Muay Thai Gym Q&A
- Thread starter cali_chute_boxe
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I guess it depends on what you consider a good beach. I like the beaches at Hua Hin much more than the beaches in Phuket. Hua Hin is more natural.
I just spent 5 weeks in Hua Hin. Ran 5 k on this beach everyday.
I just spent 5 weeks in Hua Hin. Ran 5 k on this beach everyday.
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AKA Thailand is unfortunately the worst gym I've trained in, many others I've met agree with me. Poor organization and lazy pad holdings. Tiger is a close second, but at least there are some decent pad holders around.
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How often is Mike Swick there? One thig I have noticed at tourist gyms. When the boss isn't around, laziness is rampant.
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Yeah don't think he's back from the states, but he wasn't there when i was. Even Mark Hunt was barely around except to use the weights room
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Was looking back through this thread and was surprised to see Wech Pinyo mentioned.
RD - this is that first gym I was talking about.
I can answer questions on this gym and some of the other gyms in Lamai if anybody has any.
RD - this is that first gym I was talking about.
I can answer questions on this gym and some of the other gyms in Lamai if anybody has any.
How is the location of Wech pinyo? Do you need a scooter or is it walking distance to lamai beach? i know its close to the beach but i have read that the beach in northern Lamai isnt that good..
And also, where did you live? im looking at the accommondations availabe on wechs website and they look ok
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Depends where you stay on Lamai Beach. We stayed in the Weekender Villa Resort (not the same as Weekender Resort). It was a small group of bungalows right on the beach. Wech Pinyo was about 1/2 a km south of the Weekender Villa. There may have been one gym closer, but it was to the north.
Across the street from Wech Pinyo is a small entrance to the beach. Yes, it's still north Lamai and northern Lamai beach is a bit more rocky than southern Lamai beach. Wech Pinyo is at least a mile away from Tesco Lotus along the same route (4169). Between Pinyo and Tesco, less than 1/2 a km south of Pinyo, there's a fork in the road, marked by a big sign for McDonald's (delivery). Traveling south, the fork to the right is still 4169, the fork to the left heads towards the Sunday night Lamai street festival (shopping), a bunch of hotels, and stores. The best entrances to Lamai beach are less than 1 km down that fork.
The closest gym to the nicest parts of southern Lamai beach is WMC Lamai (it's along that left fork, when the road makes a sharp right angle, before it meets back up with 4169).
We didn't rent a scooter. I just didn't trust it, driving there is very strange. I believe 2 nonThais died while we were there (1 murdered, 1 run over by a taxi) and there were countless accidents. On one occasion my wife and I were walking down a side rode to Tesco Lotus when a nonThai on a motorcycle zoomed by us and got in an accident bad enough that he lost his front wheel & most of the front of the bike.
Across the street from Wech Pinyo is a small entrance to the beach. Yes, it's still north Lamai and northern Lamai beach is a bit more rocky than southern Lamai beach. Wech Pinyo is at least a mile away from Tesco Lotus along the same route (4169). Between Pinyo and Tesco, less than 1/2 a km south of Pinyo, there's a fork in the road, marked by a big sign for McDonald's (delivery). Traveling south, the fork to the right is still 4169, the fork to the left heads towards the Sunday night Lamai street festival (shopping), a bunch of hotels, and stores. The best entrances to Lamai beach are less than 1 km down that fork.
The closest gym to the nicest parts of southern Lamai beach is WMC Lamai (it's along that left fork, when the road makes a sharp right angle, before it meets back up with 4169).
We didn't rent a scooter. I just didn't trust it, driving there is very strange. I believe 2 nonThais died while we were there (1 murdered, 1 run over by a taxi) and there were countless accidents. On one occasion my wife and I were walking down a side rode to Tesco Lotus when a nonThai on a motorcycle zoomed by us and got in an accident bad enough that he lost his front wheel & most of the front of the bike.
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EDIT: Regarding stores and restaurants: I walked everywhere, probably 8 to 10 miles a day most days, more other days. There's a good Thai BBQ buffet near Pinyo (actually more like Japanese Shabu-Shabu or Vietnamese hot pot). Ate at Tesco most days because it was cheap and pretty good.
Little reluctant to volunteer this, but I didn't stay at Pinyo the whole time.
Little reluctant to volunteer this, but I didn't stay at Pinyo the whole time.
The "1 Hour Warm Up" mentioned in the following video is not an exaggeration, sometimes it goes quite a bit longer:
https://youtu.be/fJqkrONELZI
I found the conditioning to be a bit much, I was usually almost too tired to throw proper technique by the time padwork rolled around and after sparring I was basically useless so I never got to clinch.
The foreigners that train there tended to be very good & extremely well conditioned.
Not a single one lost a fight when I was there.
