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Thanks everyone for all the replies! Lots to take in: pad distance from body pad angle from body angle with partner forming a sort of triangle with the top of the pads and my elbows how to meet the kicks We didn't hold pads today but I'll try your tips next time we do. I've got a private tomorrow so I'll ask the instructor to spend a few minutes on that. They have some Fairtex and SKS ones. Not sure of the models but to my untrained eye similar to these: https://www.fairtexaustralia.com.au/~4953465 https://sksboxing.com/shop/coaching-training-equipment/kick-pads/sks-sakyant-kickpad-black/1 point
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I don't think it's a tough dude issue or whatever like this, it's a technique issue. To answer about thailand, no, there is no padholding from fighters or students only pad holders and pad hitters, but you don't exchange role cause you pay more to get "personalized" training. In the "west" or anywhere else, if you're a member of a gym, you'll hit pads and hold pads alternatively. I am 6'4" and 230 lbs, so I kick pretty hard. I had big guys struggling holding pads for me and I had tiny girls holding pads just fine. As a kicker, you can see when the pad holder would pay to be somewhere else and when they is some sort of wiplast effect in the movement of the pad holder. Like other said, pad holding is an art and good pad holding is quite rare, even in Thailand where in my opinon, lots of pad holder, to protect themself, are holding the pad way to hard. My guess is you do not "come to meet" enough, you're a bit to loose, so the power transfer from the kick to your arms and then your neck. I would ask a more advance big dude at your gym to help with that. Try to find the sweet spot between been to loose and leaning to hard and preventing the kicker to kick properly. You want to meet the kick with force but without going through if you see what I mean. Like a short, brief, intense shove, leaning a bit, keeping your elbows tucked and absorbing the blow with your core more than with your arms. Good luck and hope you'll be fine and don't hate on us big guys, we were born this way. Not our fault.1 point
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Pad holding is a skill in itself and it takes time to become comfortable with it. To add to the good points people have made above, what make of pads do they use at your gym? A good set of pads makes a huge difference. The pads at my old gym were awful and didn't provide much protection. I had sore fore arms for 2 weeks after one session. I bought a nice set of Twins pads after that, one of the best investments I ever made. Maybe consider buying your own set? As a Westerner training in Thailand you're paying a premium (in Thai Baht terms) to train there. Say 500 baht a session, 500 baht would be a trainer's daily wage. So they can afford to have more trainers at the gym. In the West, it just wouldn't be economically viable. Only way to avoid holding pads would be to pay for private lessons (or go train in Thailand). Watch videos on youtube of Thai trainers holding pads. They tend to have their elbows by their waist, form a triangle with the tip of the pads, then push down with the pads just before the kick lands.1 point
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If you hold the pads away from your body and elbows close together, you will naturally extend your neck (with your head looking slightly up) which is a weak position to stabilize your brain for impact. Here's something for reference - tip #4 in this video: https://youtu.be/0500ZQltjck I'm small statured and have been able hold for much bigger partners. It's tiring because of their power but no headaches or any injuries. I stand firm, tense up my body to brace for impacts for kicks. If the impact is to much even with bracing and it ends up throwing me back, I simply go with it by walking backwards a few steps. I turn my shoulder in towards the punches to meet the impact instead of meeting the punch with my arm, which can hurt my shoulder. Also breathing out on impact can help also. I totally get your concern with headaches and head injuries. It might be worthwhile to ask your instructor to watch you hold pads and give you advice on holding pads safely.1 point
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I'm a bit shorter and weight a bit less and I often hold pads for people who are 70 to 75kg, sometimes more. I don't find it affects my head in anyway, so there could be something going on. I lean in to every kick, so give the fighter resistance. But what I think could be going wrong for you is the fighter isn't hitting the pads correctly. You see that with newbies a lot. The try go high to slap the pads. Make sure to remind them that the pads isn't their target. Your waist is their target. They should never be hitting the top part of the pads. Also don't take the pads away from your body to meet their kick. Obviously I have no idea what's actually happening. But I would imagine they're not hitting correctly from what you described.1 point
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Hey, I'm familiar with the struggles with partnering with beginners. Once is a while is fine, but you don't get as much out of the class as you would with someone at your level. Here are things I've done in the past: 1) ask the advanced women to come help me train (either in class of outside of class) 2) invite the women that are less advanced, but seem keen on learning, to train with me outside of class, say casually for just techniques (I specified no sparring). Also give them opportunity to suggest what to work on during those times you train together. The 2nd one was very hard initially for me, as it involved setting up this new group training. Our gym had ladies' sparring before that ended in disasters, so I tried to steer us away from that. Also talking to be ppl I don't know and managing multiple new relationships makes me very anxious and mentally exhausted. But that investment of energy pays dividends - I started this a few years ago and I have a few women from there that developed a lot since and partners when me in class consistently. We train together outside of class also. We even met up in parks to train when the gym got shutdown during covid (but small groups outdoor gatherings were allowed).1 point
