Biki

This is kind of an odd question, I know! In a recent conversation, the topic came up that there were a number of Spanish fighters (Eva Naranjo and Jose Luis Gonzalez) that have won a Muay Thai world championship, but I can't find any official records. A couple of boxing videos of one of them, and local news sites talking about them. Is there just not enough public information available to find out about them? One of the local news even talks about a past Olympic gold medal in Muay Thai...

That's true about the distance; this gym was really close to my place, so I'm sad about it not being a good fit. I'm pretty sure it's exclusively a muay thai gym, my regular gym(s) are the MMA ones. I didn't quite exactly get my ass kicked, as in no bad injuries. But I know that if I had been completely new to martial arts (and not just muay thai) I would have ended in bad shape. I had fun because I was dodging/blocking cool, fast movements. I didn't have fun because I kept telling everyone "hey I'm new please go easy on me" and some of them would still say "yeah ok" then throw me hits too fast that I could barely dodge or block, and hard enough that if I didn't they would have KOed me. Sure, maybe they were still throwing what they consider easy, maybe everyone here would laugh at me freaking out over nothing, but I know what I can handle, and that wasn't it. So I really think I can't keep up with that class! :( At the same time it's so embarrasing that I had to ask people to go easy on me, and that even doing so, I could barely make it! I hate to come across as the whiny girl who is scared to get hit, I feel like I'm helping perpetuate harmful stereotypes by being shitty. So even if I can manage and stay as the worst in the class it seems like a bad idea, because I won't just be the least skilled person, but also the one that can't handle getting kicked. I admit this has even made me wary of trying further gyms. I've spoken to other two ones but i haven't been able to settle on a date because I keep pulling it off to ensure I'm in top form and can handle whatever they throw me.

Thanks for all the advice! I've decided to look around other gyms for a month before deciding or anything. Even though the first one met most of the requirements, I'm actually scared to go again - I really got my ass kicked that day! I'm not good enough for a good gym yet, I guess, it's so embarrassing to admit it! ;( a couple of the people were too agressive for me to handle at my level and I think it'd take away all the fun. And I'm determined to enjoy this, dammit! ><

Thank you! Yeah, I think this gym pretty much met those requirements, but I'm worried about it having too much sparring. At my current level, I'm just practicing MMA and mostly getting my ass beat instead of learning. Gyms in my country, in my experience, offer one test class and then it's sign up for a month (quite a pretty penny for me if I don't think I'll last the week) or fuck off, so I'm still dubious.

I'm looking to find a gym to learn muay thai in Madrid (if anyone got specific recs it'd be wonderful) I went to a trial class in one, and while the atmosphere was really fun (and there were 4 girls, I miss having other girls in gyms!) it was 75% sparring. I'm not sure if it was an isolated sparring class or if it's always like that, but while I had a blast I feel like I only applied MMA I already knew. I don't know if that's a good way to learn or not. I was thinking of looking at other gyms but I'm not sure what to look for, specially in an entry level class. I'm not even sure the class I went to was basic at all! I have also been to a muay thai seminar before and it was all technical, but it was a guest teacher at my regular gym. So tl;dr what kind of training is good for a beginner? more technique? more sparring? lots of conditioning? I'd appreciate any info!

I hope it's okay to reply to an old thread like this! Anyway, krav maga does allow all that! But it differs a lot between schools, mine has a pretty military spirit. I see videos in youtube often and there's out of shape people with belts, or learning a forward roll in the green belt curriculum; that's definitely not how it's trained in other schools. Regardless, genital kicking, eye gouging, unequal fight set ups are (in theory) what krav maga builds itself on.