LengLeng
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Posts posted by LengLeng
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3 hours ago, RB Coop said:
Ahh so i'll have to get 12oz, thought so, nice! Have couple of ideas already that i want to try, will have to talk with the guy's i'm sparring so they don't get hurt tho.
Thanks for the information!
Oh please don't take my 2 cents as a rule
. Just my observation from training. I train with 12 oz which is slightly more than other girls but not overly so. I fight around 60kg and fight gloves are 8 oz. A lot of times the thai fighters at my gym (48kg-64kg) just take any gloves to do pads could be 8 or 12 or 14.
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9 minutes ago, RB Coop said:
do you use the tape in training or only when you have fights and only wraps in the training? also vaseline, gauze, liniment and mongkol for fighting i guess or do you also use it for training? i only have 16Oz gloves, i guess that could be for sparring, for training might need a smaller size.
Liniment many use during training and you can get it at 7/11.
At my gym we sometimes use vaseline during sparring when we do hard, serious sparring (like mock fights) but not sure how common it is. We never spar with elbows or knees other than in a very very controlled way. Vaseline also in every 7/11.
Tape and gauze and mongkol only during fights and mongkol gym can provide. I wanted my own as women have to enter ring crawling in under bottom rope and only get the mongkol put on after we have entered the ring so somehow I wanted to counter this bs with having my own headpiece.
16 oz. we use during sparring mainly. And men 12 or 14 during training. Women 10 or 12.
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7 hours ago, RB Coop said:
the only bad thing for me is when it's really strong wind or when it's cold, the air quality doesn't really do much when it comes to asthma. Also a quick question, do you use groin protection and shin guards always? Should i get some?
Ah ok sounds good. When it hits 170 and above I get a headache and nausea and also got a rash in my throat. But it's manageable and December should be fine.
No idea about groin protection as women rarely use them when fighting although some do. Some guys will use during clinch but not very common. But during fights of course.
I have my own shin guards but of the softer kind (like socks) and some trainers don't like them so I usually get the regular ones from the gym when sparring (always used during muay thai sparring IMO but I know some gyms do sparring without). But shin guards from gyms are of varying quality so it might be good to get your own.
I bought all my equipment in Thailand (training gloves, fighting gloves, mouthguard, wraps, shin guards, tape, liniment, vaseline, gauze, mongkol) so I'm not sure how western prices compare. But I assume prices in Thailand are ok. And you can always get most stuff from the gym (except mouthguard of course) but they can be smelly and old.
As the Thais say: up to you
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15 hours ago, RB Coop said:
It's not like i'm trying to die, i just always give 100% for everything i'm doing, it's only been so bad only once , so that's not 2 bad considering i had asthma from 3 yrs old, so it's like 22years and only 1 bad asthma attack.
Not to scare you, but since you have asthma just to let you know the air quality in Bangkok has been awful lately. I think Chiang Mai was ok. Usually air is bad Feb-Mar but this year it's been worse lasted well into May and started earlier. Might be a good idea to invest in a mask for runs. You can check PM 2.5 using apps or here: https://aqicn.org/city/chiang-mai/
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2 hours ago, MadelineGrace said:
Based on this I’m retracting what I posted above! Disregard it !
. Lengleng would know better than I!
As a human being though- please don’t be foolish re your asthma - I don’t want you to die!
Asthma is no joke!
No no please don't
. I think it depends on context and how he feels about his trainer.
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I always feel this is the hardest part to deal with, how to manage injuries. You want to be responsible and so on, at the same time not risking that the trainer won't invest in you. Add some language barriers and it gets complicated
I try to downplay any kind of injury but that's from a woman point of view. Some trainers are very traditional and think girls are much more sensitive so if I start talking about some issue it becomes a big deal.
Anyhow in muay thai everybody is injured. If I were you I'd not mention it at first, try out the training, test your limits and how you can manage. Most likely your trainer will notice if you're in pain and if you need your asthma medication and will be able to determine whether you can fight or not regardless of you explaining your health issues or not. And probably you're not the first fighter with these issues he's trained.
I've seen it many times where a newcomer arrives and directly goes to a trainer and explains everything about themselves and what they want and need and cannot do and the trainer is always like "yeah yeah" but my interpretation is what he's thinking is "let's first see you train".
