Barbara_K

Hi! Is supposed to be https://muay-thai-santai.com/thailand-pinsinchai/ Best regards

When I was starting with Muay Thai I had exactly the same issue that it felt strange to just kick air. If you have a partner at hand, let him/her hold pads or "something" for you and every now and then they shall move back so that you miss. Since you don't know when this will be, you will kick your normal way. At the beginning I was afraid of my already damaged knee because of that twisting move. So when kicking "something" my mind was free, when kicking air it was blocked. So when my trainer helped me by "missing" I still could kick normally and get used to the twist.

Hey both, just today I had my first private at Angry Monkey. I feel bruised, I ran out of air after 7months break, my knee hurts - but I'm happy to be back in the game! Next training's already scheduled and things should go for the better now. I was contacting Ben as well, but he's really busy these days. As Angry Monkey is located close to where I live (and work) and training today was promising, I'm looking forward to further trainings over there. What I didn't know so far that Muay Thai was illegal on amateur basis in Quebec and still elbows are not allowed in fights. For proper full contact fights, you'd need to go to Ontario. Thank you as well for the tip for Ottawa since I'll be staying there from time to time due to work!

Hey Joseph, thank you so much for that detailed message and insight! About Thai Long I only found that they're closed but that seemed to me a proper gym for what I'm looking for. Same goes for your friend Ben. Actually I don't care where I'm training if only that person has Muay Thai in his/her blood. My first gym in Finland was inside a 35sqm apartment but it was the best education I could get, a really special and precious place.

Hello together, two months ago I was moving from Finland to Canada and now need to get settled again over here which is not that easy. So far it's been quite a hard time, I'm lacking proper training and work out, have a hard time arriving here and getting used to everything. That's the reason why I didn't visit one of the 2 gyms over here yet, since they're advertising a lot of combat sports and "being a family, a gang, ...". I'm not in for such group thing these days, I just need Muay Thai. So if one of you knows someone who knows someone, a Thai who's into Muay Thai who moved to Montreal a while ago or so, who would just train me, hold pads, etc - I'd be very very grateful. Thank you all in advance and best wishes!!

I think in my case, one came to the other and things were adding up. At the beginning I / we followed our Kru blindly. Training was hard and good and we learned and improved. But the more “fitness”-people joined, the worse the training became, the more side-effects came up, no more focus on developing fighters. Of course I completely understand his point and the points of all mentioned Krus! They all went their way, have their way of training, of teaching, of fighting. It’s not my/our western approach of things, but I can live with it - as long as I learn and improve.

Actually there are some techniques of which I'm wondering if they are "allowed" or accepted, such as a hook to the neck instead of the jaw or attacking the back of the head or the lowest pair of ribs which is said to be some sweet point. Is this just some "dirty play"? Can anyone help me with understanding these points?

Hey thread opener, reading your story let's me remind my own - since it was exactly the same. After we had a big fight event at our gym our Kru realised there is money to earn and training groups became bigger and bigger, quality of training was getting worse in order to fit to the average. As a fighter I missed that hard, high quality training, struggles with my coach became more and more intense, he was blaming me to "stop that youtube-learning or go somewhere else" since he's the only boss in here and he is better than everyone of us and we have to follow him. In the end I left the gym since I didn't have a good time there anymore, felt bad after each training, neither doing good to my trainingspartner, nor myself, nor the Kru. Since then I was training with a handful of friends who left the gym for the same reasons and we train ourselves, try to get privates from other coaches and so on. At the beginning it felt strange or weird because such important thing in life is just gone for that moment - but that feeling is vanishing when a new chapter is opened. I was struggling a lot with that question whether to switch to another gym - but I couldn't. He was still my Kru and to me it was not just a fitness club which I'm switching. So I decided to go my own way. How did your situation end up?

For 3 years I'm living and training out of Finland already and have been really surprised to see them finish in the overall medal-table of IFMA WC as 6th (behind THA, RUS, UKR, TUR, AUS) - pretty good for such small country. We have a bunch of Thais running gyms all over the country and as well people who stick to real Muay Thai seriously. That's why I think, compared to Germany f.e., the quality of the training over all is really high! For me it was definitely helpful and positive to have a Thai-gym close to where I was living and working.

