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This is a topic I have been meaning to bring up a while, but being hesitant since it might get a bit heated. However my curiosity won this battle as I am very interested in hearing other peoples’ views, especially trainers/coaches/teachers/instructors. So here goes. The self-appointed assisting coach or as some name them, mansplainers. The person, not a teacher, who comes with unsolicited advice in the gym. I have always done some kind of exercise one way or the other, but it never became a true interest until I started yoga seven years ago. And with yoga, only the teacher will adjust your alignment (with few exceptions). The teacher understands anatomy, the asanas (posture/movements), and is trained to perform physical adjustments. If you have a good teacher, physical adjustments are done with such care and compassion. You are gently but firmly guided into the posture. It is a great way to learn. On a job mission a few years back, I visited a studio that offer Budokon yoga, a special kind of modern yoga which is infused with martial arts. A great experience and highly recommended. Afterwards though I was talking to the teacher and this fellow student chats me up and out of nowhere he says he noticed I had over-extended my knee during practice. I am what you might call an experienced, advanced level yogi in terms of difficulties of the asanas I can master. But yoga has very little to do with difficult arm balances and so much more to do with presence and his comment brought me out of my presence, out of my physical body and mind, and into the thinking and judging brain of mine where I started over-thinking of where I kept my limbs and if I am doing things correctly and suddenly hyper-aware of the other people in the room. And this to me is what unsolicited advice does. It robs me of my presence in training and learning and suddenly I become aware I am being observed by others. When learning muay thai in Thailand as an adult. Well, it is an incredibly humbling experience. Due to language barriers, you will be made fun of when teachers instruct you, with exaggerated charades they will show you what kind of mistakes you do. And there is a clear hierarchy you need to submit to. And if you do not speak the language, you will have a hard time explaining yourself when being criticized and you can just nod and say yes. People will laugh and make jokes you do not understand. In these situations it is wonderful to have training buddies who know you. Who can help you. Where there is mutual trust. What you don’t need is someone you do not know giving you advice you did not ask for. And I think it was Timothy who said it well in a different thread, you need the space to make your own mistakes. As stated above, this is just my perspective and I am interested in other peoples’ views on this.

For my last night of training, the General took us back over to the sport boxing gym for another go at the pads and even a round of sparring. With the General - and most of the gym - looking on, Tyler and I did rounds with the pad holder from the other day. Some of the techniques the General has been trying to get us to do the last few weeks almost came out more naturally; but honestly, if the kick was too fast, I still was not able to get my body to react fast enough. I was mostly concentrating on my waist rotations and weight transfer. Both of which will take many, MANY more months of work before I don’t have to think about them, and can just do them naturally. Also tonight, we got to spare with one of the gyms advanced students. They told us he was a decorated Western and Thai boxer. And dang, were they correct. While he was just playing with us, see what we could do and if we would buy into his game, the gym’s boxer was lightening fast and had footwork that could put most dancers to shame. I have a very playful sparring game to begin with, but the gym’s boxer was just as playful and it was hard not to buy into it. This was not favored by the General. He wanted us to sit back more, wait for the attacks and defend. While the General was very forgiving of my tendencies, he often yelled comments and corrections my way during each round (I honestly didn’t hear many of them thought, Swear). More so than anything, the General wanted to see how we defend, he didn’t want to us make mistakes attacking and be countered on. Which honestly, happened a fair amount. The gym’s boxer was playful but patient and I found myself getting ancy. I was able every now and then to pull of some of the block the General favors, along with a few other kicks and punched we practiced. Above else, it was fun. Always room for improvement though. Tomorrow I will get on a plane and head back to California. I have no words which I think do justice for the experience I’ve had hear. Three years ago, if you had told me this is where I’d be, and this is what I’d be doing, I would have you that you are crazy. When Kevin pitched me the idea, I wasn’t sure how serious to take the suggestion. But here I am. Martial arts is by far the best thing to ever happen to me. I owe so much of who I am and the things I’ve had the opportunity to do to martial arts. Martial art is quite literally like having a super power. Much beyond being to physical impose yourself on someone, martial arts allows you the power to be confident. To go into the unfamiliar and come out the other side better for having done it. Thank you, thank you, thank you to all of those who offered their words of encouragement and support. Especially, thank you Tyler, Mai, Kevin and Sylvie. I could not have done this with out you all! I talk to you all again when I am back in California.

I've trained a few children with learning difficulties - needless to say it's a challenge. We had one little boy who was very passionate about muay thai, but also very passionate about planes flying above the gym making noise. It helped that there were plenty of kids in the class who were good with him and would cheer him on

The variant I described above is actually same side "block" but as I wrote elsewhere: if it works, it can't be "wrong" Its a manifestation of a basic principle of Kali as an art: They say its neither offensive nor defensive, but "counter-offensive". You don't really "block" in the traditional sense of the word but rather react to an attack with a direct counter-attack that's designed to at least neutralize the attack but ideally also causes damage to your opponent in the process.

