Camp Spotlight: Lanna Muay Thai

Hey Guys and Gals,

Since I came back from Thailand, I have been working really hard on my website. A big reason for this is that I have had a lot of time on my hands. Because of my injuries, I wasn’t able to train, and if you couple that in with the fact that I have been looking for a new school to train at, it’s given me a lot of extra time which I have been spending working on my site. I’ve been adding a lot of content to the site, such as instructional videos, traveling tip articles, history and philosophy articles on the different arts, and of course the ever popular photos of MMA girls. But with that, I feel my site has started to get away from it’s niche a bit, which was suppose to be reviews of various Muay Thai camps, Martial Arts seminars, schools and other events. Because I am still in limbo, and don’t have much to write about, I decided to take some of my time and do some research on some of the different Muay Thai camps in Thailand and write a spotlight article on each one. You can expect about 1 a week from me. I am taking the time to visit the websites, read other review and even contact the camps with relavant questions. I will then summarize my findings in each post. The format will loosely follow the categories that I write my reviews with, however it won’t contain a grade, since I haven’t experienced any of the camps first hand, other than Tiger Muay Thai.

This weeks feature is Lanna Muay Thai in Chang Mai. I hope you find this information helpful and informative.

Here are the categories I will be providing information on.

Location

Best Travel Route

Pricing

Accommodations

Facilities

Trainers

Training Routine

Fighting

Administration/Office

Website

Extracurricular

Uniqueness

Contact Info

Lanna Muay Thai – www.lannamuaythai.com

Location
Lanna Muay Thai is located in Chang Mai, which is the second biggest city in Thailand next to Bangkok. The camp is located at the foot of the Doi Suthep Mountain, near the local university. There are also several small shops and resturants located near by and the main part of the city is only 6km away. The camp is located about 10 minutes from the Chang Mai airport. The address itself is:

Lanna Kiat Busaba Muay Thai Camp
161, Soi Chang Kian,
Huay Kaew Road,
Chiang Mai, 50300,
Thailand

Putting the address into Google or Mapquest is difficult, because you have to format it correctly with the commas and everything in the correct place. The camp provides a map on their website which you can use to find the gym from the airport. You can view that here: Lanna Map

Best Travel Route
You have two options for the best travel route to get to the camp. Option 1 (which is the best overall) is to fly into the Chang Mai airport. Most likely you will need to connect to a flight from your previous destination at the Bangkok Airport. A flight from Bangkok to Chang Mai will take only about an hour or so.

Option 2 is probably best used if you have a long overlay between flights. That option would be to fly into Bangkok airport and take a bus from there to Chang Mai. The bus ride will take between 10-12 hours, however if you were going to be sitting in an airport all that time anyway, it may be best to try and arrange a bus ride.

Pricing
The price to train at Lanna Muay Thai is pretty consistant with most of the more popular gyms in Thailand, perhaps a bit on the lower side which is always nice. The daily price is 400 baht, the weekly price is 2200 baht and the price for a month of training is 8000 baht. The accomodation prices are decent as well ranging anywhere from 3000 baht for a shared housing room right at camp, to as high as 10,000 baht for an apartment/condo/house for a month. The camp does not accept credit cards. The current conversion rate is about 30 baht to $1 USD, so training will cost about $275 for one month while accomodation will cost anywhere between $100 – $300.

Accomodations
Speaking of accomodations, here is a little information on that. The camp has 3 rooms (2 person per room) that are onsite at the camp. Each room has it’s own toliet and shower, although there is no hot water. Accommodation at the camp is on a first come first serve basis, if there are no rooms avaiable upon arrival there are several guesthouses, bungalows, and hotels within walking distance of the camp where people may stay. The basic guesthouse rooms outside the camp are usually a single room with toilet/shower and fan. Air conditioning is available but mostly unnessecary and expensive. The camp will help you find a room upon your arrival to suit your needs and budget

Facilities
The facilities in the gym include 2 rings, 12 bags, 1 speed ball, 1 punching ball, 3 sit up benchs, various basic free weights, medicine balls, monkey, chin up, and parallel bars. Utlizing the uniqueness of it’s surroundings the camp uses the near by mountain for some tough hill runs. The training area is partially roofed and open on 3 sides to allow some nice air flow and keep the gym cool.

Trainers
Lanna has 8 Thai Trainers full time, 3 part time, as well as the owner who is a farang instructor. Additionally two of their long term foreign fighters, including one woman, also help out with the new students. Each of the Trainers have their own fighters who they work with but all their fighters will also train with different trainers. Lanna gives everyone the chance to work with several different trainers, to find their favourite, and to give them the experience of different styles. The full time trainers are all at the Camp at least 5 days a week, some of us are here 7 days a week.

