muay thai gym, bangkok thailand

newrmdmike · Jul 27, 2007

Instead of taking my gloves to practice, i took my camera bag. the following are all from this afternoon.

everyday before training begins the thai trainers, and fighters who live at the gym, and who are regulars participate in a game of takro. here a fighter tosses the ball to his teammate to serve.

Here one of the fighters spikes the ball over the net.

as you can see here, the other team is very careful about where they are standing when you spike the ball.

or are they? while attempting to block the spike the opponent takes a foot to the head.

these two were losing very badly, and finally made a point and celebrated.

warm ups begin with jumping on these large truck tires, its a great calf workout!

one of the french fighters wraps his hands before beginning his training.

assorted pads and gloves are laid out on a picnic table daily for fighters to choose from (bring your own, most of them suck)

a french fighter lifts weights along side a thai child. cute.

a thai fighter grins while dodging frenchies kick. yes its a grin.

typical shorts of the thai kick boxer . . . and typical shoes too.

one of the trainers wraps his hands in preparation for his training sessions.

a boxer (not kick boxer) rests, holding the bag for his partner while he punches.

boxer trains on the pads, his workout will get tougher over the next three weeks while he prepares for his upcoming fight in the Philippines.

couple more serves for the road below.

newrmdmike · Jul 27, 2007

do these look faded in color to you? they do on my monitor in firefox, but not in cs2, in fact i've got peaked saturation in reds on the pic with all the gloves . . . anyone else?

hawee99 · Jul 27, 2007

All the colors look good from here. Cool pics though, those guys can jump

lifeafter2am · Jul 27, 2007

I am not on a calibrated monitor, so I don't know about the colors. The pictures are just awesome though! Muay Thai is such a great sport, and you did well capturing it!

ram018 · Jul 27, 2007

I love these. I don't know what you want the color to look like but i like them the way they look on my screen.

my favorite is number one.

I really like that these guys all look like they are really having fun even though they are working.

newrmdmike · Jul 28, 2007

thanks guys!

newrmdmike · Aug 1, 2007

bump . . . please?!

ontforkicks · Aug 1, 2007

wow i really like the photos 11 ,13 and 14, but i'm really confused with the first picture becuase i can see the ball in the reflection but i can't see it where it is supposed to be not in the reflection if that makes any sense, am i crazy? oh yeah the colours look good to me.

newrmdmike · Aug 1, 2007

thanks, and in the first one thats the actual ball, not the reflection of it if that answers your question.

AdamZx3 · Aug 1, 2007

Cool series

I always wanted to do karate or Tae Kwon-Do

do these look faded in color to you? they do on my monitor in firefox, but not in cs2, in fact i've got peaked saturation in reds on the pic with all the gloves . . . anyone else?

They look great to me. but i'm using safari.

This is probably because of the pictures being edited in adobe RGB. Most browsers now support only srgb color space, Safari for the mac is able to display the embedded colorspace, whether it be srgb adobe rgb or the newer photo rgb space. firefox 3 is supposed to have this support as well.

Antarctican · Aug 1, 2007

Wow, what an interesting series!!! Amazing how high the guy in #2 can jump/kick. Love the low pov in 3 and 4, and the reflections in the mirrors. The prep and training shots are very interesting too, to see how they dress, the basic nature of the equipment etc. Love the colours of the equipment of the table. The whole thread is really well done.

Puscas · Aug 1, 2007

wow, wow. Great series. The colours do look a little bit (but just a tad) faded, but I'm also using Firefox, so maybe that's it.
Love the action in the one with the big trainer in red and the guy boxing.
I can't help but look for you in the mirror shots (I don't like seeing the photog in those); you are the one in black in the last shots? If not, you did a great disappearing act!

pascal

Andy Campbell · Aug 2, 2007

What a great series of shots! You caught the energy and effort that is involved in the sport perfectly.

Again great shots.

Andy.

newrmdmike · Aug 14, 2007

thanks guys! and yeah puscas thats me in the back

i did my best to stay out of the shots, but with a whole wall of mirrors some shots i'm stuck in.

i'm with you though, its a big pet peeve of mine, but it was a cool angle so i went for it anyways. at least you don't see my camera really . . . if i had pocketwizards or a trigger i would have set it down there and moved out of the way, but i don't have either.

and yeah, the colors aren't real saturated, but still look different here than on the computer i was using there . . . but i like the way it looks so i'll leave them all.

not to offend tkd . . . but its ****e compared with muay thai if you ask me, i think its a beautiful sport, but its just that, a sport. Muay thai has been around much longer, and is even more efficient for the thai build than some other people. i've seen lots of mixed style fights, and muay thai seems to usually take the cake. part of it is probobly also due to the fact that the fights these guys have are what puts food in their mouths. most tkd fighters (even professionals) don't rely on it like the thais. they are scrappers to the max. my trainer has over 200 pro muay thai fights, and another of the guys who is now retired after a couple hundred fights is down to 1 eye. the last day i was there the police stopped him while he was jogging thinking he was a criminal running from someone or somethign. . . some of them look pretty rough.