Muay Thai/Kickboxing: one year on

[Peekay1982]

My fight yesterday marked one year since my first fight. (You can watch that here if you fancy a laugh.) I live and train in Busan in Korea.

I think I've made some improvements; I've now had nine matches (5-3-1) and this year I'd like to try and fight every month. I'm yet to have a full Thai rules match - everything I've done has either been kickboxing or a variation on the K1 ruleset. I've still got a huge amount to work on. I just want to keep fighting, training and learning - I'd love to challenge for a title at some point. I was nearly 26 when I first walked into the gym, never having done any martial arts before (although I was at a good level of general fitness from lots of running and weightlifting). I have no illusions about fighting professionally or anything - for me it's just a great, immersive hobby. Teaching English in Korea, it's very easy to drink far too much, and Muay Thai training here has given me a valuable focus outside of work and socialising, as well as keeping me in good shape. I've also gotten to know lots of Koreans I wouldn't have met otherwise, learned a fair bit of Korean, and seen plenty of the country travelling to fights (although seriously, all Korean cities look exactly the same). My trainer has honestly been like a second father to me - in many ways he's been more of a father than the real one ever was. I can honestly say that randomly walking into the gym in August 2008 was one of the best things I've ever done.

I've gotten some great feedback from people on this forum, so thanks to everyone who's watched one of my fights and left comments. (I'm in the Ireland shorts - you can see my entrance here.)

 

[Ugly Mofo]

Wow, you've made lots of improvement! Congrats! For those who don't know which one he is in the first fight, he's wearing the board shorts.

In both fights, there were times when I was scared for you when you ducked and bobbed low. I had to keep reminding myself there were no knees (but I'm sure a shin to the face was legal).

Can I ask where do you train in Korea? How hard is it to find an MT gym? How long do you expect to be in country? I should be passing through within this year.

Also, is MT gaining in popularity? Someone told me it's recently become so due to Ong Bak(?!).

 

[Peekay1982]

Wow, you've made lots of improvement! Congrats! For those who don't know which one he is in the first fight, he's wearing the board shorts.

In both fights, there were times when I was scared for you when you ducked and bobbed low. I had to keep reminding myself there were no knees (but I'm sure a shin to the face was legal).

Can I ask where do you train in Korea? How hard is it to find an MT gym? How long do you expect to be in country? I should be passing through within this year.

Also, is MT gaining in popularity? Someone told me it's recently become so due to Ong Bak(?!).

Cheers! Yeah, I'm sure a better opponent would have made me pay for bobbing and weaving. Good fun though. Where are you coming to in Korea? I live in Busan - there are about thirty Muay Thai/kickboxing gyms here. I just walked past my place on the street, but you could ask a Korean co-worker to do a quick search for you. If you're in a decent-sized city there'll be a Muay Thai/kickboxing gym somewhere nearby. (Everywhere will teach you the full range of techniques from Muay Thai, and if you want to fight you'll add/subtract knees or elbows according to which organisation you fight under. There are 9 different governing bodies with varying rulesets.) There are taekwondo gyms almost literally on every corner, and hapkido gyms are pretty common too. Muay Thai/kickboxing is the most popular after these two (K1 gets monster ratings) but you can easily find boxing, judo, aikido and keomdo/kendo; in the bigger cities you'll be able to find pretty much everything somewhere (there are a few sambo and kali clubs in Busan). BJJ is starting to get a bit more popular but it's not that common - three clubs in Busan which I know of.

I'm here for a while - until the job market picks up again in the west at least. Most of the kids at my school have seen Ong Bak - I often attack some of them in the corridor with a leaping elbow. Hong Man Choi is probably the biggest reason for Muay Thai/K1's popularity, though.

 

[Micko84]

Hi guys, I'm heading to Ilsan to teach next month. Does anybody know of a good muay thai/kickboxing gym in the area?