You should read this before you start &

you are half way to achieving your goals. 

Most people start not really knowing what to expect or what they want beyond, getting fit, learning self defence or finding something fun to do. That’s great, people are forged as they go and find there goals along the way. Some stay for a few months some years. Stay as long as it works for you. Life is about choices, adaptions, challenges and living your best version of yourself.

I write so much and express what we do in words because it has never been about Muay Thai and learning to fight or being fitter, losing weight, doing push up’s, etc etc. It is about being a ‘martial’ artist that sets an example and lives with a code, and a strong character. It makes my life more fulfilling and me more competent at what I do. It would have less meaning if I did not share it with others to improve their lives and inspire people to live their best life and never quit. Have  a northern star, a center line and escape from the world and you will thrive. Muay Thai is the center line.

Anyone that can routinely put themselves into adversity can never be unhappy. 

Everything I hope to do is transferrable to any sport, work or life. Muay Thai is just the medium, personally I apply it to Mountain Bike Riding, and it has helped me be successful in my working life and every challenge that life presents. We don’t get to choose our greatest challenges but we can be prepared. Being Phoenix is about rising up again from every challenge, being forged in fire because you have over come a set back, achieved a challenging goal, never given up and no matter what happens, you will rise again and live on stronger than before.

Phoenix lives by our slogans and we have many! The main ones being: Motivation is unreliable – Discipline is Key. 100% Tested on Humans. Live your best life. Be tougher to Kill. Fitter Faster Stronger Tougher. Actions Cures Fear. Shut up and Train. Forged in Fire.

Please read each section to learn more about what’s behind what we do. 

THE CORE OF PHOENIX

80% of achievement is just showing up.

Our “style” of training varies from class to class, and program to program. We try to develop a community of likeminded people who like to train together and benefit from each other. You will follow a process of continual development and improvement over time.  For it to work – you must be consistent.  For it to work, you must work hard, participate fully, develop discipline and commit at every session. Our training will change your perspective of what you think you are capable of: what tough is, what strong is, what fast is, what you can do without quitting, how far you can go and that you can take a punch and give one back if you must. You will build and improve every time you visit. You turn up, you will improve your fitness and skill. Everyone has different abilities, different levels, goals and desires, and everyone learns and adapts differently.

1. You only improve with consistency, deliberate focus, discipline, enjoyment, satisfaction and teamwork.
2. You only truly learn about your self and can be satisfied with life when you are FORGED IN FIRE.
3. That everyone should develop resilience through adversity on a regular basis.
4. People need balance in their lives: community, work, family, friends, sport and demanding physical exercise.
5. If everyone trains in a supportive environment, everyone will improve. No one can do it alone.
6. That life is about choice. You can choose and decide what ever you want. It just depends on how hard you are prepared to work and what you are prepared to sacrifice. Everyone who trains wants to do it as best they can, but everyone has different constraints, abilities, and life pressures.
7. That everyone has excuses but you leave them at the door when you come to train at Phoenix. You are responsible for yourself.
8. Any exercise you do requires discipline. Motivation is unreliable. The reason you train and must train regularly is because it makes you feel better. The drugs (happy chemicals from training) are free and your whole day will better! It is short term, yes, but it will make your life better.
9. Mental health is hugely important and integral to physical health. What we do contributes to your resilience, your mental strength, your stress release and provides an outlet and escape from difficulties in your life.
10. Everyone one at Phoenix is coached to be the best they can be and to be able to compete at Muay Thai. However 90% of members never compete. The entire club is a fight team.
11. Competition at Muay Thai is extremely challenging and requires obsession and commitment when you are competing. If you are not competing, Phoenix training is more important than competition and exists before and after competition.
12. Phoenix is a great part of your life but it shouldn’t become your life, just a great part of it.
13. We are more ‘Average Joes’ than ‘Globo Gym’. If you haven’t seen Dodgeball, you are missing out. That said, we aspire to ensure everyone develops and improves.
14. Phoenix is an escape from SM and a time for yourself. We don’t care that we are out of touch and don’t attract shallow ego posers.

