emma

Is that Palapon Gym in Hua Hin? I fought a girl from there a couple of times and a friend of mine did some training over there. I hope we get to see a video of that fight. It's exciting that you guys will be training together again in August, Sylvie!

I just watched that documentary a couple of weeks ago! I thought it was really interesting. We all have our passions and there will always be people who think they're weird, and that's ok :smile:

This is a tough one. You are always going to be paired up with a shitty sparring partner at some point. At the same time, there are also lots of people who have absolutely no control or awareness of how heavy they are actually going, so not all of them are intentionally shitty. In any case, sparring hard all the time isn't going to help you learn, in my experience. I think it actually causes you to develop bad habits, like flinching, not committing, not pushing forward etc because you're afraid of running into something and getting hurt. You need to be able to practice things in a safe environment in order to be come competent and confident enough to actually use the effectively and then take them into a fight. It's not that hard sparring doesn't have its place, but if you're trying to take people's heads off every day, you're a dick. I seem to be one of those people in the gym who my trainers will let spar with just about anyone, regardless of weight or experience differences. They're comfortable with putting me with complete beginners because they know I'm going to go light. However, this has worked against me with people who like to go hard. I've had a lot of people try to bully me around in sparring, usually because they see the fact that I'm small and not aggressive to be opportunities for them to try and beat me around the ring. I do my best to keep cool about it, because you can't afford to lose your temper in a fight. I also hate to have any confrontation or awkwardness in the gym, so I try very hard to be a good sparring partner as well as a good fighter, because it's not just about me and my training. The ones who've bullied me actually helped me to get better at fighting backwards and using their aggression against them, moving around a lot and picking my shots. When they're not willing to tone it down, I turn it into an exercise in out-classing them. It's probably a bit mean, but I get a real kick out of being able to do that effectively when someone is just trying to bash me. If the person doing that gets visibly frustrated and isn't able to land anything, I've been successful. I'll be nice, but I refuse to be a punchbag. How you react to difficult sparring partners often depends on what kind of person they are. With some people, you can just tell them politely to chill, and it will be fine. With others, they'll say it's fine but continue to throw bombs either because they don't care or don't realise they're doing it. Sometimes, you do just have to give someone a good whack to make them get the idea. That's a dangerous game, because a lot of people will just try to hit you back twice as hard, then it ends up escalating until someone gets hurt or you get separated. Then, it can get a bit awkward. As an add-on to what I said before about a lot of hard sparring not being conducive to progress, I also want to mention that Joe Valtellini was recently forced to vacate his Glory Welterweight title because of post-concussion syndrome, which came as a result of too many hard hits in training. Read more about that here.

I had incredibly tight calves for a really long time and found myself having to stop and stretch them a lot, too. It was only recently that I noticed that I don't get it anymore, but I was doing a lot of massaging and foam rolling. Foam rolling is painful and unpleasant but really works wonders. Strangely, when skipping, my calves become unbearably tight after a really short time and I can't hack it. I have no idea what that's about! I much prefer to run, anyway.

I've definitely had this happen a lot in the past. I couldn't even tell you how many times people who I no longer associate with called me 'boring', 'anti-social' or 'addicted' in the past. It was an issue for me when I first started training and fighting, but over time, my social circle changed - partly because I'd started actively adjusting it and partly because a lot of my friends moved on. That's the thing about living abroad, a lot of people around you are on temporary lifestyles. Now, the only people I spend time with when I'm not working are my training partners or other people I've met through Muay Thai. I still have wonderful friends outside of Muay Thai, but they are now dotted around in other parts of the world, which, as much as I miss them, is great for me because it allows me to completely focus without any distraction or social pull. Any friends of mine outside the gym fall into two categories: ones who don't understand what I'm doing but love me for it, support it and express a genuine interest in it; and ones who care very much about me but are completely clueless or uninterested about what I do and what it means for me, so just never talk about it (this category only consists of people I met before starting Muay Thai). I'm now in the UK on vacation and I spent today with some girls who fall into the second category. The subject of my training or fighting wasn't raised once, despite it being pretty much my entire life right now. It was slightly weird for me and I felt like a fish out of water. I'm not offended by it, I just don't think they would know what to say or ask. To be honest, I sometimes find it easier not to broach the subject with those people. It saves some awkward conversation. I actually wrote a bit about how finding Muay Thai meant that my lifestyle adjusted and my need for 'me time' increased in an old post of mine, 'Does Fighting Change You?' As you guys have already said, it all comes down to priorities. The people who called me boring for wanting to spend my free time in the gym instead of partying didn't understand that I was passionately working towards goals that were important to me. When they told me 'let go and have some fun', they didn't realise that being in the gym was my idea of fun. We just had different wants and needs. This even goes for some people in my gym, who don't take training quite as seriously or see it as just a hobby. It's fine if we're not on the same page with it, as long as everyone does what makes them happy. You asked if it's possible to become addicted to training in an unhealthy way, and I do think that's true in extreme cases. I say this as someone who previously had problems with an eating disorder and used excessive exercise as a way to fuel that. However, this was before I'd found Muay Thai. If you're interested, you can read my story about that here - 'How Strength Training Saved me from an Eating Disorder'.

