Joining TBA

[Caddock]

Hey folks,

I am looking for info on joining the TBA. I guess I would have to join as an at large member or something of that nature. I have been to a couple of Ajarn Chai's seminars but have no nearby Muay Thai school. We had to drive 10 hours and 12 hours respectively to get to the seminars I attended.

Currently my training partners and I use our basements and a nearby juijitsu school's area to work out in. I took lots of notes from the seminars and we work on those drills, as well we all have varying boxing, karate, etc experience so we do drills from those as well occasionaly.

Anyhow I checked the website and sent an e-mail to the listed contact but thought I might try here as well. Anyone else ever been in a similar situation? Ever hear of anyone joining without a class nearby. If I can join I'd be happy to work towards starting a class here so others wouldn't be in the same fix.

That's my sob story.

Cad

[gregimotis]

What part of the country are you in? Or are you in the U.S. even?

[Justin2Lumpinee]

membership

If any of you are TBA members, how long did it take until you received something in the mail. I mailed my application and check out around 3 months ago and still have not received anything. Is this normal?

[chalambok]

As far as being a member without a school, that is how the TBA got started, so there is nothing new or unusual in that. Getting passport and membership information can be very slow, mainly because there is no full-time secretary for the association; paperwork seems to pile up until someone can devote enough spare time to clearing up the backlog.

[Caddock]

re: joining

Well I'm glad to hear that there is hope for my friends and I. We are in Canada, out on the east coast, kinda to the right of the state of Maine.

So what type of things are part of membership? What is the passport for? There isn't much on the website about membership, at least not that I saw.

Cad

[chanmartialarts]

Caddock,
Rest assured that it is possible to be apart of the TBA even w/o a school or an instructor in your immediate area to train under. There is a guy in Mass. that we have taken under our wing in Maryland. There appearently is no TBA affiliate in Mass.. All you have to do is find the closet TBA instructor or contact the TBA state director closest to you or the one you feel most comfortable training under.

They will over see all your Student Level I & II requirements upon working towards an apprenticeship under Ajarn (as long as you train hard and consistently make an effort to go support the seminars and regularly go train w/ an instructor).

I commend you for your dedication and best of luck to you in your training.

[Caddock]

Thanks for the encouragement. I'm looking forward to next Spring. We just got notice of what our bonus payouts will be for the year. They are paid in Feb, so I am anxiously waiting for next year's seminar schedule to be posted.

The event in March switched places over the past two years but I hope Ajarn makes it back somewhere close (within the 650 miles I have driven before ha) a big chunk of change in Feb means I'll get to go with less worries.