Listen to your Kru, but sometimes don't

A lot of my students over the years have heard me joke about how I’ll never compliment them. The basis behind this joke is similar to the commentator’s curse in sports broadcasts—the moment I compliment a student, they screw up. If I’m only making negative comments to students, they always perform their best. I’m mostly joking, but all jokes have a bit of truth to them.

Krus are always trying to bring the best out of their athletes…well, good krus anyway. It becomes easy for us krus to constantly point out the things that need to be corrected. Most of the time I fully believe this is a good thing. Improving takes consistent work and consistent feedback. The feedback always comes from a place of trying to help the athlete improve, but the feedback is more about what you’re doing wrong than what you’re doing right. Turn your hips over more, bring your punch straight back, step more, step less, rotate your shoulders, move your head, keep your chin down, etc. Enough of these helpful tips can have anyone feeling like they can’t do anything right.

This negative side effect can be multiplied tenfold the first time you make the trek to Thailand to train. You will have multiple trainers with different styles watching you, telling you to do things the way they do or the way they learned. While all of these ways are correct, as the saying goes, there is more than one way to cook an egg. So these tidbits of knowledge can clash with one another. You’re trying to do one technique three different ways and just end up doing it all wrong.

Muay Thai is difficult enough. Learn to walk a mile one step at a time. When you’re presented with many pieces of advice, try to work on one or two and ignore the rest. Yes, you may upset a kru for that day but they’ll get over it. Remember, this is your journey, your progress, and your style you are developing, not theirs. 

Now I have to remind you, though, to still listen to your kru. The pieces of advice you ignored should be tried once you worked out the technique/advice you were focused on when you ignored it in the first place. It’s going to be messy trying to decipher when to listen and when to maybe ignore. That’s just part of the journey. 

I’m not writing all of this to make you frustrated or more confused. I’m trying to let you know when you have feelings of being overwhelmed or feeling like you’re being told to do things that either don’t make sense or go against something you were taught, you’re not alone.

Keep training, focus on improving 1% everyday, and don’t try to force 10% improvement if it isn’t happening. Take one thing at a time and you’ll get far. All-in-all, ensure you’re listening to your kru but sometimes don’t 😆.