Baow
Head Coach · Kru Yai · World Champion
For Baow, Muay Thai has never just been a sport. It has been a way of life. Growing up in Southern Thailand, Baow began fighting as a young child and went on to build a career at the highest levels of the sport, becoming a world champion with hundreds of fights behind him.
Today, his greatest passion is no longer competing, but teaching.
As a Kru Yai-ranked Muay Thai and Muay Boran instructor and Head Coach of Koh Yao Naga, Baow brings decades of experience into a coaching style that is technical, calm, patient, and deeply personal. He has coached professional fighters and complete beginners around the world, always adapting his approach to the person standing in front of him.
For Baow, great coaching goes far beyond punches and kicks. It is about building confidence, discipline, resilience, and a stronger relationship with yourself.
Whether you are putting on gloves for the first time or preparing to step into the ring, Baow will meet you where you are and expect you to give your best from there.
Koh Yao Naga is the gym he spent years dreaming of creating: serious training without unnecessary ego, rooted in the Southern Thai culture, community, and island life he calls home.
Known For:
Technical Muay Thai · Fight preparation · Personalized coaching · Developing trainers
Known For:
Pad work · Fight experience · Technical coaching · Infectious good energy
Vat
Muay Thai Coach · Fighter · The Smiling Killing Machine
Don't let the smile fool you.
With more than 300 fights behind him, Vat brings serious ring experience to Koh Yao Naga, wrapped in one of the brightest personalities you are likely to meet at the gym. Known affectionately as the "Smiling Killing Machine," Vat combines sharp Muay Thai technique with patience, humor, and a playful approach to coaching. His sessions are challenging, energetic, and almost guaranteed to include a laugh somewhere between combinations.
After recently completing his army duty, Vat began transitioning more seriously from fighter to coach under Baow's mentorship, although he still steps into the ring himself from time to time.
Their connection goes back much further than Naga. Baow and Vat have known each other like brothers since they were around ten years old, sharing not only a history in Muay Thai but a similar belief in how the sport should be taught: with discipline, generosity, and respect.
When he isn't holding pads or throwing punches, you'll often find Vat fishing somewhere around the waters of Koh Yao Noi.
PHU
Apprentice Trainer · Fitness · Future Coach
Every great coach starts somewhere.
Phu is the youngest member of the Koh Yao Naga coaching team and is currently developing his craft directly under Head Coach Baow, with one clear ambition: to become an exceptional trainer and role model for the next generation.
His apprenticeship goes beyond learning Muay Thai technique. Under Baow's mentorship, Phu is developing the patience, discipline, responsibility, and understanding of people that turn a skilled athlete into a great teacher.
With a natural passion for fitness and self-improvement, you'll find him assisting classes, helping members with exercises, maintaining the training space, and generally appearing wherever an extra pair of hands is needed.
Growing up on Koh Yao Noi, Phu was raised by his mother, a successful local businesswoman who encouraged him to learn English from an early age. Today, that confidence allows him to connect easily with guests from around the world while remaining deeply rooted in his island community.
Warm, hardworking, curious, and always ready to help, Phu represents something especially important to Naga: investing in local talent and creating opportunities for the next generation to grow into meaningful careers in sport.
Known For:
Fitness · Positive energy · Hard work · Always being ready to help