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The Muay Thai Development League Lands in Maryland

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The MDL made it’s long awaited debut here in Maryland!
Originally started off under the YDL name and focusing ONLY on youth bouts, the MDL has grown to include Adult competition as well. These events are geared towards matching students of Muay Thai up by aggression level. This was what attracted me to these events right away. I believe there is true value in bringing our students along from one level to the next. Even within our gym, we start people off in an Intro Program to focus on teaching them the fundamental knowledge of Muay Thai. Our new students start off by learning the proper stance, movement, and then move on to technique in a 4 Week Introductory Course. Then from there they move on to our intermediate class, where they will really learn how to put all those fundamentals to use.
The majority of our students train for fun and fitness. So many of not most will never compete in Muay Thai. One thing that really separates Level Up’s Muay Thai and Kickboxing programs from so many other gyms in the area is our ability to prepare ANYONE who does want to compete. All of our students that have gone on to become Regional, National, or World Champions started with ZERO experience. Our method to getting even the most unsuspecting student competition ready has been our process of moving them through each level. SO for those that are interested in competition, we have a level test to make sure they really know their Defense, and our systems for Offense before moving into sparring. We also have a process for drilling to help them overcome some of the harder aspects to learn when you first start sparring.
Competition wise, the general flow has always been to start them off in Exhibitions, where there is no winner announced. These are valuable in our opinion because they give us a look at what our students will look like in a simulated fight, at a fight pace, in a more controlled environment. We hold these exhibitions events regularly at Level Up to help our students and other gyms all over the East Coast progress. Generally from there, they move on to shows, and tournaments, then to international tournaments, and big title fights.
MDL offers a step between sparring and even the Exhibition level. Because of the aggression system they have in place, and even having a level that has no head contact, the MDL makes it possible for anyone with competent training and the courage to step on the mat the ability to try out competing. For the Youth Competitors especially starting off with no head contact helps them develop their other tools, specifically the kicks to the body and legs, their teeps and push kicks (straight kicks to the body) knees, and clinch. As opposed to one kid that might be a little slugger overwhelming the rest of the kids with a flurry of punches to the head.
This also carries over to the adults, and is especially a great way for our team specifically to work on rounding out their game as much as possible. We are Level Up Boxing for a reason haha. As a very Boxing-Centric Muay Thai (known as Muay Mat) its always good to have to focus more on our other tools. For this MDL we took a small group of 3 adults and one of our Youth students. Tank, Sunny, Ms Lolita, and our young gun Suraj.
Tank and Sunny both have competition experience, and are both preparing to compete at the WKA National Muay Thai and Kickboxing tournament in Delaware at the end of August. This event having controlled contact was safe even being only a few weeks out from the big tournament. What makes it extremely valuable to me as a Coach is being able to see what they throw in a more live environment, if they respond to commands, and even more specifically which type of commands they respond to best. That’s one of the most important assets to these events for Coaches, strengthening communication during competition.
Sunny was up first for us. She had a great technical match. Her opponent came out pretty strong which was perfect since we are looking to sharpen some tools for the tournament. Sunny kept a cool head, listened amazingly, threw everything we called and displayed beautiful skill. We are super excited for her to be back in the ring in a few weeks.
Next our guy Tank. Tank is a heavyweight fighter. He’s had two Boxing exhibitions, and 2 Muay Thai fights. He’s an undersized heavy weight to put it simply. Size does matter when it comes to fighting, but it is possible to still be successful if you really work on your skill. Tank is a great fighter, his name describes him pretty perfectly. He’s tough as nails, and virtually unfazed when things heat up. Our core mode for our Fight Team is aggressive, but there’s undeniably something about slick defense that has always been just as important to me when training our students. Tank found that gear recently and did an amazing job of switching back and forth between an aggressive but technical style, and elusive defense. He was composed, he was tactical, he threw every thing we called, he had great instincts of his own when attacking, and really showed so much of what we train. I couldn’t be more proud of him. Recently we have given him the nickname Swaggy Tank for implementing the slickness into his game, he absolutely validated the moniker last weekend.
Next up we had our Team Mom Ms Lolita, who is 57 years young compete for the first time. I really cant fully explain how amazing she is, and I feel like she deserves a full write up of her own. So be on the look out for that coming soon. For now, I’ll just tell you that so many people in their 20’s in the best shape of their life won’t even jump into something like this. The level of trust she put in her team, and the way the team rallied around her to make sure she was ready is really what Level Up is all about. Congrats on your First Fight!!
Last and maybe most important our guy Suraj aka Suraji P! This young man has been training with us since he was a little guy! He’s 14 now but Works in with the adult classes. And in sparring you better now take him light cause his jab is Bud Crawford-esque. One of our many southpaws at the gym, Suraj carries on the legacy of highly competitive lefties. The southpaw stance is a tricky thing depending on where you go. A lot of gyms won’t, can’t, or just don’t know how to train Southpaws. It’s always been a specialty of ours. Suraj showed that on Sunday in both of his bouts for sure. His matches where in the light head contact category. So he was able to utilize his Boxing, which is one of his strongest tools. The light head contact again though forces these athletes to focus on other tools. Suraj did a great job using set up pouches to land kicks, and really utilized great work in the Clinch, landing some beautiful knees, turns, and ALMOST got a sweep haha. We got a lot of great data for him to work on for his next competition which is also going to be the WKA tournament at the end of August.
We had an absolute blast at this event. We have been campaigning for them to come to Maryland since 2018 haha. So we are ecstatic Patrick Rivera of the WBC made his way out here to give the Maryland and surrounding area gyms the opportunity to compete. We want to thank Matthew Van Valkenburgh for running the MDL alongside Patrick. Matthew has been doing a hell of a job getting the Youth scrimmages going here in MD, and this is another massive step in the right direction for the sport.
I also want to thank our teammates that came out to support, Josh, Leo, Liza, Pape, Sey, and Adrian. Adrian and Pape also helped corner this weekend and did a great job. I also gotta give Sey a big shoutout for taking time to work with Ms Lolita as well. They worked on her teep a bunch, which was one of her best weapons. I’m truly grateful for our team. You guys make this the best job on earth.
Coach Jason aka Peter Parker
Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Coach