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This is such an interesting topic. Personally I feel that if you have a decent level of conditioning you can get fight ready quite easily. But if you go from nothing it will take so much longer. We have a great fighter in my gym who is not actively fighting atm. But he joins clinching everyday to teach the others (he is one of the guys in Sylvies slomo video of Saranmuenglek clinching). He drinks a beer every evening and is as mentioned not training for fighting. But now he has an upcoming fight and he told me he needs a week to get ready. Most likely due to years and years of hard training giving him the basic conditioning needed. At fight camps in Thailand you usually train 2 2-3 hour sessions a day, 6 days/week. Morning session starting with a run and being a bit softer than afternoon sessions. Mix of bag work and pad rounds. At my gym I only join Saturday morning sessions due to my work and those are very soft. Run and then people working on their own stuff. 3 pad rounds. No clinching. Afternoon sessions start at 4pm with run or skipping depending on weather (30-40 min). Then 30 minutes clinch ending with man in the middle. Then it's either sparring usually 3-5 rounds of 3 min rounds. Or padrounds where you do your own work waiting to be called for 3 rounds of pads with 1-2 minutes in between. I often get three extra rounds of only teeps or elbows because apparently I need this . Once everyone got their pad rounds there is usually some technique drills followed by 200 jumping knees in the ring, pushups, 200 situps (but only a third of us actually doing any situps) and stretching. Done by 7pm. If any of the thai fighters have upcoming fights they will be given a lot of extra work and driven to the point of exhaustion by the trainers. The thing is people can say things like yeah we did skipping rope for 30 minutes and I did 5 rounds on the bag. But in reality they didn't skip for 30 minutes there were several breaks and the bag rounds were not efficient work. They pretend time spent in gyms is time spent training. But they just goofed around half the time not engaging in efficient training. So I feel it's difficult to get a true answer to how much time you need to prep. People are way lazier than they think. Personally (and I'm not very experienced in terms of muay thai but I've competed in other sports and have a decent understanding of how my body works) I want to keep a decent level of conditioning to always being able to train and learn. If I'm exhausted on the pads I will learn less and my movements will be sloppy. I train to train. What I find important is to drive yourself to and beyond point of exhaustion. This because I feel it increases my level of fitness, but it also teaches me that I have much more to give when I feel I'm dying. So it's both for mental training and for body conditioning. I love metcon workouts to do this. Sylvie has tonnes of very helpful articles on this topic on her blog. Perhaps look at articles tagged "overtraining". But also keep in mind that she is constantly fighting and she has done so for years. And I'm also pretty sure she might be a cyborg .

I’m considering an amateur fight in the next year. I’ve done a point sparring thing but it was a no knock out event and I only prepared for it for maybe 3 weeks. If you have fought as an amateur, what does “fight camp” look like? How much do you run? How many hours are you training? What other activities do you do to prepare? In a perfect world, we would all be able to stay fight ready all the time but that not always realistic, lol. I’m training maybe 10-12 hours a week currently without running, which I would add in as soon as I make a decision if this is going to happen. I’m planning on speaking to my coaches about this too but I wanted hear about different ranges of experiences about what it took to be fight ready.

Has Kru Nu ever been in the library? I realise that there's a ton of footage of his work with Sylvie, but I'd be interested to see his style!

This is just a guess, but you might be tensing up before the impact hits. Try to "roll" with the impact as much as you can. It sounds counter-intuitive, but try to be soft/relaxed and see how that works for you. I know if I am holding Thai pads I would get sore if I was either meeting the kick or if I was tensing up just prior to the connection. Don't be completely passive, but try not to tense up either (easier said than done ).

This is 100% my experience. I couldn't even tell you when it happened. I used to have to mentally search for what to do in shadow and now it just flows out. Hahaha the gym, my kitchen, etc. It's basically like dancing, eventually you just find your rhythm and comfort zone. Just keep at it and enjoy it! It's your time to play, just keep adding stuff in that you like. I think the important thing is to find yourself in that moment and also keep a vision of an opponent in front of you. Focus on yourself (stuff you like) first though, then start mixing in defense and movement as well.

Hello! I am making my second venture off to Thailand for a training camp. I spent 1 month at sitmonchai about a year and a half ago and loved it. Ended up fighting at the end of my stay was a crazy experience. I have had a handful of Ammy TBA sanctioned Muay Thai fights and K1 fights in America. I leave for my second trip in Jan purchasing a one way ticket. Id like to go back and visit Sitmoncahi first for some time but would like to venture to the Chang Mai/Bangkok area. Do the experienced Thailand vets have any recommendations/ trips for my venture? I was curious how the visa process worked? Thanks!

As an American you can get a 6 month Tourist Visa (as of my fingers typing this; immigration stuff changes ALL THE TIME) before coming. I'd advise that. We have a thread on gym recommendations and reviews. If you're willing to go outside of Bangkok a bit I'd recommend checking out Sasakul Gym, Samart's Gym, getting a private with Sagat at 13 Coins (best private in Thailand); Chiang Mai is all pretty close together so you can see a few gyms in a period of a few days.