The Thais, not so much - 2 of the guys I trained with were straight up KOed.
There's a heavyset Thai guy that shows up on their webpage (the guy in red & black standing in the middle):
He's the only guy I would ever think about seeking out for padwork again.
Had very little interaction with Mr Pinyo.
Main guy that held for me was a guy named "Noi" (wearing the blue body pad in the video) and he thought he could just punch the fat out of my gut - averaged something like 300+ situps each workout with him, and probably a good 500+ shots to the gut too. He would hit me whenever (usually with the hardest part of the mitts) - in between situps, while hitting pads, while shadow boxing, while drinking water. Threw up a lot. Bruised up pretty good for a few weeks after. Had no skin left on my tailbone from the situps after the 1st or 2nd day.
They had me sparring this young kid (16 or 17) a lot, at least 8 rounds a session, mostly boxing. He had no lateral movement and wanted to cry about going too hard when he was throwing everything but the kitchen sink. The only stuff that caught him with any force were jabs he ran into while trying to bulldoze in for haymakers. I tried to take it easy on him, played a lot of defense. Didn't seem to help him for his fight though.
My take away from that gym - if you're already in awesome shape and/or you're going to be in Koh Samui a long time, then it would probably be worth it. Otherwise, I think there are better options. I did hear afterwards from some of the guys that the week I was there was not a good one, that Mr Pinyo had been slacking off, and after the poor performances that week had gotten more involved. So take my experiences with a grain of salt.
https://youtu.be/fJqkrONELZI
I found the conditioning to be a bit much, I was usually almost too tired to throw proper technique by the time padwork rolled around and after sparring I was basically useless so I never got to clinch.
The foreigners that train there tended to be very good & extremely well conditioned.
Not a single one lost a fight when I was there.
The Thais, not so much - 2 of the guys I trained with were straight up KOed.
There's a heavyset Thai guy that shows up on their webpage (the guy in red & black standing in the middle):
He's the only guy I would ever think about seeking out for padwork again.
Had very little interaction with Mr Pinyo.
Main guy that held for me was a guy named "Noi" (wearing the blue body pad in the video) and he thought he could just punch the fat out of my gut - averaged something like 300+ situps each workout with him, and probably a good 500+ shots to the gut too. He would hit me whenever (usually with the hardest part of the mitts) - in between situps, while hitting pads, while shadow boxing, while drinking water. Threw up a lot. Bruised up pretty good for a few weeks after. Had no skin left on my tailbone from the situps after the 1st or 2nd day.
They had me sparring this young kid (16 or 17) a lot, at least 8 rounds a session, mostly boxing. He had no lateral movement and wanted to cry about going too hard when he was throwing everything but the kitchen sink. The only stuff that caught him with any force were jabs he ran into while trying to bulldoze in for haymakers. I tried to take it easy on him, played a lot of defense. Didn't seem to help him for his fight though.
My take away from that gym - if you're already in awesome shape and/or you're going to be in Koh Samui a long time, then it would probably be worth it. Otherwise, I think there are better options. I did hear afterwards from some of the guys that the week I was there was not a good one, that Mr Pinyo had been slacking off, and after the poor performances that week had gotten more involved. So take my experiences with a grain of salt.
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Thanks for the answer man! Im wondering because im going to samui in january, but i havent really decided wich gym to choose.. Did you ever train at WMC lamai? if thats the case, did you find any cheap accommondation nearby? because the accommondation that WMC offer themself is exepensive as fuck
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I did train at WMC Lamai and I had a lot of fun there. I've heard tons of great things about Jun Muay Thai as well (right across the street from Tesco Lotus). Only reason I didn't try Jun out is because I had a hard time waking up for morning training and didn't really want to skip evening training at WMC. (BTW - I noticed I functioned a lot better on once-a-day training).
I only knew one guy who left the WMC accommodation to go find his own, but he ended up paying like $40 a night. TripAdvisor is probably your best bet. We used them for almost everything. Their recommendations for hotels, food, and tours all turned out to be solid (that's where we got the $20 a night bungalow on the beach).
In fact if you were considering Jun, it's probably 1/2 a kilometer to the start of the southern part of Lamai Beach, it's right across the street from Tesco, and it's 1.5 km from the hotel I was staying at. So its location is not so bad. It's probably more convenient than Pinyo actually.
I only knew one guy who left the WMC accommodation to go find his own, but he ended up paying like $40 a night. TripAdvisor is probably your best bet. We used them for almost everything. Their recommendations for hotels, food, and tours all turned out to be solid (that's where we got the $20 a night bungalow on the beach).
In fact if you were considering Jun, it's probably 1/2 a kilometer to the start of the southern part of Lamai Beach, it's right across the street from Tesco, and it's 1.5 km from the hotel I was staying at. So its location is not so bad. It's probably more convenient than Pinyo actually.
