Most Authentic Muay Thai Gyms

[rickyrico]

I'm an intermediate Muay Thai fighter seeking an authentic training experience in Thailand. I understand that many gyms might not typically accept foreigners for a more traditional training environment, but authenticity is a top priority for me. I speak some Thai and am genuinely committed to immersing myself in a real Muay Thai experience. Ideally, I’d like a gym where I can do private sessions 4-5 times a week to refine my technique, along with group classes that offer solid clinch work and sparring. I’m planning a six-week stay later this year (could be more) and would be grateful for any recommendations of gyms that might align with these goals. Location does not matter. Some examples I've been looking at are like Keatkhamtorn and Dejrat gym. Something like that, I want a good main trainer who will be able to teach me good in private sessions. 

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

On 11/10/2024 at 10:10 PM, rickyrico said:

I’d like a gym where I can do private sessions 4-5 times a week to refine my technique

I understand your pursuit of authenticity, but this would not happen in an "authentic" kaimuay gym. Private lessons are kind of a Western thing.

Probably the best option would be Nungubon's gym in Isaan, or Kem's Gym below Khorat, which both have kaimuay-type characteristics, but you could still take lots of privates (which are usually a good thing to do).

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

On 11/10/2024 at 10:10 PM, rickyrico said:

I'm an intermediate Muay Thai fighter seeking an authentic training experience in Thailand. I understand that many gyms might not typically accept foreigners for a more traditional training environment, but authenticity is a top priority for me. I speak some Thai and am genuinely committed to immersing myself in a real Muay Thai experience. Ideally, I’d like a gym where I can do private sessions 4-5 times a week to refine my technique, along with group classes that offer solid clinch work and sparring. I’m planning a six-week stay later this year (could be more) and would be grateful for any recommendations of gyms that might align with these goals. Location does not matter. Some examples I've been looking at are like Keatkhamtorn and Dejrat gym. Something like that, I want a good main trainer who will be able to teach me good in private sessions. 

I have a little more time, let me offer a more complete response. Some of the difficulty in pursuing "authenticity" in Thai gyms is that non-Thai can tend to have pretty romantic visions of what an authentic gym is like. Or, at the very least incomplete pictures. And, there are versions of imagined authenticity. A great deal of Thailand's Muay Thai of the past came out of the kaimuay (camp) teaching or development method, but there were very different kinds of kaimuay, in some way depending on how close you are to Bangkok's National Stadia, or large city centers where there were scenes of weight class fighting, and thus more money put into the sport. In the outer provinces kaimuay could be just a collection of local boys, in Bangkok a gym that had bought up the contracts of successful provincial fighters, combined with other training/trainer interests. But in these settings there was very little one-on-one instruction, as far as we can tell. Instead, fighters were basically workers, laborers, much as ranch-hands were laborers in the Cattle Ranching of the American West. Fighters were very low status, socially, pad men also usually low status, and the development of fighters was a process, come from mixing all the fighters together, in the work of the kaimuay. There's really no Master & Student dynamic going on, as for instance in Asian Martial Arts, or even like coach-centric Western Boxing traditions. It was largely the churn. Fighters would fall out, or they would rise. There were likely exceptions and unique dynamics in gyms, but this was the "authentic" profile of what was happening. So, if you wanted to be part of a kaimuay, as it was, you would just be in the churn. You wouldn't be getting special instruction. You'd be learning by imitation and repetition, and through lots of sparring and clinch. You would have no authority as a customer (in this fantasy), you wouldn't be allowed to leave the camp and go to another gym if things weren't working out (this problem STILL happens for Westerners in Thailand, believe it or not, because Muay Thai gym are very political). You'd be in a state more or less like indentured work.

That kaimuay, as it was, largely doesn't exist anymore. Which is to say Thai camps have vestigial aspects of the kaimuay, and some still train with a focus on the churn (which is the true way), but this is very far from going to a camp and taking private lessons, as a paying customer. Now lots of Muay Thai gyms offer privates, and also have adapted training to Western expectations, involving more correction and attention, and some of those still try to maintain something of the kaimuay ethic. But, we are already outside of "authentic" as it historically was.

