This is whats wrong with Muay Thai...

ANYONE can set up a club with no teaching qualifications or experience and were supposed to sit back at let Muay Thai get watered down?

A new club has started in Telford and quite frankly its a joke, for the sake of the poor innocent people who are going to be conned into joining them people need to act now and stop these dreamers from taking money from innocent people..

This for me epitomises what is wrong with the Martial Arts in general – ANYONE can claim to be a martial artist and start a club. There is no recognised body that regulates new clubs and the local council aren’t interested. New clubs like this one are being set up across the country bringing the sport of Thai Boxing and the Art of Muay Thai into disrepute. What is REALLY concerning is that when I called them up on the phone they claim to be recognised instructors with the UKMF - this brings the of the best organisations in the UK under fire for not doing checks (If its true)

According to the clubs website www.revolution-mt.com - the team “really do feel passionate about the sport and value the traditions that have been around for centuries” Having spoken to a few instructors from my area it appears that the four people running this club have recently broken away from an established club and Ironically have NO teaching qualifications or experience – How can they honour values and traditions when they don’t know them?

To put it into context most clubs have Children in the junior class who are more qualified and have achieved higher grades than there teachers and senior instructors. How do members of the paying public know which clubs they can trust?

I'm not saying that you need qualifications, many instructors have proved there worth through competition or producing fantastic fighters / champions - these 'Experienced fighters' have only had a couple of interclubs between them.

We as Muay Thai Practitioners need to bear in mind that the people fooled into attending these new clubs (being set up all around the country) are the future of Muay Thai and several years down the line these new students are going to think they are accomplished Martial Artists and maybe even set there own clubs up.. thus the broken chain of Muay Thai continues… getting weaker at every link?

This whole is “Laughable” and I believe that there website backs up my case. For some reason the contacts prefer to be called by nick names and display cartoon characters as profile pictures, (The attached file) very professional in its own right? An example of the contacts mentality? Or disrespectfully mocking Muay Thai?

In my opinion this club is just a CBeebies spin off of the tellybubbies minus tinkywinky.. How can anyone take them seriously?

The website also unlocks some truths or rather “untruths” that again should make people question the credibility of the contacts –

“Smurf” (Sarah Offland) claims to have been instructing for three years? She has hasn’t been training for three years!! She claims to be an experienced fighter – so two less than satisfactory “light contact” sparring competitions with no winners or losers makes you experienced? Again I introduce members of our junior team who have had over 6 fights in the last 12 months – does this make the kids Arjarn?

Don’t know what Arjarn means? Good job for “PO’s” (Colin Hales) Encyclopaedic knowledge! Give him a call for information on “famous combat moves”, “dates” and “historical artifacts” mentioned on the website.

“Paulie” (Paul Jones) has no qualifications at all, but according to the website he too is an experienced fighter, again two very poor light contact interclubs makes you experienced? Pmsl

“Meggie” (Meg Purkis) has never done a Muay Thai class, But she has done a couple of one on one sessions with the experienced fighter known as Smurf so that’s ok then. Two years training again is an exaggeration.

One of my personal favourite pages is the Muay Thai History page, instantly recognisable as a Wikipedia extract - again surprising given the knowledgeable “PO” is in the camp. Now for continuity – Is it Khru? Or Kru? How do you spell Muay Thai?

I actually feel sorry for Steve Broom of Reaper Gym, it would appear from there website that they are linked? If I were Steve Id get in contact and get them to remove all links - these clowns will discredit your club...