# Looking for a martial art to learn (Muay Thai)



## Lucas D (Dec 24, 2015)

Hello everyone,

I've been wanting to do a sport for a long time now, and martial arts really stood out to me, specifically Thai Boxing or Muay Thai. Purely for self defence, perhaps competition later on.

So I looked around for some Muay Thai schools near me and found a few good ones.

I will most likely visit them at the end of the school year (I am 16 years old then), but I have a few questions:
A. Are there any specific things I should look out for when searching for a good Muay Thai school?
B. Are there any questions I should ask the trainers/teachers before I sign up?
C. Is Muay Thai a good martial art to start with? (I never _really _studied any martial art before, so no experience)
D. I heard it's good to look out for a school that also allows a lot of sparring, is this true, and if so, why?

Thanks in advance!
Lucas D


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## drop bear (Dec 24, 2015)

You can generally tell the quality of a Thai school by their fighters.

Otherwise just find a club not run by duchebags and you will be ok. 

Questions would be about money.  And if you can afford it.  How long a contract is for.  That kind of thing. 

Muay thai is fine to start with. 

Sparring lets you know if anything you have been taught works while some other guy is trying to stop you. 

Otherwise. Buy a mouthguard.


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## Lucas D (Dec 24, 2015)

drop bear said:


> You can generally tell the quality of a Thai school by their fighters.
> 
> Otherwise just find a club not run by duchebags and you will be ok.
> 
> ...


Okay thanks for the input!


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## JP3 (Dec 26, 2015)

In addition to Drop Bear's mouthguard, buy a good cup.  It's just a damn good idea.  You are 16, you don't want to injure anything before you've .... umm.... made sufficient use of it, er... them.

My experience with Muay Thai training facilities leads me to these conclusions.  If you feel like you are in a 24-hour fitness, you're not in a good gym. If you feel like you are in a scene from a boxing movie, you're generally in the right area. 

A good Thai-boxing gym IMO will have a LOT of bag stations to work through during your conditioning part of the training, a real and true fighting ring, though it's probably not up off of the ground as that's less important. It will have a mirrored wall so you can shadow box/spar and work on footwork (I suppose it's also good to be able to see what the conditioning work is doing for your physique, that is a good thing that comes out of MT training), lots of jump ropes, medicine balls, etc.

And lots of other equally mentally-unstable, though fun and good-spirited, crazy people who think about beating each other up 3 to 5 times a week with relish.  It IS a good time, and you can learn a lot about striking art, both theory and practice, but usually it's a young man's game, and by young, I mean less than 30. Usually.


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## Tony Dismukes (Dec 26, 2015)

JP3 said:


> My experience with Muay Thai training facilities leads me to these conclusions. If you feel like you are in a 24-hour fitness, you're not in a good gym. If you feel like you are in a scene from a boxing movie, you're generally in the right area.
> 
> A good Thai-boxing gym IMO will have a LOT of bag stations to work through during your conditioning part of the training, a real and true fighting ring, though it's probably not up off of the ground as that's less important. It will have a mirrored wall so you can shadow box/spar and work on footwork (I suppose it's also good to be able to see what the conditioning work is doing for your physique, that is a good thing that comes out of MT training), lots of jump ropes, medicine balls, etc.



My only disagreement would be with the mirrored wall. None of the Muay Thai gyms I've trained at have had that and I haven't missed it. Everything else sounds about right.


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## Lucas D (Dec 27, 2015)

JP3 said:


> In addition to Drop Bear's mouthguard, buy a good cup.  It's just a damn good idea.  You are 16, you don't want to injure anything before you've .... umm.... made sufficient use of it, er... them.


Yes, hahaha, the mouthguard, cup, boxing gloves..etc are all required otherwise I can't come, so that won't be a problem.



JP3 said:


> My experience with Muay Thai training facilities leads me to these conclusions. If you feel like you are in a 24-hour fitness, you're not in a good gym. If you feel like you are in a scene from a boxing movie, you're generally in the right area.
> 
> A good Thai-boxing gym IMO will have a LOT of bag stations to work through during your conditioning part of the training, a real and true fighting ring, though it's probably not up off of the ground as that's less important. It will have a mirrored wall so you can shadow box/spar and work on footwork (I suppose it's also good to be able to see what the conditioning work is doing for your physique, that is a good thing that comes out of MT training), lots of jump ropes, medicine balls, etc.
> 
> And lots of other equally mentally-unstable, though fun and good-spirited, crazy people who think about beating each other up 3 to 5 times a week with relish. It IS a good time, and you can learn a lot about striking art, both theory and practice, but usually it's a young man's game, and by young, I mean less than 30. Usually.


Unfortunately all of them are also gym's since they are the only facilities that offer thaiboxing in my area. About the other stuff you mentioned, I wont really be able to answer since I haven't been there yet for a practice-lesson, however from the pictures, I can see one has a boxing ring (no mats on the floor), others seem to just have mats on the floor. None have mirrors and one or two have a lot of boxing bags hanging here and there. But this is all just speculation based on the foto's I had access to. So I will most likely check them all out to get a good, full impression.


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## Monkey Turned Wolf (Dec 27, 2015)

Lucas D said:


> Yes, hahaha, the mouthguard, cup, boxing gloves..etc are all required otherwise I can't come, so that won't be a problem.


That's a good sign. It means that they're probably necessary, which means you'll have a decent amount of sparring.

As for the ring vs. mats: I would definitely be wary if they state that they train you to be able to compete without a ring, since the spacing and ring is a really important part of it. They very well could have a ring and not have pictures of it though.


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