Lessons from Muay Thai

I’d like to talk about lessons I’ve learned from Muay Thai, in the short time that I’ve been going to classes. When I’m thinking and reflecting about these lessons, I often find that they apply to our teaching practice as well! I know most of you that participate in any martial art, or even any sport or activity, for that matter, are probably thinking, is she for real? This isn’t news…of course these lessons all apply!  

But I had my A-ha! Moment, and now I’m sharing it with all of you today. 

I started taking Muay Thai classes about a month ago. My kids do Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and the gym also has an adult Muay Thai class at the same time as the kids class. So every time I go watch my kids in BJJ, I would also watch this very intense, but very cool looking Muay Thai class happening on the other side of the mats. It drew me in. Everyone was dying 30 minutes in, and since I’m indeed a glutton for punishment, to me, this looked like a ton of fun. I’m a relatively active person, so I thought it would be amazing exercise. I took it up, and yes, I think I was on the brink of throwing up for most of that first class. But I held it together, and I went back again a few days later and It’s been amazing. 

So We start each class with an intense warm up for about 30 minutes. Then we spar for the next 20, and practice the skills we learn. This is where we really gain new knowledge on how to fight and defend. We then wrap up the class with a cool down, and then we sit in a circle and talk on the mat for a few minutes, Essentially, consolidating our lesson, and discussing things we’ve learned in that past hour. 

It sounds very much like a class we might teach, doesn’t it? And the things we talk about on the mat are just as important as our in-class consolidation practices. In the past month, I’ve learned 3 big and important guiding lessons about fighting. I’m going to talk about those, and also link them to my teaching practice as well, because they are completely just as relevant in teaching as they are in the martial arts. 

The first lesson is: Be intentional with your moves. Throwing random kicks and punches will only lead to uncontrolled flailing, and that doesn’t help you in a fight. Know what your strengths are, and try to create a scenario where you are able to use your strengths. 

Isn’t this true of teaching, too? One of my goals as a teacher has always been to try to be Intentional with what I do with my students. I don’t want to throw random activities and worksheets at students in order to fill the time. They don’t actually lead to attaining any sort of goal, so why waste the energy with things that are not impactful and meaningful practice in the classroom? I thought about this one quite a bit. It takes time to become intentional. It takes lots of practice, and a lot of self-reflection. 

If I’m in a fight, I want to be sure I know what the goal is, and always keep sight of that goal while I throw a combo. It’s important for me to see counter-moves coming before they happen, and so I need to be prepared. We need to do these things as teachers too. We need to always have our end-goal in mind, and keep ourselves prepared for what is coming next. Be Intentional with your teaching practice. Kids don’t need the fluff - we won’t be knocking anything out with soft pillows.

The second lesson I’ve learned is: Make sure your moves are calm and controlled. Take a step back, assess the situation, and take some time to make the move that is best suited for the scenario. 

This once was quite meaningful. In a fight, we can prepare as much as we want to - we can do all the pushups and squats to strengthen our bodies, but we can’t predict what the other person will do. We don’t know where their minds are at. We don’t know what kind of prep they are coming into the fight with. And this can lead us to panic in a fight scenario. Panic won’t help us win. We must be able to re-assess, and make changes based on what we see happening. This takes mental calmness, which takes years and years of training to be able to accomplish. 

Why is this any different from teaching? We have prepared our bodies as well - teachers have incredible toolkits that they come into the classroom with. They bring so much knowledge with them, and it’s all so powerful, but it’s useless if teachers are not able to adapt to the situations around them. You may go in one day, incredibly prepared for a particular lesson, but then discover that the students don’t have schema to proceed with your lesson. Do you barrel forward anyway? Or do you pause, take a step back, and assess the situation, then take some time to make the changes necessary to get the result you want? I’m thinking that if we are trying to make our teaching practice better, we are doing the latter. 

The third lesson I’ve learned is to trust my instincts and intuition. Sometimes a move that feels right will be far more effective than something taught by the instructor and told to do his way. 

This is very difficult when you’re learning to fight. If you’ve never punched or kicked anyone other than your sibling before, it’s really hard to get past the actual hitting part and moving on to instinctive fighting. Fighting is not a natural “thinking” response to humans, it’s meant to be instinctive. Now, we are being taught to think about and incorporate effective moves, and apply combos to a situation where you are not supposed to be thinking. This takes years and years and years of practice. 

But then, if we are dedicated enough, and we practice, those moves become second nature, and we can remove the thinking part from the fight, and act on what feels right. I learned a combo a few nights ago, it was a 1-2, followed by two powerful switch push kicks. I was sparring with a partner, who was far more advanced than myself. I kept messing up the combo, and he said to me…just do what feels right. I stopped thinking about it…and led with my intuition. I threw my 1-2 and then landed two incredible knees with the same leg, and the result was far more powerful. 

Should I practice that original combo? Yes of course, I can’t ignore a skill. But when it comes to the fight, I’ll go with the move that gets me the desired result. Maybe at that point, my 1-2 double switch kick will come into play and do the trick. 

I would also argue that this is true for teaching as well. Many of us don’t come out of teacher training programs with that intuition. We come out with an amazing tool kit, but we don’t quite know how to make it intuitive right away. It takes a lot of practice to get there. But then, there comes a point when we can remove the thinking from the act, and we can use our intuition to guide our practice. And we should trust that. We should keep all our skills in our back pocket, and use the ones that we trust the most in the scenarios where we think they will do the most benefit. 

I love these classes…I have gained so much more from them than I thought I would - and it’s been an amazing learning experience. Pretty soon, when I’m on the card for my first fight, I’ll let you know how these lessons have paid off. 

By Pav Wander - Original Post Date: January 30, 2020