Your first Muay Thai class in Ho Chi Minh City

A first Muay Thai class is mostly learning to stand. More of the hour goes on moving your feet than on hitting anything, and the hitting is deliberately light and slow. The shape is the same in most gyms in Ho Chi Minh City: wraps on, a warm up that has you breathing hard before any technique starts, two or three things drilled over and over, then pads or a bag, then stretching. Nobody spars on day one at a gym worth training at.

Before the class starts

Turn up fifteen minutes early the first time. Hands need wrapping, and if nobody has shown you how, somebody there will. Wraps go around the wrist first, then the knuckles, then between the fingers. They hold the small bones of the hand together when it lands on something solid, and a loose wrap is worse than none.

Then shoes off. Muay Thai is trained barefoot on mats, which catches most people out for the first week. Shins take the worst of it early, because they are both the main weapon and the main block, and they have never been asked to do either before.

The session, in order

1. Warm up, ten to fifteen minutes. Skipping, shadow work, footwork up and down the mat. It is there to raise the heart rate and open the hips, and on a first day it already counts as the workout.
2. Technique, around twenty minutes. A coach shows one or two things and breaks them down. Usually the jab and the teep, the straight push kick, sometimes the round kick. Everything gets drilled slowly with a partner holding pads.
3. Pads or bag. This is where something gets hit with intent, in short rounds of two or three minutes with a rest between them. Most people work out in the first round that two minutes is a long time to keep your hands up.
4. Conditioning. Knees on the bag, core work, sometimes nothing at all if the technique block ran long.
5. Stretch and out. Hips, hamstrings, shoulders, and the calves that have been holding you on the balls of your feet for an hour.

What to bring

Shorts loose enough to kick in, a t-shirt, water and a small towel. Hand wraps if you own a pair. Most gyms lend gloves for a first class, though borrowed gloves have been sweated in by somebody else, which is why a pair of your own is usually the second purchase people make after wraps. Shin guards come later, once partner drills involve contact. At Primal, gloves and wraps are part of the equipment kept on the floor for members to use.

The three things beginners worry about

Getting hit is the first one, and a first class has no sparring in it. That is not a gentle introduction, it is how the sport is taught, because a beginner who cannot hold a guard learns nothing from being hit and risks a fair amount. Sparring arrives once the basics hold up under fatigue, and that takes weeks.

The second is being the least fit person in the room. Somebody is, and it is rarely the new person, because everyone else is halfway through their own bad round. Sitting one out is normal, and coaches read that as judgement rather than weakness.

The third is not knowing the words. Teep, clinch, check, round kick. The vocabulary arrives over a month or two, asking mid drill is ordinary, and a coach would much rather answer a question than watch somebody guess at a name and then guess at the movement.

Where Muay Thai sits in a gym

In Ho Chi Minh City the sport is taught in dedicated fight gyms and, less often, inside general clubs that keep a combat room. The difference that matters to a beginner is not the equipment, it is whether a coach watches your kick land and says something about it. Primal runs Muay Thai on its Combat floor alongside boxing and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and a session there finishes with about fifteen minutes on the recovery floor.

FAQ

Do you need to be fit before your first Muay Thai class?

No. The warm up scales by how much of it you do, not by how much is asked. Sitting out a round on a first day is normal and nobody comments on it. The fitness comes from the classes rather than before them.

Will you spar in your first class?

No. Sparring starts once you can hold a guard and throw a kick without losing balance, which is weeks of work rather than days. A first class is technique and pads.

What should you wear?

Shorts you can kick in, a t-shirt, and no shoes. Long leggings work but they fight a high kick. Bring water and a towel, and tie long hair back before the warm up rather than during it.

How sore is the next day?

Shins and hip flexors mostly, and more than an hour of anything usually earns. It eases over the first few weeks as the tissue gets used to being loaded that way. Two classes a week is a sensible place to start.