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I would appreciate some advice from other perspectives than my coach and myself. I think I did pretty good in the fight, except for my boxing which has never been my strong point. For some background information, I am red corner. My record was 3-0-0 with 2 Smokers. This was my first fight on a real fight card since all my other 3 official amateur fights come from the TBA-SA 2021. My opponent had a record of 0-0-1 and a few Smokers and trains at The Academy MN (that was actually Greg Nelson, Rose Namajunas' coach, in his corner). What made them believe we were a good matchup was that he has 7 years of training whereas I only had 3. Furthermore, we had fought before in a Smoker fight and it was pretty equal fight. I would greatly appreciate whatever feedback there is to offer:

This was my guys first competition. Sharing it here, because this is quite a nice, private forum rather than a place where you can get concrete feedback. Bit of background: My fella is ex-army, was discharged due to injuries that meant he was not allowed to go on tour in Afghanistan. He was training with me for 8 months prior to this, with no martial arts experience outside of what he had learned in the military. These months were consisting mostly of us drilling the basics and an ongoing struggle to get him to fully commit to his strikes in sparring. He is always the gentleman and doesn't want to hit anyone too hard, which I respect, but I also felt this made it difficult for me to judge his process. When we confirmed that he had a fight booked, I came to the conclusion that the easiest way to get him to really commit to power shots was to hone his leg kicking game in order to get him confident, without having to sacrifice too much balance from throwing those beginner body kicks. There was an issue however. I learned that I am not particularly good at TEACHING leg kicks, despite them making up such a big part of my game. I go back to the drawing board, we re-learn the leg kicks and we essentially drill them for 5 weeks. Specifically focusing on reacting with leg kicks and moving backwards while leg kicking along with L-steps and hand traps to keep him fighting, while moving back towards the ropes. This was the end result. I was worried initially, as I am still new as a coach and this is my first fighter rather than hobbyist who trains for fun and fitness. After the first round, I ask him how he's feeling, he says it's good. I warn him that we don't know how our opponent will be coming out in the second round. After more of the same in the second round I tell him to keep doing exactly what he's doing. I found that I didn't want to suggest anything or give him any advice that would necessarily make him over think and lose the work he was doing. There are a lot of things that I want to work on, getting the fundamentals more solid - but I'd love feedback from you guys, Sylvie, Kevin etc. as a fresh perspective can only help. My fighter is in the camo shorts. I had them made specially for him as a tribute to his days in the royal army, the linework in the colours of his team. All the best

Hi guys, -I wanted to know how is the lookboonmee gym for an athlete of medium level?the trainers follow you and try to make you grow or they use you only for money... -How is the accomodation and the promoters for some fights? Thanks :) P.S. sorry for my bad english

So, I have been training Muay Thai for about a year, and finally had my first fight Nov 6. I wanted to share my experience and maybe get some feedback from the more experienced fighters on the forums about what my training priorities should be for my next fight. Obviously, my trainer has some strong opinions, but I like to get different perspectives The fight was sanctioned under ISKF rules in Florida, which means no elbows and very limited clinch. This is going to be a long post, so please feel free to skip to the end, where there is a link to the youtube video. I am 5'8", and walk around at 140lbs. I had planned to fight at 135lbs, but about 2 weeks out from the fight, the promoter told me I needed to be at 130lbs if I wanted a match. I was very unenthusiastic about cutting weight, but desperate to fight (I had been waiting several months for a match) so I followed the advice in this blog post: http://fourhourworkweek.com/2008/01/18/how-to-cut-weight/ and managed to come in 128lbs. My opponent was 5'2", weighed 129lbs, and had a record of 2 wins and 1 draw. I felt like shit the last week of training because of the lack of carbs. But it was 'day before' weigh-ins, so I had time to rehydrate and refuel. I had some pre-fight anxiety, which I wrote about thusly: "So I am less than a week away from my first fight. I keep thinking to myself "I must be crazy. Why did I agree to do this?" I'll be sitting calmly at work, and suddenly get a shot of adrenaline as I think of my opponent, as I picture entering the ring. I keep thinking of the worst things that could happen. I'm not really afraid of being knocked out, although that would be bad. It's more like the nightmares I used to have, where I'm so angry and I want to hurt someone but all my movements are in slow motion and nothing seems to land. And I'm scared of gassing out: of being so exhausted that my arms and legs feel so heavy and dead. Those are the things I fear: being helpless and tired and dumb. Everyone warns me about the adrenaline dump, and tells me that once I'm in the ring I won't be able to think and I'll just throw whatever my body remembers best. I've written a list of 8 techniques that I'm going to carry in my pocket until the day of the fight. Four of the techniques are "reaction techniques", and four are "initiation techniques". I think that should be enough." (For those that are curious, my list was "1. Jab 2. Teep 3. Parry to punch 4. Parry to Knee 5. Leg kick 6. Hook to kick 7. Jab, cross, switch kick and 8. Superman punch". In retrospect, kind of silly. But I found it very comforting.) Writing down my fears really helped me to process them. I realized the things I was actually afraid of (being totally helpless, getting totally gassed) would be nearly impossible considering I had been training Muay Thai for 3 hours a day, 6 days a week, for over a year. Yes I could lose the fight, but I had done everything my trainer told me to do to prepare, and I wasn't going to embarrass myself or the gym. Reading Sylvie's blog posts also helped me to keep perspective. The day of the fight came, and I was almost last on the card (I think I was the 20th fight?). We got there at 4pm, and I didn't fight until after midnight. I managed to take a nap in the 'locker' room, and stayed bizarrely calm the whole time. I'm generally a pretty anxious person, so I expected to be a bundle of nerves, but it just wasn't the case. Several fighters from our gym fought back-to-back, so I didn't really get much of a warm up, and didn't get a thai oil massage. My trainer is very traditional, and was clearly unhappy and superstitious about it, but I kind of just shrugged it off. In a way, the fight felt pre-determined to me. Either I had internalized the techniques, or I hadn't. I kept thinking of a quote from Muhammad Ali "The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses - behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights." I had a huge physical advantage with my height, and while there are absolutely people who train harder, I felt fairly well conditioned. Then the fight happened. I kept expecting a shot of adrenaline, but it never came. I don't know if that's good or bad. I kept thinking "Surely as I warm up, I'll start getting excited". Nope. "Surely as I stand on deck, I'll get pumped". Nope. "Surely when I walk into the ring and see my opponent, my heart will start racing". Nope. "When the bell rings, THEN I will go into Beast Mode". NOPE. It was very weird. I just felt calm and detached, and totally in control of the fight. Watching the video afterwards was hard though. I did some things 'right', but so much I did wrong. I controlled the pace and the distance and landed some good knees. But everything looks so SLOW and I looked so LAZY. My guard is terrible: I keep leaning back and wildly swinging my arms when I should be keeping them tight and leaning into her punches. I could hear my corner screaming at me to "Go forward! Engage!" and I straight up ignore them because I was out of breath, felt like I was winning, and wanted to play it safe. After the fight, my trainer was clearly very frustrated with me, but didn't lay into me too hard because I had won. But he felt that I probably could have KOed or TKOed her if I had just followed up more after rocking her. I have mixed feelings about this. Obviously, it's preferable to end the fight decisively without letting it go to the judges. On the other hand, I felt very dominant, and it seems strategically advantageous to keep something in 'reserve' for my next fight. I don't know. Or maybe ultimately I'm just lazy and like to do the bare minimum, haha. Here's the fight. I am the very tall one with purple shorts: Comments and criticisms welcome!