Just my two cents.
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6 hours ago, gconley said:
Thanks so much for the input guys. Much appreciated.
couple more questions...
1. Can you explain the SIM cards or send me a link. I have Verizon but am assuming it would be crazy to go through them for an international plan for the month.
2. What is the general consensus on their version of uber? grab I think it is called?
3. i guess this next one isn’t so much a question but more of a concern. My biggest concern is being rag dolled and exhausted to the point of surviving and not learning as much. I would imagine I can just go at my own pace to some degree? I don’t want to be a bother to anybody Or an annoyance but I know I will have so many questions about technique. I don’t want to overstep their boundaries or interfere with the flow of the class. Am I thinking too much into this?
You can buy thai sim cards in every 7/11 so you can stay online during your stay. At the airport they have some spaces where you can buy them, I think it's TRUE and DTAC stands just close to the exit (either same exit as taxi or one level below).
Grab is Asia's version of Uber. When I arrived end 2017 you had both but if I'm not mistaken Grab purchased Uber and now there's only Grab. It is currently being (or will be) legalised and for that reason taxidrivers have been protesting outside Ministry of Transport lately. There are reported cases on taxi drivers having beaten up grab drivers. Regular taxi is cheaper than Grab taxi. Grab motorbike cheaper than regular motorbike taxi. Obviously grab has the advantage of the customers not having to explain where to go, which can be tricky with regular taxi. I use Grab motorbike every morning to work. Home from work I use the bike taxis standing there to support them but also becauss, as almost every taxi driver, they're big muay thai fans :).
I don't think you need to worry about being rag dolled or exhausted. If by this you mean being swept and thrown a bit yeah that happens (for fun but no serious) but if you are an MMA guy you already got that advantage. They will pair you up in clinch and it's either gonna be with a trainer or student and it would be a dick move to go hard on a new guy.
Thai gym trainers are used to westerners being tired just having arrived. The big risk is if you say you are tired but the trainer can see you are not (they know for sure) they might not respect you. But they will see if you are super tired and really try. If you are new they not gonna try to break you. Except padrounds and to some extent clinch training pace will be up to you. Personally I'm more concerned with getting easy padrounds and not being pushed at all. It happens I get a trainer who thinks I'm not strong enough and will give me short padrounds with very few speed kicks and never tell me to do pushups or anything in between. That hurts more than being so exhausted from padrounds. If you only stay 2 weeks unfortunately there's a risk trainers won't invest in you too much to push you too hard.
Just be yourself, make sure to give an effort and enjoy your time. Let me know when you're there I look for you during the morning run
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9 hours ago, gconley said:
Hello everyone, first post here, just joined. Just want to start a thread on my upcoming Training. This is going to be a life changing experience and im super excited/nervous.
My name is Gary and I am 35 and from Chicago. On October 30th I leave for Fa Group. I will be there for 2 weeks by myself and staying at the SL residence that they set me up with. I would of stayed at the gym but they didn't have private bathrooms as an option. My wife will be coming out at the end of the 2 weeks and we will stay another 2 weeks but not in bangkok. we will be traveling to phuket, krabi, and koh samui where i will be training morning sessions only at the nearest gyms to our hotel.
I have been doing only muay thai for 3 years now but have done mma since my early 20's, on and off. I always enjoyed the muay thai portion of the mma training the best as im 6'1" and skinny lol. never fought, just do it to stay in shape and because i never enjoyed lifting weights lol.
I must admit i am very nervous. I have been running every day but i run about a 10min mile and haven't been able to push myself past 40min yet. I run right before my class starts at the gym. since the running i have absolutely felt gains in my training sessions at my gym.
I will be running every morning and afternoon with the guys from fa group, but being 4.5 weeks out and only at 4miles, I imagine i will be left behind during the run and will have to just keep at my pace and end it when i need to. My biggest fear is pushing myself too much for the run to where I will be too exhausted for clinching and the rest of the session. Im only there 2 weeks so i want to soak in as much knowledge I possibly can.
I have a couple quick questions.
1. what is the best means of transportation from the airport to the gym? taxi or their version of uber? i will be arriving very late (11pm)
2. is it best to convert my usd to baht once I am there or here in the states? i have never been anywhere near that side of the earth lol
3. tips on food in that area? things to stay away from or things that i must have?
