LengLeng

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.

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.

@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.

.....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.

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 .

Love your review in general. But also especially this

If you meet someone on the street they would give you their nickname. If you want to adress them formally you use Khun and then their nickname. But if you add them on social media you most likely will get to know their other names. Or if you exchange emails as Emma points out above. A lot of thai people use their first name as facebook name which has the negative consequence that I keep forgetting people's nicknames which is what I generally use when talking to them. Some people use both first name and nickname on facebook which makes everything much easier. Many of them use thai letters (obviously) which makes it extremely difficult if you cannot read and write thai, especially if you want to tag them in a post . At work we have a funny system, non-thais go by their first name (no Mr or Ms) and their emails are surname@domainname. Thai staff we address using their nicknames, even our most senior colleagues and their emails are firstname@domainname. When they are new and introduce themselves they send out an email giving us their full name and then usually an apology for their name being so long and difficult to remember followed by "...but you can call me [nickname]". So I know the first name and surname of all my colleagues but refer to them and address them by their nickname. My younger thai colleagues I am casual with call me Pi. People I deal with for example companies delivering services call me Khun. I always address people more senior with me Khun, when writing an email usually you shorten it as in Dear K. Nickname (or P. ) However, in many cases with people I only deal with via email, I only know their first name and surname and not their nickname if they have not added it to their email signature. In that case, I use their first name. I never ever use their surnames. The few Muslim thais I know go by their Muslim names. I never had a thai trainer refer to themselves as a Kru, it has been other people who use it when referring to them in 3rd person. I usually use their nicknames or whatever they told me their name was when introducing themselves to me. Sometimes their fight name. At my gym we have two headtrainers, I would not think they are Arjans, they are in their early 40s, but even the thai guys refer to them as Arjan so I do too. I think it is a bit of a joke but I have no clue. However, I would not worry about this too much. Just ask how they want to be addressed. Thai people are tolerant people and understand foreigners are different and that their own system can be tricky for us. And if you in the US, I would go by local culture.

One of my former (and favorite) trainers met Karuhat recently at Rompo gym and proudly posted a photo of them both on Facebook with the caption "my idol". And others would comment and refer to Karuhat as Pi Sian. I'm pretty sure they don't know him at all so I took it as a sign that they used Pi just as dudes will use "my bro". Sort of to indicate closeness and "I know this dude he my bro"?

Oh yes, teep is probably best counter, but I feel it takes a lot of experience and practice and balance to react like this if the opponent is very fast. But I guess being tall I really would benefit from focused teep practising. Funnily enough my first session back at the gym I had to do a never ending teep session. I heard your comment in your fight video that apparently you were teeped out of breath, but I really saw nothing of it didn't seem to bother you. And thanks a lot . I've been picked apart by one of my trainers for the way I reacted to lowkicks (and everything else) and although a good thing for someone to care, it's hard.

I like this because it makes your opponent look a bit stupid.

Yeah that is good advice, that movement comes a bit more natural for me anyways. Either way, back to learning lab...

Update. Low kick destroyer was a complete fail for me. It was raining low kicks, but I didnt have enough time before the fight to practice to have the destroyer movement "in my body" enough to use it. I hate low-kicks. I think they such an ugly, low-class movement and during fight I wanted to tell opponent 'you never be a great fighter if low-kicks all you got'. And at that moment she hooked me badly all turned white for a second. Joke on me . So, me and my left multicolored thigh look forward to learn how to block these efficiently. But I find it so hard to find the right angle of the knee? Especially when opponent shorter?

I had a beer with some fighters yesterday including Keng Sarikadong. He is 36 works as trainer on Samui and just won the King's Cup. If your body is fit, why not? You write the book of your life. Would you want to read it?

That was fight 3. I thought she (Bangfaiknam) was amazing and very surprised she didn't get the win. Also big size difference. And thank you thank you thank you. I feel I don't deserve the praise but considering the judges decision it really helps to hear. On my way back to Bangkok with a long list of issues to work on. Best of luck for tonight. Hope you get another KO.

For sure! It's also within walking distance for me so I'll likely check it out again.

That was me . Wow what a great mention makes me so so happy! I also saw the fight in person (well obviously) and to people who were not there, the video does not make the size difference justice. I was so surprised by the sudden KO because Sylvie looked so much smaller and I remember thinking that "jeez so much power in that small body". Sylvie arrived during fight 4 I think and she was fight 8. And they drove all the way from Pattaya. It's a pretty insane thing to do, so many hours in the car and then arrive an hour before your fight. Her opponent's corner man you see in the video ended up wrapping my hands and helping me on with my gloves. He was very cool and calm and great to be around to calm fight nerves. And the cat was super cute.

Thanks @Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu @Tyler Byers for all these pointers and advice. I'm in absorption mode here hehe. And the low kick destroyer is brilliant how could I have forgotten about it? Much appreciated.

Hey a question. How would you handle a shorter, strong opponent with a great kick game (low/body/head kicks, knows how to attack) but not as strong when it comes to using arms/hands/knees, when you yourself is not a great kicker? Feel free to mansplain me .

Never met any western guy like this? I feel it's hard to generalize too much, short term visitors are different than longterm etc. But in my experience, the more skilled and experienced the fighter, the less advice they give. My closest friend was one of the best boxers in Europe. She will give me mental advice, how to prep for fight, how to deal with training or swollen knuckles. But she will never comment my movements. Even though I ask. It's more: keep working have fun it will come.

@Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu ..explains the phenomenon so well in his posts. Many times it's not so much advice as opinions being given. So many times it happened a guy I don't know drops in at the gym and gives me his opinion of my training. Before even knowing my name. It's weird.

This was a yoga studio in South Africa. And yes advice are not a bad thing...it's when the wrong people give bad advice.

This is also my experience and I think it's a good system. I also do not mind it. But you will always have those who overestimate their knowledge and dish out bad advice. Which I guess it's the issue.