I love that Lowkick-destroyer "Block"... well actually more "Counter-Attack". It SO reminds me of Kali! We were taught to do something similar where while taking the low-kick in a kind of check you'd drop your knee on the kicking legs ankle. If you don't hit precisely the kick was still blocked, if you did.... lets just say a perfectly executed one with low-intensity execution in training (no padding) can fucking hurt and I guess at force it could actually break the ankle or at least give your opponent a moment of very insecure stance which gives you an opportunity to counter-attack. I've actually non-intentionally used a version of the lowkick-destroyer in sparring when I cross-blocked and hit the guy's shin right with the big, hard part of bone right below the knee. Not what you want to do to your sparring partners all the time but I can attest it is very effective!

This is something Namkabuan teaches, and in fact was a master of. And the Rambaa Patreon session also has a version of it. Both of those fighters use it offensively. But, the next Patreon session, up in a few days, with Kru Gai, teaches this precisely, used to thwart knee and other attacks. Even as a shorter person it works. I"m not sure where Sylvie has covered it in a technique vlog, but I"m sure that she's done so.

I agree with Kevin on all of this, especially teeping and checking the low kicks early. Edit: Something else I thought about today after watching our training videos with General Tunwakom is using the shove to the neck/upper chest when you opponent goes to knee or kick. @Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu can probably find the video of this (I'm not sure where to look), but I could swear that Sylvie did a video on this specific technique.

If you can count on low kicks, especially early, the Low Kick Destroyer that Sylvie talks about here, can be a fight changer: There are not many things that you can just learn quickly, but this kind of check of the low kick can feel pretty natural to do. Any fighter who has low kick in their arsenal has a good chance of starting out the early rounds with low kicks. It's an intimidation technique. A single check like this can really change the fight. It will not only discourage low kicks, it might even alter how they kick and even check for the rest of the fight.

I'm not familiar with yoga, but that's actually a perfect example of why it is better to ask. For example, if I went into a yoga studio for the first time I wouldn't realize that to be a normal thing. And if someone I didn't know just started touching me they might lose a hand lol. They may have had only good intentions (I legitimately believe that most people do), but me being very protective about my body due to some traumatic events is going to cause me to react in a way that will likely be violent in some form. It's simply a trigger that I struggle to control. The entire situation can be avoided by simply asking "Do you mind if I touch you to adjust your form/technique?". Edit: Also Oliver, it is a good idea to ask like this if you are a trainer/gym owner for your own legal reasons. Sexual assault claims (whether true or not) will usually destroy a business. By asking first you decrease liability as well as establish a healthy relationship with your students.

For sure this happens way more in Western gyms than in Thailand. What country did this happen to you in, just out of interest? Not a trainer, but out of pure guesswork? Might be the lack of training time & resources that makes this happen. 1 trainer and 40 people on the mat for a mere 1 hour session, basically means you get hardly any input from the teacher, so the 3 or 4 most experienced people in the room will - out of honest to God good intentions - try and help the new people in their first few weeks / months. Because somebody did it for them once. Which is nice of them - and to be fair, helped me out a tonne on my first day. But you also get it from people who suck and have douchebag attitudes, so yeah that's the frustrating part. Training in different European countries makes you realise that half the job is remembering who to never partner with again, who to never spar with again, and regularly position yourself on the far side of the mat from them so as not to be paired up. Sounds bitchy, but there it is. You guys often think this is 'mansplaining' but.... like...genuinely.... guys do this to each other more than they do it to girls. It's also a question of different people being wired to learn in totally different ways. Dunno how to prove it, just an instinct. But personally, always been totally incapable of learning anything by reading or listening to teachers give long winded speeches. The way a musician learns has always made more sense, you watch your teacher's movements, his finger mechanics, listen to the sound produced, then try to do it yourself. No reason for it to be more complicated than that.

From a western perspective, in a group class setting, senior students are expected to give training advice. One reason is in anticipation of them being teachers themselves one day, another is kru's eyes can't be everywhere at once. I personally don't mind it, if I find it valid. If I don't find the critique valid, I just tell them that's the way I do it.

I think this is why, often in real, long term training gyms that raise Thai boys up there is very little correction. And, why, you don't get everyone on the gym doing the same motions, having the same muay. Growing young fighters tend to be more nudged towards better technique, rather than "corrected", especially not repeatedly. And emulation becomes a strong tool of honing techniques, rather than teacher direction. This may be related to the guest post I wrote for Sylvie's blog: Precision – A Basic Motivation Mistake in Some Western Training