My female muay thai team:Brainstorming thread (FEEDBACK WANTED)

**Torakaka** · Posted On: 4/26/2009 8:48pm

Originally Posted by Zapruder

7th samurai had a great post illuminating the difficulties with an all female class, BUT all my experiences involved a male instructor. I dont know if that will really make a difference but it very well might.

I honestly do believe it will make a tremendous difference. Women are naturally more comfortable around more women. Like I said in my response to 7th Samurai, I do actually know a few women personally who have their own teams that full of women. I know of a female fighter in Canada that has an all women muaythai gym and the photo on her site shows about a dozen women. I don't know how successful her gym is, but it's apparently successful enough to keep it's doors open.

**Torakaka** · Posted On: 4/26/2009 9:00pm

Originally Posted by theotherserge

Lana Stefanac's school is basically thriving because of this model.

I've got her Ladies of Pain on my Myspace friendslist. Thanks for reminding me of her team, since she'd be a good person to ask for input :)

You understand all the dynamics involved so no need to bore you with it but there is a real need for women to coach women, especially in full-contact fighting.

That you are an experienced, dedicated fighter is sufficient to draw other women in. I think you don't need to worry as much about the exact structure of the classes as the "leadership" you can provide. This is a subtelty that can be lost pursuing ass-kickery. Its that small but noticable change I see if, on Tuesday morning the crossfit workout is lead by TJ but the Thursday workout is lead by Heidi.

Agreed on the point about leadership. I have all these ideas about how I'm going to lead this team, but no real group leadership experience to date so it's something I'm hoping to get the hang of from doing apprenticeship type stuff with my kickboxing coach. I do a lot of one on one coaching with the other girls (I get asked for training help, particularly by the women getting ready for an upcoming fight, pretty frequently) so I feel like that counts for something and I always try and make it a point to get to know and help out every woman that comes in.

The jokes and witty-banter is different with men/women(yeah, I got really tired of the gay jokes at BJJ, like can you guys come up with something new?) the Mars/Venus idea of how we communicate differently is relevant (thought I don't want to give the New Age idiots too much credit!) where having someone you can directly identify with really helps in your training.

I have a few female students, I tend to make them work together and I notice how different their dynamic is from the dudes. They learn better-for the most part-when they work with each other. The communication is different, the approach, the intensity (show-off) level et. al.

Agreed on all of that, which is why I really think this idea has a good chance of working out. I know Kat and I are always looking for activities to do with other women, period, so I think that even if muaythai is generally perceived as a guy thing, women would flock to a muaythai team for women.

**Torakaka** · Posted On: 4/27/2009 9:59pm

Originally Posted by Omega the Merciless

Subscribing. Comments to come.

Still waiting... :icon_roll

**Torakaka** · Posted On: 4/27/2009 10:01pm

Well it looks like Kat has been officially signed on as muaythai instructor at Ascension MMA. I'll have to pop in on her classes from time to time to she how's she gets along running her own muaythai program.

**inkskin** · Posted On: 5/01/2009 8:22pm

As a woman who newly discovered ( 7 months ago) Muay Thai, I have to say that sounds like a fantastic class.

I would personally feel more comfortable walking into a new class with all of the 'beginner' or 'fitness' minded group in the earlier time slot. That way, those who are dedicated to more fighter training will stay and up the intensity and focus, but will have worked out and bonded with the previous class. Also, if I got to know someone in the later fighter class I would feel less shy about staying to watch the fight class and maybe decide to stay myself eventually.

My gym had a women's class that was more fitness focused, and because I was new to consistantly working out I didn't want to impose myself on the really hard workers. I also didn't want to die from exhaustion and not want to come back.
After a couple of months there were a few of us who go every day and are better conditioned. We became a women's class of our own that is more fight focus now, right after the fitness class.
I LOVE it.

**Matt Phillips** · Posted On: 5/01/2009 8:41pm

You may want to make this for female fighters who fight under MT rules. No sense turning away SanDa, KK, low-kick, MMA, etc. fighters if your numbers small.

Sounds like a great plan.

