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I agree the ego takes a back seat. Combat sports can teach you a lot of things. I am nearly 50 and started with Karate when I was 15. I had always been fit up until I was nearly 40 when I suffered a severe back injury, which has left my left leg somewhat compromised, I also suffered two heart attacks in quick succession. My point to that is, if I hadn't trained in Karate and Muay Thai, I don't think I would have come out the other end with confidence. You get used to training through adversity and this I believe helped me over come probably the most life changing event in my life (my back injury). Also, with regards to training (post back surgery), the best advice I've ever received was, you can still train, you just gotta do it differently.

I love sparring with my coach. It's my favorite. But I think that a lot of folks who have apprehensions about it do so because they fear having to "perform" with the coach far more than they do with another student at the gym. Like, wanting to please your coach at the same time as wanting to respect them and not be a dick is pretty complicated. Kru Nu is significantly bigger than I am, but he's got a bad knee and I worry about hurting him, even though I totally shouldn't. So, I don't kick him the same way I would kick a teammate, which just means I'm thinking way more about that than I am with someone else. But then, the reason I love sparring with Kru Nu more than anyone else is that I don't think I "should" win with him, whereas with a teammate it's way more competitive. Plus, he's got way more control than anyone else I spar, so the trust adds to the fun. Karuhat, too. I could spar him all day, every day.

You don't have to be previously experienced to fight in Thailand, but the promotions you'll fight on will be determined by your abilities in Muay Thai, as determined by wherever you train. And, of course, that gym's connections and availability of shows near you will shape those possibilities/opportunities as well. I've known a handful of people who come to Thailand as day-1 beginners and fight within a month. It's just experience, it's not going to be a big show. But you do have to let your gym know that you want to fight, and then demonstrate your commitment by how you train. I agree with Kevin that you shouldn't leave it to the end. Not only because in Thailand things change very quickly and you might miss your chance altogether, but also because having only one fight at the end of your trip puts too much pressure on the experience. If you plan to have one in the middle and another a bit after that, it takes the pressure off of both. Plus, whatever happens in the first, you can learn from it and apply it to the second. My first fight was a year after I first started training. I was not "prepared" to fight at all. I'd only sparred 2x in my life, a couple of weeks before my actual fight. The way I trained in the US, in Master K's basement, I'd had no real contact - fighting was, in a rational sense, a terrible idea. My teacher didn't want me to, either. But I was "ready" in the sense that I really, really wanted to fight. And that's a difference I think is most important when thinking about any of this "stepping into the ring" process. It's about wanting it. Readiness and Preparedness are not the same thing, and the first is way more important because it drives you. You can do your best to be prepared, which is how you train, but in the end it's not as important as just wanting to fight. If you wait until you're "good," you'll never get in the ring, haha. I've done it 241 times without thinking I'm "good." There's nowhere else in the world that you can train and fight the way you can in Thailand. Nowhere else in the world is fighting PART OF training, the way it is in Thailand. It would be a shame not to experience that, especially since you have a significant chunk of time to be here and train. Some folks only come for a week. A couple of months allows for tons of experience, especially training 2x per day. It's exciting!

The quality of your experience may really depend on the camp you go to, and the area of Thailand you go to as well. We have tons of experience up in Chiang Mai, and none in the very popular islands in the south (so no comment on happenings down there). Chiang Mai is awesome because there are just tons and tons of fights, and because of that the process of placing a fighter against someone who won't be a mismatch is well thought out. Simple math, the more opponent options available, the higher chance of a great first, second or third fight experience. Also, some of these gyms are really experienced with beginner level fight introduction. Kru Daeng at Lanna Muay Thai has been shaping westerners towards first fights for probably a decade. Having someone who has guided that process for years is a huge thing. We haven't spent time with Joe at Honthong Gym, but that gym also seems to be one that is very fight friendly. In general though, the best thing about Thailand is that fighting is seen as part of the training process, not some elite thing you do once you are really, really good. Everyone fights. So you are entering a kind of fight culture that can support what you are hoping to do. I totally agree with James about letting your gym know that you really want to fight, so they can put you on that training path from the beginning. But disagree a bit with the "at the end" or "near the end" of your trip strategy. Lots and lots of people do the "at the end" bit, and its often a mistake. I can't tell you how many people we've seen make "at the end" plans and have their fight fall through for a 1,000 reasons, and get nothing. Also, the at-the-end mentality really puts fighting in the wrong context, as a culmination, instead of a part of your overall training and development. Both Sylvie and I strongly recommend that if you want to fight once you should really aim to fight at least twice. That way you don't put too much pressure on yourself to prove yourself, but it also allows your trainers to see you on a path. With a 2-3 month stay that is definitely long enough to fight twice, and maybe 3 times. I would suggest, as long as you feel comfortable, and your trainers are on board, to try and fight your first fight fairly early if you can, so you can soak it all in, make adjustments, come back to training. This is what is special about fighting in Thailand. Because there are so many fight opportunities and the culture is so accommodating to fighting itself (not only elites fight), you can fight in different ways.

