You might be surprised but it is actually very easy to stick to your six-month-old New Year fitness resolution once you find an exercise plan that excites you. Having understood this, it seems Gymkhana at Dharapati, Maharajgunj is seeking to help people with just that. To amp up the valley denizens’ enthusiasm for working out, they are introducing Muay Thai here.
It’s only been a month since they opened but there is already a buzz around their facilities. They say they want to bring the fun back in fitness as well as help those who want to professionally pursue fighting. The Week talked to Rahul Moktan, one of the main instructors at Gymkhana, for more details.
First things first, why would you recommend people take up Muay Thai?
I think learning and training in Muay Thai instills a kind of discipline that nothing else can provide. When I was taken to my first class by an acquaintance in Delhi, I could instantly feel the intensity of the art. I fell in love with it right away. I think it also teaches you about respect, honor and gives you self-confidence.
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Of course, I don’t know if it will have the same effect on everybody. Either way, it is a great workout to stay in shape. You don’t have to aspire to be a professional fighter. If you want to learn how to defend yourself or if you just want to shake off the stress of the day, perhaps, calm yourself down, learning Muay Thai can help with all that.
Why pick Muay Thai over boxing or kick boxing though?
Muay Thai is the most fatal form of striking. It utilizes attacks from the fists, elbows, knees, and feet. Strikes can be thrown from long, mid, or close range. There is also an element of grappling in it. If you look through the history of combat and sports, Muay Thai fighters almost always win over other kinds of boxers. We have more techniques than both of these different kinds of boxing combined.
Since Muay Thai requires practitioners possess a large number of athletic qualities, the benefits that accompany learning it are numerous. It’s more practical in real life as well. Since we train that way for fights, we train our clients that way for fitness as well. It focuses more on compound movements and as you can imagine, it ends up being a great workout plan. Comparing boxing to Muay Thai is really like comparing a swimming pool to an ocean.
For those interested to join, what are the requirements?
There are no requirements. At our gym, we cater to all kinds of people, from amateurs to professional wannabes. We are taking in kids as well as 50 plus individuals. Our classes will have at least three trainers in each sessions so the plan is to consider personal aptitude and scale up or down the training accordingly. For example, though they may be in the same class, not everybody will have to complete 100 pushups. The goal is to perform up to your capacity and improve from there on.
The younger you start the better it is. In Thailand, you have seven- and eight-year-olds competing. At the same time, it is never too late to learn as well. After all, all we want is a better lifestyle. With Muay Thai, we want to help with people’s fitness and health.
What is a regular workout plan like?
We have four classes a day. There is one from 6:00 am to 7:30 am and second round is from 7:30-9:00 am. The evening classes are at the same time as well. So each class is 90 minutes long. Our Muay Thai training is very similar to what you would do if you were in a Muay Thai camp in Thailand. We start off with a run, on the running track we have inside our gym. Then we skip for a while, we shadow box for warm up and then we get working on the bags, followed by the pads and finally, we get on with the individual practices. Later, we workout the abs, cool down, stretch and finish.
We already have some people who want to seriously get into competing and they choose to take all the four sessions. But usually, there are people who choose three days of Muay Thai and three days of strengthening and conditioning training because they blend in really well.
Are all the instructors trained in Muay Thai as well?
Yes, they are but besides the in-house trainers, we are planning to adopt a rotation system as well. Every few months, we want to arrange visits from international instructors and previous champions. We thought this would be best because you can get different kind of trainings and learn different techniques from different instructors. It will be much better this way. It doesn’t make sense to stick with just one way of practicing Muay Thai. Besides this is how they do it abroad as well so we are looking forward to it. There are already two international instructors visiting in the upcoming week
