Beat up a kid tonight

[Tom Yum]

Within the first few months, you build a rapport with your classmates and they get to really know you and you really get to know them. Knowing each other helps you to motivate them.

You train hard to improve each other; sometimes you get knocked down or sometimes you knock the other guy down, but he helps you back up or vice versa.

Competition every once in a while is good; you might jab at your friend to get his fire stirred, but its not personal and everyone needs to know that. Its good to have a class meeting for 5 minutes during the warm-up to go over this. It sets the expectations of the class.

I've taken alot of good advice from different trainers out there. If they only knew.

[Tom Yum]

Does anyone have stories about the tough guy who came into the gym? Most of the time tough guys (read disrespectful jerks) are just pressured out of our gym eventually. Sometimes they get trounced by the instructors, sometimes they come around.


Of course, I'm not talking about people who want to learn and fight, I'm talking about people who want to talk s**t, and damage fellow students.

Yeah.

There have been a few of those at some of the places I've trained. They usually come around or decide to leave.

[bigred389]

Whoa...total thread resurrection.

But it's kinda funny reading about some of the instructors here mentioning how they like to break down novice students with endurance work...first time I show up at a new place, that's usually what happens. I always notice after a few weeks there, they start to ease off the pure conditioning oriented drills and work techniques. Coincidence?

[WildWest.]

As far as the original message is concerned...I fully support gregmotis's "beating" of the kid. If he has any balls, it will make him a better person. Funny how it's mostly teenagers that have this attitude.

Back when I first started Muay Thai as a teenager, our instructor told us before we sparred "if you want to spar hard then spar with me". Should you accept the challenge, he would then proceed to wipe the floor with you. I don't think many people took up the challenge while I was training with him.

A good MA club should not encourage such egos and trash talking losers in the first place and if they come along, then its necessary to have people in place who can teach them a lesson. Sometimes its good to look at your own confidence and ask yourself the question "Hey, am I getting to cocky, confident for my own good?" Then go out and spar with someone who can kick your butt a few times. I do that every now and then and it makes me a better person and a better MAist. When you've been training for a while, pride becomes bullshit.....there is no substitute for being kept honest.

[Khun Kao]

I had a teenage student who has a hard time controlling himself. He's mostly a nice kid, but he seems to have a problem separating "sparring" from "fighting". He ends up really popping people hard despite how often we instructors warn him.

He also started to develop an attitude problem when we promoted one of our guys to assistant coach. The guy had a lot of Japanese Kickboxing experience (even used to train at the same gym with Andy Hug in Okinawa) but was still kinda new to MuayThai. He picked it up quickly however, and his previous experience made him a natural fit as a coach.

Problem was that our teenager didn't seem to comprehend why this guy was promoted to a coaching position so fast, and would sometimes make comments that outright challenged our assistant coaches authority. His attitude started to carry over with the rest of us as well. I was starting to get an attitude from him as well.

At that time, I had not been training in months due to injury. I was noticeably out of shape and had put some weight back on. But I decided to do some sparring with him anyway. We decided to spar Boxing-only because I was still in no shape to kick due to my injury.

I toyed with him the whole time. I was hitting him with outright stupid stuff. I would get up in his face with my guard down, he'd try to hit me and I'd slip and pop him. I would hit him with stuff from weird angles. I was even able to back-slap him... (no setup with other punches, I simply stepped in and back-slapped him rather than jab).

After about 2 rounds of it, he got the message.....

He still has problems controlling his power, but he no longer gives off an attitude. And as someone else mentioned regarding their similar expereinces with a problem student, he looks at these occassional beatings as a privilege.

[Khun Kao]

One more story (Unfortunately, I won't do it justice....)

One of my training partners moved out to California and teaches MuayThai out there. He had a new guy come in who obviously had experience. During drills he was going real hard on his training partners and banging them up. My friend kept warning him to ease up, but the guy didn't listen. After a few warnings, my friend told him to get in the ring and beat the snot out of him (not injuring him, but gave him a serious thumping).

My friend then yelled at him and told him that his behavior was completely inappropriate and that he could have seriously injured someone, then kicked him out of the gym for the evening with the understanding that if he adjusted his attitude, he'd be welcome back.

The guy disappeared for a few months, but then finally returned with a new attitude. The guy is now one of their star pupils!

[gregimotis]

Whoa... takin' a ride in the Way Back Machine...