The average class sizes can vary from weekend mornings with 5 people to mid-week afternoons with 40 people. The constant is the fighters, there are always people training to fight, even on Sundays. At times Lanna can have a lot of fighters competeing at the same time the camp will be buzzing with intense training. Even during the quiet times you can still find someone in the gym training, hard!

Training Routine
The gym has 2 training sessions a day, in both the morning and afternoon. Here is an overview of the training schedule:

Morning
0600-Warm up/Stretch
0610-10 km. Run
0710-Drills (Knees, Kicks Teeps and Punches on the bag)
0730-Shadow Box (5 to 6 rounds)
0800-Bag Work (4 to 5 rounds)
0825-Pad Work (2 to 5 rounds)
0850-Clinching/Sparring (alternate days up to 5 rounds)
0915-Drills (as before)
0935-Exercises (sit ups push ups chin ups)
0950-Shadow Box (2 to 3 rounds)
1005-Cool Down Stretch

Afternoon
1600-Warm Up/Stretch
1610-3 to 5 km. Run
1635-Skip (4 rounds)
1655-Shadow Box (5 to 6 rounds)
1725-Bag Work (6 to 8 rounds)
1805-Pad Work (5 to 6 rounds)
1835-Clinching/Sparring (alternate days, 5 to 6 rounds)
1905-Drills (as morning)
1925-Shadow Box (3 to 4 rounds)
1940-Cool Down Stretch

I have seen schedules on many gyms which only include about 2-2.5 hours of training. Lanna’s sessions go for almost 4 hours. As a result you will get into excellent fitness shape extremely quick. It is also important and very overlooked that the sessions include a warm up and cool down stretch. This helps avoid injuries and aids in your recovery time.

Fighting
Lanna is usually having about 2 fights a week as a camp. At times it can be as many as four fights in a week. One question I specifically contacted the camp and asked was how they determine if someone is ready to fight. I wanted to know if it was necessary to spend a specific amount of time at the camp, or were there other means of evaluating this. Here is how Lanna determines if someone is ready to fight. The camp will determine if a person has experience or the ability to get into the ring to fight with your first training session. In the case you are a new or first time fighters, the only criteria is a true desire and willingness in your heart to not only have a go in the ring, but put in the effort into the training, and with about one to two months training, a basic level of fitness and basic technique you will be able to have your first fight.

Administration/Office
There are a couple strengths here as far as I can determine. First off, it is a farang owned school, and the owner Andy (who is also a trainer) handles all the correspondence. It is always an advantage to have a Western person in charge to handle any issues that may arise, in my opinion. An example is how quickly Andy returned my email when I contacted him with additional questions I had regarding the camp. His response was in the same day, and it was very detailed. Andy also seems very willing to aid the guests with any services that are necessary for them to enjoy their stay, from arranging tours to finding accomodations. These small touches do not go unnoticed and would give Lanna an edge in determining if it is the right camp to attend.

Website
Lanna has a very informative website. The format of the site is not overly flashy or complicated. It is easy to naviagate and there is more than enough information on the website including the history of Muay Thai, training techniques and a frequently asked questions section. One downside to the website is that it does not have any photos of the gym. Also, the addition of a forum to the website would be nice as it would allow prior and prospective students of the camp to communicate with each other.

Extracurricular
There are plenty of things to do around the area when you are not training. The camp is located at the foot of a mountain, so hiking and rock climbing are among the first activites that comes to mind. There is also a famous temple in Chang Mai called the Doi Suthep temple, which has 304 steps to reach the top. Other activies include Elephant treks, blues and jazz bars, golf courses and the night bazzar.

Uniqueness
I asked Andy what makes the camp unique. Why should someone chose Lanna over another camp. He had a great response. Here is what he said:

“Consistency. We are really no different from any other Muay Thai gym in Thailand. We live our life training for the same thing, to fight every week at the local stadiums and country fairs, the big city and overseas when we are good enough. We are different because of our strong foreign support, we have had several long term, 2 years or more, foreign fighters stay with us and many of our students, fighting or not, come back year after year to spend time training and living at the Camp. Muay Thai is about family and we have a large extended family after our 15 years together. When it comes to training, we ensure good basic technique and understanding of what you are doing, and the chance to experience and (maybe) live the life of a Muay Thai fighter.”

I gotta tell you, that sounds great to me. I love the fact that people come back to the camp again and again. That is always a good sign. I also hit up a lot of forums and always hear good things about Lanna, which is promising.

