MUAY THAI CLASSES

A typical Muay Thai class at JTT usually starts off with a warm-up that consists of light shadow boxing and will be broken up in between with bodyweight exercises to make sure your muscles are loose enough for you to get the most out of your training while reducing any risk of injury to you. Our Muay Thai classes are broken down into pad classes, bag work, and Thai boxing techniques. These classes will normally have a mixture of drills and learning new Muay Thai techniques with your partner. Most pad rounds will consist of combinations of punching, kicking, knee, and elbow strikes, and each round is usually finished with a drill like non-stop punches for one minute or a quick succession of throwing a stiff jab followed by a rear kick to get you used to striking while maintaining your balance. Depending on your experience level you will have the opportunity to test out what you have learned so far in a sparring class. Some rounds of the sparring class may consist of boxing-only sparring or you and your partner may be limited to only one move set (i.e. you are limited to punching only while your partner is limited to using kicking techniques) but this may vary from week to week. We will usually finish the sparring class off with a clinching round. We have recently launched a new clinching class run by Rajadamnern Stadium champion, Nampon PK Stereo, which will give you an opportunity to learn some clinching techniques. Clinching is something that a surprising number of Muay Thai practitioners struggle with, so we recommend that you practice clinching in the sparring class, when you can. We also have boxing classes at our gym, which will be taught by an experienced instructor. Outside of our typical Muay Thai classes, we have separate supplementary strength and conditioning classes run by Dani Esparcia Lopez as well as a brand-new martial arts mobility and stretching class run by Richard Trovatten, that should help you up your game for Muay Thai.

Our beginner classes are run by our friendly in-house ISKA Champion, Callum Handyside on Wednesdays 7 pm, Fridays 6 pm and Saturday 10 am. Beginners are also more than welcome to join the mixed levels classes. The more classes you can attend the faster you will learn and improve your ability to do Muay Thai. We don't usually recommend going to the sparring classes straight away if you are a beginner, once you are comfortable with the general framework in Muay Thai and understand how to strike and move around, you can start taking part in the sparring classes as well. Everyone is different but as a rule of thumb, with consistent training and enough rest days in between, it should take you up to 6 months for you to get to a relatively decent level in Muay Thai.

It all really depends on your personal schedule. The more often you are able to train and get your Thai boxing lessons in, the better your results will be. We have adult kickboxing classes 15 times a week, with classes taking place during the day morning, lunch or evening time, so you're bound to find one that is best for you. We also have Kids Muay Thai classes, 3 times a week at our gym in Brixton. If our class times, don't work with your schedule, do get in touch, and we can find a time to get you personal instruction from one of our JTT trainers.

There are many similarities between our Thai boxing and Kickboxing classes, in the sense of the strategic movement, footwork, setups for your strikes, and other boxing and kicking techniques you will be taught to outperform a potential opponent. One of the fundamental differences is that Muay Thai makes use of the elbows and has a much more extended range and utilisation of clinching. As K1 allows the use of knee and low kicks, our K1 classes will vary from traditional kickboxing which only allows punches and kicks. Our Muay Thai classes combine all the other martial arts classes like boxing and K1 kickboxing to provide our members with the best possible Muay Thai lessons in London.

Our women's Muay Thai class is usually taken by a female Thai boxing instructor. Currently, our female-only Muay Thai class is run by European & UK WBC Muay Thai Champion, Alex Rose Toomey, every Tuesday from 6 to 7 PM. In the women's kickboxing class, you will learn how to effectively strike and use elbows, kicks, knees, and punches. These are usually an hour long and we have some brand new Fairtex banana bags to sink your strikes into. The women's boxing classes will help you build your confidence, boost your fitness, and get you into shape fast! If it's your first day, you can chat to some of our existing members, and find out how fun our female boxing classes are, we've helped many ladies lose weight and tone up. If you're looking to build up your fitness, increase your flexibility, coordination, and mobility or maybe you just want to kick and punch some stress out, this class might be for you!

The kids Thai boxing classes are for children between the ages of 5-14. The classes usually combine kickboxing drills, techniques, boxing, and very, very light sparring. We have our experienced instructors monitoring the children to ensure that they are training safely and having fun and games, while they are at it. Intermediate and advanced-level children will also have an opportunity to train for interclub sparring. Let us know if your child expresses interest in taking part, and we can get them signed up!

An effective strength and conditioning routine brings things to the table that training Muay Thai alone can’t. A good strength & conditioning programme will back up your technique and movement with strength, speed, and stamina. While there is a weight-lifting component to a Muay Thai-specific strength & conditioning programme, the sole focus shouldn't be on going to the gym and lifting as heavy as you can until exhaustion. You need to work on a variety of compound movements and exercises that will target different muscle groups and in turn, increase the efficiency of the overall movement of the different parts of your body. For example, simple squat jump exercises can help improve your explosive power for a jumping middle kick. Come join our S&C for Thai Boxing class, it's made up of a combination of effective exercises to improve a fighter's athleticism and reactive strength. The strength & conditioning lessons are for all levels and all our fighting styles (Boxing, K1 Kickboxing, and Muay Thai).

We have a limited number of boxing gloves and shinguards in the gym that you could use but we recommend you purchase your own for hygiene and safety reasons. For the bags and pads class, you should have a glove of around 12oz, depending on your weight/height you may need a lighter or heavier glove. If you are unsure what type of glove or shinguard you should have, don't be afraid to ask one of the instructors. You should bring a heavier glove for the sparring class as your pads/bag class glove will be too light and will offer little protection for your sparring partner. A sparring glove for men should be a minimum of 16oz whereas it is a minimum of 14oz for women. Another essential item, you should bring with you is hand wraps, it doesn't matter whether they are the standard cotton hand wraps or quick-wraps, as long as you have something to wrap up and protect your hands. It can get hot during a class, so it's advised you bring a bottle of water and wear clothing that doesn't restrict movement. For kickboxing, you should be wearing Thai shorts or a similar type of sports shorts. If you are sparring, you must bring a mouthguard, and we also recommend that you bring a groin guard. We have plenty of Thai pads at the gym for the pads class, but you are welcome to bring your own, should you prefer to.