Leaderboard

Hello! I started training Muay Thai this summer and found that I really loved to train. So far I have attended Thai pad classes and Bag classes. I haven't been able to train in a gym since September because I am taking a service/volunteer year traveling around The United States and I won't be home in my region until August 2022. I want to keep pursuing Muay Thai but I am having a hard time deciding what my focus should be as I have little to no access to gyms and trainers. As of right now I spend time exercising, shadow boxing, and reading through the Muay Thai library. Does anyone have any suggestions on what else I should do to stay engaged in Muay Thai? Thank you for any feedback I greatly appreciate it!

There is a topic that I’ve been hoping to discuss recently regarding my own personal experiences and those that I’ve heard about from other women. My experience at multiple gyms as well as the one where I currently train, is there is a “boys club” that exists and creates a certain barrier for women who train. I’ve only trained in the US, so that is my frame of reference for gym culture. A (male) business partner and I are hoping to open a gym in the near future. I’m hoping that this discussion will help inform the culture we create as well as improve the approach of current gyms. I’ve noticed more than one coach almost entirely ignore women who train either as beginners or experienced fighters. Men are given more attention in terms of coaching, encouragement, and feedback. I’ve also observed that women, myself included, seem to get excluded from conversations, condescended to, have borderline or blatant sexist comments directed toward them, and assumptions being make about fighting knowledge as well no matter the level of experience. Other than power level, there have only been a handful of times where experienced being treated differently in sparring. I’m not sure if that’s a common experience for other women or not. This question is addressed to other women who train. What is your experience in this regard? Have you felt that this was common in gyms where you have trained? Do you feel like it slowed down your progress with learning? How do you think the gym culture can be improved so women become more skilled? I’m asking men, respectfully, to refrain from saying things along the lines of “That doesn’t happen” or “women are being too sensitive”. You are welcome to constructively participate in the conversation and ask questions but please do not deny that other people experience things. Men, please be respectful and measured in your responses. I'm placing this here instead of in the women’s only forum because I feel it’s important for all people to read and consider these observations. It’s important for the growth of the sport and for women to have better experiences in the gym.

I have the honor of training under a professional Muay Thai boxer here in the US. He is here from Thailand to coach and lead classes at my gym and he does an amazing job. He is an awesome coach but does not speak a word of English. Despite this, he communicates very well through body language, demonstration, and very minimal English. He has a hilariously goofy yet extremely disciplined personality which is common among Thai boxers. Occasionally I will say things in Thai that I get from Google Translate, and despite it being broken, off-tone Thai language, his eyes still light up and and is happy to finally hear his home language in the states. I am wondering, what are some ways to learn easy small talk with him, even if it’s just about training, so that he gets to hear and use his native language while he’s working here? What are some phrases are cordials that we normally exchange in the English language that I could say in Thai? For instance, things like “heys how’s it going?” Or “what’s up man” (hearing him yell WASSAP MAAAAN is actually very funny, I don’t think he knows what it really means) don’t really translate well. I have been saying “saba di mai?” Which is the equivalent of how are you and he always gets a kick of that, and says “very good Thai!” ( he’s too nice ) anyways I figure this is a good place to ask.

Thanks for asking. My left shin still has a bubble of fluid, shin not too sore. Right shin is even better, hardly and fluid and 1/10 for soreness. Little hard bumps on the shin bones still. I try to rub a glass bottle down them daily to smooth it out.

I’m looking forward to reading your blog post. I think you make a good point about not just hearing peoples feedback but also reacting appropriately and thoughtfully. I am going into business with another person and I’ve made it clear that poor behavior will get someone shown the door. I also want to be proactive instead of reactive to all types of problems within gyms. I mentioned to Sylvie above but in regards to sparring, I think I would like to have a regular class that teaches people how to spar safely and respectfully that covers all the common problems, including the ones that are specific to men and women sparring with one another. Communication, safety, controlling power, keeping ego in check, making sure to let them know that speaking to the coach about an issue is always an option, how to be a good training partner with other genders, etc. Doing an on boarding seems like it might be a proactive step to prevent problems.

