Students from all around the world come
to Thailand for training in Chiang Mai. The Chiang Mai Muay Thai and
MMA scene is growing at a rapid pace. Team Quest Thailand was lucky
to have two very special students that came to check out our facility
from Hong Kong.
Both Matthew and Nick were truly a
pleasure to have at the gym. Both came in, worked hard, and were just
good all around people. What made them so much fun is that they were
very comparable in skill level and had a friendly rivalry amongst
each other.
Back in Hong Kong, these guys sparred a
lot. Initially when they first arrived for training in Chiang Mai,
Matthew sparred a lot better. Matthew beat up Nick pretty good. In
the first session of sparring Matthew kicked Nick in the balls and
then later KO'd him with a body shot. I am not going to lie, it's
always funny when somebody gets dropped with a body shot.
So later that night we all headed over
to Central Airport Plaza, the biggest shopping mall in Chiang Mai.
Luckily for us, this mall is only a 5 minute walk from our facility.
That is what is great about the Team Quest Thailand facility is that
it's so close to the mall but also quiet and secluded. So anyways, at
dinner Matthew and Nick started arguing a bit about who was better.
Nick insisted that the only reason Matthew wins is because he kicks
him in the balls every time. He even went on to say “he very
accurlate for kick ball.” They actually got in an argument about
how many times Matthew kicked him in the balls. Nick insists it was 8
and Matthew says it was only 6.
This is where I got my idea. These guys
were with us for two weeks. Since Matthew was sparring better I
thought it would be fun to take Nick aside everyday and teach him how
to beat Matthew sparring. I watched Matthew spar the first day and I
saw that he had more of a punchers style, he liked the inside leg
kick, and he also covered up to much when somebody attacked him.
So I took Nick aside and for the first
week I taught him 3 basic moves. How to use his jab and teep to keep
a puncher at distance (0:25 and 4:57 below in the video is an
example), how to push a puncher away and follow with a right body kick
(3:56), and also when Matthew threw his inside leg kick how to step
back and return with a big left kick (2:06 and 4:30). So every day we
drilled these and I started to see him using them more and more in
sparring. I have never seen anybody pick it up so fast. Nick is
definitely a coaches dream. He listened and did everything I helped
him with. Although I am not a actual coach here (We have 5 full time
thai trainers for that), I do help people who have a newer skill set
when I can.
After the first week we moved on to a
little bit more advanced stuff. Now we worked on faking the teep and
following with a jap or straight (4:50). Nick really started to put
everything together. So at the end of their two weeks we decided to
set up a friendly sparring match where the students were the judges.
It was a lot of fun, we told them to only go 50% but they were not so
good at controlling their power. At one point at 1:01 Matthew
actually starts yelling at Nick in Chinese “YOU CALL THAT 50%.”
Nick responded with “YEAH THAT IS MY 50%”.
I was really proud of Nick. He did
literally everything we worked on when I pulled him aside for extra
training. You can tell Matthew was really frustrated because this was
the first time he didn't beat up Nick while sparring. You can
actually hear one of Team Quest Thailand's trainers in the background
at one point say “before I think Matthew better, now I
change...Nick better.” The best part was that Nick opened up and
pulled out a flying super man punch at 7:39 which I didn't know was
in his arsenal.
Nick and Matthew said they would be
back for training in Chiang Mai soon at Team Quest Thailand. They
were a pleasure to have out. We look forward to having them again.
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