Garden Training

Garden Training.

One of my favourite pastimes is humouring myself at people trying to replicate my lessons in the back garden. Nothing pleases me more than sitting back on a Saturday evening can of Banks’s in hand and watching the Muay Thai equivalent of X Factor.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all for people doing extra training in their own time, I’m happy to advise people on what sort of exercises to compliment training and I’m all for people punishing a bag for half an hour after a stressful day at work – but not at the expense of actual classes.

One of the best clips I found on Facebook was a couple of ex-students “training” in the garden, one of the students who I shall name “Venom” cause of his poisonous gossiping was “instructing” and holding frankly inappropriate and poor quality pads while the other ex-student was training. I’ll call the other one “shame” because it’s a shame he was forced to quit by a family member over £2, just because they didn't check the up to date prices before returning from holiday everyone was ripping them off. 

Now “Shame” had massive potential when he was training with me, he was a fast learner and a good listener in the ring, he was destined to fulfil his ambition. Venom was the opposite, a dreamer who believes everyone owes him something for free if there were an organisation called “take what you can and f’off” he would be chairman.

What made this clip worthy of the X factor final was the running commentary – the verbal tuition the advice given and the lack of correctional pointers. Even funnier this was brandished all over FB in an attempt to stick two fingers up at the club for daring to have a price rise of £2 in 15 years – and it backfired in such a massive way because everyone who trained with them before the poison took over could see how fast “Shame” had deteriorated  – what was once a potential champion has become a chump!

On a serious note and excluding the comedic value of the story, training is not just thumping the pads, students can take years to qualify as instructors. 

Anyone can hold the pads up but without years of working knowledge you are just replacing the heavy bags. A good pad man is vital for progress but a bad one undoes all the previous hard work FAST.  There are so many vital factors to take into consideration when holding the pads, at the minimum - movement, weight distribution, balance, timing, accuracy, speed, power, guard, blocks and counters.

So in summary, absolutely YES to training outside the gym - but get a training plan that compliments what your doing in class.