Your training is not working if improved performance in life is not happening. Phoenix offers a lot and what you take from it must improve an aspect of your life. Purpose, achievement, stress release, community, dealing with adversity, pride etc. We train because it feels good and you get satisfaction. We challenge each other so we are all better. The goal is not to win at Phoenix but to be the best you can be for your life in and outside of Phoenix. At Phoenix you train with integrity, teamwork, and individual maximum effort. If training at Phoenix helps you deal with work, have an outlet, carry the groceries, live longer for your family or give you an escape to test yourself and develop pride – then Phoenix is working for you.

Training makes you feel better

What Works Principle.

All our programs provide the highest return on investment for training time. We do not focus on excessive complexity which does not equal a valuable reward for time spent. We have a stringent grading system that helps you progress.

Muay Thai:  We train effective skills that you can do in a short period of time, and work most of the time against most people. They are tested, proven, and based on damage and effectiveness. The defences are reaction based, simple and capable of grasping in a realistic situation.

Any martial art that teaches memory-based activity, air based rehearsed movements, and does not do head contact but will grade you on your payment plan and memory to regurgitate skills under no pressure, is a complete waste of time and money.

Fitness:  Is integral to what we do. You have to get fitter and be fit to do it. It if fitness with a purpose. We do basic exercises you can learn fast and improve on. We do bodyweight movements and utilise strength equipment like barbells, kettle bells, sleds, and many other random weighted objects to build strength, endurance, speed, and conditioning that will carry over into your life. Our fitness is simple, fun and works, and it develops and improves your character in conjunction with your health and fitness.

Training with Phoenix is like compound interest: the longer you work at the better you get, the better you are and the better your life will be. It all adds up and it all benefits you.

Character/GRIT/TTFU:  The greatest weapon you have is your mind. Your fitness and skill will improve in conjunction with your mental strength, ability to deal with adversity and everything we do can translate into having a better life and living longer. Learning to take a punch to the face and learning you are capable of so much more will enhance you.

Work Ethic

Phoenix is a community of people and we have developed a great community that you can be a part of. People come to train but they commit to training to not let others down. We have a team: everyone works with partners and everyone comes to training to say hello and see people that they work with, share sweat with, sacrifice with, and see improvement amongst the team.

A condition of entry is no phones or devices. We talk to each other, we work hard, we are present and we drive each other. We do not pose in the mirror, watch our heart rates on a screen and try to be ‘instafamous’ because we did a nice rib kick. We earn respect through the integrity of our efforts and we support others that work hard. We run a keep up program and will give you a hand up if you try hard and don’t winge. Turn up!

I actively discourage SM use and insta famous/FB greedy/Snap chat demanding and tic doc addicts from joining to increase their followers. I believe when you are training – pay attention, don’t be there to get attention. Many people don’t like that they cant constantly share and check their stories and followers, that’s fine, Phoenix is not for you. SM is a massive distraction, addiction and  we are helping people leave their phones in the car and focus on them for a few minutes a day.

“‘Phoenix’ is Latin for Discipline.”
Hope is not enough. There is no shortcut. There is no supplement, app, pill, or motivational talk that will do the work for you. Motivation is extremely unreliable, and your desires and goals are often weak and fail the first test of sacrifice. There is no substitute to hard work, commitment, and dedication.

Character & Integrity

Character (& Fitness) is the 1000 decisions a day that you make; NOT just 1 hr at training.

At Phoenix we live what we do and encourage people to realise that your health and fitness evolves around the 100 choices you make a day. Get out of bed! Decide how you turn up: is it Muesli or fruit loops, is it water or soft drink, is it the gym or drinking with mates, is it the stairs or the lift. What can you do every day and what type of life do you want. The choices are what make you.

Integrity of what we do and what you do.

Our training is real. It gets you fitter, faster, stronger, and tougher – you just have to turn up! Our marketing is real. We say what we do and do what we say. We have values, philosophies and a code of conduct that we live by that are not marketing tools. Everything we do has been tested and it works. We are honest with you and we are honest with our training on all levels. We encourage everyone to turn up but we will also tell you if you need to work harder or address a particular area of your training so you can go further.

Integrity in what we expect from you means to do the exercises correctly, count correctly, and focus on doing things right. We have challenges but we do not race. We perform to our best, with no short cuts, no missed reps, abbreviations and changing it up so you appear to do better. You cannot hide in Muay Thai and we do not want people to have any false impressions. Your integrity counts, everyone notices! We can adapt due to injury or load required of your workout, but we remain accountable to ourselves and the integrity of yourself & Phoenix.

