KYN Phoenix Muay Thai Gym — Local services in Ko Yao Noi

Why You Should Never Train at KYN:

For years, this gym’s location has fooled many—including myself—into believing it offers the perfect mix of Muay Thai and a tropical retreat. The reality? It’s been in decline for over a decade, and management seems to grow more clueless and out of touch every year.

The trainer turnover is absurd. Every time I’ve trained here, coaches disappeared overnight. Ask management, and they’ll feed you a polished excuse or carefully fabricated lie to dodge any accountability. The truth? Trainers endure miserable conditions—crammed into a tiny, dirty house, forced to use worn-out gear that barely protects them from the kicking and punching, which are so unhygienic that these even give them rashes and skin infections. The only semi-decent equipment they have was donated by concerned customers… eight years ago.

One can only dream of a Thai labor lawyer taking this place to court—turning it into a case study on how western foreigners should no longer profit from and exploit Thai culture while treating local staff like disposable commodities.

At first, I thought, at least it’s woman-owned. But that illusion didn’t last. The owner seems blissfully unaware of the fact that it’s 2025, having surrounded herself with toxic washed up western men, who run the place like they’re starring in a satire film of 1990s toxic masculinity. Their best business idea? A bar inside the gym. Because nothing says “Muay Thai training retreat” like pressuring customers—including aspiring fighters and recovering addicts—to drink themselves into oblivion every night.

If you’re considering training here, do yourself a favor: don’t.

I’ve personally seen guests I know struggled with alcoholism pressured into drinking by the man running the bar. Young guys hoping to fight get pulled into the party scene, with that bar owner openly boasting about his experiences with the “local nightlife”—predominantly the transactions to women. Rather than discouraging this type of exploitative tourism in Thailand, the culture at this gym normalizes and even encourages this behavior. If you make the mistake to give the bar owner airtime, you’ll probably also witness the disrespectful way he speaks to the Thai women working behind the bar, whose exhausted, disassociative expressions say everything.

There’s also a disturbing culture of disrespect toward women, both guests and staff. Conversations are littered with objectifying comments and crude “jokes,” and if you’re a woman staying here, expect unwanted attention and uncomfortable remarks.

You’ll also have the pleasure of daily encounters with the bar manager and his equally unkempt buddy, an ex-surfer who mistakes the gym for a nudist colony. Not only is his perpetual shirtlessness an unfortunate sight over breakfast, but on a predominantly Muslim island, it’s outright disrespectful.

The food? An insult. Bland, soulless versions of Thai dishes designed for people who think salt is a spice.

The hygiene? A disaster. The gym is filthy, the pool has a reputation for spreading infections (check the other one-star reviews), the equipment is never cleaned, and every morning, the stench of cat urine reminds you exactly where you are.

The trainers? The few who remain are far past their prime—kind-hearted older men who should be enjoying retirement, not struggling to hold pads for tourists. If that weren’t enough, there’s at least one trainer with deeply concerning rumors surrounding him. But management doesn’t care. Trainers aren’t even included in gym events or given basic respect—they’re expected to finish their shift and disappear.

If you’re really lucky, he, who should really start washing and wearing shirts, will insert himself into your training, convinced he knows more and better than the actual Thai trainers.

Bottom line? Don’t support this gym. There are Thai-owned gyms elsewhere that actually respect their trainers, their customers, and the art of Muay Thai itself.

This island is incredible—but training here means financing exploitation. Do better.

xoxo,...

This is a long one but your HEALTH will thank you for reading it! My boyfriend and I saved up for a year to travel to the other side of the world with our 7 month son and my boyfriends sister to train for 8 weeks. KYN seemed like the perfect gym. On a small island, family friendly, no partying. And I came out of the experience hoping you all think twice about visiting this gym! The island - FANTASTIC! Definitely recommend traveling to the island but save yourself the trouble and stay away from KYN gym and the hotel.

If you've trained before, you'll know that one of the best feelings after training (especially in the hot Thailand heat) is taking a nice shower. If you think you will have that luxury at this gym, THINK AGAIN! The whole time we were there, we had water maybe 30% of the time, and of that 30% probably only 10% of the time we had water in the morning after training. Management does not care.

Speaking of showering, it is super important at this gym especially - which NEVER cleans their equipment. It is disgusting. We stayed for 5 of our 8 planned weeks and not one single time was ANYTHING in that gym cleaned. The mats are so old they are flaking.After class the bottoms of your feet are black and blue from the mats. We all got a bunch of different infectious rashes, infections and the manager will make you go into Phuket to the hospital for a note if you want to keep training. And that is an EXPENSIVE trip out of your own pocket which could be mostly avoided if they had water and cleaned their gym. The specialist at the hospital told us they get people in there all the time from KYN that have been infected with HERPES!!!!