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I just wanted to relate to everyone part of a conversation we were having with Sifu McInnes in Pattaya when filming with him for the Library. I think the conversation will make the session cut, but I'm not sure. We were talking about the loss of the Golden Age techniques, something Sylvie and I talk about frequently. The part that she and I emphasize is that the great fighters of the Golden Age are no longer in the fight game. They find themselves outside of gyms, many of them no longer involved in Muay Thai at all. Not only are the techniques being lost, but the men of that age, their personalities, their knowledge depth, also are being lost. Sifu though had a different point. He has the perspective of someone who was super active in Lumpinee fighting in the Golden Age. He was close to Arjan Yodthong of Sityodtong, in fact Sifu says that he built his house next to the gym at the time, so close was their working relationship. He said for a decade he traveled the road to Lumpinee with Arjan Yodthong, week after week. His point though was not that the great fighters are no longer in Muay Thai, but that its the great coaches who made those fighters are no longer in Muay Thai. Of course Arjan Yodthong who made an incredible number of champions sadly passed away, but Sifu said that many others have died as well. In fact he challenged us to name a single legendary Muay Thai teacher who is still strongly connected to producing stadium fighters. We thought for a minute and could only come up with Arjan Surat of Dejrat Gym. But Sifu objected. Arjan Surat was a young man then, when the Golden Age was happening. That is not the generation he was referring to. It's the generation that was before. That was the generation which actually produced the legends of the Golden Age. And, as we both agreed, it is irrevocably lost because the entire system that made those great instructors, the Yodthongs of Thailand, is gone, the entire feeding system to Bangkok is heavily altered, radically changed. The quality of instruction, even at top Thai gyms, is no longer what it was in those days, Sifu claimed. He said that he would sit in Lumpinee with legendary coaches and they would just make money hand over fist following their bets. They could see which fighter was going, and in what round. He said that kind of knowledge, all the infinite perceptions are gone. It's a great session, so much in it technically, but that conversation will stay with me. With the Library we are trying to save the techniques, the Muay, and something of the men who fought so brilliantly in those decades, but Sifu reminded me that the ecological loss is even more than that. It's of the generation before them, the men of Muay Thai who were shapers of that greatness we all look back on. Some stills from the session (you can follow my photography on Instagram)1 point
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Very good catch! He, amazingly, also was Pi Nu's trainer (Sylvie's Kru in Pattaya). He used to travel in a circuit back in the day and would come and train the Petchrungruang boys regularly when he would be in Pattaya. Sounds as if he was a kind of traveling Arjan. He was training one of the greatest fighters of the generation (Kaensak in Bangkok), and also some boys in a small, family gym in Pattya? And how many others? As a side note, so out of sheer coincidence Sylvie's ended up training under two of his students, both Kaesak who was her trainer in NJ before she moved to Thailand, and Kru Nu now, which is such an unexpected, accidental lineage. What is interesting, if I have the story right, when Kru Nu's son Bank was starting to make waves last year at Lumpinee Kru Kimyu offered to come and help train him for an upcoming fight, if he could make it, but it never came to fruition because of his health/age. So we are really on the cusp of Kru Kimyu ending his influence on fighters. Sylvie says though that he's come over to Bank's corner in two recent important Lumpinee fights, so he's hanging out at Lumpinee. (Edit to add: It's also kind of beautiful and amazing to see this subterrainian connection between two gyms, Dejrat Gym and Petchrungruang Gym, two gyms you would never from the outside connect. There is a thin teaching line in Kru Kimyu, and also now in Sylvie there is a student line as well, as Arjan Surat has been a heavy influence on her. It's in the fabric of relationships.)1 point
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Yeah, I don't think Karuhat considers himself a teacher, even though he definitely takes pride in his students. I think his approach is very much like being a senior in a gym, who can raise the younger fighters up but doesn't necessarily assume a formal role. This might be a part of how modern gyms are different from back in his day though. You'd have a single superstar come out of a gym, like Karuhat, Sakmongkol, Santiennoi, etc. These guys weren't from gyms with tons of champions. But then there were a few gyms with lots of them, like Sityodthong, Nongkeepahuyut, Hapalang, just to name a few. Nowdays you have gyms that buy up ALL the stars and they all train together, pulling them out of their smaller gyms where they could be raising others up. But they do carve each other, in these "show horse stables," I guess.1 point
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You are completely right! His teaching style is almost entirely through sparring, and correction in sparring. He described to Sylvie how when he was in the gym as a fighter he would always be working on moves or deceptions that would catch his sparring partners off guard. He thought to himself that if he could fool someone who knew him well he could easily fool or mistime an opponent. It led to him developing one of the most unique fighting styles of the Golden Age. When he is teaching sylvie in all those sessions he is still doing this. We see him regularly invent throws, for instance, that we've never seen before, ever. And as he's showing the throw if you pay attention you'll see that he's working on it, inventing it right there before your eyes, just as he would do as a fighter. Now, this is the really interesting thing as to the topic. We have to admit that the entire ecosystem that produced these coaches, and all these fighters, it's gone, like the Amazon rain forest might one day be gone, but new ways of teaching and creating techniques are growing now. Fighters are communication their experiences. Rambaa just the other day was literally teaching Sylvie Karuhat's switching style, impersonating Karuhat, asking her if she knew who Karuhat was (???!), something he had stolen and made his own from videos. And...he's teaching this stuff to the Thai boys who are dreaming of becoming stadium fighters! So there is creativity!1 point
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