So when Westerners really long for the authentic experience, they are often caught between kinds of gyms, gyms that maintain SOME dimensions of authenticity (just some of that: train in a kaimuay way, focus on Thai techniques and principles, produce Thai stadium fighters themselves, carry a culture of traditional respect and power), but none of them will have all of that (at least as I've seen). Worse, many (even with some authentic qualities, will have started training in more Western ways, holding for combos, focused on Entertainment Muay Thai (which is basically Muay Thai made for tourists and tourism). So its very hard to pick out WHICH authentic elements you are going to get. You could go to a "traditional style" gym known for Muay Khao and just end up clinching endlessly with Westerners who also came there because its known for clinch training. You could go where a true legend of the sport like Arjan Surat still works fighters for the stadia, but there may be nobody your size to train against and with. You could go up to a REAL provincial kaimuay like Santi Gym in Ubon, and just train in the churn of fighters reaching for the stadia, but they probably wouldn't be giving privates (?), and you might find the work boring or isolating. You could go to a "technique" gym like Sitjaopho, where you'll (probably) be pressed together with lots of other Westerners very interested in technique, but in a hybrid way that has approximated the kaimuay churn, while offering lots of correction and teaching, but you won't likely be training with Thai fighters. You could go to Sit Thailand in Chiang Mai, which seems to have a small kaimuay structure, organized around developing his son and a few other good Thais, and take privates from him (a very good teacher), but are there people to train with (this changes a lot in gyms)? Or, you could go the Samart's gym, and be trained by legends like Kongtoranee or Karuhat, and be near (mixed in? I don't know) the Thai kaimuay like processes of their handful of stadium fighters, in a kind of hybrid space? These are just very broad pictures (every gym changes, we don't really spend time in gyms much). Every gym is going to be missing something, probably a lot of things.

This is the fundamental problem for Westerners. Muay Thai has more and more become FOR the Westerner. In fact they've now invented a new version of Muay Thai which is FOR the Westerner, and its becoming dominant. But, if Muay Thai wasn't turning its face to the Westerner there would be little room for the Westerner in traditional spaces...because traditional spaces are not only hierarchical (not commercial for customers), they were also businesses in the way that Cattle Ranches were businesses. You wouldn't come from another country and go to a ranch in 1950 in Texas to "learn how to be a cowboy".

Part of the problem is that Muay Thai itself, in its authentic strain, is dying, so you can only capture pieces of it, fragments, at best chunks. I'm not an expert in this, only someone with my own experience, but this perspective comes from documenting the Golden Age of the sport, getting to know the great teachers of the art and sport as they are now, but also continually hunting for the kaimuay qualities of "authenticity" for Sylvie herself, as she trains and fights. It's very difficult to find.

 

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

Thoughts about authenticity:

Just to offer something, gyms change all the time, and factors of "authenticity" can also change. And who you are and what you need/desire is probably more important than even the qualities of the gym at times.

Dejrat Gym, Bangkok - Arjan Surat is an absolute legend, nobody like him in the entire sport. Gym in his garage (not uncommon in the day), lighter weight stadium fighters even at the champion level come through his gym still. A very tough old school trainer. Pads will shape you. May not be a full gym.

 

 

Santi Ubon Gym, Ubon - a real provincial kaimuay, full of local kids and teens, some ranked BKK stadium fighters, you'll get the legit culture of provincial Muay Thai here.

there's a MTL on this gym:

#149 Provincial Kaimuay Knowledge | Santi Ubon Muay Thai (85 min) watch it here

Everyone wants to know what "authentic" Muay Thai training is like in Thailand. We visit and document the kaimuay training style of the Santi gym in Ubon (Isaan), the traditional, local community style of training that is core to Thailand's historical style of fighting. Learn the energy of padwork, sparring and clinch, how fighters are shaped from the ground up. Training like there is nowhere else in the world.

 

Sitjaopho Gym, Hua Hin - a very interesting hybrid gym completely organized around Westerners who love technique. Loads of teaching, loads of training, Kru F a great communicator and as nice as you'll find in Thailand. They have a system of teaching that is connected to kaimuay principles in a very devoted way...but its pretty much for Westerners. Some long term Westerners there are also very helpful and knowledgeable, and in fact may be really key to how the whole gym stays in that sweetspot, and gyms can be very affected by who is training. You train here you will learn.

