Muay Thai guys please enlighten me ...

SAMURAI SPIRIT

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So if you google BJJ schools, a great many pop up under any given location but when you google "Muay Thai" schools, nothing shows up! Most of the Muay Thai training is happening in established BJJ schools instead that have these visiting Muay Thai instructors who come and go. A lot of times, Muay Thai instructor would actually be an MMA competitor whose only experience of Muay Thai is the MMA fight he fought. When you look at modern MMA, BJJ is really not as relevant to modern MMA as it once was and striking plus ground and pound is the in thing now so it makes me wonder, why is there such absolute lack of dedicated Muay Thai (or striking) schools? Why must they exist under the wing of an established BJJ school instead of as a place of their own? Why is there no equivalent of Gracie Barra in US Muay Thai scene? Bad marketiblity? Lack of public interest?

Care to share your thoughts?
 
Lack of public interest imo. There are MT specific gyms, but it depends on the region.

Overall BJJ inspired MMA (merica wise) so its got more pull historically. MT is still pretty foreign exotic overall.
 
Welcome to the USA

mma is cool thing to do, muay thai is not.

BJJ is much more popular than muay thai because........as soon as something hurts in BJJ, you tap. Muay Thai is not like this. This is why you see so many kids that are able to train and even compete in BJJ that cannot do the same with Muay Thai or Boxing. Dont get me wrong I am not knocking BJJ or its effectiveness cause at a high level its extremely dangerous. Turns guys into straight gorillas that will rip your arms off.

The only muay thai anyone wants to learn now is muay thai for mma.

the only reason most are into MMA is because its like a "street fight" or the guys are interested in how to win a "bar fight" or whatnot.

not enough money in solely running a muay thai gym to keep the doors open. In order to make ends meet, most gym/business need to appeal to everyone which would be, MMA, BJJ, kids classes, cardio, womens classes, etc etc........Hence the UFC gyms.

gyms need this guys money to keep the doors open, so they must appeal to him and the rest of the people like him, which sadly is about 90% of the type of people that are into MMA.

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Welcome to the USA

mma is cool thing to do, muay thai is not.

BJJ is much more popular than muay thai because........as soon as something hurts in BJJ, you tap. Muay Thai is not like this. This is why you see so many kids that are able to train and even compete in BJJ that cannot do the same with Muay Thai or Boxing. Dont get me wrong I am not knocking BJJ or its effectiveness cause at a high level its extremely dangerous. Turns guys into straight gorillas that will rip your arms off.
My coach said the same thing and why he's more open with grappling tourneys than striking. Purpose of BJJ: get a guy in a bad spot and force them to give up. Purpose of striking: inflict brain trauma so they shut off and beat, inflict body torture so that the 3rd paty (ref) will be forced to stop the fight.

The only muay thai anyone wants to learn now is muay thai for mma.
aka Dutch KB. or Boxing with leg kicks. Its kinda sad about the lack of clinching from them. Railed a guy in the clinch in my first fight, since he's more grappler from a MMA gym (I train out of a MMA gym as well, but more striker oriented) he thought I was trying to stall when I was clinching, and tried to body hook his way out of it. It didn't hurt at all, and while punching he basically let go of his single collar tie, and let me secure the double collar where i went to town with batting ram knees. Hell, my teammate's opponent thought cross blocking full force knees was a good idea.... then he got his forearm fractured. I will say, the southern folks are tough people, and definitely fighters, but they weren't armed with the proper technique which is a shame, because they would've went a long way had they had that preparation. That's not a blame on the fighters, but rather the gym.

not enough money in solely running a muay thai gym to keep the doors open. In order to make ends meet, most gym/business need to appeal to everyone which would be, MMA, BJJ, kids classes, cardio, womens classes, etc etc........Hence the UFC gyms.

gyms need this guys money to keep the doors open, so they must appeal to him and the rest of the people like him, which sadly is about 90% of the type of people that are into MMA.

c13832206836da571732f661b84df57f.jpg

At the end of the day its a business, so you have to cater to the customer.
 
My coach said the same thing and why he's more open with grappling tourneys than striking. Purpose of BJJ: get a guy in a bad spot and force them to give up. Purpose of striking: inflict brain trauma so they shut off and beat, inflict body torture so that the 3rd paty (ref) will be forced to stop the fight.


aka Dutch KB. or Boxing with leg kicks. Its kinda sad about the lack of clinching from them. Railed a guy in the clinch in my first fight, since he's more grappler from a MMA gym (I train out of a MMA gym as well, but more striker oriented) he thought I was trying to stall when I was clinching, and tried to body hook his way out of it. It didn't hurt at all, and while punching he basically let go of his single collar tie, and let me secure the double collar where i went to town with batting ram knees. Hell, my teammate's opponent thought cross blocking full force knees was a good idea.... then he got his forearm fractured. I will say, the southern folks are tough people, and definitely fighters, but they weren't armed with the proper technique which is a shame, because they would've went a long way had they had that preparation. That's not a blame on the fighters, but rather the gym.



At the end of the day its a business, so you have to cater to the customer.

we agree on alot of things!
 
