Muay Thai Apprenticeship: a proposal for training

[Giorgio]

I've been thinking about this for awhile now, and I thought I'd see what the rest of you think on this issue:

We've all been to Muay Thai classes. They vary hugely in style, number of students, and setup. Some people do a load of pad drills, some people focus on technique, some do a lot of conditioning, and some focus on sparring. These are all great, and contribute a lot to being able to practise muay thai with confidence.

My main problem is this: The division of one instructor and 5-20 students. Although this is often necessary due to constraints on the number of qualified teachers, I feel that it is ultimately counterproductive. In an average class of 2 hours, with 12 students and 1 teacher, the student will receive maybe 5 minutes of actual, one-to-one guidance. Although when practising bag or pad drills this isn't such a bad thing, I feel that in almost all cases personal instruction is very beneficial, even if it's just correcting guard posture and technique while whacking the pads.

Most classes contain a variety of students from a variety of experience levels. My proposal is to create the classic relationship of mentor to apprentice, thus creating loads of one-on-one relationships which would be very beneficial. Even if a student only has three or four years MT experience, he is more than capable of guiding a beginner and showing him the ropes. This would be great for the novice, and good for the more advanced student as well, as teaching would help you refine your skills, and just really think about what you're doing, since you're explaining it and justifying it.

Also, mentor-apprentice relationships could extend to beyond just your bi-weekly training sessions. You should be able to arrange to meet up with your mentor in your free time, spar, just talk about self-defence situations and possible competitions, etc.

It's just something I was thinking about, I'd like to get your opinions on it. Do you already have a system like this? Do you think it would be a bad idea? Let me know!

 

[darthcual]

Due to the constant influx of new students we've had to make changes to our class time. Our instructor, one long time student, and I split the duties of teaching the new students. We do not split time. We walk around while drills are on going and correct from their. We found it extremely helpful to make a white board with a grid labeled Mon-Thur. (our class days) and a list of warm up drills/conditioning. New students can follow along and in no time they know if we say 'rise and shines' what the drill is. It is our belief as passed on by our former instructor, Master Ge L. Yang, that everyone be helpful in training and teach the other student as much as possible. Even if its something as simple as telling them to keep their hands up, that saves the Head Instructor, Senior Instructor, and Junior Instructor (me) a breath and time we can use elsewhere. As for the student/teacher relationship all schools have a different approach. Our instructor is just as much friend as teacher. This has its good and bad points as it is easy to cross boundries sometimes and get on his bad side. Ask me how I know

 

[Giorgio]

That sounds like a really nice atmosphere you have there! It does raise another question though... do you think having that friendly atmosphere is at the expense of some professionalism on the part of the teachers? You did mention getting on the bad side of your teacher. What did that entail?

BTW, love your signature.

 

[Diesel Noi]

well from what I have learned, it haas to do with what u are able to absorb while in training with your Kruu, meaning, how much u r able to learn in those 2 or 3 hours. It has everything to do with how much time you spend training on your own, shadow boxing, improving your kicks, etc. quoting my Kruu, " in the worls of martial arts, how good you`ll become, depends entirely on how good u want to become, u can train a thousand days, and you`ll still be a student, but you can train ten thousand days and u can become a master". From this I understand that, when u go to train with your Kruu, it is only when u want to learn the correct technique, or when u have doubts about certain things, and that´s it, of course u can train with a fellow to improve yourself.

That`s my point of view.

 

[Giorgio]

That's a really good point. I think I agree that it has more to do with your desire to learn and improve yourself than what you are taught. But I do think that learning, training and mastering your techniques works better when you do it in a community, rather than on your own.

I guess that's what I'm saying, that there should be more community in Muay Thai gyms. Do you agree? Or do you think it's best to focus on yourself and use others only when you have doubts or questions?

 

[Diesel Noi]

Oh absolutely, I agree with u a 100%, u can not do it on your own, entirely whatsoever. But my point is that u can not always expect, or wait for that matter, for your community to train with u, and I did not mean to say it like "use the others to improve yourself, what I meant is that u must also practice, with a mirror in front of u if that is what u need , by yourself, I learned that while I was practicing wu shu, I was not a good student at all, I was average, until I fell in love with the ma world, I understood that to honor myself and my masters I had to discipline myself first, by trainig as hard as I could in a gym, and then on my own to get better.

But yes u will always need to practice with somebody, or you`ll never get as good as u want to get.

 

[thaistyle]

The mentor-apprenticeship idea sounds like it would work. In my old gym, if classes were too big, the head instructor would get help from a senior student/asst. instructor(s). I've seen classes that definitely could use 3-4 instructors at a time due to the size of class.

 

[darthcual]

We also teach not to train outside our atmosphere unless you are intermediate or advanced student. Why? What happens to begginers is they believe they are doing the drill or technique correctly when nothing could be farther from the truth. Then they come back to class and we say to them, "That is not how I showed you to do it." What they've done is taught themselves (incorrectly) and then we must go back and try to fix it. Once a habit has formed its very tough to break it.

 

[tobias1]

I've been thinking about this for awhile now, and I thought I'd see what the rest of you think on this issue:

We've all been to Muay Thai classes. They vary hugely in style, number of students, and setup. Some people do a load of pad drills, some people focus on technique, some do a lot of conditioning, and some focus on sparring. These are all great, and contribute a lot to being able to practise muay thai with confidence.

My main problem is this: The division of one instructor and 5-20 students. Although this is often necessary due to constraints on the number of qualified teachers, I feel that it is ultimately counterproductive. In an average class of 2 hours, with 12 students and 1 teacher, the student will receive maybe 5 minutes of actual, one-to-one guidance. Although when practising bag or pad drills this isn't such a bad thing, I feel that in almost all cases personal instruction is very beneficial, even if it's just correcting guard posture and technique while whacking the pads.

Most classes contain a variety of students from a variety of experience levels. My proposal is to create the classic relationship of mentor to apprentice, thus creating loads of one-on-one relationships which would be very beneficial. Even if a student only has three or four years MT experience, he is more than capable of guiding a beginner and showing him the ropes. This would be great for the novice, and good for the more advanced student as well, as teaching would help you refine your skills, and just really think about what you're doing, since you're explaining it and justifying it.

Also, mentor-apprentice relationships could extend to beyond just your bi-weekly training sessions. You should be able to arrange to meet up with your mentor in your free time, spar, just talk about self-defence situations and possible competitions, etc.

It's just something I was thinking about, I'd like to get your opinions on it. Do you already have a system like this? Do you think it would be a bad idea? Let me know!

If you want more 1 on 1, go to Thailand and train. But please don't go to Rawai Muay Thai. You will get great 1 on 1 once you show the trainers that your are serious and that you want to fight in one of the hundreds of stadiums.

 

[Giorgio]

What's Rawai Muay Thai? I'm not sure I understand your post.

 

[Fiendlover]

u know i agree completely on the one-on-one concept. i took some privates once and learned a weapon in four days! compared to the whole class which can take from 2 weeks to 4 weeks! i think it would be more beneficial that the regular classes cuz then the teacher can foucus on ur strong points and weak points, where ur skills r, and what u can do.