In today’s world, people expect trainers to be “certified” in whatever field they are teaching. Being certified as a trainer gives your clients assurance that you know what you are doing. In a perfect world, this system would work. Getting a certification would mean you are qualified to teach. However, the reality is that just because you are certified, doesn’t really mean anything.
The truth is that anyone with a bit of money and time can get certified in practically anything.
Take tennis for example. If you were trying to find the best tennis coach out there, would you look to see if they had an instructor certificate? No, you would probably look at the coaches background. You would find out where they learned to play tennis and how they did as a player and which students they currently train.
A certification from a Tennis Association that says they are qualified to teach doesn’t mean they are good or bad. Anyone can go through a training system and get certified to teach. This is the reality of the world we live in.
Being a Qualified Instructor Requires Years of Training and Dedication
Nobody will ever argue Master Toddy’s credentials as a trainer, only his weekend certifications.
My issue with certifications first started in the weight room many years ago. I used to see people who didn’t know a thing about weightlifting, training people at the gym because they had a certification saying “personal trainer.” Instead of actually teaching proper compound lifts like squats and dead lifts that require technique, they taught people how to raise their leg up and down on a machine. Years ago, I came to the conclusion that anyone could become “certified” to teach practically anything.
One of the reasons why there are certifications in Muay Thai is because of the influence of Karate. Since Karate is all about rankings and tests, a lot of people who started adopting Muay Thai continued to follow the same Karate traditions of being ranked and having testing.
When it comes to being a good trainer, experience is only one aspect of it. There are a number of factors that make someone a good trainer. To find out what you should look for in a good trainer read this article: Find the Right Muay Thai Trainer – 5 Things To Look For
One of the most common certifications you can get in Muay Thai is the Master Toddy Instructor Course. While this might be a really good crash course on Muay Thai, there is no way someone should become a certified instructor after 4 days of training with someone.
Even though Master Toddy might be one of the best trainers around, getting a certificate from him will not make you understand and know his style. That is like going to a gym with a Muay Thai superstar and hoping his skill will transfer over to you over a few weeks. It won’t.
Certifications are a North American Invention
In my 3+ years of training in Thailand, I have never been taught by a “certified” Thai trainer. Now to the average person, this statement would make you think “What?! How did these guys even get hired.” When the reality is, Thailand is a different scenario. These trainers are hired because of their vast experience in the ring and their knowledge of the sport.
My trainer Run got his “certification” from years of experience fighting in Lumpinee and Rajadamnern stadium and achieving a number #1 ranking. That is far better than someone who simply has a certificate saying they are qualified to teach. His skill and knowledge of the sport is far superior than most people who have instructor certificates.
If You Must Be Certified….
For people who are set on getting a certification simply for resume purposes, there are a few options out there.
The official Muay Thai Institute of Thailand offers instructor certification courses that take place over the course of an entire month. To participate in the course, you are required to have a minimum of 5 professional fights for an instructor level 1, 10 fights for a level 2 and 30+ fights for level 3 certification. To me, this sends a message that they actually want instructors to have experience fighting in the ring, something that is an essential aspect of Muay Thai.
In addition to the Muay Thai Institutes strict fight requirement (something I agree with), the famous Sityodtong gym takes it one step further. Here was a recent post on their facebook page.
Translation: You actually have to train with us for years and learn our style if you want to be a certified instructor.
In my opinion, Sityodtong gets it right. Instead of profiteering from their reputation as a gym, they require students to train with them for at least 5 years if they want to be associated with the gym.
Real Certification Comes From Experience
In an ideal world, anyone who wants to teach Muay Thai should learn from the source. Book a one way ticket to Thailand and eat, sleep, and breathe the sport. Even if you have no intentions to be a fighter, you should get ring experience to understand what it is like to be a fighter. Become a sponge and soak up as much knowledge as you can. Find a trainer that cares about you and stick with him.
Since we don’t live in a perfect world where everyone can train in Thailand, there are a lot of good trainers out there who teach authentic Muay Thai. The key is finding them. It takes dedication, commitment and persistence if you want to gain a next level understanding of Muay Thai.
The reality is, we live in a funny instant mcdojo culture where the students think by doing one session of Muay Thai they are badass enough to fight a bear, and that’s
Dear Stephen,
Yours is an interesting and informative blog post about Instructor Courses here in Thailand, and we thank you for showing respect to Master Toddy at times during your post. There are a few things we would like to clear up in respect to the culture of Muay Thai, becoming an Instructor (with us) and also the way in which we train people to become Instructors.
