Prostitution of Muay thai

[Khun Kru Mike]

Lately it seems there is a rise in the popularity for Muay THai and Krabi Krabong. The thai Martial Arts are beautiful, graceful, elegant, and formidable. Muay Thai was born on the battlefield against armed opponents. Passed on from generation to generation with painstaking care to preserve the art. It has been exported to the rest of the world for the most part with great effort to keep it real. Discipline, gratitude, generosity, pride, humility, and trust in one's trainer-- these are some aspects of Muay Thai. Without these aspects , you have K1: "NOT BEAUTIFUL", just fighting. Now it seems there are those who want to go along the way of Tae Kwon Do and McDonald's:
Contracts and Automatic Withdrawals.

The thai people have a phrase for this: "JING JING"
This is not what Muay THai is about. To learn Muay Thai, some people pay money, some cannot. They all deserve a chance. Muay Thai comes from the heart. I recently had a collegue of mine tell me that i needed to have contracts to have a successful school. I've been teaching for over 25 years with no contracts and i always pay my bills and most of the time i make profit. But most importantly i help lots of young people stay off dope and help them to become decent human beings. There are many who call me "Dad". That, my friends, is success. I've taught doctors, lawyers, juvenile delinquents, college students, moms, dads, sons and daughters, some for free. One hand washes the other. Most people pay with money, some people pay with other means, some with genuine appreciation.

As far as being worried about money and contracts, i know a lot of miserable rich people and i believe the gyms who use contracts are being opportunistic by exploiting students' initial enthusiasm. If they decide it's not for them they still have to pay. And if i were a prospective student, i would have questions about the gym's priorities and quality of instruction.

Khun Kru Mike Walrath
Big Foot Gym / Muay Thai and Krabi Krabong
Eugene, Oregon

[fugetsu]

Khun Kru Mike-
There will always be hole in the wall, Thai-style gyms where people, whether they want to fight or not, can work hard and get quality, personal insturction. The problem is that these are few and far between. Also, these schools, like yours, are labors of love more than anything.
For those who want to have their school as their primary livelihood may want to run them like a business. Think of it this way: It's like teaching history classes. There are always going to be, and should be, survey courses, 100 level courses, that barely scratch the surface and the students aren't mentored very much and aren't expected to become historians. We just give them a little taste. This is the basic kickboxing/phase one class of the history world. They are also the biggest sellers. Who cares if they never come back, they paid their $$$, took the class and felt the sting of the pad holder or the wrath of my red ink pen. Then there is the 200 level courses, maybe some come back for more, the intensity is increased a little, and then there is the 300 level or the graduate level course where the class is small, the mentoring is personal, and it is in this class that we train the future historians, or in your case, the future Thaiboxers and Muay Thai instructors. Now, not everyone who teaches survey level kickboxing classes trains fighters too, but for the most part I think this allows a school to make $$$ and also allows the instructor to spend some quality time with his/her top students.
There is another Thai saying, "Up and out," correct? Let those who are not dedicated pass through and then be done with them, they will never be in positions to either promote quality Muay Thai or quality fighters.
In short, the flood gates have been thrown open, we can't do anything about the prostitution of Thaiboxing. We can only promote a version and vision of the art that we know is loyal to the way it was passed on to us.
My two baht,
Alex

[WildWest.]

Please tell me MT isn't going to go the same way as TKD in North America. McDojo type MT, although hard to imagine, would damage us so much.

We must prevent this from happening as much as possible.

[Little Apple]

I think that the way to stop it (as much as it can be stopped) is to love it and act like it. Attitudes like Khun Kru Mike's will preserve it where they exist and possibly inspire others to love it just as much. There's no stopping a bit of whoring here and there, but that shouldn't detract from the conviction of those who have some integrety in the art.

[Khun Kao]

MuayThai is conflicted. It might come from a traditional background where people trained and taught the art as a labor of love, but I'm sorry, the sport has been a money-driven entity for close to a century now.

In Thailand, MuayThai is a money-driven animal. This is why the ACTUAL bareknuckle arts that contributed to the formation of sport MuayThai are dying out and almost gone. So much of that knowledge has been lost because everyone has focused their efforts on sport MuayThai where they can actually eke out a living.

In Thailand, the money is to be earned in the stadiums. You're either a promotor, a fighter, or a gambler, but its all about the exchange of money.