Contact Information
If you are interested in visiting Lanna Muay Thai (and hopefully you will be after this article), here is how you can contact them:

Camp Tel/Fax: 66-53-892102
Mobile: 66-1-9513164
Email: info@lannamuaythai.com
Website: www.lannamuaythai.com

I hope you found this article informative and helpful. If you have anything to add about Lanna Muay Thai, please leave a comment below.

Some Camps I Am Considering Visiting

Hey Guys,

Well, I am currently back in the states, and have just started training again, after healing up from my injuries. I have already started planning my next trip to Thailand, as well as a trip to Brazil at some point to train in BJJ. Also, during the course of this year, I am planning to attend a couple seminars including Ajarn Chai of the Thaiboxing Association, Erik Paulson of Combat Submisson Wrestling, and the Train With The Masters Seminar at the Francis Fong Academy in Georgia later this year.

In the mean time, here are some of the camps I am considering visiting on my next trip to Thailand. I would love to hear any feedback or input from either people who have already visited these camps, or people that would love to see me review one of these camps. Also, if you have any connections and can swing me a discount, please drop me a message. Before I continue on to the camps, I just want to thank my sponsors for bringing you this post:

Here are the camps, along with my initial impressions. Please feel free to visit and write any comments below:

Sinbi Muay Thai – This is another camp in Phuket, and is one of Tiger Muay Thai’s biggest competitors in Phuket. It is actually a little more expensive than Tiger Muay Thai too. In fact, in all my research, it’s one of the most expensive camps in all of Thailand, next to Fairtex.

There are a couple things that I seemingly like about this camp. One thing is that the morning training time is 2 &1/2 hours, and so is the afternoon session. The shorter training sessions I believe will lead towards many multiple session days. Also, the location to Nai Harn beach is nice too, since it is pretty much walking distance to the beach. Finally, I like the fact that the morning runs are around the beautiful lake in Nai Harn park.

Phuket Dragon Muay Thai – Phuket Dragon Muay Thai is located on the same road as Tiger Muay Thai in Chalong. The story here is that the owner Yod, is the former head trainer of Tiger Muay Thai. I had heard many great things about Yod, prior to my first trip to Thailand, and while I was training at Tiger, a few people I know spent some time at Dragon and raved about it. The rates are about the same as Tiger, according to the advertised price, although I hear they are currently trying to underbid them to get increased clients. The facilities itself is small, but you get a lot of 1 on 1 time with the trainers.

Emerald Gym – I heard about this gym from Ryu on the Sherdog.net forums. It is located in Krabi, which is in the South East part of Thailand. It’s a new camp that opened recently. One of it’s highlights is that Zach from Contender Asia trained at the camp. The rates are pretty good, and the photos of the camp look great. It seems to be in an isolated area, which I am sure will come with positives and negatives.

WMC Muay Thai Camp – Just a heads up, their website is a mess right now. I have visited the site before, when all the pictures are working and it looks nice, but there is obviously a problem at the moment. There are a couple things about this camp that I like. For starters, the camp is located in Koh Samui, where a friend of mine Eric, owns a resort. It will be cool to catch up with him, as I haven’t seen him for years. Secondly, I like the fact that in addition to Muay Thai, they teach Muay Boran and Krabi Krabong, as well as courses in history and courses just in the Ram Muay.

Jitti Gym – Jitti Gym is located in Bangkok, and many people at Defend.net have high praises to say about the camp. I believe this camp does not cater to Westerners as much as the camps in the Southern part of Thailand, which will be a new and enriching experience should I make it to train here. There is not much information about price or accomodations on the website.

Fairtex Pattaya – There are two different Fairtex camps, the one in Pattaya and the one in Bangplee, near Bangkok. The one in Pattaya is generally thought of as a little more touristy and is located near the party town of Pattaya Beach. I may end up visiting one camp or both during my next trip. The cool thing about this is I have to potential to train in the same facility that Yod Fairtex trains at. Also, I will receive a 10% discount as a result of being a member of the Thai Boxing Association of the USA.

Lanna Muay Thai – The people over at MuayThailand.com seem to love this camp. It is located in Chang Mai, which is in the Northern part of Thailand. The price is extremely affordable and the camp seems to be entrenched with history and tradition, which I love. The website is very informative and the camp seems to go out of it’s way to take care of it’s guests.

Well, those are my initial impressions. I probably will not get to visit all the camps. 2 to 4 is more likely, depending on how long I stay at each camp. If you have any feedback or information about the camp, please feel free to contact me or post a comment below. Thanks.