Jump to content

Training in Phuket - Female Training Experiences


Recommended Posts

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 🙂

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

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).

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...

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.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 months later...
  • 2 weeks later...

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? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

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.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 year later...
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.

  • Like 2
  • Nak Muay 1
  • Cool 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Most Recent Topics

  • Latest Comments

    • Heard that Cambodia has closed down the booking of Muay Thai fights, which were a pretty big alternate avenue for trad style fighting opportunities for a lot of Isaan fighters, and farang too, paying better than many BKK fights. It was a somewhat lessor known alt trad Muay Thai scene. Seems like the ideological battle of Muay Thai, nation to nation, is heating up. The border near Ubon is very contested right now.
    • Golden Age styles and techniques are only going to survive and surface in fragmented, incomplete ways, but it is worth noting that as a tall fighter Mongkutpet deploys an advance that is very close to that used by Dieselnoi at times, with the bouncing lead league, and a long guard. She teeps out of this extended denial of the "middle", as Dieselnoi sometimes did, and she's mixed in a little jabbing action, or sometimes just phantom jabbing high, to keep the eye passing between low and high. This is honestly probably the most "Dieselnoi" a fighter has approached a fight of today, as I've seen, which is really cool. She is missing some of Dieselnoi's spider web pressure of corralling footwork, which he was really good at, as well as his trademark devastating knees when he got you on the ropes, which really just finished fights, but she is very much in the style of advancing long that Dieselnoi employed. Again, very cool to see it survive and be forwarded. The whole fight below.     I believe Mongkutpet won every single round, from every single judge (but 1) in what really felt like a much closer fight. The reason for this is that her long guard, Dieselnoi march controlled the middle zone of fighting, neutralizing the zone where Entertainment trends are trying to produce most of the "action". In fact it neutralized both the mid- and the far zones. Duangdawnoi has modified her style a bit to really amp up that middle zone action, in an Entertainment style, put a lot of visible "power" into her striking, but Mongkutpet's Old School leg-bounce just took away two zones, and her height and comfort in the close zone allowed her to manage the scoring there. It produced a lop-sided scorecard in an energetically contested fight. Mostly once Mongkhutpet had eliminated the middle zone the only jeopardy remaining was Duangdaonoi's left elbow on entry (the transition between the middle and the close zone), which she's very good at...but ended up having to throw at volume because it was the only path the swing the fight. If it had cut maybe the fight changes a little bit? A few landed, but I'm not sure it could even have done that. Mongkutpet just had to keep discipline and her right hand up. All in all a strategically very sound employ of style by Mongkutpet, with a great call back to some of Dieselnoi's characteristic march technique.   the graphic of the 3 zones:   If there was a path to victory for Duangdaonoi, in my opinion, it would be to throw off the Entertainment style and go back to her strong history of deft footwork, light-footed pivots and quick scoring counter kicking. Forget the full power punching and instead become a drifting, flexible defense fighter controlling space with backwards movement. In such an approach she would score lightly, but she would deny scoring to Mongkutpet, and even more importantly expose her very linear style. By going back to the rope and waiting she basically allowed Mongkutpet a straight line to her space of dominance. Instead, you'd want to expose, or produce the feeling of something robotic in Mongkutpet's Dieselnoi's long attack, make it look like it was only on one track. But, this would require moving back into the traditional style of the femeu fighter, of which Duangdaonoi is quite developed. The femeu fighter tries to create a visual contrast which caricatures the opponent, classically. Deft femeu retreat open up the middle and long range zones of fighting, and denies the closest one...but, I'm not sure how Raja refs would judge such an approach. You would have to dominate with it to overcome any potential bias...but, I think she's kind of skilled and experienced enough to do so.  
    • In the aftermath of the Muangkutpet vs Duangdaonoi belt fight interestingly on a page that feeds a lot of ONE viewership comment, you get a negative comment on Duangdaonoi for continuously retreating back to the rope:   This is one of the subtle sadnesses of the ONE influence on trad Muay Thai. Duangdaonoi actually was a pretty high level fast-twitch femeu female trad fighter (Sylvie fought her many years ago and got bloodied quite badly). Her skill set trended towards accurate, fast femeu counters and the management of distance. One of the telling changes in her style is the attempt to visually sell-out on every single strike, to throw it as hard as possible, even with some dramatic "umph" to it. One suspects the reason behind this really is likely the entire aggro affect change that ONE has brought to the sport that has rung out across the rings and promotions of Thailand. You want this kind of aesthetic "violence" being expressed (which is really quite contrary to the trad rhythmed expression of control and SOME punctuated violence or explosion at the right time). She seems to have changed her muay to fit the aesthetic (and in throwing with so much intensity over and over, probably lost a lot of accuracy). But...this is the thing...its not enough for the Thai ONE fandom crowd. They want not only fulltime 120% striking, they want you to continuously coming forward. They want trade, trade, trade. It's actually amazing how much Duangdaonoi has modified her style to fit into the new highlight-driven versions of the sport, and least to my eye. She used to feature a few explosive reverse elbows in a fight, but the majority of her style was distance control and fight management, a careful art of space, coupled with a very difficult to defend lead (openside) kick, which she would double or even triple up on. Now we get a fighter who could possibly throw 20 elbows. She seems to be trying to give the new fans what they want. She was in the lowest weight class so she wasn't going to be a "power" fighter in style, but clearly she's made herself physically much stronger. Big, full-bodied clinch throws. But its never enough for Thai ONE-inspired fans. They want that red meat.  Mongkutpet on the other hand had brilliant, old school approach that was distinctly ANTI trade. Don't trade at any cost. She basically fought with the old Dieselnoi approach, in long guard and bouncing, teeping lead leg. Long I've argued that the way that Thais can beat "Entertainment" ONE style fighters, especially foreign ones, is to just refuse to trade. Mongkutpet just marched Duangdaonoi to the ropes...and then ground out a win with her height and some knees. This is the perfect anti-trading approach to opponents. Fight the fight where you have your advantages.  But really I'm posting here about how its never enough for the new Muay Thai fan. It wasn't enough that Duangdaonoi threw everything with all her might. She has to march forward and trade. She has to fight "like a foreigner". This is just more combo-itis that is spreading like an invasive species. Duangdaonoi fought with tremendous heart, and to the best of her abilities threw with as much Entertainment style as she could. She put all of it out there. Back To the Ropes Art I should of course also add, retreating back to the rope is the Hallmark of Thai combat sport superiority. The greatest fighters in Thai history did much of their work back at the rope. If you want a prime example, check my notes on Somrak vs Boonlai:   
  • The Latest From Open Topics Forum

