By Eamon Mccourt
Chiang Mai Olympia has now opened its doors to foreign students who wish to study Muay Thai, Kickboxing and K1 in Thailand.
Our camp in the beautiful city of Chiang Mai is the realization of many years hard work of Derry Mccourt who has trained and fought professionally in Thailand over the last 10 years. It is our ambition to offer Muay Thai courses to martial artists from all around the world who wish to train in Thailand the home of Muay Thai. We intend to run several courses to reflect the students experience, fitness, and ability. Each student will be assessed on arrival and we will give an indication of which course can be completed in the timescale provided. All courses will be fully certificated by Nai our senior trainer with a full presentation ceremony on completion. The courses we will offer will be as follows:
Beginners.......
This is designed as a basic introduction to Muay Thai, and is designed for someone with no martial arts training. It will include an induction to the sport, its history, traditions. This will be in a class room at the camp. We will then progress to basic fitness routines designed to compliment Muay Thai. The student will then progress to punching and kicking routines in our mirrored studio followed by bag work at our numerous bag stations. After suitable practice the student will progress to "One -Two- One" pad and ring work. We anticipate that a student will be at the level of sparring by the end of a two week course. Everyday will include road work skipping, etc.
Intermediate....
This is designed with the student who has had some martial arts training whether it be karate, kickboxing, kung fu etc. The student will have the level of fitness associated with completion of our beginners course which will form the first few days of the intermediate course. We will concentrate on some more advanced techniques such as elbows ,knees, kicks etc. This his will involve much higher levels of bag, pad and ring work and a higher level of "One -Two- One" training with our Thais. Our goal with the intermediate course would be to bring the student to the level where we would be happy for him to represent our school at a local temple fight. We would always try to achieve this for our students that wish to fight competitively.
Advanced course........
This is for the student that has already achieved some recognition in martial arts and has a level of skill that typically has culminated in competitive bouts. We would condense the beginners and intermediate course into the first part of the course and would spend the remainder with our Thais polishing ring craft and Muay Thai techniques. We would expect all our students at this level to want to compete and we would hope they would represent the school whilst in Chiang Mai. On completion of this course we would expect the student to be at a level that after time and practice to take and pass our instructor course.
Instructors course.....
Two to three days would be spent examining the students fitness and techniques. A further 3 to four days will be spent training with the Thais to improve skill levels. The remaining 7 days will be spent with our instructors studying teaching techniques. We would anticipate that it would take four weeks at chiangmai Olympia to finish the instructors course. This can be done in two week sessions. Our way of learning Muay Thai is a combination of the traditional Thai way learned by our Thai champions applied in a modern scientific process in an up to date gymnasium of fighting sport.
We would always recommend our instructors take all our courses and will fast track all the instructors through the initial courses. Once you have completed the instructors course we will affiliate your club to Chiang Mai Olympia and allow your club to become world-wide members of Chiang Mai Olympia. Our costs are £150 week per student that we will reduce to£100 per week for a two week course. For groups of ten or more we will allow the group leader to train free. Alternatively we can offer commissions to clubs sending large groups. We also arrange accommodation close to the camp at £50 per week. We also can offer students all sorts of trips, etc when in Chiang Mai such as fight nights, these are paid for as a separate item in Chiang Mai.
