Hey everyone,

I'm 29M, 169 cm (5'6"), and I started kickboxing about 3–4 months ago. My main motivation was to build confidence and get fitter. So far, I've gone from 80 kg (176 lbs) down to 74 kg (163 lbs), and I'm also noticing a lot of personal growth outside of just the weight loss.

Right now I train 3 times a week for 2 hours each session, with one of those sessions being sparring.

I've completely fallen in love with the sport, and honestly, kickboxing is on my mind all the time. Because of that, I'm thinking about spending a month in Thailand next year to really immerse myself in training.

The only thing I'm unsure about is whether that makes sense as a beginner. I'm not interested in competing or becoming a fighter—I just want to improve, learn as much as I can, and experience the training culture.

Has anyone here gone to Thailand as a beginner? Would you say a month is worth it, or should I wait until I have more experience?

I'd really appreciate hearing about your experiences and any advice you have

Id like some advice from you guys, I’ve been kickboxing for 2 weeks and I have a little bit of boxing background nothing too much and I’m overall very athletic, I’m going to fight my first kick light fight in 2 weeks (august 9th) what should I do to prepare outside the gym?

I have an upcoming fight and I’m curious about using a strong stimulant (pre workout booster) before competing. I’ve used it before training and felt very focused and “in the zone”, but I’m wondering whether the effect would be different during an actual fight due to the adrenaline and elevated heart rate.
For those with fight experience: Have you ever used a strong stimulant before competing? Did you feel it helped or hurt your performance, especially regarding cardio, focus, and staying calm under pressure?

What's the best combo to use consecutively in kickboxing against an opponent that really works? And how can I quickly anticipate the next move from the player and avoid it?

Someone from a powerlifting background who wants to progress fast-in strength sports we have a RPE scale so how heavy should first set first exercize be and backoff sets percentage drop...but in kickboxing that is new for me only trained for 5 months and doing eveything that coach says...i want to get better at bag training but i dont know if you feel fresh do you start with strongest combo and do few power rounds so really hard combo few times then technical work? And if its a day that you want to just train technical to recover what do you do how % out of 100 or how fast do you punch how long of intervals do you do which zone of cardio should it be...is there like website for beginner combos program? So like a gym program with main lifts and acessories for best combos to get all skills really fast?

Last night at my class I found I had almost no confidence to punch, I threw a few kicks aiming for the head but that was pretty much it, I literally let myself get hit.

I just found I had no confidence to throw so I mainly just worked on defence. My coach was expecting us all to work and before she had said that I told my sparring partner to go easy on me.

I don't know if it was just my mindset because I had been struggling with that, but we had also done a really intense warmup and I couldn't even feel my legs by the end of it.

So I'm just unsure, I find that I don't want to hurt my partner and when I jab I find I don't actually hit them I more or less hit in front of them.

Please just give me your honest opinions on what could be happening. 😔