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Yesterday, I sent the following message directly to Sylvie. While the question was originally meant for her, I'd appreciate other people's insights as well. --- actual message --- I have been casually (1 or 2 classes per week) training Muay thai near my home in Belgium for about a year. The classes are great, but there is little to no clinching. The main reason is that the gym's head trainer has very little clinching experience. As I'd really like to get into clinching, I am going to take some privates with another trainer at the gym. Apparently he has some clinching experience, and his knowledge is probably adequate for learning the basics like posture, balance, swimming in, same basic positions and their counters. Having watched most of your content on Patreon, (your videos with Yodkhunpon are especially awesome), there are a few things I want to integrate into my clinching sessions from the beginning. 1. Playing around with the clinch, not just doing drills 2. Building a frame (You explained it quite well in a video where you're teaching it to your friend Kate) 3. learning some extremely dominant positions to work towards. Looking through your Patreon content, the following positions stood out to me: 1. The basic lock you learned from Bank (Seems like a strong basic position to learn, and useful to progress to even better positions) 2. Satanmuanglek's Lock, using shoulder pressure under the chin (Seems like a direct upgrade to Bank's lock, if you can manage to get to it) 3. Tanadet's long clinch (Looks like it's very powerful once you get the hang of it, and can relax in the position the way Tanadet does) 4. Rambaa's arm lock (Seems like a guaranteed win, if you can get into this position) A few other positions I'd like to look into in the long term are: Yodkhunpon's standard clinch position (1 hand controlling the neck/head, the other resting on the opposite bicep/shoulder, ready to elbow) Dieselnoi's favorite head lock: 2 hands on the back of the opponents head, and kneeing until your opponent collapses These last two look great in your video's, but I suspect they're more dependent on the specific style of striking of the fighter to be successful. Do you think the overall approach I describe above is a good way to go about learning clinch? Do you think the dominant positions I described are a good collection to look into, or would you add some more / leave a few out? I'd appreciate any advise you can give me. Thomas

Anyone have some fun little stories to share that happened to them in or around Muay Thai? Here is one that happened to me: I filled up my car at a local gas station wearing a shirt from my gym with a big Muay Thai Label on the front and went inside to pay. The guy who runs the station is asian (from his looks he MIGHT actually be Thai, I really should have asked!) and very open and friendly to people. He looked at my shirt and beamed at me like "Aaaah Muay Thai! You have to loose lots of weight!" My answer (a little overwhelmed by the funny openness) was something like "haha yea I guess... I'm working on it" :P He went on the tell me about how he played some soccer when he was young and how they made shoes for that from cut up tires and that to play in the team you had to be tough like a fighter. He actually said when he asked to get into the team the leader body-punched him to see if he was tough enough. The best part was simply "Aaaah Muay Thai! You have to loose lots of weight!"

I think it may be as simple as they don't want to be punched in the face. People may also be under the false impression, if they train at a fight gym, they in turn must fight. The idea of sparring also scares a lot of people as they don't really understand what sparing is about. The general public may view bjj as a safer pastime. I teach 4 classes a week. 2 at my local gym and 2 in my shed. I get on really well with most people at my gym and heaps of people want to try muay thai, however they don't make the leap. I have been asked whether or not I teach mma, which I don't. All of the people seem content to stay with their 10am boxercise class. I have even made it clear, that I am not a fight gym and above all I just want people to come and enjoy the classes, raise your heart rate a bit ,learn a devastingly beautiful martial art with skills that are way more beneficial to them than boxercise. My classes are also aimed at people 45 and over, so they don't feel inadequate amongst the younger set. I could blab on ad infinitum, but my only guess as to why people don't train, is fear of the unknown.

Hello, My name is Michael Chase Corley from Heritage Muay Thai Houston. We are very beginner friendly, you are welcome to come by and try a class. Check us out at www.heritagemuaythai.com If you are out West of Houston (Katy area) I do recommend Mark Beecher as well. Thanks Michael

I have both phone number if they need

For me itd be Somlak. Not sure if he would be what some consider a legend, but hes been a favorite of mine for a long time. Id love to see him show his stuff.

I have the same issue. I see what I believe to be heavy interest but its got to be my bubble. Because I have a lot of connections in the mma and bjj world though, I definitely see the difference in interest. Whats crazy to me is how a video I shared on ig of Sage getting crushed by Cosmo ends up being the highest viewed post Ive ever had. Its a reposted video too, so the viewership on that video worldwide has to be bigger than any bjj video ever posted. Theres some sort of disconnect we are missing between people liking seeing striking (and muay Thai in general) and the decline in interest (in training in it?).

Veeraphol Sahaprom. According to Siam Fight Mag he has a restaurant in Chaiyaphum. If you could get Wangchannoi and Veeraphol in the library, that would be brilliant