Muay Thai in Austin for a girl?

[8bit]

A girl I know wants to get into Muay Thai.
Does anybody have any recommendations for a respectable place?
It would be cool if you could point out what makes it a good place.

Thanks in advance.

[Cy Q. Faunce]

How old is the prospective student?

[Zapruder]

Adam Ganshirt is the best in town certified under Ajarn Chai Surisite. Linda Tenburg is a pro boxer and one of the instructors and there are at least 2 other women that train there regularly. The school is located just south of Spicewood on 183 right by the emergency pet hospital(on the WEST side of the highway)

Benefits of school: Superb technique, small class sizes that give you lots of one on one instruction from high level practitioners, you will also have your pick of various other styles taught there.

[selfcritical]

I've heard nothing but good things about Adam.....two other places (in the same geographical area)

Larry St Clairs places on 183 is of a similar lineage (Inosanto with Chai as the root source of the MT). I have never seen a place with this much of a female slant to the MT classes (when I went there the class was something like %70 female). They do a really good job making female athletes comfortable. No pro fighters I know of, but a fair number of students with Ammy fights.

CTC has Jason Webster, who has been training pro fighters longer than any MT coach in town, and actually taught Krabi Krabong to a number of the dog brothers. I think he's got the most impressive MT lineage, and he has a pro boxing coach assisting with teaching the classes. The classes have at most a %10 female population though. Jason runs a very excellent class.

[8bit]

How old is the prospective student?

Eighteen.

[selfcritical]

Is she a UT student?

[Cy Q. Faunce]

Eighteen.

Larry St. Clair's Martial Way Academy on Ohlen near 183 would be my first pick.

[newbie999]

Rudy Vasquez in South Austin. He was trained by Chai Sirisute and I believed is certified by him. There are a good number of women who train there including my wife. There are a bunch of guys there too. There aren't many people showing up to the BJJ class though :(. I think my wife and myself are the only consistent ones there right now for BJJ.

CTC is great as well. Jason Webster is a badass MT instructor. I heard a lot about him when I looked up Rudy because they used to train. Probably the strongest MT background of any instructor around like the other poster stated. Rudy's name is mentioned a few times in the CTC bios for Ernesto. Ernesto used to be one of Rudy's BJJ instructors.

The only issue with Vasquez Academy is the facility because he's renting out space right now because he just started up training again. He stop training for a bit when he was working for the state of Texas and had to close down his old facility in order to be independent from his fighters. The old facility was great like 10K square feet with two boxing rings, a BJJ grappling room, and plus weight equipment :(.

What I like the most of his classes is the personal instruction. The facility doesn't bother me because I'm just there to train. The classes are pretty intense. He has two or three pro fighters that will ocassionally drop in (Nick "The Ghost" Gonzalez, Dave "The Rockstar" Phillips, and Audrey a woman fighter)Oh and they don't hold back on my wife because she is a woman. That was the biggest selling point for us because my wife is not one of those delicate flower types dispite her size (5'2'' 106 lbs). I've seen women and men spar with each other there pretty hard. We showed up or inquired about other schools and a one of them tried to pitch to my wife their women's only classes and she was completely turned off by it. We walked in to Rudy's class and we worked out with everyone, it didn't matter that my wife was a small woman. We really like it. My only issue is that I wished more people would show up for the BJJ class. The BJJ class can have from 3-10 people depending on the the day. The most people show up for BJJ on Saturday.

Just show up to any of the locations recommended and pick the one that fits with her best. They should give her a free class to see how it's like.

[Zapruder]

Larry St. Clair's Martial Way Academy on Ohlen near 183 would be my first pick.

I would have to respectfully disagree, UNLESS you are wanting JUST cardio. Larry is a very nice guy but his technique is lacking. I have trained with him and many of his guys. I am NOT a striker by any stretch of the imagination, and I was able to wreck his blackbelts(and they had blackbelts in MMA...yes MMA, and Muay Thai..yes you heard me right)

Once again though, if your goal is cardio then this is a good place, if your goal is fighting I would say look elsewhere.

[newbie999]

WTF belts in MMA and MT? That's would be a HUGE red flag for me. There are no belts in MT, just respect, intensity, and pain XD

[Cy Q. Faunce]

I would have to respectfully disagree, UNLESS you are wanting JUST cardio.

This is a beginner. She needs a place where she'll be comfortable, and she'll need to work on her cardio. By the time she's good enough to need more, she'll be comfortable enough to go elsewhere. MWA is significantly better at establishing that necessary initial comfort, while providing solid basic instruction, than anywhere else in the area.

So, yeah, we disagree.

[newbie999]

This is a beginner. She needs a place where she'll be comfortable, and she'll need to work on her cardio. By the time she's good enough to need more, she'll be comfortable enough to go elsewhere. MWA is significantly better at establishing that necessary initial comfort, while providing solid basic instruction, than anywhere else in the area.

So, yeah, we disagree.

I'm sorry man but I TOTALLY disagree with you. My wife is a very small woman and total noob and she went to Rudy Vasquez and a good number of guys on this forum know his classes are very intense and no BS. She did just fine and has the warrior menality for such a class. If she is a delicate little flower type...then I'm sorry but she doesn't have the mentality for true MT. If my little 5'2'' 106 lbs size 0 wife can do and get a bunch of respect there for her kicks and grip strength, then I think she'll be fine.

[Cy Q. Faunce]

I'm sorry man but I TOTALLY disagree with you. My wife is a very small woman and total noob and she went to Rudy Vasquez and a good number of guys on this forum know his classes are very intense and no BS. She did just fine and has the warrior menality for such a class. If she is a delicate little flower type...then I'm sorry but she doesn't have the mentality for true MT. If my little 5'2'' 106 lbs size 0 wife can do and get a bunch of respect there for her kicks and grip strength, then I think she'll be fine.

That's nice. So, only the very fierce are deserving of training. I'll remember that.

[selfcritical]

To be fair, the black belts are in shooto, which actually is y'know, japanese, and which Larry does have a legit lineage for(Nakamura trained Ron Balicki and Erik Paulsen, Balicki trained larry). Also, insoanto guys put belts on everything.

That said, I did go to CTC for a reason. And Jason Webster as a striking coach is 9/10's of it.

[selfcritical]

I'm sorry man but I TOTALLY disagree with you. My wife is a very small woman and total noob and she went to Rudy Vasquez and a good number of guys on this forum know his classes are very intense and no BS. She did just fine and has the warrior menality for such a class. If she is a delicate little flower type...then I'm sorry but she doesn't have the mentality for true MT. If my little 5'2'' 106 lbs size 0 wife can do and get a bunch of respect there for her kicks and grip strength, then I think she'll be fine.

I think what Cy Q's saying is that Larry's got a track record of taking people who DO think of themselves as delicate little flowers, and getting them to punch each other in the face pretty hard. If you're already raring to take someone's head off, that may not be ideal.