Samantha Quek: She Fought Through a Fractured Spine

This adapted story is proudly presented in collaboration with Choke Clinch Crank Combat, a coffee table book that tells the stories of 25 fighters in Singapore.

Samantha Quek is a former national boxer who has trained in some of the best camps in Singapore and Thailand. At the time of writing, she is undefeated as a professional, even though she’s spent most of her early career fighting through the pain barrier.

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“I never found satisfaction in my studies or in the sports I played before. They left very little impact on me. Martial arts, however, was a whole new ball game. It was impossibly difficult, and within months, I managed to fracture my spine.

Samantha’s injury came as a result of a sudden change in lifestyle. Before discovering martial arts, Samantha was a two-pack a day smoker who led a sedentary lifestyle. To go from that, to training Muay Thai every day was a tall order, but Samantha has always felt most comfortable in the extremes.

Even when her doctor told her that she would never play competitive sports again, Samantha was adamant on defying the doctor’s orders. “I’m 21 going on 22. I’m too young!”, she remembers thinking.

There was a painful price to pay for her obstinance, though. “Constant pain would travel up my spine. Lying down on my bed, at night when I’m sleeping and dreaming about the pain that I feel on my back — I went through that for a year and a half, 24/7 hours a day.”

The pain added to the already demanding rigors of Muay Thai: the physicality of the sport, the language barrier, and the fact that Samantha was a girl in the hyper-masculine world of combat.

But this difficulty, ironically, made Samantha even hungrier. It drew her deeper into the sport. “It was so hard; every second of it was hard, but this ignited a fire within me. I stood before a mountain and I was determined to conquer it. I believed that one day I would be worthy.”

• Copy: Andrea Yew
• Photograhy: Khairul Selamat

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