Today we’ll talk about fighters leaving their gym and coaches. Something I have done recently and have done in the past. It’s mostly frowned upon and heavily discouraged to do so. This goes for both the West and Thailand. In Thailand, things are a bit different though. Historically fighters would mostly stay at the same gym unless they got sold to another gym. So changing gyms in Thailand could become a slippery slope where you old gym could threaten to block your career in Thailand.
But something less know is that fighters would cross train to prepare for fights if the gyms allowed it. Some even trained with guys from their own weight class to prepare for fights and they fought somewhere down the line. Boonlai and Karuhat are a great example of this. They fought 4 times between 1989 and 1994. During that period they’d help each other prepare for fights as well when they were short in good training partners. Iron sharpens iron as they say.
But like one a famous Thai promoter/gym owner once said “you have to look after your own career. The gym might not push you where you want to go and sometimes it’s good to go somewhere else to learn new things”.
Another person who was very vocal on this was Lerdsila. Back in 2019 I asked him why he eventually left Jocky gym since it was filled with champions. He said that sometimes it was time for something new and to learn new things.
As foreigners coming to train and fight we have a luxury that most Thais don’t have. We can go around to gyms and see if they fit our style since we are paying customers. It get’s a bit more complicated if you get a sponsorship from a gym. But even as a paying customer some gyms might get funny if you go train somewhere else. It has happened to me and others.
Proper reasons for leaving.
The seasons of a gym
Some gyms seem to go through seasons. I was at a gym where my 4 main Thai training partners suddenly left due to different reasons. This left me at the gym with whoever came in. My last camp at that gym I had to prepare with 2 beginners for my fight. I won, but at that point it was time for me to move on.
In a gym you want to have a bit of everything. People way above your level (active fighters and retired fighters/coaches), people on a similar level and people below your level. But what is also important is that you have high level Thai training partners since they understand the scoring system better than everyone else.
Some gyms will go through these seasons over and over again where the quality of training partners changes often. Other gyms eventually never recover from it and the quality of training eventually drops to the point the gym isn’t suited for fighters anymore. These gyms change their approach and cater more to hobbyists at that stage.
Mismanagement of fighters.
The gym I went to after had everything to have an amazing team but they treated their fighters like shit. Their whole fight team left and they tried to build a new team. I only had one fight for them, it was a bad performance. I fought completely burned out. I trained twice a day, helped teaching classes and had my job as well. It was a surefire way to get a burn out. Plus when I fought they didn’t send anyone with me to check weight. Once I checked weight, the promoter said I was 1 kg over. Which wasn’t true, he just forgot that we had agreed to change the weight. I waited 1 hour dehydrated because no one picked up the phone from my gym to talk to the promoter.
I left the gym closely after this fight. Another reason was because I didn’t really have training partners. I had 2, one was lazy and the other one was really good but didn’t spar or clinch. I worked more with him at the later stages of my stay there.
Inactivity.
Something which most people go through is inactivity. Suddenly the gym stops offering them fights and they go through a period of only training really hard. This is a big reason to leave a gym. In a sport where time isn’t your friend, you better make the most out of the time you have because one day you’ll be out of time.
There might be different reasons for this. You declined a fight and they block you because of that, you trained at another gym and they don’t like it, they only want to push fighters which they can gamble big money on, could be mismanagement of the gym where the owners stop caring ….
Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter. You can find a place in Thailand where they’re fighting daily. Not getting offered fights doesn’t make sense. The only reason for a justified inactivity is when you have to fix something that could cost you the fight, a bad habit for example. Any other excuse doesn’t justify the time they take away from your career. So take your career in your own hands and make the most of it.
On gym hoppers/bad training partners
There’s people that don’t fit in anywhere and the problem is mostly them and not the places they go to. These people stay mostly for shorter periods at gyms, get a fight, lose and leave making tons of excuses. Others have fall outs with numerous gyms. Going across the whole country and gym after gym. Only to see the same thing happen over and over again.
These’s peoples imagine travels faster than them. I had such a person visit a gym I was at on 2 different occasions. Both times I knew what shenanigans they pulled out of their hat at other gyms. The first person I could luckily avoid because the reputation was that bad that he got booted. The second time I actually had to clinch with the person in question. The thing that happened to one of my friends at another gym happened to me. It made me laugh afterwards.
Beware of your image and how you behave at gyms. Even rival gyms can be really good friends. The Muay Thai community is really “small” and news spreads really fast. Once you have a bad rep it’s almost a guaranteed ending for you career.
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Until next time.
Alex
