Thailand training log is up. Enjoy! May 28, 2009 I have brought Mike out to help with my diet and conditioning. Stay tuned for more details. May 06, 2009 THANKS TO MY NEWEST SPONSOR "Bang!" would like to thank his newest sponsor, Coy's Custom Wheel and Tire in Denver, CO. Duane will be appearing at Coy's this Saturday, May 9 2009 from 12:00pm to 4:00pm, signing autographs and greeting the fan. Also on hand will be several other professional MMA fighters, as well as hosts broadcasting live from 106.7KBPI and KS107.5. Come enjoy the party! Make sure to stay tuned to Duanebang.com for updates! February 7, 2009 OK guys, here is my last training log for the Thailand trip. My trainer Dum has been having a rough day it seems. So we worked more technique then actual power shots. Hes been showing me some elbow combos that are pretty cool. Spinning elbows and countering kicks with elbows which was pretty cool. Blocking the rd kick with my Left elbow then spinning around and striking with the other elbow. We did about 5 rds then 1 full rd of elbows on the punch mitts. Dum has adapted to my style just as much as I have adapted to his so with the 2 of us working together, our work outs have been pretty good lately. After pads, I did another 30 min run with the music louder then ever before. It seems no one has there own IPOD or music device so they make it there duty to make sure no one listens to there own. I have the NIKE plus shoe system thing where your workouts are tracking by your IPOD and the sesnor in your shoe. Im not able to listen to my IPOD though but I leave it on so my miles are tracked while I listen to some 90s hip hop CD that someone burnt. After my run I hit the suite to shower up and we hit the local mall for a Sizzler dinner. No, thats not true. Sizzler had a 30min wait so we ate at the Banana Leaf which was Thai food. Pretty good too, we did find a single bug like in the thai food at the camp. 1 day, my wife, Oscar and i found like 5 bugs total in our rice, we said forget it and didnt eat at the camp since. We found a lil cafe down the street that sold ham sandwiches and blueberry shakes and coffee. That ended up being our after training routine meal spot. It was a 5 min walk. After you crossed the 14 dogs sleepin on the sidewalks. Morning training was a 30min run and some good pads. Dum usually has 2 guys a day to train, my self and 1 other guy from switzerland but the swiss guy was taking off the next day so he didnt want to train. So Dum had just me and we would do a full hour so i tipped him again and he was happy. The trainers dont make much there and depend on the tips from the students which i didnt know the about. The last time i went to train at Fairtex in Pattaya, I didnt tip my trainer at all. I didnt even think of it. Now I know so Im going to tip from now on. Dum knew I was leaving the next day so we did a review on the things we have been going over. He was pleased to know that I have been paying attention and said im like a computer. Which was nice of him. Its always good to know that as a trainer, your students are paying attention when you show them stuff by your students correctly or at least give an effort do perform what you have showed. With Firtex having an open door policy, students come and go all day long so its got to be hard to get pleasure in what you do as a trainer if your guys are always comeing and going. I guess Dum really liked me because the things he was showing me where things he said he would use in his fights and he doesnt always show. Come to think of it, I was doing a lot more things then the guy before me. I would watch him train the other guy and he was always showing basic stuff. Im a lil past the basics so i guess it was safe to show me some more advanced things too. After the morning training, we got all our stuff packed up and ready to go, Oscar left this morning already at 4am so it was my wife and I. After our stuff was all packed up,we hit the local pizza place that was pretty good then we made it back to the camp just in time to train 1 last time before we left. We took it easy and did more review and goofed around and I gave Dum my email and asked for him to stay in touch. There were fights tonight at the Fairtex stadium. Its called a stadium but its not like you think. It holds about 1000 total. It was in Pattaya, which was an 1.5 hr drive away. For a front rox ticket and drive there and back was 1500 baht=$44 US. Not too bad. The minivan we had was sweet, flat screen tv and fully leathered interior from top to bottom. Seats reclined. The movie we watched was horrible, is was in Thai and probably had a 50k budget to make. Either way though, it was TV, something to look at while we drove. Once we found the \"stadium\" it became a freaking crazy experience. There is no one to check wraps or enforce any rules while in the back. Anyone can just walk in the back and watch the guys warm up and get ready. These guys fight strictly for the love of fighting, oh ya, the money too. This is how I know. No interviews, no entrance music, i think they announced the guys coming into the ring but it was all in Thai, no cameras and nothing out side of the actual fight intself. You just wrap your hands, how ever you please, tape all over the knuckles, as much as you\'d like too, warm up in the dirt lot behind the bleachers if you didnt want to cram into the dirty locker room that is. The locker room was 20x30 with 2 tables in there already. the gloves they were using have been used at least 50 times for other fights. Im thinking wow man, dont you guys make these gloves all day at the factory that we were just at? The answer is YES, they do. But i guess after having fight after fight, there not forget it, lets recycle the gloves. Thinking of recycling, ive seen little rivers full of plastic bottles and paper. They dont recyle the trash but when it comes to gloves, and fighters safety, its another story. OK, so the fights themselves were a bit strange. There were 3 guys from the camp that were fighting, 1 guy, it was his first fight in muay thai against a guy that had more then 30 fights. The odds were 20-1. But the guy who had 30 fights was at least 30lbs lighter too and a bit fat around the edges. It ended up being a pretty good fight back and forth and the guy with 30 fights lost a dec. The 5th fight of the night was at 65kilos=143lbs. It was Steven from the Bangplee Fairtex camp. Hes originally from Scotland but now lives at the camp as a fulltime fighter. His guy took the fight on a few days notice and won a dec. While watching the fight, I could see steven slowly fade due to too much training. Which i personally know from first hand exp. After the fight he said he could not get going and looked for reasons for the lose but i think he did really good but was just over trained and needed a lil break and had to change up his routine. A bit after stevens fight, a guy comes up to me with some money in his hand and was asking for a tip, i said for what? he replied for the fight. He was in Thai shorts and had his hands wrapped and looked familiar so i said sure, these guys get paid crap money so I should help out a bit. after I gave him a tip, I realized it was stevens opponent. I was quick, i know. It seemed to be customary for the thais to hit the crowd after there fights and hit up the foreigners for tips. So the 9th fight was a kid that was about 10 years old and was from the camp as well. He was a cool lil kid that was always smiling and happy. All the fights that ive seen with little kids have been fine with me until now. Of course these lil guys get banged up and have too take a little rest after there fights from the shins and knees being bruised up but this fight was different cause the kid from the camp was KOed with a knee to the head. He wasnt out cold but he was rocked and could not make the 8 count. It hit me pretty hard to see a little kid take a hit to the head and be rocked. There are no pads on these guys, just the 8oz gloves and a cup, mouthpiece is optional. We left after that fight and found our pimpd out minivan to be blocked in. So a couple of guys decide it was time to go and not wait so they just pushed the truck behind us, out of the way. Ya, things are different in Thailand. 1 more thing I wanted to point out about the fights, its a ticket seller to have a fARLANG=foreigner on the card and i guess to make the farlang win is even better. Ever match up was in the farlang favor, especially this female fight with a 40 year old Australian girl fighting a 12 year old Thai girl that was a bit fat and you could see she didnt want to be in there. It was sad to see this too but Its life over there. On the trip back we ht McDonalds and I ordered the double filet o fish which we dont have here in the states. McDs has these Tuns pies that are just like our apple pies but with Tuna. OK, that finishes my Thailand blogs. Thanks for joining. >> View Training Log

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