I have had a great start to the New Year for MTO in becoming a fully licensed and insured member of The British Martial Arts and Boxing Association. BMABA have been around for 5 years and have grown significantly in club and student membership and have now become a nationally recognised, award winning, martial arts organisation.

I have been involved in Muay Thai for almost 15 years but I have never had a recognised licence to teach from an organisation due to the unregulated nature of Muay Thai in the UK. Muay Thai is traditionally an ungraded sport that focuses on fighting so it does not have a belt system to distinguish levels of improvement. Your ability is judged on your fighting skills only. This also applies to a MT gym's reputation and level of fighters/number of wins from that gym.

BMABA has many aims which can be viewed via the link https://bmaba.org/about-british-martial-arts-boxing-association/martial-arts-organisation-objective/ but what this has allowed me to do is gain black belt 'equivalent status' by displaying my years of experience in a formal application.

The criteria which I had to fulfill included having 4 years minimum experience in Muay Thai, video evidence displaying my fights and instructional skills with clients and to get a written testimonial from my former gym OMAA to support my application. Further to this, to obtain my full licence I was required to have suitable insurance, a valid first aid certification and DBS/safeguarding checks if I was to work with vulnerable adults or children.

New prospective clients can have the confidence that I have undergone rigorous scrutiny and have the tools to teach Muay Thai professionally and safely. This can also now give me the skills and support to start my own gym, if I so wish and this may be a possibility in the future so watch this space!

Check out my licence below and BMABA for further details at https://bmaba.org/