 

Nungubon Gym, Ubon - great legend of the Golden Age, his son a strong stadium fighter now, which really is good to have in a gym. Out of the way so the Westerners who come to this gym have trekked to get there. The gym has real sincerity, Nungubon is wonderful and Old School. Did not see training, but it seemed like maybe not a full gym. That can be good and can be bad, depends on your needs.

 

Samart's Gym, Bangkok - Gyms in the 2010s started informally breaking themselves into two kinds of gyms, which operated side-by-side. There was "Thai gym" (which trains Thais for the stadia in a traditional way), and the Western gym (which trains Westerners, in parallel to the Thais). Often Westerners can't even tell that there are two different gyms operating side-by-side (that's a little how it felt). At Samart's you get to be trained by legends like Kongtoranee and Karuhat, and there are top Thai low-weight stadium champion level fighters like Chalamchon (photo shoot here) developing. The experience is unique because of just how many Golden Age legends are around, including Samart of course, but also Somrak, Dieselnoi will come through, and many others. So it has a mix of authenticities, some of them absolutely unique.

 

 

Samingnoom Gym Buriram - a great legend of the Golden Age, adept in both boxing and Muay Thai, history of teaching abroad in places like New Zealand and Finland, built his own ring beside his small house which he also built by hand. These little gyms have the heartbeat of traditional Muay Thai. He trains local kids and adventuresome foreigners. Very barebones authentic Muay Thai. 

 

Kem Muay Thai Gym, Khao Yai -  Kem a great fighter of the 2000s runs a trad camp in maybe the most beautiful location in Thailand, high up in the Khao Yai mountains, overlooking a valley. The training is kaimuay style, mixed in with Western style drilling that Kem feels builds proper principles. Kem is very, very sound in terms of the deeper principles of Muay Thai, not only its beautiful strikes, but its balance and footwork. Most of the gym will be Westerners, but they've come a long way so they are committed. His wife Mo is wonderful, and speaks English, so even though it feels very Thai, she can help out with any issues. Everyone eats together, traditional style, high up above the camp. One of the great privates in Thailand.

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

The way I see it there are several overlapping, and sometimes contradictory processes of gym "authenticity":

• developing young Thai fighters to fight in the festival circuit and eventually the traditional stadia (not Entertainment Muay Thai shows)
• disseminating, developing Thai techniques and stylistics through a slow-cook "churn" of training: learning through arduous, play, osmosis and imitation
• maintaining a traditional authority culture, including the legacy of the gym, its heritage
• gaining prestige through high-profile fighters in the Bangkok stadia gambling scene
• the gym, the kaimuay, an expression of the local community, a weave of its people, its location
• a house - sometimes literally a house - of knowledge, kept within a top kru or boss who productively runs the camp, this knowledge is both political craft and technical fighting craft.
• a collection of entrepreneurial knowledges within the group, betting padmen, who themselves are jostling for social position
• a house where chance (gambling) meets technique (knowledge)

 

A lot of this runs counter, or is outright alien to a foreigner (not of the community) paying for (commerce, not alliance) technical knowledge (the structure of the house). So gyms that accept foreigners become hybrid spaces, often with parallel (and contradictory) value systems, or social organization. The more prominent the newer value system, the less "authentic" the gym may be...in this particular description, which imagines that there is something "authentic" to be found and experienced. You can get fragments of this: the experience of kids developing and fighting, the techniques in a lineage, the aura of "respect" and "tradition", the churn of a gym, in mixtures, but almost always in combination with the secondary (usual conflictual) value system that provides admission to the gym.

This being said, the two value systems, roughly we can call them Tradition and Consumer Capitalism, are always working upon each other in the culture, and uniquely in every gym, mutating each other, so there are no hard lines between the two. In gyms where there are parallel structures, one for Thais and one for Westerners, the two value systems can become more distinct, if you develop eyes for them, but in terms of the Thais themselves, the meaning within each value system still has to be understood in terms of Thai culture, social class and capital (prestige). In otherwords, even in the values of Consumer Capitalism, everything is still being understood by Thais in terms of traditional hierarchies, position and social contest. Western values like the autonomy of the individual (which often inspires a Westerner to become a fighter), the liberty of choice & service purchase, are really not at play; they are merely tolerated as a means of commerce. This is to say, even supposedly "inauthentic gyms" insofar as they are Thai, are still more traditional than most Westerners may imagine, even if they cater strongly to Westerners and Western style training, because Thai social hierarchies and motivations underlie everything. By analogy, a Thai owned restaurant might make hamburgers and steaks for tourists, but its still very Thai in the kitchen and the back of the house. But...hanging with the Western customers, adopting the signatures of that food's culture, participating in its celebration appeal, may very well change what kind of Thainess there is.

