Hiya.

"I spent 1 month training at Rawai Muay Thai training camp in Phuket, Thailand.

I had no martial arts experience of any sort before this.
This is a quick clip of me hitting the pads, it sounds a little quiet when I hit them because my mate recorded this on a digital camera but you can still see my technique."


^copy and pasted from the video, but this is me.

Any thoughts/questions/opinions welcome.

My opinion is I did really well for myself, especially over such a short period of time, seriously though I was such a bad fighter before this training! lol

Feel free to comment on the youtube video itself.

YouTube - Me doing Muay Thai Boxing with trainer 'Ot' Rawai Muay Thai

It sounds fine mate and you look really good...very good balance and good technique for 1 month. Keep it up

Great work for 1 month.

cheers guys. Really is much appreciated, unfortunately, however; I won't be able to keep it up, well certainly not at a club here anyway but I do intend to go back next year and perhaps join a kick boxing club which is apparently just watered down muay thai. On the other hand, I can still shadow box

How about describing your training routine and what they had you doing on a daily basis.

You say you had no previous martial arts experience so I am curious and am sure others are as well as to what you did to progress so well in just one month.

Training routine?
Nutrition?

Well you'd set the alarm for 6:40AM, get up immediately, put on your boxing shorts and shoes, carry your gloves and sometimes shin pads, then jog/run to the gym which is 3KM away, starting training at 7AM.

Then the 2 hour/2 and half hour session began by 30 mins stretching/warm ups then 5 rounds of shadow boxing in front of the mirror each round lasting 3mins and 10 pressups at the end of each round, then perhaps another 10 seconds till the next round- so fairly non stop.

Then 5 rounds of bag work (Same as shadowboxing routine with pressups etc but you are actually hitting something now)

Then 5 rounds with a trainer hitting pads/technique (this is the most intense part and you can easily run out of energy if you're not careful)

By now the session is (somehow) almost over and you do 100 knees and 100 front kicks to the bag, then 200 situps and sometimes 50 pressups aswell. Then stretches and run back 3 KM and have breakfast which for me was musli more or less every day and varying in ingredients each time, usually plenty of seeds and nuts with organic oats and soya milk along with fresh fruit from the market. You can, however; eat whatever you please (there are no rules for this) and I often had sweet Thai delacasys in the evening.

So yea, after breakfast you have no energy so you just sleep till perhaps 2 PM, then another 2 hours and half/3 hours session begins at 3:30PM with pretty much the same routine but depending on day, you do different things (such as grappling or sparring with another student)

Then I usually popped into the local market and bought fruit for my evening musli and little sweet cake things then walk home 3KM, have my dinner (usually musli as I said which is far more varied than it sounds seeing as there would be about 15 main ingredients or if I was bored of it or felt like going out I'd eat in a restaurant) then watch a film with my room mates and go to bed between 8:30PM and 9:30PM


This routine is the same 6 days a week with variations to what we kind of fighting we do and such then on Saturday we go to the beach and do a slightly shorter session in the morning but with more time with the trainer and a few group activities which are fun.


I found it really quite hard and after 1 week rented out a push bike to instead cycle to and from training and also I had 1 hour VIP (one on one) sessions which I'd usually trade for 1 of the normal sessions in the day which tires you out as much as a 3 hour one trust me! but I'd always do at least 2 sessions (I.e a 1 hour and a 3 hour in the morning or both normal sessions)


So yea, that's my routine etc. Opinions etc welcome.

Thats pretty awesome man.

How did you find out about this Muai thay camp? How much did it cost overall? Where there other American novices trying to learn to fight as well?

heya. Well technically I'm not American myself, I'm English; but there were plenty of Americans and europeans, perhaps 60 students and usually about 30/40 per session would be there.

I found out about the camp in a fitness magazine about 2 years ago, then recently whilst I was travelling India I was recommended Thailand by many people and so I thought "Hey! why not go do muay thai whilst I'm there!" so yea..

About 300 pounds including shared accomodation but you will want to do one on one sessions as well as you learn the most from them, they are around 40 pounds for 6 1 hour sessions which is a really good price I've heard, there are some seriously experienced trainers there (i.e ex heavyweight world champion)

That's really impressive. Your kicks are good (fast) and so is your balance.

When I watched your video, I was surprised that you had zero experience.

wow. Thanks for the compliments guys! I truly wasn't sure how good or not good I was. When you're at the camp there are plenty of people who've been living at the camp and training for years so you understand It's hard to make a judgement when I'm at a completely different level. The only compliment I got from someone at the camp was that I "should join a muay thai club in England as you'll be way better than most of them there" and I was like "umm.. you reckon?"

You did well, you needed to twist your hip alot more though. The pad holder seemed a little slow too, what was his name ?? Was there a trainer there called Daskadar ?? I lived in Phuket for a while and got back this year... I trained at a few camps over there too.. Its great isnt it.

Thanks for this post, I always wondered what went on over there, I thought perhaps you got your ass kicked all day. I used to do a bit of Mauy Thai, I want to go to thailand to relax, fish though, I have a mate who went over and trained, and we are planning on going over next year. Might try a one week session.

His name's 'Ot' and he's the ex K1 champion

Don't recognise Daskadar, no but there's a lot of camps around the area, where was it you trained?

Yea it is great, next time I got I'll definately have a pro fight, the reason I didn't this time is because I didn't get any health insurance (silly me!)

Awesome! You're doing really well for just one month. Kicks and knees are looking solid. Nice!

My advice to you though... try (as I'm sure you have) shadow boxing with a mirror - I think you could improve your stance significantly if you arched your back more, tucked in your chin, bent the knees slightly, etc. Also, if you put weight on the balls of the feet, you'll find it much easier to control kicks.

Welldone, you're doing remarkably!

alleycat