Kickboxing

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Feedback on Muay Thai Seminar by Shihan George Kolovos

I would like to extend a sincere thank you to Shihan George Kolovos for making the time to come down to Monash and sharing his knowledge with the Monash University Kickboxing Club on the subject of Muay Thai (especially as he has not been well this week).

The purpose of putting on any Seminar is to learn from other Instructors and discover more distinctions between techniques and training methods, and see what we can apply to our own training.

It was great to see the variations within Muay Thai between different schools. It’s interesting to note that there are so many ways to throw the same technique and to assess the pro’s and con’s of each method.

For example, the way Ajarn Chai Sirisute teaches the upward diagonal elbow or spinning back elbow is different from the way Kru Mark Castagnini teaches it, which is again, slightly different from the way Shihan George Kolovos teaches it (which could be different again from the way you or your Instructor teaches it).

To be aware of the differences and the advantages or disadvantages of each way of elbowing (or kneeing or clinching, etc) gives us the opportunity to find out which way works best for us as individuals (or which method works best against certain opponents or in particular scenarios), rather than sticking to one way just because that’s the only way we know.

The other good thing about training in a Seminar format is that the Guest Instructor can break things down, stop and take the time to explain concepts in detail, unlike a regular class, where the focus is usually on getting as much “physical action” into a session as possible.

The feedback from the students whoe attended has been very positive. Everyone enjoyed the seminar and got a lot out of it, and they’re looking forward to training with George at future Seminars.


Kacey Chong

P.S. Thanks to Darren Bauer for coming down and assisting George – he did a great job.