Heavy female beginner fighter looking for a gym in Thailand

[kkadzielna]

I'll be going to Thailand for 2-3 months next summer with my aim being training as much as possible and hopefully fighting. I've only had 2 fights, by the time I go I'm hoping to have had 3. One thing that I believe might cause me issues is the fact that I'm pretty big, 5'9 and walk around at about 70kg. In the west it's not that big of a problem, I always train with men because there is never any girl my size and I don't mind it at all, but I wonder if that could be an issue in Thailand.

I'd also like to add that while I'm looking to develop my whole game and work on my weaknesses, I'm naturally a long range counter fighter and kicks have always been my best asset. I also have a kyokushin karate background. I've always been most comfortable keeping range and scoring on the back foot, no matter how hard my karate coaches have tried to change it, so I'm looking for a gym that would best suit my style.

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

I'm just going to respond generally here. I think at 70 kg your best bet would be a gym in Phuket, because I'm not sure it would be easy to get a fight with a Thai in other parts of the country? Perhaps there are really experienced Thai female fighters in Chiang Mai who fight at 60? At least in Phuket you'd have a better chance of being matched up against another larger westerner as well? We're a little blind on the state of fighting promotions in Chiang Mai and Phuket, in the COVID era, but it seems that Phuket is having more regular shows than Chiang Mai at this point.

In terms of gym recommendations though, we really don't know Phuket gyms, personally. Phuket Fight Club is a very powerful gym in Phuket that features a lot of Brazilian fighters on shows, that seems to teach a very disciplined, kick-oriented, balanced attack (based on how they seem to fight). At least with the good sized gym like that you'd have suitable training partners, and they should be able to get you fights...but this is just a view from afar.