Sitjaopho Gym in Hua Hin?

[scoutness48]

Hi All,

I noticed someone asked about this gym in July, and the lack of recognition seemed to get it brushed off- but I have a similar request from the group and want to reach out and see what people have heard of the gym, the owners (I believe they are twin brothers), and the Hua Hin area. Here is the email I sent to Sylvie, which she suggested I relay to the group. It includes some videos of pad work and sparring at the gym plus their Facebook page, which might help with this process more than simply a a name. Hope you all have some thoughts! :

 

"Hi Sylvie!

I've very recently taken up Muay Thai and am pretty smitten. I'm also the sort of person who would save up a few months to go crash and train in Thailand. My favorite way to travel is with a purpose, so I'm seriously considering this.

I'm writing to ask for some advice or thoughts on some gyms you might recommend for a western female, first visit to Thailand (but a serial solo traveler), and anything you might have heard, or first-glance opinions on this gym, Sitjaopho, in Hua Hin. I noticed this gym by deeply admiring the pad work and light sparring videos I found online:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5s89dZhnA8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stf7FuNoZXY

Further research suggests to me the gym is new and run by twin brothers, also that Hua Hin is a resort-y beach-y atmosphere although possibly a bit tame and maybe boring? But probably pleasant, low-key, and safe-ish.

Here's their Facebook page with some more info:

https://www.facebook.com/Sitjaopho-Muay-Thai-275312672479861/info/?tab=page_info

Thanks ahead of time for this, and hope to hear from you! Any and all advice is welcome!"

[Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu]

Hi All,

I noticed someone asked about this gym in July, and the lack of recognition seemed to get it brushed off- but I have a similar request from the group and want to reach out and see what people have heard of the gym, the owners (I believe they are twin brothers), and the Hua Hin area. Here is the email I sent to Sylvie, which she suggested I relay to the group. It includes some videos of pad work and sparring at the gym plus their Facebook page, which might help with this process more than simply a a name. Hope you all have some thoughts! :

 

"Hi Sylvie!

 

I've very recently taken up Muay Thai and am pretty smitten. I'm also the sort of person who would save up a few months to go crash and train in Thailand. My favorite way to travel is with a purpose, so I'm seriously considering this.

 

I'm writing to ask for some advice or thoughts on some gyms you might recommend for a western female, first visit to Thailand (but a serial solo traveler), and anything you might have heard, or first-glance opinions on this gym, Sitjaopho, in Hua Hin. I noticed this gym by deeply admiring the pad work and light sparring videos I found online:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5s89dZhnA8

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stf7FuNoZXY

 

Further research suggests to me the gym is new and run by twin brothers, also that Hua Hin is a resort-y beach-y atmosphere although possibly a bit tame and maybe boring? But probably pleasant, low-key, and safe-ish.

 

Here's their Facebook page with some more info:

 

https://www.facebook.com/Sitjaopho-Muay-Thai-275312672479861/info/?tab=page_info

 

Thanks ahead of time for this, and hope to hear from you! Any and all advice is welcome!"

I think I know a few people who have trained at this gym. The first is my friend Frankie, who spent quite a bit of time down at this gym and had very good things to say about it. She never fought for them but she loved the training there. She's very talented and strong, so I'm sure she's very welcome at every gym.

I also met a guy who trained there for a few weeks and loved it. He's not a fighter, was a beginner and had very positive experiences there. Another is a woman I was in correspondence with who moved from a gym she was training at up north to this gym and had some difficulty with treatment at Sitjaopho. I think the training was good but she had a hard time when she wanted to fight. There are a lot of things that go into how readily one can get a fight in Thailand: age, size, gender, experience, location (availability of opponents), etc. But it kind of seemed like the gym was uncool in their treatment of her when she made it clear she wanted to fight, which is something to consider.

There's another gym down there called Por. Promin, which I know to be a friendly and good gym for both beginners and more experienced folks. Again Sitjaopho has come up with many positive experiences from those I know who trained there, but not every gym suits every person, so I throw the Por. Promin name in as another option. 

[TZ22]

Hello,

 

I've trained at Sitjaopho for 6 weeks (i'm the woman Sylvie is referring to that moved from the gym up North). 

 

First of all, the gym is currently being ran by one of the brothers, Phet-tho, since his brother now lives in Sweden and only comes back to the gym ocassionally and was not there at a time that i was at this gym. The gym itself is located just outside of the Hua Hin city, but if you can ride a motorbike it should not be a problem since the main city is about 15-20 min ride away. The area around the gym is pretty rural, and there is nothing really of interest except a few small convenience stores; a bit further away from the gym towards the main road there are few massage shops and a few restaurants but for the most part you'd have to go to the city for any kind of entertainment. Hua Hin is pretty quiet and pretty safe; there's a big shopping mall with a cinema, markets, beach, elephant rescue center, lots of restaurants with good food, beautiful temples - i am not a big party person so that was enough for me. If you want something different, i did a bike tour with a bike tour company owned by an american and then a group of us rented a van to go to a national park, so i got to see beautiful national parks, waterfalls, etc, but all of that was some distance away from the gym.