Much like Sityodtong we also require people coming to train to become an Instructor to have previous experience before they are offered a place on our course. There is a popular misconception propagated on the Internet that we allow any paying customers to become an Instructor in a few days – this is not the case and is often reported incorrectly by people who have information provided to them via social media and word of mouth, without ever finding out the actual information for themselves.
Our course is a 5 day intensive course, which Muay Thai practitioners with many years of previous experience, training, fighting, and training other people can join to become certified by us and the MTIA. We do not allow people with no experience to join the course. We require that people include detailed information on how many students they have trained and their achievements, who they have trained under, their achievements, video links showcasing their skills as a fighter and/or instructor, and their own fight record etc.
The above is not mentioned on our website, but we can assure you that every single person that has ever expressed an interest in becoming an Instructor is put through the same stringent process each & every time we review an application. The majority of people are turned down for the course, as you can imagine.
After the course people are required to prove they are training correctly within the guidelines set out by us and the Ministry of Education here in Thailand. They are required to show their grading techniques, ongoing development of the style we teach, as well as showing that they are grading people to the required standard in order to keep their status, and licence. They are also required to re-certify annually and continue to provide ongoing updates on their grading, training and gym development.
We as an organisation are licenced by the Thai Government as a Centre of Education and therefore have to adhere to strict guidelines to protect the integrity of the sport of Muay Thai. This is a responsibility, and law we adhere to on a daily basis and one we do not take lightly. If we were to breach this agreement with the Ministry of Education, we would lose our licence to train people to Instructor level, and could potentially even be shut down.
The Education ministry here in Thailand often visit our gym for updates, and to see for themselves the training that our instructors are teaching to people all over the world. A huge amount of work goes into keeping standards high, and making sure that Muay Thai is taught in the right way without exception.
There have been incidents in the past where people have used our name, and the MTIA to promote themselves as Instructors, and we continue to monitor and remove any association with anyone not properly licenced by us to use the name and teach our style of Muay Thai.
We hope this post clears up some of the grey areas which are often mentioned on forums and social media, as well as blog posts such as this.
If you would like to engage with us in further dialogue on this matter, please contact us directly and we will be very happy to speak to you further.
Master Toddy & MTIA
I totally understand the situation, as a personal trainer in the uk, I have been to many different Muay Thai gyms to learn the beautiful art that it is. The problem is much of the pad work is passed down from gym owner who spent several months in Thailand and came back and won K1 fights and passed his knowledge down to his fighters who have never been and teach the classes, which leads to diluted bad technique.
Having trained Muay Thai for over 3 years and gained my certificate at master Toddy’s I now have better knowledge of Muay Thai and delivery fun technical training sessions in a health club, which legally I need to provide qualifications for. I have seen lots of trainers hold pads for there clients and it has been very poor, pads held with arms flying everywhere and hand bags being thrown. Delivering strong basic techniques guides my clients to respect Muay Thai.
I train with a European and world title holder for the last 3 years. I never walk in my fight gym and tell everyone I hold this qualification and im better than everyone else or use my qualification to promote myself as a coach for fighters.
Experience in the fight world is fighting and not holding a piece of paper but the western world loves certificates and paper work. Bigger the list of qualification the bigger the pay cheque.
So not every certificate is abused by western personal trainers.
Thanks
Peter
If you trained in Thailand and have experience, that is what matters. My critique is for the people who get a certificate (i know someone who got one) who should not be qualified as trainers.
Funny that Sityodtong said that. Walter Michalowski out of Pasadena did not train at Sityodtong for five years. He paid to use the name.
Good morning;
I write this message from australia, I’m interested to will do one course of muay thai i’m a begginer but i like to know more information about (fees, type of course and specially if give any certification I can use in Europe).
Regards.
Branko.
Hey, visit any Training camp and get hands-on experience. If you want to teach Muay Thai you attempt to master it first, before you try to teach others. Think of someone who has never played basketball, doing a weekend course so they can become a basketball coach. Would you want to have someone train you with that kind of experience? Probably not.
I am one of the new certified Muay Thai Trainers through Master Toddy’s Academy in Thailand.as per my experienced in the Academy,they taught us the SPEED OF LEARNING,so i consider myself as a beginner(orthodox),though i am a kickboxing/boxing trainer(southpaw).
IN MASTER TODDY ACADEMY YOU WILL NOT STAY WHERE YOU ARE,i mean you get the course if you have experienced etc.but you need to learn more and more of it.its not because we are already certified,we will just sit and do nothing,NO the thing is that is just the beginning,we have a lot of process to follow,to upgrade our knowledge. that’s speed of learning i learned.
yes and no…
you can be a good instructor of muay thai without fight in a ring… basically there are people that is not interested in competition, but they know all about techniques, training, diets, workouts, etc, etc…