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

**Tom .C** · Posted On: 5/07/2009 8:12am

I think the hard part of building the team is in finding people who would dedicate their efforts. Breaking the sessions into two one hour sessions (conditioning then skill training) would help you find the people willing to put in the work. I think you might want to consider a seperate workout in addition to those mentioned, for the "Team". This class could be invitation only, and consist of focused training. Hard sparring with gloves and pads, etc. This class is where quality would matter more than the quantity (of people) and would be the base for the team. In any case, serious training will not draw the large numbers initially, but it will slowly build classes attended by regulars instead of the once a month or less crowd.

**Matt Phillips** · Posted On: 5/07/2009 9:17am

Originally Posted by KidSpatula

I definitely need to come up with something. I'll try and get some input from the other women I train with on what a good team name would be. I know from talking with my coach about doing my own class and running my own gym that selling it to people and actually getting people to want to show up is the hardest part. Selling myself and the idea of the team is going to take learning I think.

You already came up with 'Cyberdyne Systems Fight Team' and that rocks.

**omoplatypus** · Posted On: 5/07/2009 9:56am

Originally Posted by Tom .C

I think the hard part of building the team is in finding people who would dedicate their efforts. Breaking the sessions into two one hour sessions (conditioning then skill training) would help you find the people willing to put in the work. I think you might want to consider a seperate workout in addition to those mentioned, for the "Team". This class could be invitation only, and consist of focused training. Hard sparring with gloves and pads, etc. This class is where quality would matter more than the quantity (of people) and would be the base for the team. In any case, serious training will not draw the large numbers initially, but it will slowly build classes attended by regulars instead of the once a month or less crowd.

yeah, what he said. besides, if you have a team of 3 women who are solid fighters with bragging rights on their fight record, then you will have no problem with getting people to try out later on down the road.

**BadUglyMagic** · Posted On: 5/07/2009 10:01am

Originally Posted by KidSpatula

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

Unless you are training students in your backyard/basement/neighborhood park, locations have a cost. You do have personal expenses too, don't you?

While you are not planing on making any money, seriously consider creating an basic business plan on paper. Use a book or computer program and make one. Seriously. Do it this weekend. Once you identify the money both the expenditures/expenses and revenue sources it is much easier to implement the action part of the plan. Plus, it will help you identify required resources.

What is the draw to bring in the larger general student population?
Look at your prospective student base. How large of a group of non-fighters will be needed to support your fight team expenses? Gym rent, salaries, travel expenses, equipment and whatever else.

Talk with other members on the board or in gym/team managers in Atlanta (or elswhere) who have fight teams and see how they manage 1. The overall program, and 2. the actual fight team program.

**Torakaka** · Posted On: 5/07/2009 10:42am

Currently my plan involves getting people already signed up at my gym to come together for training sessions where the ring/muaythai room aren't already in use, and anyone not signed up can come in for free as long as they sign a waiver. Presumably the gym would be happy to have me bringing more people through the door that they could try and sell memberships to. Kat also brought up my plans for a women's muaythai team with the gym she's at and they suggested using their facilities to try and get more women in the door, so my having to rent facility space shouldn't be an issue.

At the moment, the experience would be worth whatever time I put in so I wouldn't ask for any kind of compensation from the students. I'm sure whatever gym I run the team out of will want people to sign up for memberships if they aren't already signed up, which is something I'll have to work out with them whenever I do start planning to flesh this out more. Getting some idea of expenses and what fees to charge people is something I will definitely want input on when I eventually try and have my own program, but to start off with I don't think it should be too much of an issue.

**BadUglyMagic** · Posted On: 5/07/2009 1:27pm

Originally Posted by KidSpatula

Currently my plan involves ...

Everything you mentioned would be in your business plan.

You commit when you throw your right, commit and draw up a plan. If it helps, forget the financial side. Use a computer program and put in everything you have in this thread. If your idea is to run your own program, this will help you flesh out the steps to go from teaching a class in someone else's gym to running your own program/fight team. You know, one where women actively seek you out to train under you where ever you are.

**Torakaka** · Posted On: 5/07/2009 2:48pm

Yeah, I'm just kind of focusing on one thing at a time. The whole running my own business thing is something I will put more thought into after I've got the whole leading/teaching a group thing down and figuring out how to get people to come.

**E-Van** · Posted On: 5/07/2009 3:05pm

Originally Posted by KidSpatula

Both. My target demographic is any woman willing to put some amount of effort into learning about the sport and being part of the team, regardless of if they're looking to be a competitive athlete or just get into a fun group activity for women.

I think this is a very positive way to market yourself. As long as you can keep people with a pro mindset challenged without alienating the 'fun group' girls I think this is a wonderful idea. Once you can bring them both harmoniously together you will have a great class that sounds like it could be very rewarding for everyone no matter what skill level.

**Khun Kao** · Posted On: 5/08/2009 7:50am

Love the idea. Some of the suggestions I was going to make have already been suggested. For instance, I completely understand wanting to do the intense training session first. My suggestion would be that rather than changing the order of the sessions straight up would be to simply be "open" to changing the order. It's really going to depend on who shows up at what time. If you're getting the less serious students earlier, have the less serious training session first.

I am completely in love with the Skipping Rope and Clinching parts of class. However, I would suggest for the Skipping portion that rather than do 3x2, you should just make them skip the full 10 min's straight through. (3x2 with 1-min break is 8 min's. What's an extra 2 min's?)

The key thing, I think, is to stay flexible in your approach to maintain everyone's interest. The concern others have raised regarding getting the Cardio-kickboxing types to try and stay committed to an actual fighting-oriented training program is valid (as you already know, of course). I would recommend that the focus of the "less intense" training session for beginners be more about shadowboxing, bagwork, and pad work rather than actual "contact drills" where they will be hitting one another. Throw in one of those drills every once in awhile to gauge their interest. If they like it, recommend they attend the advanced training session as well. If they don't like it, it's just something they're asked to do on occasions and they're likely to just bear with it when it comes up.

Other than that, I applaud what you're doing! I have a "smattering" of female students in my classes, and many of them express their interest in having MORE female students to train with, but the only Female-Only class we currently offer is cardio-kickboxing. I'd love to see the gym tap into the female market like you're doing.

Feel free to hit me up privately (brooks@khunkao.com) if you have any specific questions. GOOD LUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

**Torakaka** · Posted On: 5/08/2009 9:00am

Thanks for the input, khun kao :) My idea behind breaking it up into rounds was simply that I don't want people to feel they have to pace themselves and skip as fast as they can manage to try and simulate a round of intense action. That might be something I work out where people who are just starting out get to take the breaks, whereas the more experienced people keep on a skippin'.

It does seem like probably a good idea to keep the curriculum more open to what people end up showing up when and doing more of a curriculum on the fly sort of thing, at least at first until I've got a group of people that come during regular hours.

Easing the cardio kickboxing types into the idea of contact with only occasional sparring drills is probably a good idea. I'm just so in love with sparring drills that I forget that not everyone is immediately into the idea of people trying to hit them or trying to hit another person. I'm going to try and come up with some more ideas and maybe post a revamped curriculum after I think more about how things should be run.

If I come up with any specific questions I'll hit you up :)