 

Now, in terms of the quality of training I have nothing to complain about and I would say that out of the 4 gyms that I tried in thailand so far, this gym would be towards my top pick. Just like you, I was drawn to this gym because of their sparring videos and yes, the sparring there is very light and it is more like play, I never once got hurt in sparring which also helped me to feel more relaxed in sparring and as a result allowed me to try things I would normally be hesitant to try back home out of fear of my partner going to hard. The sparring there is every evening for about 30 minutes (and sometimes a bit in the morning but those "sparring" sessions are more like a mix between padwork and sparring/technique lesson), followed by clinch training for about 30 minutes or sometimes even longer (it's the last bit of training for the day so it can go a bit longer sometimes), so that was another high point for me because I wanted to practice more sparring and clinch and there was plenty of opportunity for that. The owner and the trainers are very detail oriented and very technical so they will pick apart your technique and make you better and also they don't stop correcting you until you get it right, which I thought was another thing that stood out for me because I've experienced in some other gyms where the trainer just says "good" simply because he doesn't have the patience to keep explaining something to you (or maybe he doesn't care enough). If you show that you're serious, want to learn and ask questions, it will be very much appreciated.  The owner speaks very good English, but the trainers' English is more basic though I never had difficulties understanding whatever they were trying to explain to me when it came to technique/training. Generally, the morning sessions were more relaxed and focused more on technique and less pad work (usually just 3 rounds), although we would still finish up with abs exercises/teeps on the bag/knees on the bag/etc, but the afternoon session was more challenging and more/longer pad rounds. 

 

Now, the sticking point for me was, like Sylvie mentioned, was that when after about 1.5-2 weeks of training at the gym I asked the gym owner if he thinks that I'm ready to fight in Thailand, he said yes, but because I'm only 48kg and still considered amateur at home (only 2 demo fights), it might be difficult to find me a match in Hua Hin so I might be better off waiting until I go to phuket since there would be more female fighters there...seems like a reasonable answer, however, when I asked him to at least try looking for a match for me and that if there's no one I would be ok with that, I faced a lot of resistance to the idea of me fighting without being given any valid explanation. Even though I did end up "nagging" the owner enough that he did find me a match (which in the end still didn't work out but it was for a reason that was out of anyone's control), I don't know if I had so much difficulty getting the owner to agree to let me fight because he didn't want to to get hurt and he was being overly protective (not sure if that had to do with me being a woman, lack of professional fighting experience, both, or something completely different), so I cannot comment on what your experience would be like with trying to get a fight there if that is something that you're interested in. When I was leaving the gym and the owner asked me I would come back again, I asked if he would let me fight next time and he said ok, so again, I don't know if he was just saying that so that I would come back or if he was serious. 

 

But in any case, it is a good gym and I learned a lot when I was there and I feel that my technique has gotten much better because of how detail oriented the owner and the trainers were and the amount of attention I received. I saw several complete beginners come to the gym while I was there and I noticed a significant improvement in their form in a very short period of time so I also think that this is a great gym for beginners as well as more experienced students.

 

Hopefully this was helpful, but if you want more details or have more specific questions let me know.

 

Cheers

[MuayThaiPanda]

Hey guys, I just started training at this gym a few days ago and love every minute of it.  There are around 3-4 girls here and one of them just fought last night at Grand Sport Muay Thai Stadium/Gym so maybe it's a bit more female fighter friendly?  Everyone here seems to be pretty advanced and most of the guys here have had a few fights already.  One of the guys here has fought in Max Muay Thai a couple of times and he's fighting next Sunday at Max Muay Thai.  Petch-Tho is an extremely passionate instructor and loves to break down his techniques during our training and always encourages us to ask questions.  I feel like I have made an excellent choice coming here for my first muay thai camp in Thailand. 

[radarjam]

Hey guys, I just started training at this gym a few days ago and love every minute of it.  There are around 3-4 girls here and one of them just fought last night at Grand Sport Muay Thai Stadium/Gym so maybe it's a bit more female fighter friendly?  Everyone here seems to be pretty advanced and most of the guys here have had a few fights already.  One of the guys here has fought in Max Muay Thai a couple of times and he's fighting next Sunday at Max Muay Thai.  Petch-Tho is an extremely passionate instructor and loves to break down his techniques during our training and always encourages us to ask questions.  I feel like I have made an excellent choice coming here for my first muay thai camp in Thailand. 

Thanks for sharing! I'm glad you're having a blast so far in Hua Hin! I just saw your a link for our blog, I enjoyed reading through it! :) Keep us posted!