top muay thai instructors?

[EmptyneSs]

i live in san jose. i train at american kickboxing academy. our school has some great fighters and kickboxers. cung Lee also has his school not too far away. frank shamrock also has a school close by, i havent checked it out though so i dont know if its submission wrestling only or kickboxing as well. oh yeah and fairtex is an hours drive away in frisco. san jose is kinda weaksauce, but at luckily we have alot of great martial artists here.

http://www.akakickbox.com/

http://www.cungle.com/cungle/index.html

[TheHorror]

Torrance, I'm sure that there are but I'm not too familiar with that area. In Hermosa Beach there is Boxing Works. The instructor there is Bryan Popejoy. He's a very good instructor and a hell of a great guy. He's also married to Ajarn Chai's Cousin or sister... I keep forgetting.

In El Segundo, there is the R1 Academy... it's more of a Mixed Martial Arts Academy but Ed Wedding Teaches Muay Thai there several times a week.

There's the IMB under Richard Bustillio in Carson. They teach Muay Thai among other things.

It's actually all over the place out here but those are the major schools that I know of that teach it.

I heard popejoy doesn't teach anymore, but i'll check out the r1 acemedy thanks u been a big help

[nine]

Bryan Popejoy owns and operates Boxing Works in Hermosa Beach which is a great gym.

And yes, Bryan is still teaching.

any Muay thai gyms in Torrance, santa monica, el segundo, redondo beach, hermosa beach?

[Maxx]

Bryan Popejoy is definitely still teaching! Stop in. Meet him! Take a class! But if he's in a bad mood, make sure that you bring your inhaler.

You can't go wrong with that place... there's a sense of true Muay Thai.

[maubee]

Any instructors in South Dakota? I should have taken muay thai when I was living in Southern Cali but now Im stuck in South Datkota thanks to the military, I can't find ish around here.

[blitz]

So who knows any good muay thai/bjj/fma trainers in San Diego? I already asked but I want to know if there are any more that I haven't heard of, I need to choose the closest to down town SD.

[Bryan Popejoy]

"I heard popejoy doesn't teach anymore, but i'll check out the r1 acemedy thanks u been a big help"



Quite the contrary, I've been pretty motivated lately.

[beacha2k]

check out warriorway.com. there is a muay thai instructor in walled lake, mi. that has an impressive bio with creds to back it up and he's born and raised in thailand. i may be enrolling there myself real soon.

[Wolverine]

Maxx-
Hey, I'm on here quite a bit but I just stumbled across this thread. You trained under Kak Koonala? When did you train with him? I moved from Marquette 2 years ago after 4 years with Kak, and have never been able to find another gym quite like his! Kak is a GREAT trainer, and having Vut up there only adds to it! Vut was actually a judge for my first fight....great guy. Anyway, I'm glad to see another one of Kak's fighters on the board!

[Maxx]

Maxx-
Hey, I'm on here quite a bit but I just stumbled across this thread. You trained under Kak Koonala? When did you train with him? I moved from Marquette 2 years ago after 4 years with Kak, and have never been able to find another gym quite like his! Kak is a GREAT trainer, and having Vut up there only adds to it! Vut was actually a judge for my first fight....great guy. Anyway, I'm glad to see another one of Kak's fighters on the board!

Hey, Wolverine! I actually started training with him in the early 90's... would have been 1990 or 91. I trained with guys like Gary Swanson, John Nardi, Chad Balzerini and Katsusuke Nishijima. I moved to California in early 1997 and have been training out here in the Redondo Beach area ever since.

I was actually out of touch with Kak for a while but I went up and visited him last summer around the 4th of July Weekend. I plan on getting back and training and visiting with him at least once a year now.

As for atmosphere, you are right about Kak's school. Every good Muay Thai school that I've trained at has had a compelling since about it that draws you back, but Kak's for me stands above everything else. I think there's just something compelling about the your first experiences that always pull you back to it.

[GQchris]

I been tellin myself forever that I am going to check out Fairtex in San Francisco but my work schedule has been so busy...

must one enter amateur competetions to be proficient at Muay Thai?

[popchi]

muay thai instructors

in michigan cooper's has some pretty good instructors who make a lot of champions. team toro in Il is also pretty good.

[Little Apple]

I'm a native Minnesotan, and IMHO Khru Greg Nelson in Minneapolis and Pete Peterson in Iowa are your best options. If you are moving somewhere in the Midwest specifically for training, honestly, go to Khru Greg Nelson's. I trained there for a bit while I was in town and it's so very worth it. His gym has really awesome opportunities for cross-training, the man is an excellent CSW teacher, and he's probably contributed as much as Master Chai has to Muay Thai as far as clinch goes (allegedly a comment from Ajarn's own mouth). He's getting massage and PT people to base out of his gym right now, and the atmosphere is fantastic.
If you do move out of the Midwest, the place to be is near LA. I know it's a big dirty city, but it has some of the best in the world. There's the Inosanto Academy for one thing, and that's almost worth it by itself. Also, Khru Brian Dobler is based out of "Rancha-coocka-munga" Callifornia (or something like that) And that man has some BEAUTIFUL technique. He has taught at Ajarn Chai's Oregon camp for the last couple years, and I'd love to go train with him at some point.
OK, I'll stop rambling now.

[freedomfighter]

i think all kru or teacher muay thai are best for me.

[fightstuff]

i think all kru or teacher muay thai are best for me.

That's not true man. Any person can call themselves a Kru. You need to checkout which organisation they are associated with and their qualifications. MT is very popular and you have a lot of unqualified instructors jumping on the bandwagon to make some quick money. These instructors are not helping MT as an art or sport.