And remember, class is a very significant part of Thailand's purported authentic Muay Thai. Nearly all the great fighters of the past were provincial fighters who made it in Bangkok, where powerful elites (Sino-Thai promoters) and underworld bosses held court, and where Muay Thai had an ideological dimension expressed by Thai Nationalism and royalty. All of these classes were "authentic" Muay Thai, but as with most highly developed fighting arts, the core of this authenticity comes out of the lower classes, the rural poor, or the urban working poor. This is where the myriad of small gyms and fighters come out of, the roots of the sport. So, in a sense, the further you move away from this, the further - at least culturally and historically - you are moving away from a kind of resolute authenticity.

Today's Muay Thai in the Capital is being redesigned for the Thai hi-so (upper classes), in the inspiration of the next generation of promoter families, some of them educated abroad, often in America. It is being internationalized, as Thailand has always had an internationalizing strain within its culture, which sees social wealth in terms of world standards. Entertainment Muay Thai shows now show inspiration from NBA half-time entertainment, and its not an accident. This is an expression of class.

The turn towards tourism aids in this transformation, as the Thai government leans into the tourist sector economy, developing not only economic power, but Soft ideological power. The political elite are expressing themselves, in terms of Muay Thai, in this new way, just as there was a political elite (authentic) expression of Muay Thai 40 years ago, 70 years ago. This stretches Muay Thai away from its lower class root system.

And, within gyms, ex-fighters are finding themselves having left the lower classes they came from, at least in terms of opportunity. This is on account of Thailand's rising standards of living, but also part of their own risen status within a sport that is increasingly turning toward the foreigner. Their sons (now of fighting age) are in a different social strata, with opportunities quite different than those that led them into fighting in the first place, and their gyms (or their students when they don't own gyms) increasingly cater to the Westerner, who without irony, holds them in more esteem than perhaps fellow countrymen, who considered Muay Thai low-brow and underclass. In such gyms and training having affluent students is a signature of social climbing, and even having (relatively) affluent Westerners holding pads or teaching weight training, under them, working FOR them, raises their social position...all without regard for the quality of Muay Thai within the house. There is an authentically Thai drive to move up the social ladder, in a sense because that is what Muay Thai itself always was, the agonistic struggle for recognition and accomplishment. Yodkhunon once asked Sylvie, who prolifically fights out of her own value sense "Why do you still fight, you are already famous?" Changes in the sport and art which we might regard as "inauthentic" are authentically Thai.

 

 

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

Someone like me might see a gym that is now holding for combos when it used to not, or have a combo-holding Westerner on pads, for Muay Thai shows that have become combo-centric and clashy for the enjoyment of the tourist, as deeply inauthentic, almost a cultural colonization of the sport. But because Thailand's Muay Thai largely is an art of social climbing, done through the art of ring fighting and gambling social capital, moving toward a combo-centric teaching and fighting style, with Westerners in the gym, is bringing not only financial affluence, but also is moving away from Muay Thai's lower class (and rural) roots. It's bringing social status, as Thailand bends towards International values and standards. It doesn't matter so much that this is a less effective way of fighting, or that Thais themselves are losing their fighting acumen and art in imitation of the West, because within Thai sensibility has always been a strain that seeks to distance itself from the rural and "uneducated", joining the World in its modernity. Since before the end of the 19th century when Thai elites and royals educated themselves abroad in England, there has always been an aspect of self-renunciation of the provincial other. Bangkok, in its National Stadia traditional fighting in the 1970s-1990s presented a unique amalgam, filled with rural fighters and their arts, gyms of mob bosses and other kinds of bosses, its own kind of rich, a slowly rising economy which would become deeply internationalized by the early 1990s, it was a heady mixture of tradition, class and investment. Through this, including the influence of Western Boxing through those decades, "authentic" Muay Thai was changing.