    • Hi all, Does anyone know of any suppliers for blanks (Plain items to design and print a logo on) that are a good quality? Or put me in the right direction? thanks all  
    • The first fight between Poot Lorlek and Posai Sittiboonlert was recently uploaded to youtube. Posai is one of the earliest great Muay Khao fighters and influential to Dieselnoi, but there's very little footage of him. Poot is one of the GOATs and one of Posai's best wins, it's really cool to see how Posai's style looked against another elite fighter.
    • Yeah, this is certainly possible. Thanks! I just like the idea of a training camp pre-fight because of focus and getting more "locked in".. Do you know of any high level gyms in europe you would recommend? 
    • You could just pick a high-level gym in a European city, just live and train there for however long you want (a month?). Lots of gyms have morning and evening classes.
    • Hi, i have a general question concerning Muay-Thai training camps, are there any serious ones in Europe at all? I know there are some for kickboxing in the Netherlands, but that's not interesting to me or what i aim for. I have found some regarding Muay-Thai in google searches, but what iv'e found seem to be only "retreats" with Muay-Thai on a level compareable to fitness-boxing, yoga or mindfullness.. So what i look for, but can't seem to find anywhere, are camps similar to those in Thailand. Grueling, high-intensity workouts with trainers who have actually fought and don't just do this as a hobby/fitness regime. A place where you can actually grow, improve technique and build strength and gas-tank with high intensity, not a vacation... No hate whatsoever to those who do fitness-boxing and attend retreats like these, i just find it VERY ODD that there ain't any training camps like those in Thailand out there, or perhaps i haven't looked good enough?..  Appericiate all responses, thank you! 
  • Forum Statistics

    • Total Topics
      1.4k
    • Total Posts
      11.4k
×
×
  • Create New...