A life long martial artist, Olivier Heuninckx has been Muay Boran crazy for since 2003, and in 2010 was lucky enough to stumble across Muay Chaiya and Baan Chang Thai. Since then he has found new vigour to his training and development of his learning and has recently opened a school in his home country Belgium.Here's Olivier's story on finding Muay Thai Chaiya...
"After 14 years of learning Martial Arts, I started learning Thai Martial Arts in 2003. I started with ring Muay Thai, then after seeing Ong Bak, I got interested in the more traditional side and started learning Muay Boran and Krabi Krabong. I searched for schools and teachers in Europe and Thailand and trained with them for 8 years. I learned a lot from them, but still had questions and doubts about Thai Martial Arts.
In my quest I got in touch with many different styles of Thai Martial Arts, but the one that interested me the most was Muay Chaiya. So I searched for a Muay Chaiya teacher and found Kru Lek and his school Baan Chang Thai. I then searched for any information about Muay Chaiya, books, articles, videos and on the internet.
It was then that I got in touch with Kru Lek's student Nathan Brown who was posting technical videos of Muay Chaiya on Youtube. From these videos, I started training immediately at home. For me it was clear what he was talking about because there were similarities in the footwork, techniques and strategies with what I had learned before.
I decided to travel to Thailand and study at Baan Chang Thai for one month in January 2011. There I met Kru Lek, Kru Nathan and the other family members. I felt immediately that Kru Lek was a special man who lives and moves with the energy of Muay Chaiya. He told me about the art and his experiences with Ajarn Kaet and Kru Thong. From these stories I got a bigger view of the style.
My questions kept coming, and Kru Lek answered them all with the help of Kru Nathan who help with the translation between me and Kru lek. My training with Kru Nathan was very nice. He helped me improve a lot and changed my mind on Thai Martial Arts. It was fighting with him and Kru Tae that I saw the effectiveness of Muay Chaiya. It was a rough month but it was worthwhile, as I had found the style that I had been searching for for years.Now I'm so in love with the style that I decided to start the first Thai Martial Arts school in Belgium with the Muay Chaiya style. My goal is to teach people the beauty and effectiveness from the style. People interested in Thai Martial Arts and in particular Muay Chaiya can save many years of research by visiting Baan Chang Thai, and from learning online from Kru Nathan's videos.
Khob Khun Krab Kru Lek, Kru Nathan and everyone that helped me in the Martial Arts."
Check out Olivier's website www.MuayTribal.be for more information on learning Muay Chaiya in Belgium.
