakfast we take off to Muay Thai class where time literally blows away. Two hours pass in a flash with pad works, bag work and technique training.

From there we went to the pool for water confidence training. A lot of people are improving in this area. Personally I like being in and under water, so it’s not scary or troubling. It’s still cool to see how little I get done when the heart rate’s up and the body screams for oxygen.

Lunch, cleaning and disinfecting the Muay Thai gear, a power nap, writing up homework and next session is about to start.

The personal leadership is moving forward and we talk about, among other things, how language pattern is influential in your everyday life. Do you talk negative or positive to yourself? Are you beating yourself down or backing yourself up? Would you say to others what you say to yourself when you fail at something? Probably not. Why do it to yourself then?

Johan takes us outside for a stick fighting lesson that’s just awesome. We’ll do stick fighting tomorrow, and we do drills and work on applying basic drills into fighting sequences.

Then the rain start. Nobody cares at first, but it just increases in power. It hammered down while we train out on the lawn. We’re supposed to have another hour with Heikki on knife fighting, but it has to be cancelled. The lawn is flooding and it’s impossible to get any traction. That means that the fighting is over for today.

We get two posts published on the blog. The rest will possibly be posted on Saturday as tomorrow is the last day and there’s a party after training.

Today we go out, all of us to have dinner. It’s a great dish called Massaman. It’s a curry dish that’s really tasty. I really enjoyed it. I even had a beer. Would you believe it?

It’s a great group of people at the camp. There are lots of strong people, but we do share a lot of things and everyone has their demons or challenges. Not visible, for the most part, but things or elements that could improve life if changed. It’s good to be part of something like this as it’s about trust. You need to trust each other to open up about your fears and wants / wishes. That means your vulnerable if anyone wants to misuse it. Luckily this group consists of people willing to share and help.

We get a little tuk tuk to take us home together with Matt and Tessa. It’s now eleven o’clock and time for beauty sleep. One more day to go.

― Mitch Albom, For One More Day