Anyone have any experience training and fighting in Thailand? Im considering going to Southern Thailand for a month or two to help a friend train and maybe fight. However, in the last few days ive started to have serious doubts about this. My friend is in decent shape but he isnt small around 200lbs. Im guessing if he fights at that weight he will be fighting another non-Thai. Not sure if thats a good thing or a bad thing. Any ideas?
I had 2 fights in Chiang Mai last summer. I wrote about them on this forum. I weight about 175pds. The first guy I fought was a Burmese fighter who was lighter than me. The second guy was a Thai who was also lighter but close to my weight.
I didn't care who I fought, whether he was Thai, American or otherwise. The Thai fighers will invariably have a whole lot more experience than foreigners, but I've seen plenty of dangerous Dutch fighers in Thailand as well. Don't underestimate anyone, regardless of how they look (believe me!).
In my opinion, don't worry about who you fight. Just train DAMN hard and do your best. Don't worry about winning or losing. It's not the result that's important. It's the experience. And I assure you that fighting in Thailand was an AMAZING experience, win or lose. I won my first fight and lost my second, but I couldn't have been happier with how it turned out.
Hope that helps!
Lautaro
Lautaro - where can I find a write up of your Thai experience?? Sounds interesting.
I wrote about my experiences on this forum back in June of last year. I don't know if the threads were archived or not. If they weren't, they may be gone. If I find them again, I'd like a copy of them myself, for the memories.
Lautaro
Do you maybe remember the thread name? I could look for it that way
I'm not positive, but I think they were titled "First fight in Thailand" and "Second fight in Thailand", or something like that. Damn, I should've saved them...
Lautaro
i already fought 3 times in thailand. i feel very comfertble fighting in thailand for many reasons. the main one is that fights are not a big deal here unlike other countries. in thialand they have fights happening everyday, and the audiunce are very knowledgble, so it takes alot of the pressure out of fighting for me.
as for your questions, there are many many foringers training and fighting in thialand,so there is a reasoble chance that your buddy will fight a non-thai.
where are you going to train in the south ? the level of thai boxing in the south is genrally not great.
Probably Phuket
My brother fought in Kho Panang also my friend fought in Kho Samui, if you have a good coach he will get you a fight around your level (ie a guy much more skilled than you thats conditioning isnt as good). Make sure you do a SHITLOAD of clinch sparring because i saw alot of westerners outdoing unconditioned thais (who were ex champions) and just getting smashed everytime they hit the clinch.
My friend started doing Scrapper's 1st workout like a week ago and he can already do all of it. Plus he is running about 3 miles a few times a week.
I think when you fight, you must be ready for everything. If is a thai, non thai, doesnt realy matter. If you ate ready, just go for it. I foght there last october and won. You can figh guys with 100 fights and beat them. Out of Thailand you can't fight as often as there, but then you spar harder. Is dificult to fight a good Thai, unless you spend ate least 3 months there and win a couple fights before.
At least is my experince.
Guilherme