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This is a gym that was also on my list of places to visit. Jaroenthong is a well known Thai fighter who fought against Ramon Dekkers, Samart Payakaroon (who is considered to be the all time best Thai fighter by many) and more. At first I visited them once, but the training was just finished and they asked me a fee of 1,000 Baht for one training. This seemed a bit extreme. Now it is a fact that you will pay a whole lot more as a farang (foreigner) to train at a gym, but even this amount is something I haven’t seen before. This was for me a reason to respectfully decline. Off course I do respect the fact the gyms need to make a little money of tourists and foreign fighters, but the feeling I was being ripped of just kept coming back to me. The offered me a package deal in where you would pay 6,000 Baht for 30 hours of training, but as you know, I am already training at different gyms and don’t like to be tied down to one place before I know the gym.
However, I decided to give it another shot on a later date. This time I was determined to get the price as low as possible, because I want to try many different kind of gyms to learn and absorb many different techniques. Finally I bargained it to 700 Baht for a single training session, which is still really expensive. When you decide to train here, you should choose the package deal. All together it was not a truly good first impression. The trainer told me he could not go lower with the price, after all, it was not his gym.
There were three pad holders, all three not really old, but former Nak Muays (professional boxers). The afternoon training lasts from 3 till 5 pm. In this case we did not start with running laps, but skipping rope. Just as I was used from other Thai gyms, there is no central training. The people present at the training were all people training for leisure purpose. The gym does not have any fighters competing in the ring. This means a different kind of training. After the warm up, you start on the kicking bag, until one of the trainers calls you to do a round on the pads. The good thing here is that they let you do one round on small boxing pads and after one round one Thai pads. I like the variety. In addition, you do only one round on the pads per time. This means you can do more rounds in total. Normally, I do three round on the Thai pads and maybe one or two on the boxing pads and that’s it. This training I did 5 rounds on Thai pads and 6 on boxing pads, simply because it is spread out.
The reason for this is obvious. In the first example you prepare for an actual fight and that’s why you train in a certain pattern. Because there is nobody training in this gym for a fight, there is no need to follow this pattern and by doing more rounds in total, you create a good general fitness. And since this is the goal for the people training here, it works out perfectly like this. For me personal, I prefer the old school hardcore way of simulating the fight on the Thai pads. Still, the trainers here might have different ways of approaching the training, I got some good tips from them, especially on the side of boxing they could explain me about evasion, counterpunches and more. All together I had a really good training, but it is not my kind of gym, simply because I like to train together with other fighters who train for a fight. The atmosphere in a gym like that is different from here. Jaroenthong Gym is a really good place to go if you want to get in good shape doing Muay Thai, but don’t expect to be it the same as gyms like Sasiprapa or Pinsinchai. Off course, keep in mind that I have been here only one day, so maybe other days it could be different, this is just my personal experience. Please leave a comment about what you think about the site and what you think should be different. In strength and peace my friends,
Signing off,
MTD