<Subscribes>

**Torakaka** · Posted On: 5/01/2009 9:09pm

Originally Posted by inkskin

As a woman who newly discovered ( 7 months ago) Muay Thai, I have to say that sounds like a fantastic class.

I would personally feel more comfortable walking into a new class with all of the 'beginner' or 'fitness' minded group in the earlier time slot. That way, those who are dedicated to more fighter training will stay and up the intensity and focus, but will have worked out and bonded with the previous class. Also, if I got to know someone in the later fighter class I would feel less shy about staying to watch the fight class and maybe decide to stay myself eventually.

My gym had a women's class that was more fitness focused, and because I was new to consistantly working out I didn't want to impose myself on the really hard workers. I also didn't want to die from exhaustion and not want to come back.
After a couple of months there were a few of us who go every day and are better conditioned. We became a women's class of our own that is more fight focus now, right after the fitness class.
I LOVE it.

Awesome, thanks for the input :) It would be great if you could keep an eye on this thread and pop in with any thoughts you might have. I'm going to try to start coming up with more of the "marketing" the class/team sort of stuff and input from women on what they think of the ideas would be excellent. I've gotta work on my "sales pitch" for how I want to try and get women interested in the idea. I also plan on designing a flier some time in the near future that I'll post here to try and get some feedback on.

Just so people know I haven't abandoned this idea, I have actually been discussing this still with Kat, particularly now that she's going to be running her own muaythai class soon so I've been asking her questions about how she plans on running her own curriculum and why she plans to do things the way she's going to do them.

There are a few little changes I think I'm going to make, I'll try and post a modified curriculum sometime soon after I go over it and think it through a little more.

If anyone else has any comments/criticisms of the curriculum or the idea itself, please fire away. I'm considering moving back my initial time line for when I wanted to get this started so I can continue focusing and building myself up as a fighter more before I have to focus on training other people.

I don't want to be one of the many instructors who are primarily fighters but do some teaching on the side and don't have the time/energy/inclination to really dedicate themselves to really help other people on their own paths to being fighters. I'm just now getting to a point in my fight career where things seem like they're going to really take off and I'm probably going to need to dedicate 100% of my energy to my own training. After I make some waves as a professional I'll probably start trying to get things going with this group. Not sure what kind of time line I'm looking at, but I don't want to get too ahead of myself.

I am, however, going to continue to try and plan this out and get more feedback and keep this "blog" as ongoing and updated as I can.

**Torakaka** · Posted On: 5/01/2009 9:32pm

Originally Posted by War Wheel

You may want to make this for female fighters who fight under MT rules. No sense turning away SanDa, KK, low-kick, MMA, etc. fighters if your numbers small.

Sounds like a great plan.

<Subscribes>

I assume you mean open to everyone and not just those that want to strictly do muaythai? I'm definitely not planning on turning anyone away, and if I get people from different backgrounds with some skills to help teach what they know that'd be awesome, but obviously I can only teach what I know and model the curriculum after how I've learned. I'll certainly try and make it as clear as possible that the team is open to anyone and not just those that strictly want to be muaythai fighters.

**SkipSmith** · Posted On: 5/07/2009 1:25am

Maybe too much effort and maybe completely unnecessary, but what about offering a free private lesson to new people that seem interested?

It could be that you've got some people that want to try muay thai, but they don't want to embarrass themselves in front of a group. You could meet with them for a private lesson, given them a few pointers to get them off to a fast start, get them hooked, and reassure them they'll be fine in the class.

**Torakaka** · Posted On: 5/07/2009 7:59am

Originally Posted by SkipSmith

Maybe too much effort and maybe completely unnecessary, but what about offering a free private lesson to new people that seem interested?

It could be that you've got some people that want to try muay thai, but they don't want to embarrass themselves in front of a group. You could meet with them for a private lesson, given them a few pointers to get them off to a fast start, get them hooked, and reassure them they'll be fine in the class.

That's something I'd definitely consider. I'm not really planning on making any money with this and one of my primary goals is simply to get more women interested in muaythai so offering an introductory private lesson draw people in might not be a bad idea.