This I absolutely believe to be true. Just watching the growth here has been shocking. For those of you who dont know, this man has almost single handedly brought youth muay Thai in the the US back (check him out online, fb/ig and his page usamuaythai_ydl on instagram.). Yes there were classes before but now theres a level of structure based on specific competition. I dont have any competitors...yet. The important word is yet. They get taught with the idea of ydl competition in mind (whether the goal is to compete or not) and eventually a few will fit and want to compete. Either way its win win.

I love clinching with Kru, as he maybe nearly 70 but he's so subtle and relaxed when he turns and trips you.

There is so much good in your comment Patrick, but this really stands out as worthy of discussion. There is a strong sense - from afar - that the USMF and related activities have been inspired by the path that TKD has taken to become a world wide sport. Some of this may have simply been that some passionate about Muay Thai are passionate because of their experiences with TKD in America as a youth. I believe I've read some talk about this connection explicitly. There seems to be the hope to create something like what happened with TKD, but without all the huge organizational and political problems. Basically: Let's do what TKD did, without fucking up so royally. And that includes Olympic inclusion. But you are right, Olympic inclusion does not automatically create robust growth, at least along the lines of the data I'm looking at. Here is TKD since 2004, World Wide search data, compared to Muay Thai: You can see the huge spikes during the Olympics (blue), but that the decrease is basically not interrupted. Now, the big question is: What is this decline and what impact did the Olympics have on it? Has corruption and inefficiency at the organizational level just lacked any way of building off the wave of interest during those Olympic peaks? And, what didn't help was that the 2008 Beijing Olympics were marred by the accusation of TKD match fixing, adding to the already problematic image of TKD as "not real fighting". I personally suspect that this "not real fighting" brand is perhaps the largest factor in TKD decline, because combat sports the world over have grown pretty much with branding in the opposite direction. TKD has a limited brand reach that goes against existing trends, it's going to experience value loss. Olympic inclusion kind of complicates that picture, promoting it but also confirming a difficulty. In the US it's a slightly different picture than the one above: Same Olympic bumps, but I don't know if it is concidental, but in 2004 and 2008 Muay Thai seemed to get a bump during Olympics as well, suggesting a possible wave to tap into. I think it would be crazy to think that Olympic inclusion would not create a surge in class sign-ups in Muay Thai. There would be. The huge question would be whether there is enough infrastructure in place to absorb it, and be fueled by that surge. That is what the (perhaps) deeper value of what you are doing, it's putting in place the structures and relationships that they could absorb the influxes that will happen with Olympic inclusion. There is of course another component of Olympic inclusion, which must be thought about under TKD, which is that Olympic inclusion provides a tremendous influx of money into the sport. The stories of corruption at the organizational level are well publicized. You don't get sweeping corruption charges without sweeping money. What it seems is that the influx of attention and money into the sport simply was not transferred to broad scale growth in terms of world attention. But kids all over the United States, for instance, found themselves in TKD classes. All that energy was absorbed, but not translated into productivity. These are the things that concern me when thinking about the TKD model. The truth is that I don't know enough about the Taekwando development history. It feels like a really important thing to understand. Because I care about Muay Thai I think this is something I'll be starting to read up on, I've already got a book downloaded on Kindle!

Nice! My coach isnt much older than me but could still whup me lol but I really dont mind. Ive been told that its a lose lose to spar the coach either because you lose to them or you do well but then feel bad. I hold my own with my coach but really dont feel bad when I get whupped. I always learn from it. One of the aspects I love about combat sports is how the ego eventually takes a back seat to other aspects after years of getting dominated by others and not quitting. I feel like its one of the healthiest things one takes away from combat sports.

thanks! appreciate the reply! sounds good! :)

Not sure if this question was meant for Sylvie particularly or open to anyone, but Id go and train at a gym letting them know from the beginning youd like to fight at or near yhe end of your trip IF they felt you were ready. More than likely they'll train you specifically for a fight and find you someone of equal skill to compete against. The cool thing about muay Thai is you can compete as you learn and grow. One doesnt end when the other begins, so you can compete as a beginner and grow from there.

Okay thanks i have some question :) i am a average level, at lookprabat camp do you think that i can improve my muay thai ? And what camps do you recommend in BKK and out of BKK? But not too much expensive thanks. P.S. beautiful youtube channel, i follow you ;)