Dear LengLeng, I'm aware it is more than a year later, but how are you feeling today and when could you restart your training again and at what pace? I'm asking because I had an incident this year middle of April when sparring in training. I received a head kick, got KO, hit the ground with the back of the head and went unconscious for some 20-30s. We went to hospital right away, the doctor's checks according to Glasgow Coma Score were all fine and he said it looks like a mild concussion and I can either go back to running in around 2 weeks - or shall go and see a trauma doctor if symptoms get worse. For 2 weeks I was pretty slow, not feeling well, thinking, noises were exhausting, but I could go for a walk and even fly back home (from Finland where I live to Germany where I wanted to go to holidays for some days anyway). After these 2 weeks unfortunately I collapsed on a morning walk, after 3km I could not walk anymore, my head was exploding. Different checks and an MRI later I knew I didn't only have a mild concussion, but a severe head trauma (which even killed my olfactory nerve). I was on sick leave for 8 weeks of which I stayed 3-4 weeks only on the couch, being able to talk to someone only for 2x 1 hour per day and resting, doing just nothing for the rest of the day. A side walk of some 300m per day was already a success - I was getting crazy when I thought about how fit I was before and then I can hardly go for a 1km walk. After a while 2km took me 1,5hrs, it was scary. Later doctor explained me such bruise in the brain takes around 10-12 days to develop completely until healing process starts that explained why I felt more or less ok for the first 2 weeks. Just last week, 11 weeks after the incident, I felt able to do some sit-ups, push-ups and shadow boxing again. I might even give it a try to go for a slow run in some days. But the doc insisted on no heavy bag training, padwork or even sparring for at least 6-8 months... Now my goal is to be on the level where I was before in spring 2022... But what I was wondering in general, how fighters handle(d) KOs. I never heard of one taking such long break until everything is healed completely. Anyway I wish you all the best and hope you don't suffer from long-term effects. For my case I'm just thankful I still can walk and speak properly. It could have been much worse...

Hey everyone, just about 10 days ago it finally happened that I had my first fight and thus I wanted to share some thoughts and impressions on that and everything related to it. For me the journey to step into the ring started pretty soon, after I started training Muay Thai 2,5 years ago at the age of 32. Pretty soon I realised I'm doing this not only for fitness reasons, there's something more behind for me. Maybe some new challenge, maybe I wanted to prove myself that I am able to go from "heavily overweighted" to "fit for fight", I don't know. During that time I was, due to my occupation, training in 3 different gyms, learned different styles, different ways to train and get stronger. The gym I'm training these days and I was fighting for is run by a Thai Kru who is living here in Finland for several years and that event was the first big event at home in our gym, a constellation which put even more pressure on me during the last weeks and months. It was really not easy during that time to handle my full time job, train hard, balance my weight and never lose focus. Never before I experienced such pressure from anyone like that time from our Kru. In that certain time it was hard for me (us) "modern westeners" to handle and accept that - on the other hand I could understand him, being afraid of having his fighters losing their matches, because they weren't listening enough to him. The last week before the fight I was still struggling with my weight, the last time that I ran around at 63kg was maybe 20 years ago as a teenager. Funny enough that all (western) friends kept asking "What's gonna happen if you don't reach the weight? Will the fight be cancelled?". On fight day itself I was going through mentals ups and downs - it was horrible. The days before I couldn't rest enough, slept very bad, trained too much instead of keeping it easy during the last week so in the morning I was just a picture of misery, everything felt like I'm collapsing. Maybe all that pressure just became too much at that point. After weigh-in and having lunch together I went back home again for another rest - and now I finally found my smile and strength again and felt ready to get it on! After the fight my opponent came over and told me she was impressed by me having such calm and strong appearance when she saw me before the fight and warming-up. It was on me to have the first fight of the evening, my opponent was a lot taller than me and in the hand she was leaving the ring as the winner. There is so many thoughts on how and why and what has happened and what didn't work out in these 3 x 3 minutes. After the fight many people cheered me and congratulated for my good fight, I didn't have any bruises, her punches and kicks didn't hurt at all - instead my low kicks caused her problems but obviously not enough to TKO her. (One of our Kru's basics is to have a strong body - first strong body, then proper technique. If you have beautiful technique but go KO when you receive one, you gain nothing.) I don't remember much of that bout (and unfortunately didn't see any video yet) - but I definitely remember that I ran out of gas already during second round and was even more surprised about that fact! I thought I'm in good shape, but obviously not enough. Maybe I wasn't breathing correctly, too so I got exhausted too quick. Never thought that this breathing aspect could cause such effect. Now that I know I hope I can control it better at the next fight. Maybe some hard sparring over at least 3x3mins could have helped before hand. Still I'm thinking a lot about the last weeks, the experience I gained, the development I made, which aspects to work on to improve for the next fight. Thank you everyone for giving me motivation and inspiration every day - I wish you all the best on your own way in Muay Thai!

Hey! When it comes to structure training, over here we have some 15mins of warm-up. After that we either go to 5-6 rounds of pad work, 2 times. One holding pads, partner working out and change after the first set. At the end some 100 or 150 kicks each leg at the heavy bag or pads and some strength. For Pad work just gather your ideas, you can go for any technique or combination you like. On technique days, we just go for partner training, without pads. If you don't remember any techniques to improve, just sort some out online. Every one performing each technique 2 or 3 times, then change, with rounds of ~3min. Hope that could help you a little.

As meanwhile we have beginning of July, how were things developing in Thailand in the meantime? At least for Europe I read people from Thailand are allowed to re-enter to EU again beginning from July 15. That might be the same other way, too.

Whenever I'm around BKK I'll give Boon Sport Shop and Super Export Shop a visit, can recommend both of them!

I'm pretty much looking forward on your further reviews since I had about the same experience when staying at Sitmonchai. Countryside, small village, no distraction; proper training, but no one holding your hand. It was a fantastic place to stay for me!