Outside of Thailand, its hard to earn enough money fighting to earn even a meager living, so the focus has shifted from getting payback from who you teach from their prize money, and instead we sign them up to enrollment agreements (contracts).

As long as you remain true to teaching the genuine art, I don't see a problem.

[WildWest.]

In that case lets hope it doesn't follow the path of professional boxing.

[rxis]

I've always thought Muay Thai would inevitably become like pro boxing.

[WildWest.]

It doesn't have the popularity of the masses yet like boxing has and probably never will. Lets hope it doesn't.

[Tee Sok]

Nice posts.
I agree, ancient bare knuckle and Thai sword are becoming more popular.
It's good and bad in the same time.
As Khun Khao said, discipline, gratitude, generosity, pride, humility are aspects of thai and other MA. Now these are fogotten by the big shots of MA, claiming to be the most real, the first to teach the authentic systems and so on........all they do is commerce and self-praise.


I have gone through some of these schools, learning little to nothing. Luckily there are still some valid persons who promote and work hard for the survival of these arts leaving ego and money out of it.

[Shaolin Bushido]

*edit*78910

[new_guy]

I'm new to the sport, but sort of had a feeling that MT was being watered down and becoming un-genuine. Khun Kru Mike sort of confirms my fears.

I wanted to study MT for the sake of learning MT and all of it's classic traditions, not to become the next great cage fighter or to balance out grappling skills. I like what I see when I see a genuine MT fight and agree with Kru Mike that it has beauty.There are several schools where I live that seem to teach generic kickboxing but call it muay thai. Although my instructor is the only one in town certified by the Thai Boxing Assoc. of the USA and uses thai pads and basic thai techniques, it's been blended into a general self defense program. No more exclusively MT training and that's sad.

I don't know where to go for MT training. Many of the self proclaimed MT schools are just "ground and pound" MMA schools trying to cultivate cage fighters. That's not my thing.

I'm even considering switching to TKD

Thanks for tolerating my venting.

[rickyparis]

Well ,I think that on most of the thoughts you are right , but that's what I think and what I feel , it´s about the heart , your mind . MT has inspired me to lead a true living , live through your principles and causing a positive impact on the people around us . Whatever you do following your principles and beliefs will always be better than just watching.Thank you for your thoughts.

[Tee Sok]

new_guy,

that's exactly what I was talking about (here and on other posts)

I went from school to school because of the bad quality of teaching. Even if the school claims where high and "proved", after a while I saw they were up to nothing of what they said.

Khun Kru Mike is right in choosing the term "prostitution". This applies to sport and traditional Muay Thai, and to Thai weapon systems.

So people who want to start in any of the above and know little about them can be easily fooled. I wasted money and time because of this, and also found it quite frustrating.

The problem is that many teachers-instructors just don't tell what they really do. They are too busy building up the image of their schools.

I read that Tony Jaa should work in a movie on Krabi Krabong. Great, let's see what will happen once it's been out.

[Khun Kao]

Believe it or not, many instructors are just as frustrated as you who are interested in finding GENUINE MuayThai training....

I used to focus much more of class sessions on teaching traditional MuayThai... observing the Wai Kru, learning the various Ram Muays, paying proper Thai respect to the gym and your fellow students, learning some Thai terminology, and such.... But what I found is that the vast majority of my students could care freaking less about authentic, traditional MuayThai. They just want to come and hit the pads and sweat a lot.

I have had to find much more subtle methods to introduce traditional Thai training. I begin and end every class with a simple Wai Kru. I try to introduce traditional MuayThai technique and strategy into our training sesions, but I've found that I have to maintain the focus on the modern ring MuayThai. And by modern ring MuayThai, I mean American modified Ring MuayThai.

Its frustrating, but when I start trying to teach REAL MuayThai, I notice that I begin to lose my students focus....

So now I focus on running a good workout, teaching good technique and combinations based on the principles of traditional MuayThai, and then hope that one day one of my students will approach me for more....

[Tee Sok]

Yes it's quite normal, students who train in Muay Thai want to hit the bags/pads and spar or fight. And that's it, usually.

I understand your frustration, but I think some of your advanced students one day will ask you more about traditional bare knuckle. To me it is like a part of the process of learning and I think it's natural to be wanting to know more.