4. tips on training in general? i do not have an ego so i will absolutely not be trying to prove anything.
5. maybe a silly question for some but i am very very white, almost ghostly lol. i must wear sunscreen when exposed and im a bit worried that it will be disrespectful to train with sunscreen on? is there rinsing stations?
my main concern is being rag dolled and exhausted to the point where learning things will be too hard and i will just be in survival mode.
thanks so much guys, looking forward to feedback and i am excited to share my experiences with you.
Hi Gary!
I've trained very briefly with FA group and joined the morning run and they do not run together. Basically walk from the gym to chatuchak park together and then run at own pace. But not everybody running. I'm now at a different gym but I live in the area so I run regularly in chatuchak park in the mornings and I see their fighters running and so far never seen a group run together but instead at their own pace. I don't think you need to be nervous about that.
Re sunscreen oh I don't think that's an issue at all. I'm super white too and I wear sunscreen too but I never felt it was an issue at all. Yes they have a rinsing station (like a shower thingy) and it's considered polite to rinse off before or after clinch (although at my gym almost none of the thais do this just maybe 1 of 10).
Best option for you is to get baht at one of the atms at the airport where you pick your bags. Follow the signs and instructions for taxi (no grab service for pick up allowed). You can also get sim cards there. Have a print out of address to hotel in thai with you for the driver. It should be around 500 baht to chatuchak area.
Re food no idea about street food but if you google restaurants+saphan kwai you will find some good options. I can recommend Cat on the roof-bar in saphan kwai for great thai food and beer.
Have a great time.
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20 hours ago, Oliver said:
Never trained at FA but did think about it - is it true that it's very overcrowded? People tend to say this so wasnt sure how much truth there is in it. Small gym isn't a big deal but the numbers being too high can make me think twice.
Obliged
On Facebook (where photos from their training are posted daily as they have a professional photographer - which I felt was distracting) doesn't look too crowded atm. When I was there yeah it was many people, more westerners than thais which made it very "western" but the amount of people did not feel like an issue. Training is good lots of clinching, sparring and pads and your own bag work. Trainers especially Kru D and Yothin are great. They have an American manager who handles admin stuff so easy to get help with stuff if needed. One thing that was annoying was that mats get superhot in the afternoon and doing pads on them was tough. FA group is close to Ari and Saphan Kwai. The former being a thai hipster neighbourhood and the latter an up and coming area and in my view nicest areas to stay in Bangkok.
If you like or not probably depends on the people currently training.
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34 minutes ago, MadelineGrace said:
Love all your insight !
I agree! Thanks so much for sharing.
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This is a great post on importance of running and hard training regimens in Thailand:
https://8limbsus.com/muay-thai-thailand/paul-banasiak-sponsored-fighter-harsh-training-realities
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5 hours ago, Xestaro said:
To clarify a bit, I was talking about this man: http://www.ajarngae.com/
Somehow he got pretty well known when some pretty hardcore pad-sessions with him went viral online. He seems to be a man who deeply mourned the loss of his ability to fight in the ring and now tries to help other people do that. Pushes his students very hard but because he really wants them to improve and be well prepared and at least to my eyes he also has a lot to offer. He seems to somehow have managed to take the spirit of a fighter he still has into being a trainer.
I would be very interested to learn more about him and his style and see what he and Sylvie can do together.I'm gonna jump on this one because I'm curious. Ajarn Gae is well known and so is Elite Fight Club. It comes up as suggestion in many discussions on muay thai gym, but mainly from westerners with limited experience of training in Thailand. And people with more experience will sort of not be too enthusiastic in their response. I've never tried it out because of this reason. I've seen one of the trainers (not Gae but also known) a couple of times on the BTS as I pass by EFC daily.
Anyhow now I see the same non-enthusiastic response and I'm curious. Is it because Gae and EFC are a bit touristy?
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40 minutes ago, Oliver said:
We know you know.
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I just got absorbed by it. It's like this destructive super-passionate relationship I keep coming back to even though I keep getting hurt and the guy is a dick but all other sports I ever loved are friendzoned forever.
Mainly I love being in the gym. Or having a gym to go to. It gives me a purpose and feeling of improvement even though work might suck or other stuff in life might suck.