The hotel is DIRTY TOO. There were literally MUSHROOMS growing out of the bathroom ceiling. That usually means mold. We told the manager about this. We said, "there are mushrooms growing out of the ceiling" She laughed, picked them off, said "not anymore!" and walked away. I had been feeling very sick for weeks prior to the mushrooms sprouting - no wonder why! So if you stay here you will probably be subjected to toxic mold.

With an entire month left of our stay, my boyfriends sister got into a very bad motor bike accident. She was in the hospital for 3 days and ended up having to go home a month early. We had already paid for 1 month worth of meal plans, 1 month worth of training, and we also had a 2 bedroom place in the hotel. We asked if we could switch to a 1 bedroom, get the money back for the meal plan and the training. "No the money is gone" Once again still trying to figure out how that is any of our problems that she chooses to manage her money so poorly.

If you think you'll come to this island to focus on training and stay away from the partying? THINK AGAIN! They party every Saturday night and if you don't go with them you get ignored for the whole next day and get the stink eye the rest of your stay - even if you have a baby who needs to go to sleep.

The head trainer has some serious anger issues. If you do something wrong, he will repeatedly smack you in the head. He will yell at you,swear at you, and straight up insult you. No matter if you're a beginner, or if you have experience fighting, he will just be a jerk. He will make fun of your fighting style and DEMAND you train exactly like he does. He just does not get that everyone has a different style.The site says you can come to fight, just to train or to get in shape, but don't give into that lie either. I once heard the head trainer give a girl a lecture telling her to go to a different gym because she wasn't as interested in the technique as she was the fitness aspect. It isn't a fighter gym...the whole 5 weeks they had 1 fighter. Most people do just go there for fitness.

The food could make you sick.We had to start eating nothing but plain salad, plain rice and boiled eggs because anything else was super greasy and salty. Tasted like MSG. Anyway we ended up really hating our trip and decided we should just cut our losses and take off to a different gym so we would at least enjoy the rest...

I saw the reviews of this gym online and thought it looked like exactly what I was looking for, but my first and only class there proved otherwise. I’ve been doing muay thai a few years, I’m not great, but I’m not a beginner either. My first day here, I showed up at 8 for the 8 am class and got yelled at for being late. Apparently you are supposed to show up at 730 to warm up, but it was my first day and I didn’t know that. I got yelled at for being late – and not in a friendly way, in a drill sergeant kind of way. (Sidenote: foul language doesn’t bother me, but every other word out of the head trainer’s mouth is the F bomb.) The format of the class was good – moved quickly from one on one technique into light sparring, which is my favorite part of muay thai – I was paired with a trainer about my size, which was good, since everyone else in the class was a big dude. I was going very mellow, super light kicks and punches, no power, expecting everything to be pretty relaxed since it was the first class of my first day. Instead the trainer immediately swept me hard 4 times in a row. I would love to learn to defend better against sweeps, which I don’t have a lot of experience with, but dropping me four times in the span of 3 minutes in my first hour of training is like, why? It’s kind of mean, and I felt like maybe I was being bullied for being “late.” The fourth time – also, the trainer was indicating for me to kick him, since at this point I was nervous and felt uncomfortable and just wanted to defend so I wouldn’t get swept again, as he hadn’t bothered to show me a single defense to use against the sweep he kept running – but he motioned for me to kick and he’s the boss so I kicked again, and he swept me again. By this time the ring was super wet and slimy – there were EIGHT people sparring in one ring – and he swept my foot out with way more power than you need to use on a 120lb girl on her first day of training – and I landed on my neck. Game over. Shooting pain from my ear halfway down my spine. It’s three days later and I can move my neck maybe 3 inches and it hurts all the time. I’m not training for a fight, I’m just trying to have an good time, I didn’t expect or want to be broken down psychologically and physically in my first hour of training. Eating painkillers all day and staring straight ahead is not exactly how I envisioned my vacation but that’s where KYN gym has left me. I’ve trained at a lot of gyms, in both Thailand and the US, and gotten hurt plenty of times, but KYN gym is the only place I’ve ever felt unsafe with a trainer, and where an injury I’ve sustained was entirely the trainer’s fault. I left the same day even though I had paid for a week of training and will definitely...