Here's the video of their rematch: Farida Okiko vs. Gemma Pike 9/6/2015 It's great that you're fighting so often, Gemma! I see you have another one on the 27th. Good luck! :woot:

This is great. It's really refreshing to see Muay Thai marketed this way in Thailand. It's rare to see it geared towards women at all, but when it is, beauty is the core of it. I loved that none of the women shown here were doing Muay Thai to be 'sexy'. They were on a deeper journey of inner strength - that's what it should be about. As Kevin said, it's quite subtle, too. They didn't shove the concept in our faces. Nicely done. Funnily enough, I walked past this gym, Rajadamnern Singha Muay Thai Academy, while they were doing a training session on Friday evening. It's located in Thong Lor, a very 'hi-so'/upscale district of Bangkok (luxury cars are subject to a 300% import tariff in Thailand, so you don't generally see them much around the city, but you'll always spot some in this area. I've seen a couple of Bentleys and Rolls Royces down there - that's what kind of place it is). Not only is it in this district, it's in the middle of Seenspace, which is an outdoor hub of trendy bars, cafes and restaurants there. I happened to walk past as I was heading to one of the restaurants there at around 8:30pm, by which time a training session was in full swing. It's obviously a more fitness-orientated gym with late classes to suit the clientele who are likely to be coming after work. It seemed very busy, so they must be doing pretty well! Thanks for sharing this, Kevin!

More of Krataithong's fights: Another where she won by elbow KO in round 1 here.

Oh really? I've found that most Thai girls I've asked tell me they've had ten fights regardless of what the actual number is, so I'm always wary. It's hard to tell when you only have short clips to go by, but it does look as though this could have been a better match up! EDIT: I checked Por. Promin's Facebook page to see if there was any info on her, and it said that she had her 11th fight in April, so that sounds about right :smile:

Both my sparring and bag gloves were designed by Master Toddy and made at the factory he has at the gym (you can see more of his gear here) For sparring, I use 14oz gloves. I've had these ones since Feb 2013 and they're still going strong, even after pretty much daily sparring since then, which is pretty awesome. I use bag gloves for everything else: padwork, bagwork and sometimes in clinching. I really love these ones because they're so small that I can feel exactly how my punches are landing. I've found that they've really helped me to work on my accuracy. Other gloves that were bigger or shaped differently weren't quite as comfortable for me. They either didn't allow me to make a proper fist or to turn my knuckles down enough to land correctly. I like that I can feel everything when I wear these, and I've never had any wrist problems or anything like that. I got both sets custom-made with a smaller wrist because I have tiny hands, but the bag gloves were the ones I was most specific about. For those, I had to get them to make me a special size somewhere in between 'small' and 'kids size', asked for velcro around the wrists to make it more snug and secure, and an open-thumb, because I just prefer them that way. Having small hands makes it awkward buying gloves, so I'm glad I've got these ones!

I've never seen a 'sports massage' place specifically, but Onnut has the best and cheapest places to my knowledge. If you get off the BTS there on the side opposite Tesco Lotus and walk straight, you'll come to a right turning with a road that leads to Big C, which has loads of massage places, which are all 150B/hour. I've had tons of really good massages there, highly recommended. It's also only a couple of stops away from where you're staying!