So what I am understanding is that if there were two gyms across the street from each other ...

Renzo Gracie Jiujitsu (affiliate) with a Muay Thai class from "John Smith."

Kru Somchai Muay Thai (with a No-gi class from a purple belt.)

The second one would be at an advantage when it comes to producing MMA fighters but the first one will be more successful business wise? It is a bit weird because Kickboxing has an appeal to people who dont want to fight but "want to get in shape." I have heard of womens kickboxing being offered in Golds Gym as a group class but never heard of a mock BJJ lesson so that people could get in shape.
 
So what I am understanding is that if there were two gyms across the street from each other ...

Renzo Gracie Jiujitsu (affiliate) with a Muay Thai class from "John Smith."

Kru Somchai Muay Thai (with a No-gi class from a purple belt.)

The second one would be at an advantage when it comes to producing MMA fighters but the first one will be more successful business wise? It is a bit weird because Kickboxing has an appeal to people who dont want to fight but "want to get in shape." I have heard of womens kickboxing being offered in Golds Gym as a group class but never heard of a mock BJJ lesson so that people could get in shape.
Cardio kickboxing is different from combat sport kickboxing, as you already probably know. Not just the style, but the marketing itself. It caters to a different demographic.

You're right, the 2nd gym will have less pull in the market compared to the first. Everyone knows the Gracie name, and its built an image over decades, whereas Kru Somchai doesn't sound too hot unless you go there personally for a trail class and it fits you
 
So if you google BJJ schools, a great many pop up under any given location but when you google "Muay Thai" schools, nothing shows up! Most of the Muay Thai training is happening in established BJJ schools instead that have these visiting Muay Thai instructors who come and go. A lot of times, Muay Thai instructor would actually be an MMA competitor whose only experience of Muay Thai is the MMA fight he fought. When you look at modern MMA, BJJ is really not as relevant to modern MMA as it once was and striking plus ground and pound is the in thing now so it makes me wonder, why is there such absolute lack of dedicated Muay Thai (or striking) schools? Why must they exist under the wing of an established BJJ school instead of as a place of their own? Why is there no equivalent of Gracie Barra in US Muay Thai scene? Bad marketiblity? Lack of public interest?

Care to share your thoughts?

There are a lot of reasons, many of which have already been mentioned. The main three I'd say are lack of competent instructors, barriers to entry (basically, sparring really hurts especially when you're first starting), and lack of a coherent competition scene. Also many of the people who want to learn kickboxing are doing so to fight MMA, and pure MT is not a very good pure striking art for MMA. The stances, movement, and lack of punching in trad MT just don't seem to translate as well to MMA as a more boxing or Dutch influenced striking style. I think there's a lot more that MMA fighters should take from Muay Thai, especially in the clinch, but the metagames are so different it makes direct transference hard.
 
Because pure muy Thai classes would be for people to train to compete

There aren’t belts and kata a shit in a MT class, they are like boxing gyms in how they train.

Not for most people. That’s why jack in the box karate classes do better.

Jason frank used to have a muy Thai class at his karate school. Don’t know if he still does. It wasn’t very popular a while back
 
I would also add that a pretty poor understanding of how Muay Thai scoring works from most people puts them off.
If you are a young teenager looking up fight sports videos on the internet then Thai boxing can be quite confusing.
I've heard that the US has some weird laws on Interclubs( or Smokers as you call them) as well?
Plus lack of good level professional shows means less opportunity for fighters which means less Americans fighting at the highest level.
All this means that most MMA or BJJ gyms have an ex MMA fighter teaching "Muay thai" because it sounds cool but really its just hitting pads using some Dutch kickboxing with elbows chucked in no real understanding of the clinch or correct scoring but people get to whack pads and "Train Muay Thai" so they are happy and will pay.
 
Yea pretty much cuz noone here knows what Muay Thai is. They know boxing and barely kickboxing. MMA and BJJ is popular due to UFC.

When Americans think of fighting/self defense they think of boxing and karate. You won't find any traditional Muay Thai gyms. They're all under MMA. Also, the only people who wants to learn Muay Thai are usually MMA fighters and they're usually paired with BJJ. There's just not many pure muay thai competition here. There is Lion Fight and other regional "pure" muay thai competitions but not as popular as mma.

Again, most people who train Muay Thai are usually into MMA and there's just more customers in MMA than a pure MT gym. So in the business perspective it's better to be in a mma gym or pair it with bjj and call it MMA to appeal to more people. There's just no reason to be a solely MT gym.
 
Don’t know where you’re from man. I live in Los Angeles and there are Muay Thai gyms all over the city.

In fairness, LA is one of the few cities in the United States where you can find good training in any legit martial art under the sun.
 
I'm swimming in MT schools here in Boston, but I think the experience you get at them is exactly why it's not popular. If you want a MT school, you go find one. If you don't know what MT is, you don't want anything to do with one.
 
