My experience Petchrungruang Gym in Pattaya

Some preface information: I’ve been training MT on and off for about over 2 years now. I’ve taken breaks in between but had been training at a new gym for 6 months prior to my visit to Thailand. I wouldn’t call myself a beginner or advanced.

I recently went to Thailand and was checking out all the gyms in the area. I noticed this gym because one of Sylvie’s videos where she trained clinching here. So, I decided to give it a shot. It seemed quant, and very old school. Marketed like how the Thais trained in the old days instead of the commercialized Muay Thai that now exists with the bigger school.

First, arrived at noon. Nobody there. Later learned that class starts from 9-11AM and 3-5PM. Very odd hours but oh well, what can ya do. I later came back the next day around 3PM.

Easy enough to enroll, just walk up and pay the 400 baht daily fee. Was led into a room and told to warm up by myself. I jumped ropes for about 10-15 minutes before somebody came in to grab me.

I didn’t bring my gear so they let me borrow gloves and wraps. Then I did pad work with one of the coaches there for about 3 or 4 rounds give or take.

Then he told me to do some solo bag work for about 15 minutes.

I think I missed sparring altogether, because I was just hitting the bag for what seemed like forever and nobody came to grab me for any sparring.

Then clinching practice with only one or two other guy in the gym. No real lesson taught here which I was kinda sad because I wanted to learn some more clinching moves as they don’t focus on that as well in the States. It was basically just clinch sparring.

Then after that we did warm down. 50 kicks left and 50 kicks right. Then 2 rounds knees bag and 2 rounds teep bag.

Wrap it all up with crunches, pushups, mountain climbers drill for about 10 minutes.

Overall I’d have to say…not impressed. It definitely was fun and I had a great time. But there is definitely direction lacking as well as proper coaching and technique drilling. The only thing I really enjoyed was the pad work with one of the coaches but even then that was pretty lackluster and incredibly short.

Overall I’d have to say 6/10 for my first ever experience training Muay Thai in Thailand. I think next time I’ll hit up one of the more commercialized gyms to see what the difference is and if any better. Only plus is that this gym was cheaper than most others in the area.

Side note: be careful with your bag. I only arrived with my travel satchel and had 6k baht in my wallet and I didn’t realize until after I got back to my hotel that somebody had stolen 4k out of my wallet. Definitely left a very bad taste in my mouth. Yeah I shoulnd’t have so much cash on me but most places I go I tend to have a high level of trust since I’m in Thailand…and I’ve never been robbed before here, so this was definitely a big surprise.