I have heard mixed reviews about WMC, how was the trainers? did you get alot of attention and did they correct you much? And another question, how long have you been before thailand? And when was you in thailand, this year?
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I was in Thailand July 1 - 17, 2015. It was my first trip to Thailand. I've been training Muay Thai since at least 2003. Been training Kung fu since 1994, San Shou & Boxing since 2000. One amateur Sanda fight in 2003, a good number of muay thai smokers. My gym for about the past year has been Bangkok Boxing in Atl, with Khunpon, Songkhla & Jo Nattawut (though I've been slammed with work for the last couple weeks). While I'd like to fight amateur once more, my main interest is pad holding, and my main goal for training in Thailand was to pick up more technique & pad holding tricks. I wasn't planning to lose weight in a week and a half of training, which might explain my reaction to the training at Pinyo.
I got a ton of attention from WMC trainers, especially Nokweed. I'm not sure about the reviewer that said they were just told to hit a heavybag, that wasn't my experience at all. From the wording of that review, it sounded like that reviewer wanted to skip the actual class or something. I dunno. Maybe that reviewer wanted to skip the class because they typically start with simple attack/counter drills and work towards free sparring, the initial drills may have seemed basic. This is actually the way I prefer to train, very technical. They have group class type environment, with lots of partner training & sparring, finish up with padwork, skip knees, & conditioning. WMC has maybe 7 older trainers and probably 4 younger guys who fight; Pinyo was the inverse of that ratio with fewer trainers overall. Those older guys watched like hawks too, even during shadowboxing. English was better there as well. WMC just hosted the Kazakhstan, New Zealand (youth), and Ukraine teams in advance of the IFMA Muay Thai tournament that's going on right now so take that for what you will...
And just to keep this from being one-sided, don't sleep on Jun. That's where Julie Kitchen trains and one of their guys just fought Sam-A.
I got a ton of attention from WMC trainers, especially Nokweed. I'm not sure about the reviewer that said they were just told to hit a heavybag, that wasn't my experience at all. From the wording of that review, it sounded like that reviewer wanted to skip the actual class or something. I dunno. Maybe that reviewer wanted to skip the class because they typically start with simple attack/counter drills and work towards free sparring, the initial drills may have seemed basic. This is actually the way I prefer to train, very technical. They have group class type environment, with lots of partner training & sparring, finish up with padwork, skip knees, & conditioning. WMC has maybe 7 older trainers and probably 4 younger guys who fight; Pinyo was the inverse of that ratio with fewer trainers overall. Those older guys watched like hawks too, even during shadowboxing. English was better there as well. WMC just hosted the Kazakhstan, New Zealand (youth), and Ukraine teams in advance of the IFMA Muay Thai tournament that's going on right now so take that for what you will...
And just to keep this from being one-sided, don't sleep on Jun. That's where Julie Kitchen trains and one of their guys just fought Sam-A.
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Turns out my hotel was only 2.8 kilometers (1.74 miles) from WMC Lamai - I thought it was further. That puts Pinyo at 2.2 kilometers (1.37 miles) from WMC Lamai. Jun Muay Thai is 1.9 kilometers (1.18 miles) from WMC Lamai and 0.8 kilometers (less than 1/2 mile) from Wech Pinyo. So accommodation near any of them is not going to be a huge distance from the others.
From their site, I think monthly training at Jun is about 5,000 baht and they can line up accommodation in a studio apartment for 5,500 baht (before electric - usually 500b) for one month. I think WMC Lamai is a little bit more expensive for training - I agree they are probably a bad option for accommodation. Wech Pinyo will probably be worth it if you're going to be there as long as a month.
Here's a trip advisor link if it helps:
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotels-g293918-zff6-Ko_Samui_Surat_Thani_Province-Hotels.html
From their site, I think monthly training at Jun is about 5,000 baht and they can line up accommodation in a studio apartment for 5,500 baht (before electric - usually 500b) for one month. I think WMC Lamai is a little bit more expensive for training - I agree they are probably a bad option for accommodation. Wech Pinyo will probably be worth it if you're going to be there as long as a month.
Here's a trip advisor link if it helps:
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotels-g293918-zff6-Ko_Samui_Surat_Thani_Province-Hotels.html
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http://www.paidangmuaythai.com/
There's a new gym in Koh Samui by 3x Lumpini champ Paidang Davy.
Hes brother Nokweed should be there to.
I can personally vouch for them both...2 of the best trainers I ever had!!
Training would be intense.
There's a new gym in Koh Samui by 3x Lumpini champ Paidang Davy.
Hes brother Nokweed should be there to.
I can personally vouch for them both...2 of the best trainers I ever had!!
Training would be intense.