Thank you for this feedback. I think the communication aspect of creating a respectful training environment is very often overlooked. Encouraging people, especially people new to the sport and to the gym, to express their level of comfort with their training, sparring, etc. I specifically want create an environment that is encouraging and firm when new people are brought in. “Firm” meaning even if you are experienced in the sport doesn’t mean an automatic green light for being set loose. And also for people new to the sport to know that it’s okay to be nervous. And also to be aware that nervousness can lead to some poor choices when new to sparring and create problems unnecessarily. And as you said, this needs to happen across all genders. I was even thinking about having a required session *just* to coach people on how to spar safely, address safety issues for injuries, adjust power levels, communicate respectfully with training partners, etc before new people are permitted to participate. I think this will help all members but especially women who may feel uncomfortable without these guidelines specifically spelled out. Women being able to come to trainers, coaches, and me as the owner and know that they will be heard if something doesn’t feel quite right or if something happened that makes them feel unsafe is huge. That’s a great part to focus on so thank you for that!

One thing I wanted to mention is also us women understanding how much power we have and how hard we punch. I might be mistaken, but I feel sometimes women tend to go pretty hard because guys we spar with never want to admit when hurts. So we don't learn to assess our own strength in strikes.

I did want to come back to you because it can be difficult to recognize our own thought processes, which result in our feelings, because many of them come from unconscious conditioning. One element I see repeated by men is this notion that "hitting women" is wrong. How could that be a bad thing? I think a good way to address this feeling in yourself is understanding the difference between trained skills and practice, versus violence. My mom struggled with my fighting for a long time because she views it as violence. I've experienced what I call violence, which involves a victim and is more or less one-sided. That's not what sports or artforms are. I wrote about it here if you want to read about the differences I see (https://8limbsus.com/blog/violence-fighting-silence-speaking-of-rape-muay-thai) but the short, short takeaway you can start straight away with is looking at how many women have expressed offense and disappointment by their male training partners refusing to hit them... that's obviously not the same thing as "hitting women," and obviously we're not experiencing sparring that way.

What you're describing is internalized sexism. So, you deal with that. It's not your "fault" and it doesn't make you bad, but you do have to acknowledge and recognize it first and foremost in order to go about addressing it. Women aren't children. Women aren't weak and unable to make decisions for ourselves. Women go to sparring for the same reasons men do, to be challenged, to improve, to experience pressure. By giving priority to your discomfort, you are robbing your teammates of all those benefits. Be generous, just as you would for a male teammate. Note size difference and skill disparity and make adjustments for those, just as you would for a male teammate. Also, thank you for asking this, as it demonstrates you do care and want to do better for your teammates.

What would be good etiquette if, as a man, the reason for this attitude during sparring (or any other sort of intense pair training) is mental discomfort with the idea of throwing even mid-level strikes with women? I've found myself paired with girls and it is quite uncomfortable to try and disregard this cultural norm. I did that exact thing described of just using defence and letting the girls work their offence during these routine 'colosseum' exercises (I forget the English term for it) at a gym I trained at, where the instructor would make one of us (sometimes a woman) do rounds with almost everyone at a time. It wasn't supposed to be sparring, but eventually the one doing the rounds would get tired and more desperate, so they'd put more behind their strikes and, between men at least, you'd end up reciprocating with similar intensity. I use this example because, even if you oppose to being a sparring partner for a female (if your instructor lets you, that is), you might find yourself in a situation where you'll basically be doing light sparring with them, and might adjust your power a bit too low for those that want to be treated equally. Sorry if this is a bit of a convoluted question, but basically I wanted to take the chance (and please do excuse me if I'm unknowingly derailing the topic of conversation) to ask what you think would be the right procedure for males that just feel uncomfortable hitting females but nonetheless get thrown in situations where you have to be available for them and actually want to help them improve their skills in any other way you can (as you would with any other training partner, since that's obviously the idea- to get better together). Thanks!