But, for those coming to Thailand from across the world, today, its important to note that the true "soft power" of the sport relies on its unique foundations in the lower classes of the country (as in all fighting arts), the residual knowledge, practices, beliefs, which powered the entire sport and art, as it then was signified, displayed, developed, symbolized in the Capital (this is leaving aside discussion of the specific military - and police - history of Muay Thai). The authenticity, in that there is one that the foreigner is looking for, is the aspect of Muay Thai that cannot be made or invented by anyone else...calling into question the new-style imposition of training and fighting in imitation of the Westerner. With all irony aside, the Westerner comes all the way to Thailand to not find themselves in a mirror. Its to find something they do not understand, something that they intuit is important to them, but which is alien and perhaps unapproachable. Something that will change them. That is the true Soft Power of Muay Thai, that is what the Westerner often means by "authentic".

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

1 hour ago, Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu said:

the Westerner comes all the way to Thailand to not find themselves in a mirror. Its to find something they do not understand, something that they intuit is important to them, but which is alien and perhaps unapproachable. Something that will change them. That is the true Soft Power of Muay Thai, that is what the Westerner often means by "authentic".

In thinking through this, this means things like:

• local, neighborhood development of kid fighters
• local, festival, gambling driven fighting, where social face is at risk
• learning directly from great krus & legends who know a Muay Thai that no longer exists, and may ever exist again (even if direct teaching like this is not traditional or "authentic" in its own right).
• training in the churn of a full gym, preferably predominantly Thais seeking to fight, with a full spectrum of skill levels
• finding and respecting tradition-rich spaces which hold the unique history of the sport
• partaking in the culture of respect and hierarchy (which may mean suffering under it, losing autonomy, even losing good training or fight opportunities). For foreign women they can be even more complex & problematic, even dangerous.
• learning to lose - this means, exposing yourself to largely alien traditional fight aesthetics, learning 1,000 ways to lose
• refusing common for-Westerner advantages, including weight bullying advantages. In Thai culture, weight bullying usually comes out of political power, the ability to impose disadvantages on the less powerful.
• do the work, which can be transformative, but understand this is traditionally labor and done through social submission
• understand that the art of (trad) Muay Thai will challenge your understanding and experience of violence.

 

In general, avoid Entertainment Shows which have been made for the Westerner, and the foreigner in general, both as participant, and as consumer. It's like eating super sweet, peanut-buttery Pad Thai all day. And find excessive combo training (anything pre-patterned that you are supposed to "do" under stress, trained in rote), especially organized around hands, suspect. Muay Thai in its traditional form should be improvisational, perceptive, defense-oriented, and narrative. It's built around display and problem-solving. As Entertainment Muay Thai impacts even traditional shows, the rise of the combo has entered even otherwise "authentic" gyms. Given the low-skill level required from pad holders, and the low level of investment, it is populating the very language of Muay Thai. Add in that Westerners are starting to hold pads in gyms (and what most Westerners know best is combination thinking), the one realizes that the Combo and the Entertainment Show are two powerful currents that move against the transformative authentic experience described above. Combos proliferate because they are easy to teach and do not require the entire social setting of a kaimuay, and because Entertainment Muay Thai is made to reward them. The "authentic" knowledge of the sport is being quickly drained away at both the pedagogic and performative level, through patterned clashing.

 

 

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

When we asked the legend Pudpadnoi why he left Muay Thai in the 1970s, one of the very best of the decade, he said "It was worse than the Army"

He briefly went to America, and then settled in France, becoming one of the first of elite Thai fighters bringing authentic Muay Thai to Europe, a Muay Thai though that as a fighting knowledge is difficult to separate out the social conditions which generated it, and the fights that produced it.

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

For us, for Sylvie, who is incredibly experienced both in Thai style training and in fighting, and who speaks Thai with near fluency, we look for specific aspects of "authenticity" and are willing to sacrifice others.

For us, the training in a gym is conditioned by the moral force of the Big Boss, the owner. The owner, if strong in character and motivated, exerts a pressure on the entire gym that not only makes training consistent, but also expressive of their ethos. Who they are, and what Muay Thai means to them permeates everything, transmitting a quality. And, this is expressed stylistically in the fighters they develop. A good, authentic gym will be something like a stew in which the various kru and padmen each contribute their stylistic and technical perspective, but it all becomes folded in under the head of the gym. So the first thing we look for is not a successful "business", but a personal expression, a culture of Muay Thai, under a moral force of character. This will produce a kaimuay churn of work in which styles and techniques become mixed. There is good work to do there. You are nourished by the churn, and someone like Sylvie can add to it, mix in intensities, styles & qualities she's picked up from training with and fighting for legends, and from a vast in-ring experience itself.

