Your first time training Muay Thai in Thailand

What a training day looks like

Most foreigner-facing camps run two sessions a day, morning and late afternoon, with the middle of the day off because it is too hot to move. A session typically runs two hours: a run or skipping, shadow work, bag work, pads with a trainer, then conditioning. Clinching and sparring sit at the end and vary enormously by camp.

The pad round with your trainer is the part you came for and the shortest part of the session. Three to five minutes of someone who has done this since childhood correcting your kick is worth more than an hour on a bag.

The first week is a physical shock, and that is normal

Two sessions a day in tropical heat is more volume than most people have ever done. Shins hurt. Feet blister. You will be more tired than the training alone explains, because your body is also managing the heat.

The people who get through it treat the first week as adaptation rather than performance. Drink more than you think, skip a session rather than train hurt, and expect week two to feel completely different.

Choosing a camp when you have never trained

The question is not which camp is best. It is which camp is built for someone at your level. A camp that produces stadium fighters is not a worse camp than a beginner-friendly one, it is a camp where you would be the wrong customer.

• Ask directly whether they run separate beginner sessions, or whether beginners join the main class.
• Ask what sparring looks like for someone with no experience, and whether it is optional.
• Ask the ratio of trainers to students in the session you will attend. Pad time is the product.
• Be suspicious of any camp that will not answer these plainly before taking your money.

What to bring, and what to buy there

Bring hand wraps and a mouthguard, because a mouthguard should be yours and wraps are cheap to pack. Buy gloves, shorts and shin guards in Thailand, where the good brands are made and cost less than they do at home.

Most camps loan gloves for the first few sessions. They are shared gloves, which is exactly as unpleasant as it sounds, so buying your own in the first day or two is worth it.

The mistakes that end trips early

Nearly every cut-short trip we hear about traces back to one of these four.

• Going too hard in week one and getting injured before adapting.
• Sparring hard with someone far more experienced because it felt rude to decline. Declining is normal and trainers respect it.
• Ignoring small cuts and blisters in a hot, humid climate where they get infected fast.
• Booking a month at a camp you have never seen, based on a website.