Saturday, April 2, 2016
Wednesday, March 30, 2016
Forward!
YMT fighters from 2010 and 2011 will remember the Ski hill sprints. To make it to the end, your will couldn't falter, even for a second. Remember, your legs may run but it's your heart that will carry you. Forward.
Saturday, March 26, 2016
Save the Date! Demo Fight April 16th at YMT!
Come out for some action at York Muay Thai on April 16th! Our shows are always full of talent, and have the most hype atmosphere!
Stay tuned for more details.
For now, 6pm bouts start! 20$ at the door :)
Friday, March 25, 2016
Walk. Run. Fly.
Experience plays endurance
Ever notice how the best fighters rarely show their hand right away? To the untrained eye they look like they are sleeping in the beginning. They may even seem to be losing, as their opponent comes out guns blazing to outwork them. Yet all the while they are reading their opponent, calibrating their timing and finding the best pathway to deal damage. Even when they take a good shot, they seem to remain calm and collect themselves in order to launch an effective counter attack. In fact, you can be sure the last half of the round, if not last half of the fight will swing heavily in their favour. Buakaw and Yodsanklai are two popular fighters who embody this well. They understand that the danger of coming in wild, and reserve their ferocity for when they know their opponent is vulnerable.
The experienced fighters play the long game. Sure, if the opportunity for an early finish is there, they will take it. But what they don’t do is rush. Patience is a virtue.
Training in the gym should be the same. Sometimes we see students shadow box faster than their techniques can actually keep up. They are concerned with finishing a whole combination, and so the individual strikes that make up the sequence suffer in quality. The same goes for the physical conditioning. Push ups to a count are often done faster than they can be done properly, simply to reach a rep count. But that's where the danger lies. Push-ups done too quickly with your ass in the air or without the right extension only serve to weaken you- causing imbalances in your build. Shadowboxing faster than your technique can hold makes your combinations less effective for real combat.
If you pace your training like a high level fighter, you will reap your rewards by sticking with it. Technique first. Power will come from technique. Speed will come from fluidity and time. Prioritizing in this way is crucial to development, just as the military moves its units in a specific order for attack. The most difficult part in all of this is patience. If we aren’t moving quickly, we often feel left behind. If we aren’t doing something right away, we often feel like opportunity is slipping from our grasp. But if you can become aware of those fears, and build enough experience to control them, you’ll eventually find yourself where you belong.
Slow down.
Walk. Run. Fly.
3 reasons to Ignite your Fire
When's the last time you were really fired up about something? Stoked to start a job, excited to work out, hurting to see a loved one? Do you remember how fast the time passed that day?
The truth is, time was absolutely no different during those moments and others. Those minutes were still each made up of 60 seconds. It's all perception. Yet perception is what makes a world of difference. When you see each moment as critical, and worth putting your heart into, the quality of the time you spend multiplies. It becomes addicting. And once you build momentum, you can ride it so much farther than you originally thought. Changes take root and build you into a better person. However, kickstarting and maintaining that momentum requires intent, drive and passion. It requires you to ignite your fire.
Training Muay Thai is a perfect representation of this. Here are 3 reasons why igniting your fire is important to your growth.
Changing your body
Anyone can follow a work out DVD. Anyone can throw punches at a bag. Pick a number for any exercise or technique. Now realize that your number doesn’t actually matter as much as you think it does. What matters is your intent. Are you grunting your way through 30 full push ups, or just loosely banging them out as fast as you can to hit your rep count? Are you throwing combinations at the same autopilot rhythm, or are you smashing the bag as you visualize a hostile target?
If you train with intent, you WILL see changes in your body with time. Why? Because whether you train for fitness or to get into the ring, the fighter’s intent to destroy is one of the most powerful forces to be dealt with. In training, that intent must be focused back on the self. You must intend, with every push up or punch, to destroy yourself. That mindset is what turns 60 - 90 minutes of a routine into 60 - 90 minutes of sculpting a masterpiece.
You must break yourself to build yourself.
Accessing your potential at will
You might be a newbie, finding it hard to get started because the training seems difficult. You might be a fighter, finding it hard to keep going because the training is starting to wear you down. In both cases, only the toughest survive. So how do they survive exactly? It’s because they can tap into their drive on the daily. What makes them tick (restraining their temper at work, the thought of their last fight, the idea of gaining back their old weight, etc) is something they can call upon to push them past the thoughts of coasting or quitting. It's what allows someone to win a fight they were losing.
The key to igniting your fire is going to be unique to you. For some people it can be a memory, it can be the chorus to a pump up song, it can be a combination of many other factors...The important thing is to gradually become aware of what yours is, so you can access it when you need it most- during those moments where many others would fall. The more you ignite your fire in the gym, the easier it will be to figure out how to do it elsewhere (work, at home, the ring etc). It gives you a secret weapon that will help you stand out from the crowd.
It’s easy to get bored. Plateaus are not fun for anyone. The issue is this: the longer you train, work, or stay in a relationship without any significant changes or reminders of why you started in the first place, the more likely you are to quit and move on. And when you do, you’ll go through the exact same cycle with something or someone else: try, coast, plateau, walk away. But how can you hope to truly love or excel at anything if you don’t dedicate yourself to it?
What igniting your fire will do is turn every seemingly mundane moment into an opportunity. A 5km run becomes a 5km interval set. A push up becomes a one armed push up. A sparring session becomes a defense only session. You’ll see new ways to make everything a challenge worth facing, and just as in the beginning, learn to fall in love with what you’re doing over and over again.
Thursday, March 24, 2016
Long weekend hours
Please note we will be CLOSED Friday March 25 and Sunday March 27.
We are open as usual for Saturday March 26!
Have a great long weekend :)
We are open as usual for Saturday March 26!
Have a great long weekend :)
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