Muay Thai Kickboxing, Bangkok

I always had a fascination to visit the Shaolin Temple in China. One day, while browsing through martial arts camps across the world, I stumbled upon one such training camp for Muay Thai Kickboxing in Bangkok, Thailand. When I was planning my trip to Hanoi, Saigon and Siem Reap, my friend and I thought about making a short stopover in Bangkok just to attend the camp. Both of us have never tried any form of martial arts before. We made a booking to attend the camp at Sor Vorapin Muay Thai Gym in Bangkok for two days via BookMartialArts. The cost was around 100 USD inclusive of training, food, accommodation for two days for two people; quite a good deal I must say.

Kickboxing

The training happens once in the morning around 8 AM and once in late afternoon after 3 PM. The session continues for almost 2-3 hours but do not get deceived thinking it is not a lot. Even if you are a fit person, this camp can make you fall flat after some time. Both the instructors were localites and only one of them spoke English with an accent. However, you can understand what they are trying to convey.

First, the instructors asked everyone to go for a run to warm up. This lasts for about 15 minutes. Later, the warm up session begins where you are asked to do different kinds of exercises ranging from push ups, squats, stretching, abs rolling, weight lifting, and Russian twists, to name a few. After this, you are taught the posture to stand, cover your face and do the leg and hand movement for boxing. You practice this freely in open air; also apparently known as shadow boxing. Basically, you fight no one; you just practice the moves against free air.

Finally, you are given the gloves and taught different moves for both hands as well as legs. The gloves after a point, due to your sweat, can start smelling. You learn to punch, move your feet, raise your feet and kick your opponent, all this while also protecting yourself. It can tire you out very easily as sometimes the instructors push you to the extreme and ask you to continue if they feel you are close to giving up. Be ready to get some minor blows from the instructors when they feel you are only attacking without defending yourself.

You are also asked to use the punching bag to practice boxing and kicking. After this, you get back to some final warm up exercises again. This is a signal that the session is about to end. As much as you want to learn more, and fight more, you are also insanely tired. So, you heave a sigh of relief when the instructor calls off the session.

I definitely feel I learned something at least even though it was only for two days. So, if you wish to try out something new when in Bangkok, I can recommend this. You can also stay longer if you wish to; check out the website link I mentioned above for additional days or other camps.

Food

The food there is prepared by a lady at the camp itself. On the first day of the camp, you are given a sheet to mention your dietary requirements and the dishes are prepared based on mutual choices of different participants at the camp. You can also have pure vegetarian food. The lady there is really sweet. I approached her to teach me some Thai cooking and she did. I learnt to make Pad Thai and Kai Yat Sai to name a few.

Accommodation

You have single and double rooms; air conditioned and non-air conditioned. There is a nice garden inside the camp. You can also spend your time at the common balcony reading or just lazing around when not training. The rooms are clean. The mattresses and pillows are not super soft though. Add this to your cramps that you may develop, this may not be pleasant but is bearable. The bathrooms are shared but are clean.

Location

The camp is located in middle of nowhere. You can get a taxi to reach the closest point that a four wheeler can enter but after that you have to walk to get to the camp. Google will also be of no help and you may have to follow the direction boards in the street to get there. When you are not training, you can of course go for some sight seeing or elsewhere but you may likely need a taxi to reach downtown Bangkok. Get a sim card as well if you plan to attend the camp as well as use the taxi or motorcycle to venture out elsewhere.

My main takeaway of this camp was surviving the camp itself. Never did I imagine being induldged in martial arts and when the moment came, I thought I would fail. However, I survived and I got back home in one piece despite being close to giving up on multiple occassions.