Vacationed in Asia for 3 weeks..

[MandirigmaFit]

My wife and I traveled to Asia for a few weeks in 2015, around the holiday season. It had been my first leisure trip in about 15-20 years and my only other time that I had the opportunity to leave the country was in 2009, in support of OEF IX.

We first went to Thailand for 10 days. Came back to the States for my son's 2nd birthday and Thanksgiving, then left for Japan, then S. Korea.

During our stay in Thailand, we decided that we might as well dabble in some Muay Thai and we also considered training outside of the tourist areas, such as the urban areas of Bangkok. We traveled a few miles/km to a gym called Sor.Ruenrom and had 2 private lessons and flew to Krabi Island to train at Weerachai Muay Thai.

The gyms were dirty, the equipment was old, and it was extremely hot and hard to breathe, but I will tell you that the fighters and trainers were extremely nice. Both gym floors were covered in dirt and sand. Outside were the neighborhood shops that sold bottled waters, soda, and bagged chips. At around $5/hr, it is an absolute must to train. It was not solely pads and conditioning. Not filmed were the technique and fundamental portions of our training. It was a nice balance. About 30-40 minutes of warm-ups, fundamentals and technique, and about the same amount of time for pads.

Here we trained with Kru Bovy (short and stocky trainer and Kru Purt (tall and leaner trainer). Filming is Phil, an English-man that was working remotely in Thailand.




Although I am not here primarily for critique, but rather to tell you about the two gyms that I was at, and show how one treated the foreigners, feel free to critique. I can handle it. /GruntLyfe

Bonus:

We both traveled to a temple and had tattoos done and blessed by a monk. I will try to find some pictures of them.


*EDIT*

Fuck that, bring the heat motherf*ckers.

 

[Paradigm]

That's pretty dope...how long have you been training? You train with Melchor M in SD? I'm guessing you're Filipino?

I gotta say that your wife has a more disciplined guard than you do...you may want to get some tips from her lol. I do the same thing you do...my lead hand drops dangerously low at times. Your wife is pretty good at keeping her opposite hand up, no matter what she is throwing.

I always thought the sak yants looked pretty cool but then my instructor told me it was an easy way to pick up hepatitis, etc. Saiyok's looks pretty badass:

 

[HighestHand]

Nice videos,

May I ask what you trained in if you haven't trained in Muay Thai? You look very good.

Also, what made you decide you didn't want to go to the tourist areas and train here instead?

 

[MandirigmaFit]

That's pretty dope...how long have you been training? You train with Melchor M in SD? I'm guessing you're Filipino?

I gotta say that your wife has a more disciplined guard than you do...you may want to get some tips from her lol. I do the same thing you do...my lead hand drops dangerously low at times. Your wife is pretty good at keeping her opposite hand up, no matter what she is throwing.

I always thought the sak yants looked pretty cool but then my instructor told me it was an easy way to pick up hepatitis, etc. Saiyok's looks pretty badass:

Yeah, the trainers were telling me to get lessons from my wife, haha. Yes, I am Filipino, but no, I do not do any formal training. To be honest, I still live in San Francisco, but we just got approved for an apartment in San Diego, so I am starting my transition now. I am an S&C Coach/Therapist, so the sooner I can get people to see that I am going to SD, the better it may potentially be.

Nice videos,

May I ask what you trained in if you haven't trained in Muay Thai? You look very good.

Also, what made you decide you didn't want to go to the tourist areas and train here instead?

I am a blue belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, under Carlos Sapao. After picking up my blue, I moved academies due to tuition costs and training partner size, to FTCC with Darren Uyenoyama.

The tourist area is more expensive (not by much [+~$25], but my wife likes to save $) in regards to private lessons and there are much more foreigners visiting the gyms at the same time. Since we left the urban city area, the only people at Sor.Ruenrom were the fighters and foreigners that were there for an extended period of time. Even then, when we were there for our lessons, it was just myself and the babymama.

 

[Paradigm]

Yeah, the trainers were telling me to get lessons from my wife, haha. Yes, I am Filipino, but no, I do not do any formal training. To be honest, I still live in San Francisco, but we just got approved for an apartment in San Diego, so I am starting my transition now. I am an S&C Coach/Therapist, so the sooner I can get people to see that I am going to SD, the better it may potentially be.

That's pretty good for no training...you never did any standup of any sort before? Did your wife train before?

Didn't have the urge to train while in SF? You could have been training under Jongsanan or Ganyao, but that's the same thing I told my friend (who coincidentally moved back to SD from SF without doing any training up their either).

 

[MandirigmaFit]

That's pretty good for no training...you never did any standup of any sort before? Did your wife train before?

Didn't have the urge to train while in SF? You could have been training under Jongsanan or Ganyao, but that's the same thing I told my friend (who coincidentally moved back to SD from SF without doing any training up their either).

Nothing formal. Most of the stand-up training was during MMA training sessions, which were really just shadowboxing, padwork to warm up, light takedowns, and the actual MMA sparring. Come to think of it, the MMA training was not even a class; it was just sparring, and if someone needed to learn a technique, then it was taught at that moment.

One of my main sparring partners is Robert Fairtex (Prakhantree) and Jongsanan was his trainer. I wish I could have taken the classes, but between parking, insane tuition and the gyms not having a daycare, it was too hard.

EDIT:

My wife has trained even less than I have.