Training in Phuket - Female Training Experiences

[Breighw]

Hello strong friends. I am curious as to who has trained in Phuket? Specifically, for a few weeks. I have two weeks to myself and want to experience living and training at a gym. I would consder myself a beginner, and I am also a female. So, feeling comfortable and safe somewhere is a priority. I am looking forward to hearing your experiences! Thanks in advance

[TZ22]

Sinbi Muay Thai in Rawai area

[smossy]

Hi Breighw, I just spent 2 weeks at sumalee (sumaleeboxinggym.com) which was a good experience. A lot of beginners and females while I was there. Classes were well structured, nice facilities etc. The gym is off the main tourist track (good or a bad thing depending upon your perspective).

[Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu]

I second Sumalee. I've never trained in Phuket but Sumalee is owned by a woman and has a long and solid track record.

[dtrick924]

Natasha Sky trained long term at Sinbi with her husband. They own a gym together and just took their students for a 2 week trip to Sinbi. Three of her students fought while they were there. You could could try sending her a message on facebook.

[Digitalis G.]

Did anyone train at Singpatong?

[Daisy Kupfer]

Hey there. I go to Phuket very often and would recommend Phuket Top Team. It's in the area with the tourists etc but it's quite nice anyway. It's at the end (or beginning?) of Soi-tad-ied.
They focus on fighters and quality instead of having lots of students.
And if you like or want to try out muay boran you should definitely go to Tiger Muay Thai and train with Kru Oh. He's a genius and I learned a lot of things that I could also apply to muay thai. His krabi krabong class is also very good. 
Ah, I'm also from Germany btw. If you have further questions regarding Phuket don't hesitate to ask.

[Bigpapashango]

I am heading out to train in Phuket in November, going to Rattachai. Any recommendations about things to do/see in the area, good places to eat etc? 

[Nikki103]

Sorry to piggy back but how do people feel about Sitsongpeenong Phuket? I know the trainers are highly qualified but how is the actual training/culture there? Good for couples/women or is it a more dudebro orientated market?   

Also, has anyone been to Sumalee or Sinbi in the past 12 months? 

[TZ22]

I've been to Sinbi just a month ago, still good training, but many of the original trainers that were there for a while had left so if you were hoping to train with someone in particular, he might not be there anymore; the gym atmosphere feels a bit different now, more serious with the new trainers still getting used to teaching at the gym, but I guess that may not be a bad thing.

[Violet]

On 5/24/2017 at 10:14 AM, Breighw said:

Hello strong friends. I am curious as to who has trained in Phuket? Specifically, for a few weeks. I have two weeks to myself and want to experience living and training at a gym. I would consder myself a beginner, and I am also a female. So, feeling comfortable and safe somewhere is a priority. I am looking forward to hearing your experiences! Thanks in advance

I’m also a female and I trained at Phuket for one week back in March this year and is happy to share. I stayed at that street where tiger is at, although I did not train at tiger. I’ve went with my husband, but he did not train as often as I did while in Phuket. As a background, prior to going to Phuket I’ve been training Muay Thai for less than 2 years and no fighting experience, only done sparring with limited number of partners. To prepare for my trip, I upped the intensity and frequency of training months ahead of time so that I can get the most of my trip. Here are some of my experiences. 

I tried two gyms while there，first session at top team second session at dragon Muay Thai from there I decided to stick with dragon for the rest of my trip.

The class at top team is definitely more demanding in terms of your physical conditioning, and all the people I seen training there are already in good conditioning. Their pad work is a bit different than the other gyms, as they will rotate you on to different pad holders. Which is kinda nice because you will get to try out different style of pad holder and if you really like one over the other you can book a few privates with them. After pad work I was told to spar with the other girls, this caught me by surprise as I wasn’t expecting that they will allow me to spar with none trainers. The girls are all very nice, the sparring went well.

I then went to try dragon Muay Thai in the same day afternoon. I decided to stay at dragon because I felt more comfortable and at ease at dragon. Their class is less demanding on conditioning and more technique driven. After warmup and stretching, the trainers will guide you through some shadow boxing and then partner you up for drills. You then move on to do few rounds of bag work and few rounds of pad work with one of the trainers. After that everyone will be doing sparring, compare to top team, they put more effort into pairing people up for sparring. I think this might due to the fact there are more beginner training at dragon than top team. Basically they will group/pair off people as they see fit. And the beginners will get paired off with the trainers, so it’s totally safe. I spend the rest of the week training twice a day at dragon, one private in the morning and one group session in the afternoon. Even though I was only there for one week, my trainer was still very invested in me, as well he was not against training women and he did his best to help me improve my Muay Thai skills. He was able to identify what im good at and what I need to work on. None of the trainers made inappropriate advancement to me.

On a side note, one of the kru at the gym had a fight one of the nights I was training there, I gladly joined with some of the other students to go see him fight, it was an amazing experience. 

The street I’ve stay at is very comfortable, easy access to food and pharmacy, lots of choices of gyms and hotels. There are many single ladies living and training in the area so it’s definitely one of the more female friendly places. To my surprise I even saw many girls entering the ring at the gyms above the bottom rope and was not told off(but at the stadium they will make sure all women entering the ring are entering under the bottom rope tho). Eitherway I always entered from the under the bottom rope even though they never demanded it.

I hope this is helpful, and that you enjoy your stay at Phuket.