I've heard that the US has some weird laws on Interclubs( or Smokers as you call them) as well?
Not sure specifically in the US, but here, the "extra" rules in smokers/exibition are made up on the spot by the organizer. My first one, it so happened most on the card were fairly green so they agreed to ban spinning backfists because some people jump in and it ends up being an elbow

One of the most lose rules is in terms of weight, there's no real official weight; You do your best to hit the weight the coaches say you compete at, but there's no penalty. Its common for a wierd match up like you come in at 150lbs, and the opponent comes in at 155lbs.

Don’t know where you’re from man. I live in Los Angeles and there are Muay Thai gyms all over the city.
That comes back to the posts in this thread, yes combat sports is booming in Cali, but it'd be safe to say most aren't MT gyms, but in name for the market. Your average guy knows Muay Thai from commentators describing kickboxers in MMA, so they slap the label on for business purposes.

Its the same with some TMA gyms marketing themselves as "Mixed martial arts" when its not what you think it is. By definition they are correct (aka. we teach Karate, Aikido, Kung Fu) but not what we're looking for.
 
Not sure specifically in the US, but here, the "extra" rules in smokers/exibition are made up on the spot by the organizer. My first one, it so happened most on the card were fairly green so they agreed to ban spinning backfists because some people jump in and it ends up being an elbow

One of the most lose rules is in terms of weight, there's no real official weight; You do your best to hit the weight the coaches say you compete at, but there's no penalty. Its common for a wierd match up like you come in at 150lbs, and the opponent comes in at 155lbs.


That comes back to the posts in this thread, yes combat sports is booming in Cali, but it'd be safe to say most aren't MT gyms, but in name for the market. Your average guy knows Muay Thai from commentators describing kickboxers in MMA, so they slap the label on for business purposes.

Its the same with some TMA gyms marketing themselves as "Mixed martial arts" when its not what you think it is. By definition they are correct (aka. we teach Karate, Aikido, Kung Fu) but not what we're looking for.

Ummm...hmmm. So let me say it again and in a slightly different way...

I live in Los Angeles. I’ve trained Muay Thai for several years both here and in Thailand so I think I know what I’m talking about. Four of my old Muay Thai training partners, among others, all opened up their own MUAY THAI gyms here.

There are also kickboxing gyms, Dutch and American, here in town. There are also mma gyms with a kickboxing program. I did Not include them in my thinking as they are different gyms....

Lol with “safe to say” from wherever you are. It is NOT safe to say what you just said...coming from someone who’s lived and trained it for years here.

Why on earth would you ask for my opinion then immediately dismiss it?? So pointless.
 
So if you google BJJ schools, a great many pop up under any given location but when you google "Muay Thai" schools, nothing shows up! Most of the Muay Thai training is happening in established BJJ schools instead that have these visiting Muay Thai instructors who come and go. A lot of times, Muay Thai instructor would actually be an MMA competitor whose only experience of Muay Thai is the MMA fight he fought. When you look at modern MMA, BJJ is really not as relevant to modern MMA as it once was and striking plus ground and pound is the in thing now so it makes me wonder, why is there such absolute lack of dedicated Muay Thai (or striking) schools? Why must they exist under the wing of an established BJJ school instead of as a place of their own? Why is there no equivalent of Gracie Barra in US Muay Thai scene? Bad marketiblity? Lack of public interest?

Care to share your thoughts?
bjj is softer. Easier to market to kids and families. Muay Thai is difficult to do, hard on the body and sparring can leave you beat up. It’s intimidating to start and requires a higher level of physicality to begin.
 
There are like 2 here in Denver, counting mine, and we're as much a Dutch KB school as we are trad MT (though we clinch and spend enough time kicking to the body that I'd say we qualify as MT). Very limited, as you say most of the action is in KB for MMA.
 
Is it safe to say that the one of the reasons that Muay Thai schools aren’t popular is due to the fact it would expose a wannabe tough guy? I have seen people who are extremely obnoxious walked in a boxing gym and act very humble and never to be seen again.
 
Is it safe to say that the one of the reasons that Muay Thai schools aren’t popular is due to the fact it would expose a wannabe tough guy? I have seen people who are extremely obnoxious walked in a boxing gym and act very humble and never to be seen again.

Yes absolutely. MT is probably my favorite style I've ever studied, and ever single moment is spent thinking "what the fuck did I get myself into?" It just hurts, everything about it hurts. In 20+ years of martial arts I've never had more bone-break scares than MT.

You have to be mildly crazy to study an art like that. Most people just want to burn off 1 of the 8 cookies they ate and then go back to the office.
 
Ummm...hmmm. So let me say it again and in a slightly different way...

I live in Los Angeles. I’ve trained Muay Thai for several years both here and in Thailand so I think I know what I’m talking about. Four of my old Muay Thai training partners, among others, all opened up their own MUAY THAI gyms here.

There are also kickboxing gyms, Dutch and American, here in town. There are also mma gyms with a kickboxing program. I did Not include them in my thinking as they are different gyms....

Lol with “safe to say” from wherever you are. It is NOT safe to say what you just said...coming from someone who’s lived and trained it for years here.

Why on earth would you ask for my opinion then immediately dismiss it?? So pointless.
Hey I just read your comment and wanted to k ow if you could help me find a legit Muay Thai gym or at least some pointers on how to tell who is legit or not thanks
 
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