This past weekend, Prof Renato, had the opportunity to participate again in the Instructor Development Course hosted by the World Thai Boxing Association.
The course was held at the Boxing works Gym in Hawthorne Blvd, Torrance.
This time he completed level two of the course and had a great time and the opportunity to spend time with Kru Justin Markus who is a very intelligent person and experienced many different martial arts, a person who Prof. Renato definitely can relate.
The course itself was great. We talked a lot about creating systems. Many times teachers know all the techniques and skills but they don’t know how to explain to the students.
Kru Justin Markus was defending the idea of instructors move up from the unconscious competence to a more scholastic level, a level where systems are created and the teaching can be facilitate.
Not only that with systems being created and constantly changed for good students can progress more.
After that we had a great session with Ajarn Chai Sirisute, one of the few responsible to bring Muay Thai to USA. Ajarn Chai is a very humble and interesting person.
When we broke for lunch, delicious Thai food was served and we could connect with many people from all over usa, such as Oregon, Minnesota and California, mostly So-Cal and Orange County.
Many schools sent instructors to the course like OC Kickboxing and Dan Inosanto academy to name a few.
After the lunch we had a session on how to hold pads for your students. Kru Bryan Popejoy owner of Boxing Works and host showed us many nice tricks.
Then we went back to one more session of lecture to end the first day.
The second day, started with Arjan Chai, talking about the culture of Muay Thai and how important it is to be respectful and to salute – wai every time during practice, something very similar to our culture here at Sampa were bowing/saluting and respecting is mandatory.
On the lecture session we discuss on how to understand the psychology of our students and the difficulties the new students go through as well the difficulties instructors have on get down to the beginners level and how to communicate with the students and speak their language.
After the lecture then we had to gear up again put our gloves on, and work out with Ajarn Greg Nelson. He had many fighters in the UFC such as Brock Lesnar and the Sean Sherk. He based out of Minnesota.
He has been with Ajarn Chai for a long time and during his session he showed a couple techniques from the Thai clinch as well telling some nice stories about some Thai fighters.
Afterwards we had lunch, another lecture session and we finished by receiving our certificates.
Prof. Renato is very happy to be part of this group of great people. It is very nice to immerse in Muay Thai and its culture.
Finally, Prof. Renato got invited to participate of a Muay Thai Camp camp in Thailand in January. We are looking forward to hear more stories about that.
If you’re interested in Muay Thai, BJJ, or kickboxing, please call 626-335-4971 for Glendora and 626-977-1050 for Walnut.