This is such a hard pill to swallow, but you are so right that when people say "I train 3 hours a day" that's not super accurate. I'm lazier than I think I am, too. But the honest answer is also what you get to next, which is that the amount of time required is just whatever gets you fight ready, mentally to the point where you know you did the work. I don't know that an "x" number of miles works for everyone, or "y" number of sparring rounds. I've fought with zero clinching and sparring (due to stitches or whatever), or with daily clinching/sparring leading up. I'm an anomaly in terms of how often I get to fight, but not in what those training methods' purposes are. They're to make you ready. And to me "ready" is a state of mind more than anything. If someone walked into my gym and said, "Sylvie, put me on a program to get me ready for a fight," I'd just make sure that the rounds of pads and on the bag are at least 1 minute longer than the rounds of the actual fight. So, 2 minute rounds in a fight = 3 minutes or more for each round in training. 3 minute rounds in a fight = 4 minutes in training, etc. And more rounds than the fight will be. So, if it's a 3 round fight, do 5 rounds on the bag and on pads. If it's a 5 round fight do 6-7 on pads and the bag. Although, padwork is largely up to your trainer, so you might have to do whatever they say and then get your extra time/rounds on the bag. Shadow a lot to get the feeling of movement and timing. I'd tell this person to run every morning (mileage doesn't matter, as long as it's pushing you to do it every day). Situps, knees, pushups, pullups, and teeps.

Hello mate, Be careful if you're purchasing a one way ticket. It never used to be an issue, but in recent years they now ask you to show proof of onward travel when you check in for your flight. You could get around that by buying a refundable ticket and then cancelling it once you're there. As for visas, you get 30 days on arrival at an airport, or you can get a 60 day tourist visa in advance and then that can be extended by another 30 days at an immigration office. Once that runs out you'll have to leave. You're best getting up to date information on this next bit because they're always changing the rules. I think now you only get a 15 day stamp if you re-enter Thailand via a land crossing, or 30 days if you come in by air. So if you're planning on staying longer you'd be better off getting another 60 day tourist visa at a Thai embassy or consulate in a neighbouring country. Were you after recommendations for touristy stuff or do you want Muay Thai related info?

.....oh and proper recovery stuff like nutrition sleep and body work (massage etc) is to me key to increase fitness level quicker. If I'm sloppy with that my training and endurance suffers a lot.

This is what I'm thinking about. Because we put up so much Muay Thai Library content trying to make a way to digest some of it without having to watch every video. Some people have said they like listening just to the audio, so maybe there is a way for us to make a kind of more audio friendly version.

I love Muay Thai Bones, I like to watch the video version in small chunks. There's so much to digest. I don't often listen to podcasts if there is video available instead. Post Muay Thai Library chat sessions sound like a great addition. You put out so much wonderful video. I am way behind on watching the most recent Muay Thai Library sessions, although I always read the intro article as soon as it is up. I really enjoy both your and Sylvie's writing style and would actually prefer more articles to read than more video to watch.

I call him Pi Ken (Kaensak), as his play name is Ken. Arjan is very respectful, but given how he talks on Facebook you'd be the only person ever doing that. Kru is respectful and not too formal. But just ask him how he wants to be called. That's the 100% best way to know. As for people's given names, you might never know them. Play names are what's used almost all the time.

Gravel is good. My first trainer, Master K, used gardening gravel in his heavy bags and that worked great. As for shadow, it's awkward and limited and weird for a long time and then it just suddenly isn't anymore. It's like learning a language. At first you can only ask for the bathroom and say you are enjoying your food, over and over again. But gradually you start thinking, understanding, asking questions, etc. Just give it time. If you want to watch some fights and steal a few moves that you can throw in, that's going to be interesting, but it won't be "better" for you than just moving and letting the weapons come out of your own rhythm and flow. Better than coming up with "moves" or "combinations" for variety, is to get better at picturing an opponent and throwing weapons in response to whatever you're visualizing there. That's a much more useful skill.

Taught my first class, post heart attack, today. Struggled a bit with the breathing but all things considered, I reckon I pulled up ok.

The role of the rich in the arts in general! In the context of History, I’m learning that with wealth comes the birth of the opinionated man. Preferences and taste are socialized by the richness of exposure and education. This is a fascinating topic because art is one of the intersection points of the rich and the poor. (I’m thinking of the rich art collector and the “poor artist” cultural motifs). Also, art has the potential to be an equalizer of class, like death, because of the arguably more inherent nature of human creativity. As for martial arts, I see money all over the gym and fight scene both locally and internationally (travel, equipment, nutrition science, etc). But, I would like to see...how much of its survival is fueled by human fight philosophy or technology, than pure monied privilege?