Yeah, half the trainers there are banged up and wearing knee sleeves. Sing's got two bad knees, I think, and he's held pads for me at least once every time I've trained there. Same with Pot. I trained at Sinbi late last year and Pot was very active. When I swung by again in February, just to visit, he was holding pads.
I'm kind of in the same boat. There are too many students and too many Russians at Sinbi these days. Too many Russians in at least that area of Phuket, in general. I will say though that they've always done a fantastic job of handling the insane number of people that may be there at any given time. I've been there on days when students outnumber pad holders by an insane ratio and everyone still gets their pad work in.