That was a 'Shootboxing' match, wasn't it? I know she had a couple of those fights, but didn't do so well.. :mellow: It must be very difficult transitioning over to fighting with different rules!

You might have noticed that when we spar at Master Toddy's, we almost never start out using every weapon from the first round. We start limited and then add in different techniques with each round. We'll usually begin by only using our left hands and blocking with the right, then perhaps add in the left leg to work on punching, kicking and teeping to keep your opponent out. The following round, we might add in the right hand and turn it into an exercise in using your left side to guide your opponent into your cross. These strategies vary, but they really work for me. An example of something I've trained very successfully in this way is my overhand right. Master Toddy describes it as 'building a bridge over the river'. When your opponent throws a jab (the river), you beat them to it by throwing your right (the bridge) over the top of it before it reaches you. I've drilled this so many times that it automatically comes out almost any times I see a jab now, and it works really well. It took an insane amount of repetition (and stress) to get to that point, but now it just flows like magic. This might be a lot of unnecessary detail, but the core of it is that you have to break things down into individual components in order to effectively digest them. When I first started sparring, I didn't have the faintest idea what I was doing. I knew how to punch and kick to a certain extent, but had no idea how to put them together and was just winging it. The kind of sparring that I described above has been incredibly helpful for me because it gave me a structure and forced me to use my brain. It's really effective, but only if you work on it - if you just go through the motions, you won't progress very quickly. Like Sylvie said, it's really helpful to pick a certain thing to work on and drill it, whether it's for the whole session or just one round :smile:

Thanks for coming by for training, Sylvie! Always so much fun :woot: If any other forum members are interested in linking up for training, do post here and let us know! I'd love to get more of us together.

Awesome! Let me know if you do decide to come here. I will be on holiday in the UK for the first half of July, but I'll be around all the time from then. You will. Looking forward to it! :smile:

Zaza Sor. Aree has been making a comeback this year, and at the end of April, she fought Krathaithong Por Promin. This is a short highlight video of that fight from Zaza's gym, Siangboxing.

Minu, who was one of the first members on the forum, has been training with me at Master Toddy's! At first, she was doing private lessons, but after a few of those, she started joining the group classes and last week, we were able to do some sparring together. It's really awesome that we were able to meet up in this way. Hopefully, more of us will be able to get together as time goes on :smile:

Thanks for finding and posting this, Kevin! I liked this video a lot, nicely done.

Oh, Nicki has changed the name of her blog! It used to be called 'Adventurista Unplugged'. Thanks for sharing the post, I'll check it out :smile:

I agree with both 515 and Sylvie. Both endurance and high intensity training have their places and respective benefits, neither one is better than the other, so I find it best to do both. Most people seem to run before training, but I prefer to do it afterwards. That way, I can use it to go over what I did during the session in my head. I tag sprints onto the end, either before or after the big run, depending on how I feel that day. Some days, I'll do one and not the other and occasionally, I won't do any running at all, but as long as you incorporate both kinds into your general routine, you're good.

Thanks for that! I didn't know any of this, so it definitely does help. I can understand why it must be difficult for interim title winners under criticism. It's not their fault, they just do what they're supposed to do. Isn't Christina 40 years old? Amazing! Congratulations to her. Could you link us to the article you wrote?

Thanks for this! It's interesting to hear a promoter's point of view on this subject.

Yes! The only thing I have trouble with is that I finish work at 9pm, which means that by the time I've bought groceries, come home, cooked, eaten and showered, it's usually about 11, so I can never go to sleep early on a work night. Post-training naps are key for me. Ah, that must be difficult! Ours isn't set up like that, the communal areas are away from the rooms, so I don't have that problem. When people do get a bit noisy though, I can sometimes turn into a complete old lady, like when people come back from nights out drunk and make lots of noise. Thankfully, that doesn't happen too often.

Thanks for sharing this, I just read the full article. What an incredibly strong lady. Adopting a child at 19 is amazing in any case, but while being an Olympic athlete..wow.

I second the mental training recommendation, it really helped me when I was having a lot of the same thoughts you've spoken about. It's not that I don't have those thoughts at all anymore, but they appear much less often. When I do have them, I'm now quicker to catch them and switch them for positive self talk before they start to bring me down. If you do try any mental training, do let us know how you get on with it!