Hi Sylvie, I have two questions for you and if you have time, it would be great to hear your opinion on my situation. Firstly, I am currently training at a gym in Chiang Mai area and my original plan was only to train here for 1 month and then go to Bangkok to a gym owned by a famous fighter in October for 1 month, however, after checking out that gym for a morning session I really did not like the area that it is located in (I'm not sure that I would feel safe going for a run there by myself), and I am questioning if I would be taken seriously there, whether I would get the kind of training that would help me get to the next level rather than treating me like a beginner, so I am now contemplating whether I should extend my stay at my current gym to two months or should I still go to another gym so that I get some variety of technique...To be honest, I like how detailed oriented the trainers at my current gym are and that they are picking up on the small things that I didn't know I was doing wrong (although everything I thought I knew has been corrected so many times that it left me wondering if I actually know anything at all and what it was that I was learning/doing for the last 2.5 years, lol), but I feel like I am not learning any new techniques and only get corrected on the techniques that I already have, so I started paying for private sessions (I've done 2 so far and don't know if I should keep going with that) so that I can learn some clinch, since the group clinch sessions are pretty short (maybe 15 minutes at the end of the afternoon session), and to also do some sparring since there doesn't seem to be much sparring happening and the one session that they called boxing sparring was pretty short too and I got put in a ring with a bunch of complete beginners who didn't know how to control their punches and so it was just me trying to avoid any of the wild haymaker punches, while the trainer that was in our ring was jus watching and not saying anything, so I don't know if this is the norm in Thai gyms and this is how they conduct their sparring sessions so would going to another gym be really that different? Do you think it would be a good idea for me to train at another gym after my 1 month at my current gym or do you think I would be making it worse since the other gym would spend time to teach me "their way" of doing things and I would be basically unlearning again what I thought I knew? Or should I stay here at my current gym so that I can put in enough time to learn one style the right way and continue to do private sessions to fill in the gaps from the group sessions? Secondly, I also wanted to try fighting in Thailand but I have never been in a fight that had the use of elbows allowed (I've only done 2 in house fights so I doubt that it counts for much) and I am wondering if these kind of basic sparring sessions at my current gym would prepare me for the use of elbows in a real fight, or would actually help me prepare for any fight at all. When you do sparring at the gym where you train, do you ever practice throwing elbows (in a controlled way) during sparring or is it something that only gets practiced on the pads? I also don't know if I should bring up the fact that I was hoping to be able to get a fight towards the end of my training at this gym or if I am expected to wait to be asked whether it is something I want to do? I feel almost embarrassed now to ask for a fight after having received so many corrections of my technique which up until now I thought was decent (I certainly didn't think that it was perfect but I didn't think that I needed so many corrections), and it actually left me feeling pretty disappointed in myself since I work hard when I train back home, but it almost now seems like it was all wasted effort and that the training that I was getting at home and thought of as being quiet good is not good enough. Do you think if I mention that I want to fight I would get better/different training or would I be laughed at for even asking? Also, do you know if you might be getting any fights in Chiang Mai? I would love to come and watch at least one of your fights Cheers

Wondering if anyone saw this fight and could comment on Rory's elbow? He landed some elbows, but they didn't really seem to hurt Robbie or cut him. Also, he was attempting to counter jabs and straight crosses with elbows and was often missing. If you didn't see the fight, I was wondering if any of the pros on here could comment on range and elbows, and where you find elbows most effective. Thanks!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gsY0cdVDPk Valentina shows her explosive combination style.