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Much appreciated also I started listening to episode 16 of the podcast right after and I kind of felt stupid because it immediately was responding to my thoughts here.

Yup, know know. Thought it wouldn't make a difference either way. You can go to Levantar Athletics on YouTube to see the training at Toccos (I know their head coach quite well) and I've taken lessons from the head coach at CBA. It's not a curious way of describing it - it's just how they approach pad work. I won't assume to know your experience, but if you've ever had a thai trainer hold pads for you, or trained in Thailand, you will see what I mean. As I said tho, I'll leave it there because this info and perspectives are easily available.

It depends on whether the drill is understood properly. All the best amateur and professional boxers drill, so do the best wrestlers and other grapplers. It's when they ONLY drill or the drills don't represent well what you're supposed to be doing that the problems begin. The best boxers in the amateurs are using the cuban and russian models and it's heavily focussed around realistic drilling. Drills aren't mechanisation unless the drills are all that you do. The way those Russian guys do it keep the drill very close to sparring while in control, allowing it to bleed over. That's how you can have an undersized fighter like Ramazanov outwork and outmanoeuvre Petchmorakot from the weight division above him. I think you say it yourself when you say that the Thai's drill the basics in the very young, it's not because they're necessarily young but because they're the beginners. Drills aren't removed from any artistry, opera singers drill vocal technique, illustrators will drill shapes. They're a part of it and a big part of what create the best fighters in the world, they're just not the be all and end all. I don't think that Thailand necessarily has the best approach to teaching and learning - I think they simply have the best learning environment in which to develop. That is why I also mention that in addition to the drill I'll teach the concept. If I introduce you to a concept like say for example changing levels, and that is just the concept, through drilling free-form you'll find your own ways to change level and operate as a fighter. Thai's do this, I just don't think they would necessarily explain this to you in the same way. Like, the vast majority of the time when I watch Sylvie working with a legend, she IS drilling. She's drilling in a way that I would call drilling, or what a Russian would call drilling - but maybe not in a way that an American will notice as drilling. There's subjectivity to it.

I'm very torn on this. I am 100% opposed to drill based fighting teaching, I think it's a cop out. Yes, there is a place for drills to be sure, and Thais indeed drill basics in the very young, but there is no expressive sport in the world where the elite, poetic fighters became that way primarily through drills. I say this though fully knowing that the west HAS to drill. It's in the very fabric of the business model of teaching. Drills are essentially mechanical abstractions of a living art, exported from that art, and put into an assembly line of a kind. Yes, the assembly line can and does produce working models of something, just like it can produce cars, or widgets, but the very act of abstraction, of mechanization for the purposes of duplicaiton, is killing the art of what Muay Thai is...in my opinion. As I say though, the west simply has no choice. It's like having to teach people how to play baseball in a land where no baseball fields exist. You can learn all kinds of "things" done on a baseball field, but if you don't have baseball fields you'll never really know what baseball is, or really have ever played it.

