What aspect of Muay Thai does your gym focus on more often?

M

Murmillo

White Belt
Joined
Sep 9, 2010
Messages
94
Reaction score
0
The thought occured to me for two reasons because my gym seems to put alot of emphasis on clinching, and the Thai Plum. Wondering if other gyms do the same, but for other aspects of Muay Thai.

I'm sure there are many gyms that do their best to work all of Muay Thai equally. Even if that's the case feel free to share, I'd like to see if my theory applies to the majority of gyms. Thanks to those who answer.
 
Last edited:
Interesting question.

My gym also tends to focus more on the Thai clinch, although this is mostly because many ppl in class struggle with it. Clinching is an art in itself and can take a while to master so I guess that's why we focus so much on it.

Other than that, we do alot of sparring and mit work.
 
The gym works on basics and conditioning every class with emphasis on punches, kicks, and knees. I personally work them on clinch often because it's neglected there a bit.

In my personal sessions, I keep it balanced...sometimes lean towards kicks, sometimes punches, sometimes footwork and countering. Sometimes clinching though I try to do that often as possible.
 
low kicks and building strong legs, dudes at my old gym had huge legs, I was a former baseball catcher for 10 years and my lower half is huge, like a running back but these guys had legs as large as mine and more toned than mine, it was loud in the gym due to some guys kicking the crap out of the bag,it sounded like multiple gunshots going off, I learned to kick well at that gym.
 
90% of our Muay Thai class is pad work.

Our kicks and punches are spot on but I feel like other areas are lacking.
Knees, elbows and the clinch definitely need more loving.

My boxing class, however, is spot on. Every class we work on technique, footwork, mits, head movement and slipping.
 
Last edited:
We mainly do 4 to 6 combos per night, with two 5 minute rounds of sparring at the end of the night. When we do clinch, its about 3 to 4 combos and then clinch rounds at the end of the night as the sparring being freestyle clinching. Throughout the week, some days focuses more on upper torso movement and some others on kicks, Fridays are pure technique, classes are shorter, and we do about 2 or 3 combos worked slowly so we polish up.
 
Lionidas said:
90% of our Muay Thai class is pad work.

Our kicks and punches are spot on but I feel like other areas are lacking.
Knees, elbows and the clinch definitely need more loving.

My boxing class, however, is spot on. Every class we work on technique, footwork, mits, head movement and slipping.
Click to expand...

Agreed, almost. A lot of heavy bag work (250-300lb bag), pad and shield work, and in-ring sparring.

Rarely do clinch or punch work. Just kicks, knee's, and elbows. I feel lacking in technique and footwork. Feels more like power and endurance.
 
We do 3-5 rounds on pads in a Thai style... no preset combos, but with a clear focus for each session. Then I teach a few clinch tricks, we clinch and technique spar for 20-30 minutes with no break every session. We have one training session a week dedicated to sparring/boxing/clinching only.
 
from what i've seen from vids of fights/sparring/training of other gyms, ours puts a heavier emphasis on punching technique and throwing really powerful leg kicks
 
At Xtreme Couture, it depended upon the instructor...

Kui was more about building mental toughness and conditioning, his classes are very high paced and have a lot of intense partner drills (like non-stop knees on a partner holding a medicine ball, which is painful and draining for both guys), hard bag work, intense rounds on the pads, etc.

Kampmann focused on buildin up muscle memory & reaction time, as well as good technical form. Lots of partner drills for throwing, slipping & blocking combos; an emphasis on footwork and solid fundamentals, and methodical sparring (with a focus on having good form).

Joey Vanier (who isn't at XC anymore) was my favorite- he really delved into the strategy & psychology of kickboxing, the chess match. He really advocated the "kick the puncher, punch the kicker" strategy, and emphasized having a rounded & polished skillset so that you could have a strategic answer for any stylistic problem. He also emphasized solid fundamentals and mental toughness, we'd do partner drills jamming & checking leg kicks, and would then do partner sparring with limited rules (IE one guy can only kick while the other punches, you can only strike with your left or right arm and/ or leg, etc) which really helped me with my body awareness, and forced you to develop individual weapons and timing.
 
We're pretty well balanced. Lately we've been doing a lot of Holland drills practicing combinations, leg checking, and countering. I'd like to work on clinching more, but I'm pretty busy at the moment just trying to learn more of the basics
 
We tend to focus alot on our boxing, then our low kicks, then our clinch then body/head kicks.
 
Equal emphasis on punches and kicks. We also do a lot of boxing sparring; kinda weird considering my Kru comes from a traditional background.
 
90% of the time its pads/mitts. We work most things fairly equally, but if I had to give an order it would be 1. kicks, 2. punching, 3. knees, 4. elbows. Clinching is mostly done in light sparring be it just the grappling aspect, sometimes with knees.
 
Our trainer teaches us the lovely art of talking. He doesn't shut up, sometimes we'll get nearly nothing done :\
 
Oddly enough, punches appear to be the main focus of my MT gym - in the coaching I've gotten, they seem to take precedence over everything else. But I think the more advanced people (which is almost everyone else) work a lot more on the other stuff and less on punches, so I'm not sure. I definitely don't see a lot of clinch work - some, not a lot - which I'm guessing is because most of the guys at my gym are fighting K-1 these days.
 
Every instructor has certain things that they like to work on more often or for a while they may shift focus if you stick it out with a good instructor IMO
 
Too much pad work and not enough technique and footwork drills in my gym, but its mostly classes for beginners.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Forum statistics

Threads
1,237,036
Messages
55,463,054
Members
174,786
Latest member
JoyceOuthw

Share this page

Back
Top