Importantly, for us, The top-down exercise of stylistic force, the ethos that holds the gym forward and gives it personal direction also needs to be connected to the community, to a continual class of young Thai fighters, a mix of growth that is ever in development. This often breaks into "classes" (fighters of a certain age) that develop in parallel, each fighter sharpening the other. This is the bubbling up of Muay Thai. Without this the vitality of the gym, and of its owner can be lost.

Today, as the socio-economic conditions of Muay Thai are either eroding or shifting, the gap between these two is widening. There are fewer and fewer young, local fighters, and Big Bosses become more business men, with Westerners filling in the growing chasm. The cultural dimensions of Muay Thai, its meaning and its most effective training dimensions are splitting apart. And the tourist is making up the difference (with Entertainment Muay Thai in tow).

In many ways the traditional form of the kaimuay is now fragmented, gym heads are now running commercial enterprises in which character and ethos are less in play, and the Thai youth are not entering the sport. So we piece things together, finding important, powerful parts of authenticity, training directly (in non-Traditional ways) with men of great character, ethos and skill, shapers of great muay, even if they don't run gyms, and finding streams of youth, where young fighters are still developing in a churn of training, reflective of kaimuay...and imposing Old School training principles on our own, in isolation, kind of cobbling together what was "authentic" in ways that would nourish further growth and discovery. A kind of virtual authenticity...this is some of the ethic behind the Muay Thai Library documentary project, because the character and knowledge of these men will pass away, and in fact the MTL itself was simply the record of Sylvie already piecing together training when we found existing gyms un-ideal, even though living, training and fighting frequently in Thailand.

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

And, there is one final dimension of "authentic" Muay Thai that deserves focus. That is that Muay Thai is trained in order to be fought, and to be fought frequently. Fighting is a part of training, an important feedback loop that is central to understanding your own growth, and for those who shape you to see how you are doing. It is NOT a test to see "how good you are". It is NOT a test of your worth. NOT something you want to save for a special moment of assessment. It is a very frequent, common, unhyped aspect of Muay Thai itself, and why Thai fighters have 100s of fights. This, perhaps more than any one thing characterizes the unique fight culture and process of Thailand's Muay Thai, not like anything else in the world. And, importantly, fighting is a very significant social event of gyms, a way of experiencing what is culturally unique about Thailand's Muay Thai.

This means, if you are training outside of regular fighting (and I do mean very regular) you are missing something quite "authentic" in Muay Thai, even if all the other aspects of authenticity I've talked about previously are more or less on-board. This also means, for many Westerners, the much abhorred (by me and others like me) Entertainment Muay Thai may very well be the ONLY way of experiencing a very close relationship between frequent fighting and training which is core to the traditional form. This may mean, depending on where you are in Thailand, and maybe your size or gender, you might very well find yourself training in memorized combos and fighting on 3 round shows, in order to experience this very important "authentic" relationship between frequent fighting and Muay Thai development.

Ideally, you would want to be doing this frequent fighting in traditional formats, with local gambling, which constitutes the more authentic form, but this just may not be possible. And, you may have to choose between in-frequent fighting and more authentic training conditions AND more tourist-oriented frequent fighting Entertainment shows, where can be rewarded for fighting in a non-Thai fashion.

This is why some hybrid gyms like Hongtong, Sitjaopho, Silk (in Pattaya), Kem's in Khao Yai may be worthy "authenticity" choices, in that they though geared towards Westerners, they also create churn-like training conditions, and favor frequent fighting, which may involve both (trad) festival and Entertainment options. As might various Phuket gyms (?, sorry I don't know this sector).

In a certain sense there is so much variety, and the authentic form of traditional Muay Thai is so fragmented, a serious student or fighter coming to Thailand has an incredible spectrum of choices of just how much, and what kind of "authenticity" they would like in their experience, all of it mixed in degrees. Unfortunately, its very hard to make those kinds of choices from afar, and it is very difficult to depend on the opinions of those already in Thailand, because gyms change quickly, and your own needs may be quite different even than someone who seems like they might be somewhat like you.