That's the struggle with K1 rules. I recall a while ago someone asking on Sherdog where they could learn K1 because the only things close to them were a kickboxing gym and a muay thai gym. The kickboxing gym was a PKA style gym with no kicks below the waist kind of deal. And there comes a point where you have to say 'honestly, just do muay thai because you're learning K1 rules via doing it. K1 and Muay Thai are very similar whereas that American Kickboxing style is nothing like either of them. Muay Thai has had such a big influence on K1 that you can go back and forth between them and not really be too lose. Hell the limited clinching of K1 only happened about 10 years ago. They're not the same thing but their close enough that it's easier to confuse people into thinking they're doing one, when they might be doing the other - which makes it easy for someone to market themselves as coaching Muay Thai, when it's only a half truth at best, outright lie at worst. -- Ramble on western authenticity in coming--- Even among Western coaches who actually do KNOW muay thai, I think there are still issues that hold back their progress. The trouble is, and I learned this fully when I started coaching, the Thai approach to training simply doesn't work with a western lifestyle. You can't live on a gym, you have to learn new ways of coaching and teaching and that means you're going to have to do things differently to how it's done in Thailand. The reason dutch kickboxers are so ridiculously good compared to the rest of the world, is because they focus so much of their training on heavy partner based drills, that keep their training as realistic and close to sparring as possible. So when they learn a technique or combination they have often learned and practised it on a person before they've ever done it on a bag, and as such that removes the element of having to adapt something from bag/padwork to a person. While the efficiency of the dutch in stadium muay thai is greatly exaggerated, Ramon Dekkers was competitive against fighters with far more in ring experience and training experience thanks to that method of learning. My coach adapted his training from growing up on a camp in Thailand, and implemented a heavy focus on partner based drills to teach techniques that would normally learned or honed through a lot of sparring, similar to what the dutch do. I ultimately ended up doing the same thing. A lot of stuff that a coach in Thailand may teach you via padwork, I ultimately opted to teach in a more drill/spar like setting (similar to Karuhat) and remove that element of the pads. Then when the time comes to actually do 5 rounds of padwork they can focus on repeating on the pads with power, as opposed to learning it with power on the pads, then having to figure out how to do it on a person in sparring. When you don't have the ability to train twice a day, six days a week - you have to find more concise ways to learn in order to get as quality an instruction as possible, without fully living that life in the gym that allow Thais to become so very good at what they do. The western approach (outside of Holland) seems to be: Step 1: Learn combination or technique in shadow Step 2: Blast it hard on the pad repeatedly Step 3: Work it into sparring. My approach is: Step 1: Learn the combination or technique in a partner drill, taking turns with each other Step 2 or 3 : Work it on the pads or bags Step 2 or 3: Work it into sparring You can work it into sparring before working it onto pads, but you will already have more freedom and understanding from doing in that way. My approach to TEACHING the techniques (outside of clinch) are more influenced by dutch kickboxing and russian boxing - but the actual approach to technique I teach is a traditional Thai way Is it inauthentic? Maybe? I'm not sure it matters. You have to adapt in order to keep practising the sport you love.

JWP says that the title 'kru' is for Thais. Being called 'coach' or 'teacher' in a foreign language doesn't make sense to me. It just seems to me like a way of floating ego. I've been called Kru before, but I prefer people just to use my name. I have a similar opinion of the insistence of 'sensei' or 'shifu' being used in japanese and chinese martial arts. It's just weird to me to throw in a substitute word in a different language

I think this is especially tricky because of the complete disparity between importance and commonality of fighting between Thai gyms and western gyms. In the argument about grading systems in western gyms, which is a way to retain members and give people who aren't fighters a sense of accomplishment and progress, these methods are in place because gyms are not mainly fighter's gyms. Most members are there for fitness or passion, but most won't fight. There are "fight teams" within the gyms and the more fighters you have the more "authentic" you are, I guess. But in Thailand, a grading system would be ridiculous. You walk into a gym and just watch people and you know what "level" they are in experience. Fighters definitely have importance for financial reasons and giving "face" and esteem to the gym name, which is true in the West as well but to a very, very different degree. I'm not sure how that kind of "authenticity" could translate into such a different system in the West, with such different business models, customer breakdowns, opportunities, and most importantly a broad disparity in experience between Thai trainers/gyms and those anywhere else in the world.

It’s such a struggle for me. I did a little bit of training in Thailand when I was on holiday and returned to Thailand hooked and trained some more. But Back home... on returning, I really struggled to find anything like it. I finally did but I had to leave my gym of 4 years which was a hard transition but I couldn’t bare the arrogance. The masculine aggression. My trainer I have now is perfect. He has also lived in Thailand and I believe that really helps When looking for a genuine gym. He also has the spirituality that surrounds Thai gyms which is very important to me Too. I feel “most“ western Muay Thai gyms are brute force kickboxing mma gyms. Very rarely are they respectful Muay Thai that you see in most of Thailand.

Most ppl in the West probably know their thing they're doing isn't 'authentic' authentic, but still fun to do and cool for the exercise. Plus, make some good friends too, which is always a plus. For that, it's all good. It's not really the average people with the realness paranoia, just the Western gym owners and trainers. And from a business point of view, they might think they got no choice.