Today I thought I would write a short post to answer a question I get asked quite a lot by new students and potential clients.
How long will it take me to learn Muay Thai?
This is a fair question and if you're planning on investing time and money into something, you want to have some sort of idea of how long it will take. But there is no real answer to this question because the truth is as long as you are training and seeking knowledge you will always be learning. The beauty of Muay Thai is in it's simplicity. We don't use 100 different fancy triple spinning kicks, we mainly use a round kick and a front kick but the amount of time spent sharpening these weapons makes them awesome. It's all about mastering the basics and the same stuff you learn on your first lesson you'll still be working on 5 years later.
How quickly you progress in learning Muay Thai depends mainly on you. How much time you commit to training. How well you listen to and understand your trainer. How naturally talented you are. I've trained someone from scratch and had them in their first fight within six months. I also have clients whom i've been training for over a year who have never sparred intensely. The difference is in the motivation. If you want to learn then you will learn. Some people I train twice a week and they're practicing everyday so there's constant progression whereas some people will only practice during our sessions so the learning curve isn't as steep.
I have personally experienced the difference that your motivation can have on your learning curve. I started fighting in 2006 and within 2 and a half years I was competing at a high level and even lost a very close fight to a European champion. I improved very quickly because of the amount of time I put into learning the sport. I only saw my trainers 2 to 3 times per week but in between I was running, hitting the bag, shadow boxing and studying fight videos every day. After that I changed direction in my life and pursued a career in the music industry, for 5 years I rarely trained more than twice in a week and only competed once in that time. The progression I made was very minimal when compared to the 2 and a half years of regular competition I'd had prior because, although I was turning up to training every week, I was simply going over what I'd already learned, maintaining my skills rather than improving them. Now since two years ago I'm training and competing again full time and once again I'm learning at a much higher rate because I am motivated to learn and progress.
So in regards to the question 'How long will it take me to learn Muay Thai?' it just depends on how much you want to learn and how much time you put in because there will always be more to learn.
For some great tips on how to steepen you're Muay Thai learning curve look out for my next post coming soon!
Thank you for reading,
Femi