Muay thai allows me to get out of my head and into my body. I like the feeling of being sweaty. The sounds of someone kicking pads. I love the feeling of pushing through exhaustion. Of always hurting a little bit. The constant presence of pain makes me feel alive.
I like the physical closeness in the gym, with other students, with the trainer. To discover movements and skills I practiced suddenly becoming available to me.
I learn so much and I discover so many things about me and others that I could never have understood in any other way than physically experience it. I learn patience. I learn how good things and beautiful things are parallel to pain and frustration. I get the physical experience of hard work pays off.
I learn about violence and I discover my own violence.
And I really like gym when people don't talk much. When bodies do the talking.
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8 hours ago, Tyler Byers said:
Interesting post. I'm curious to see what others post. I think the main thing I have seen is the constant competition and pressure to "make the grade" (be good enough to be accepted). Being "tough" is something that is ingrained in a lot of us from a very young age and most of us have no support network. Most women I know have a good support network if they have a bad day or something goes wrong in their life; men are left to struggle through on their own. We don't help each other out or support each other when something goes wrong. Instead the answer is to simply learn to deal with it and do better. That's a lot of pressure, especially if you are having a tough time and already feeling down.
Thanks for sharing this is really interesting.
To be accepted, meaning be accepted by the other guys right? Or if it's a mixed gym, does it matter what the women think at all? Or you want to seem impressive to the girls to be respected by the guys? Because as a woman, most of the time all you want is for the guys to accept you as well. Much more so than other girls accepting you.
Re the support system, I think most of us simply think it's a chosen thing. That you don't need people. But of course we all need people. I guess this is why they say men are usually worse off after a divorce than women, simply because the woman did all the relationship building and maintenance with their common friends and without her the man suddenly finds himself alone.
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On 8/31/2019 at 6:53 PM, Oliver said:
On 8/31/2019 at 12:30 PM, Jeremy Stewart said:Men in general aren't that hard to work out. We generally take the piss out of each other as a way of cementing our friendship. We say things to one another that to a woman may seem incongruous with deep seated friendship. As a rule of thumb the more piss you take out of someone, the more you like them.
When it comes to training with women, some men do find it hard. Not because of any bias, it's just because you know if you get stuck with a dickhead bloke, (especially in sparring), you can always belt him. Now, if that dickhead is a woman, that presents a conundrum. As well, if you are training with a woman and she gets hurt, automatically the man is looked at as an arsehole. I can only comment on the things I've seen over the years and general observations.
I grew up with a guy as my best friend and hanging out with him and his friends was sometimes just about taking the piss out of one guy until he lost his temper or started crying. It was so insanely brutal and I never wanted to be part of it. In retrospect though I wished I had been hardened like that would've helped me a lot, especially in the gym.
Regarding sparring with girls yeah we know. And we use it to our advantage all the time.
We know the guy can't go too hard without looking bad. However I've sparred with a guy I knew was angry with me and it's pretty uncomfortable knowing he can kill you if he wants. But nothing is worse than the heavy tall dude who has no control.
Thanks for your post.
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There's a female only section on this forum which is very helpful for women training muay thai. But for a long time I've been wondering about issues men face in the gym.
Where I train there are mainly guys. Young boys up to very experienced fighters.
I watch them train and spar and bond. I see escalated aggression. Frustration. Inexperienced boys being pushed around learning to control the temper. I see bromance. I see all this touching (is this a thai or universal thing stroking each other's butts?). I see language confusion. Dominance. I see guys being laughed at for being chubby. I see guys not knowing how to clinch with a girl or whether to go hard when sparring. I see westerners trying to seek approval from thai trainers.
I would be very interested to hear about common struggles men face in the gym.
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23 hours ago, 515 said:
If Mochit BTS station is in your range you could give FA Group a try, especially because you want to improve your clinching game.
Agreeing with this, you could take the MRT to Chatuchak. I tried FA group and the trainers, especially Kru Diesel, are great. They also usually have girls training of various sizes. Lots of clinching. They have a photographer coming each afternoon so it's easy to follow current clientele on Facebook. I went to a different gym as their training schedule didn't match mine. I must say I felt the vibe was a bit off when I was there but could've been my own projection or just the people training there at that time.
