Why Work With Us
Choosing a Coach is important. Let us make it easy by letting you know what you're getting.
SEE IF WE CAN HELP
1 What we do
We do Muay Thai training, strength & conditioning, and write curriculums. Read more about these areas.
2 Can We Help?
We want your goals to actually be met. Learn about how we figure out if it can.
3 Who We Are
It's important we work well together. Check to see if we are a good fit.
4 Contact Us
Thinking we can help? Reach out for a free consultation.
1. Experience & Knowledge
With CMT coaching and curriculums, you have the benefit of an entire career committed to helping people like you. Coastal Muay Thai is now serving Roanoke, Virginia!
Shortly after high school, as the youngest trainer of a team of experienced coaches, invaluable mentorship was abundant. Almost immediate coaching and personal training experience followed quickly, including working with kids, adults, and those battling injuries.
Then came a once in a lifetime opportunity to look behind the curtain, so to speak, by traveling to Thailand and becoming a sponsored fighter with Sinbi Fight Team.
There was no way around it - Thai's work really hard to live up to their reputation in Muay Thai.
This resonated - always looking for opportunities to learn from the best and working harder for the clients and causes with authenticity and integrity at the core. This planted a seed that steadily grew - that is, the search for mastery and for achieving the right goals, for the fight reasons.
After returning from the first trip to Thailand in 2013, the return to continued training was accompanied with more clarity by real life experience, studying Health Science and coaching real people. Carefully, with tact, meeting clients where they are at. Being respectful to clients' needs. Building a training environment around clients who feel like family. It is all very possible.
2. Honesty & Clarity
It is hard to navigate through something complicated when you actually know a little bit about about it. For most of our clients and teams, they have never had a coach before or spent any real time in a gym setting, and sometimes they would rather keep it that way, or change that. The last reason they want to do it is either because it has been a chore or they were injured by someone else's carelessness.
I know what it is like to being thrown into an unfamiliar situation, which has gifted me traits of fortitude, empathy, and grit. For some, they would rather avoid this altogether, and that is ok - honest answers are a must.
I am honest with the people I serve. If I believe I can help, I say so. And vice versa. For me, a successful coach-client relationship involves trust and honesty.
To add, I want my clients to understand what it is we are doing. Did you know that kicks are scored higher than punches in a Muay Thai bout which influences ones striking decisions? It is OK to skip a set or even a whole training session! We'll gradually make it up over time, or disregard that session altogether (it doesn't matter). I communicate clearly and frequently, answering questions along the way. Unfortunately, clients who are suffer from carelessness and ignorance of other coaches do not get reliable answers about what is going on during training. I work to provide those answers.
3. Strategic Representation
Perspective is one of the most important skills for a coach to have. This means realizing what is important and what is not. It means focusing on the right things and seeing their place in the bigger picture. It is about staying focused on the clients' best interests, rather than serving my ego.
When I help people, the point is to get to the right result, not just "win" at every step. In fact, I know that progress does not stay linear, and at some points it may not be glamorous. This may provide an advantage later. For example, if you have a goal to lose 100lbs, it is not very helpful to draw your attention to the inevitable morning that your weight stayed the same or gained a pound, or two. Those pounds are real and frustrating, no doubt, but unless it becomes a pattern and is trending in the opposite direction it distracts from getting to the right result, losing 100lbs.
Another example is looking ahead. Planning several steps ahead usually provides a different and better course of action than going with things on the fly. For example, when we talk to you about your goals, we also talk to you about your barriers, history, and concerns. This approach helps support us, for when they come up later, we are prepared, not surprised.
4. Personalized Attention
I help guide people. This means you are always in the drivers seat, responsible for your training. Usually this is a particular vulnerable time in life. I take my responsibility to you very seriously. While I realize some things are common across clients, each of my clients and their circumstances are unique. That's how I treat them.
Building trust helps build relationships, so I start working on that in our very first conversation.
I am deeply passionate about genuine connections and give my focus and attention to clients when I am talking with them.
One thing that I have learned from coaching and reflecting, is this - listening well is one of the most important jobs of a coach. Trust, connection, and listening deeply translate into understanding my clients on a genuine level, understanding their life, their story, and their goals. When I know these things, I can better serve and help write a new story.
5. Empathy & Compassion
We have all been through really hard things that tested us, things we did not think we would make it through. And yet, somehow we survived, and even thrived.
Sometimes moving away from I can't to I will, from weak to I'm getting stronger, from frustration to clarity, involves someone helping us through. I can offer that.
I have been gifted compassion, empathy, knowledge, and patience. I want to keep that sort of thing going. My goal is to have genuine curiosity about people's lives, listen deeply, for people to know they are heard and understood.
6. Innovative Approach
I know what a typical exercise and training environment feel like. I can remember walking into a gym or practice and feeling like "I'm not good enough to start". I've also noticed other coaches using fear as a coaching strategy. Things like "you're never going to lose weight if you can't finish this workout" "you have to get this perfect". What was missing in these moments were things I've identified as my core values; connection, growth, and compassion. And I have capitalized on identifying these values and have had some of the most satisfying results because of them.
I've taken these values and created a training flow that works for me and for the people I work with. The most valuable thing you have in your life is your time and energy. It is possible to accomplish your goals and feel accepted where you are at, they are not mutually exclusive. EXAMPLE 1 & 2 here.
Sure, I value having standard practices to help me work with people. Standard procedures help things run smoothly and efficiently. But what I continue to notice is how much I love it when an innovative approach helps lead us to a better result.