How long must you stay in Thailand to fight?

[Yolandie Botha]

Hi everyone,

I have been training for 2 years, and this past year particularly hard. I want to travel to Thailand to train and fight, but particularly to have my first fight experience. The prep will be done at home, because I cannot go away for more than 2 weeks. If I arrive in Thailand in good condition, and the trainers there think I can get in the ring, how long does it take to get a fight/opponent? Many thanks in advance for advice and pointers.

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

Hi everyone,

I have been training for 2 years, and this past year particularly hard. I want to travel to Thailand to train and fight, but particularly to have my first fight experience. The prep will be done at home, because I cannot go away for more than 2 weeks. If I arrive in Thailand in good condition, and the trainers there think I can get in the ring, how long does it take to get a fight/opponent? Many thanks in advance for advice and pointers.

 

If you go to Lanna Muay Thai in Chiang Mai I think there should not be a problem setting up such a fight. They are very fight friendly, and there are lots of opponents in Chiang Mai.

[Yolandie Botha]

Thank you so much. I have Googled them now and also found an informative blog post Sylvie wrote in December.

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

Thank you so much. I have Googled them now and also found an informative blog post Sylvie wrote in December.

 

If you decide to go there Sylvie can help communicate your desire to fight to Daeng, the head trainer, perhaps in advance. Just message her on Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/sylviemuaythai/

[emma]

This sometimes seems to come down to gym choice. While it's much easier to get fights regularly in Thailand than it is back home, and often the case that fights are thrown together with very little notice, I've spoken to quite a few people who've come here, put the work in and been disappointed because they weren't able to get a fight for one reason or another. Lanna is a good shout from Kevin, and Chiang Mai in general seems to be the perfect place for women to get fights because of the frequency of events and the amount and caliber of available opponents. Sylvie wrote a post recently about why Chiang Mai has the best female fighting scene in the world, which you can read here.

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

This sometimes seems to come down to gym choice. While it's much easier to get fights regularly in Thailand than it is back home, and often the case that fights are thrown together with very little notice, I've spoken to quite a few people who've come here, put the work in and been disappointed because they weren't able to get a fight for one reason or another. Lanna is a good shout from Kevin, and Chiang Mai in general seems to be the perfect place for women to get fights because of the frequency of events and the amount and caliber of available opponents. Sylvie wrote a post recently about why Chiang Mai has the best female fighting scene in the world, which you can read here.

 

I think a lot of this is just how connected the gym is to regular female fighting. A gym that is either very focused on its Thai stadium fighters, or on pushing westerners through its training (making $$$ that way), may not be connected enough with the kinds of opponents that might be good for you. Sylvie herself isn't really booked for fights by her own gym, Petchrungruang, because they just are not "about" female fighting. I can't speak for Phuket, but Chiang Mai is so full of fights, and has so many regularly fighting Thai females, most of the gyms there can book a pretty good fight in a moment's notice. But...with a two week window I would say that you want to communicate this all up front, as soon as you get there. I'm here to fight, I want to fight. I'm not sure that a gym like Santai or even Hongthong would book you this quickly (it really depends on how fight ready you are), but if you show you are game, focused and serious about it, I DO think Lanna would book you. We regularly heard that serious students could be made ready to fight in 1 or 2 weeks, with the appropriate match up. Chiang Mai is just unique in this way, and Lanna unique too.

But yes, we've heard many stories about women thinking they were going to get a fight at the end of their training at various gyms, and it just doesn't happen.

In each of Sylvie's trips to Thailand she fought about 2 weeks in, after arrival, I think. But she really pushed for that.