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16 hours ago, guyver4 said:
Thank you for the feedback guys. It's much appreciated.
@LengLeng I'll definitely keep your pointers in mind going forward.
@MadelineGrace I completely understand what you're saying. I've just passed the year mark with Muay Thai, and as much or as hard as I train, I still think of myself as relatively "new".
Our Muay Thai classes are only run twice a week at our gym, but there are guys there who train K1 5-6 times a week and do Muay Thai on top, but I only do the Muay Thai classes so always feel a level below if that makes sense.
I think where I've watched almost 100 hours watching the Patreon videos though, there are small things I can contribute which they may not have thought or seen before and in most cases they havent, especially in the clinch.
I think I will just try to keep myself more grounded going forward, and apply what I know, and just throw the nuggets if someone has me in a dominant position and doesn't know where to go, or vice versa.
I think it's good that you ask about these stuff. Some people are hungry for advice, some people learn better without too much interference. So I guess it's about feeling your way forward.
My husband is a crossfit coach and I join his classes now and then. Some time back in one of his classes I saw a woman doing squats with a weird form. Since I think I know everything about squat depth I tried to get the attention of my husband and sort of whispered that he should check on her form. He just brushed me off. And afterwards he told me she squats like this because she has this injury she is struggling with. And I realised it was definitely not my place to think I could have any educated opinion on how she should move just from joining one class with her and that I shouldn't think I know my husband's work better than him.
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8 hours ago, CatherineS said:
The mental thing is a bit tougher to wrap my head around. I’m really starting to grasp just how significant the mental and emotional aspects are when it comes to making the decision to fight. I’m a pretty tough person but I worry about crumbling in the ring. I keep waiting to feel closer to ready and anywhere near confident but it hasn’t happened yet. I worry that that part won’t ever come. That part has me more nervous than being physically ready.
I never even considered fighting, I thought I would try the sport when it was decided I would move to Thailand but I never even considered doing anything serious with it. I had never even seen a fight first time I tried and I did not know how to stand or what a guard is or anything. I was also incredibly shitty. Like the one everyone in the gym tries to help out because she cannot keep her limbs together.
But after some months I suddenly had this vision in my head. Super scary. And about ten months in of proper training (starting 2/week to 6-10/week but no clinching, almost no sparring at all) I decided I really wanted to fight. And then it took a while to even get a fight and I only discovered how much I really wanted it when what was supposed to be my first fight got cancelled. And in the end I was smoking a cigarette having a beer when I was offered a fight five days later. So not ideal prep but it went well anyway. And nothing can beat that feeling of fighting for the first time.
Everyone told me it would be just like sparring no worries and you won't feel pain. I felt a lot of pain. And it was nothing like sparring. So, even if I had done much more sparring and harder sparring I do not think I could have known before how I would react in the ring.
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@guyver4 there is a thread I started on this called Unsolicited advice during training which might give you some views.
Is your gym a place where people give each other feedback a lot? If it is I guess you just need to "feel" where the line is.
Otherwise I would let these questions guide me:
1. Am I a teacher with a mandate to teach instructions?
2. Did this person ask for my advice?
3. Am I really experienced enough to know how to teach this particular movement/technique?
4. Why do I have this urge to give feedback to this person? Do I really want to help or does it originate from my own desire to seem knowledgeable?
Learning is an individual thing. Gyms are full with people who overestimate their own knowledge and enthusiastically share their knowledge with others in a way that is not constructive.
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.....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.
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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
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2 hours ago, Kero Tide said:
I'm also still going back and forth in my mind between how much of the holding out from clinch directly comes from the men at the gym and how much it comes from my own anxious mind seeing too much rejection where there is not as much and as a result rejecting myself before they could even get the chance to reject me. Like I'd rather take my own life than having someone take it from me. Which in itself sounds like a nasty effect of the patriarchy... You're conditioned to segregate yourself to save men from having to perform this chore. They can stay sit on the couch slacking while you self sabotage for their sake. I'm getting worked up here all of a sudden.
Love your review in general. But also especially this
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Fighter and trainer bond
in Muay Thai Technique, Training and Fighting Questions
Posted
Sorry no idea. I'm around 60kg and woman and get 8.oz. Hopefully someone more experienced can answer.