Martial Artist or Fighter.

A Martial Artist trains for themselves and their team and lives as a martial artist all year.

At Phoenix we train at martial artists practicing Muay Thai, Kickboxing and everything that follows ‘what works’ principle. Living fit and healthy and being a good person is integral to being a martial artist. Everyone at Phoenix is trained to be a martial artist that is competent and realistic. You can fight if you must have the resilience to stand up to the world’s challenges.  You face and conquer adversity routinely and grow you and those around you.

Phoenix trains fighters. Without the ability to fight you are not a true martial artist. We all have something to fight and strive for. A person we want to be that is better than the person we are without the martial discipline.

You can train to compete at Phoenix, but we do so much more as the basis for regular training. You are always training for a fight, ready to fight and doing it because it makes you, a better you every day. If you want to compete, this is a focus, a phase of obsession and relentlessness you must commit to. You ‘step up’ from the martial training for a period but never drop below the daily martial focus. We don’t train to fight only, and you don’t stop when you’re done, you don’t train in cycles only for a fight or do camps when it suits you, you are part of a team and are training all the time. We aim to live as martial artists. Your purpose if your next fight but your higher goal is to be a better martial artist. To test yourself, to learn through struggle and improve is a great challenge. It is only a part of the bigger picture as being a martial artist for life is more important for you, the team and the future.

 Muay Thai differently.

Muay Thai and anything Martial Art related we do is different because we have constantly developed it and improved it for over 25 years. We follow a ‘what works’ principle based on good character and strong values. We say ‘different’ because we are proven, real and capable of delivering what we say. There is no industry standard and no regulation about what people are ‘sold’, ‘marketed’ or influenced to believe and our integrity is proven.

We do Muay Thai with a kickboxing style because it works and proven world wide. We believe the martial side of ‘martial’ arts is critical for credibility and most modern franchise with no contact, form orientated black belt kid grading systems with no contact are Mcdojo rubbish.

We are not fitness trainers with a 2-day pad holding course or people with two weeks in Thailand at a Muay Thai camp. We are coaches and trainers 100% dedicated to what we do. We have tested everything we do in competition and life and have been committed to passing it on to you as the main focus of our lives.  The head trainer we have has spent the vast bulk of his life training, fighting, and learning Martial Arts with extensive competition and real-world fighting experience. He also has an extensive background in program development and has structured Phoenix to be developmental for everyone. Phoenix follows modern coaching principles and is not constrained by tradition. We want to share the PRIDE that we have to inspire and add to your life.

Phoenix is a world class program that follows a detailed curriculum. We coach everyone to be the best they can be.  What you do with those skills is up to you. You will probably never compete, but your life will improve and if you ever need the skills you learnt at Phoenix to save your life – they will.

Muay Thai is not the same everywhere: it is not McDonalds.  Our Muay Thai ensures you can go anywhere in the world and people will respect your skills and you will be forever proud of what you have learnt and where you learnt it from.

A Bus Ride

Phoenix is a just a bus ride.

I have always been it for the long ride but you cannot expect others to be. People will get on and off the bus as it suits their life. The best we can do is ensure that while people are on the bus, they have the best experience they can and that when they get off, they remember the ride got them somewhere, they sat near some good people and had a great journey. Some will stay and get upgrades, and move around the bus, but eventually most will get off and new people will get on. Some will help with the drive along the way, some will get off and on another bus in another direction.

Phoenix can feel like moving train you are running to catch up to and then holding on.

It can be daunting to start. Everyone here started like you. You can sit around and wait to your fit enough to join – then you never will. Or just get on with it. Catch up to the train, jump on, hang on and before long you will be cruising, comfortable and ready for your next challenge. But hang on you must!

The HARD Principle

• That anything in life worth achieving is HARD to achieve.
• That everyone should have a HARD place to go to wake up to them selves and test themselves.
• That you are who you are because of the HARD not the easy things in life.
• That everyone should have adversity on a daily basis.
• That wheels on luggage and E-bikes are soft and weak and lead to weakness.
• That soft breads softness and hard breed’s success.
• That you don’t choose life’s greatest challenges and have to prepare for them.