I've been training (US-based) for about 5-6 years. I was lucky to have the option of finding gyms that weren't sexist in the ways you described, but in visiting other gyms or trying other gyms to potentially join I have experienced a lot of sexism. In the US, I'm considered a fairly experienced amateur fighter with 21 fights, but when I visit other gyms I almost invariably get paired with the only other woman in the gym, regardless of size or skill level. This drives me nuts, because I'd much rather have a partner with comparable skill - whether that person be male or female! It also poses a problem as sometimes there are men more appropriately sized to work with me, when I'll get paired with a much larger woman. Combine that with a skill discrepancy, and it makes me feel like I'm only good enough "for a girl" and not to train with the majority of the fighters. In sparring, I get a lot of guys trying to go light on me but they go so light that they're basically shadow boxing or going super slow. If I pick up the intensity, sometimes they get mad and try to hurt me. Neither is beneficial. I also get a lot of those guys that just shell-up and say "hit me, hit me!" and (maybe this is just me) I find this super condescending because if I wanted to just hit something that doesn't move I'd hit a bag. In some cases, I've asked coaches (that I'm more familiar with) "hey, you paired me with her, but I think this other person would be a better match based on skill and/or size." In my own gym, I try to take my turn teaching newer people how to hit and hold pads - we all have to learn. But when I'm paying to drop in at another gym, I am paying to work, not teach their new students to hold pads. The biggest thing I've learned is just to advocate for myself. It's really hard, and the response isn't always what we want but I find that 95% of the time people don't realize they're behaving in a sexist way and didn't realize how you interpreted what they did. Sometimes I've been given really thoughtful reasons why I was partnered up the way I was, too - trying to inspire a student who's expressed interest in fighting by letting them work with a fighter who "looks" like them. As for the "boys club" part of it, sometimes I find this. I always ask myself if I really want to be in that club. If yes, I assert myself. If I have valuable knowledge, I put it forward. Sometimes though, I can see that this is a group I don't care to be part of and I have no problem just walking away. I'm happy to share my thoughts if they ask, but unconcerned if they don't and that they don't consider me one of them. Many gyms have cliques and sometimes those cliques are all-encompassing. I'm not trying to join a Muay Thai cult - just train and fight and make some friends. I hope this helps!

One of the more difficult and hidden aspects of gender gym dynamics that I've noticed is that because Muay Thai gyms are almost always male coded spaces it can be that there is a limited amount of social capital that women receive. That is to say, some women will get a desired amount of attention - the quality or kind of this attention may vary by gym - but because this is set up as inherently scarce, women will be even unconsciously forced into competing over that scarcity. This means that other women in the gym who may be more natural allies, making one feel more comfortable or at home, persons of support, inspiration or encouragement, actually become your competitors over "being authentic" or "being treated like a fighter" or even just "the coach pays attention to me". One woman may feel that the gym is pretty fair and supportive of women, because she's competed over the limited resource and won it, but other women may not. I'm not really sure what the answer to this is, other than being really sensitive to the idea that there may be hidden limitations of social capital. It can be very difficult, because a lot of what coaches can do is set up a scarcity in the first place, to motivate students. "I'll pay attention to you if you do it right", "I'll pay attention to you if you work really hard" "I'll pay attention to you if you show toughness". This leads to some very earnest women over-performing, or out-performing males in a space. They want to earn their rightful place in a male coded environment. But, this scarcity which should be a equally distributed scarcity also really easily can become quite gendered. That is to say: it's much more scarce for women than it is for men. In some gyms men will just take for granted something that women end up competing with other women for. Men compete with each other and will tend to bond. Women may experience competition with other women differently. Sylvie's talked about this female competition in the gym space a few times.