Asia Wien - Muay Thai Training
Asia Wien Gym- Vienna Austria
2 Amazing Days at Asia Wien
We spent a week in Vienna, dedicating two days to training at one of the finest gyms we came across.
As Tom Ford once said, “The most important things in life are the connections you make with others.”
If it weren’t for the above, we wouldn’t have had a chance to travel to Vienna and, therefore, would not be able to train at one of the most amazing gyms we came across – Asia Wien.
Thanks to a friend Rene whom we met through the Muay Thai community in Madeira, we visited Vienna, Austria’s capital and a city with an artistic and intellectual legacy shaped by residents including Mozart, Beethoven, and Sigmund Freud.
Despite knowing we would be sightseeing a lot – as there is plenty to see around – we knew that part of our luggage would include training shorts, mouthguards, and hand wraps…
Asia Wien is located on Tokiostraße (Tokyo Street) in Donaustadt, the 22nd district in Vienna, with Kagran metro station close by. It’s fairly easy to spot from the outside.
The workout space is enormous, around 150 square meters, and is divided into different rooms for various types of training. You will find an area for taekwondo training, weightlifting with different gym equipment, a space with a diversity of punch bags, and a boxing ring for sparring sessions.
The gym is also equipped with air conditioning, spacious changing rooms, and showers.
Flexible training hours allow you to choose what you want to train and what time of the day. You can find a variety of classes such as Muay Thai, Taekwondo, women’s boxing (Bella Box), Power Fitness (Die Hard), and self-defense practice.
Although we only had a chance to train there twice with one trainer, we heard that the coaches (there are 7 of them) are the most distinguished teams in Austria.
About the gym
Asia Wien
The coach and founder of Asia Wien that we had the pleasure to train with was Peter Zaruba, who started practicing martial arts at the age of 15, including boxing, taekwondo, karate, and original Muay Thai that he initiated in his club as early as 1986. Peter has been coaching and practicing for 60 years now(!) holding Dan Grandmaster Taekwondo, Khan Muay Thai Master Instructor, Dan All Combat and Kickboxing, as well as Kyokushin and Shotokan Karate and Nunchaku.
The gym was founded in 1983 and has won 47 national championship titles, 6 world championship medals, and 3 European Championship medals.
Upon walking into the gym, the first thing you notice is an extensive number of trophies, medals, and awards. Wall after wall of history of achievements resembling a sports museum – a huge piece of history!
A separate space on the wall is reserved for the gym’s sponsors and Peter’s different certificates and diplomas (which are quite impressive, by the way).
To the left-hand side, there is a reception area containing tables and chairs to sit down after the session where you can chill and eat some lunch. After that, you move into the training space – which I already described in the paragraph above.
Overall, the space has been well thought out and neatly organized.
Asia Wien Training Structure
Training step by step
Although training sessions are scheduled differently, the ones we did started with a generous 15 minutes of skipping rope 😊 I used to hate that part when I first started, but it turned out I wasn’t doing it right. When done correctly, it’s much more fun than it looks! 😊
Next, we did some warm-up and stretching from head to toe, followed by shadow boxing to focus on proper technique – with a minimum of 3 and a maximum of 5 combinations.
Asked to pair up with a partner, we moved to the pad work. I considered myself lucky again as, not having a partner, I had a chance to have one-on-one with the coach. He held the shields for me and watched me train on the bag with the combinations he had shown me.
The rest were training in pairs, holding pads for each other and perfecting movements. Peter is very keen on training elbows and knees, as he says this distinguishes Muay Thai from Kickboxing. The gym is equipped with plenty of pads and protective gear, but it’s better to bring your own gloves and shin guards. As we packed lightly (only having cabin luggage), we had to borrow some stuff from the gym.
After that, we had to do some rounds on the bags with the same rule as in shadow boxing – a minimum of 3 and a maximum of 5 different combinations, including elbows and knees.
From that, we moved to a few rounds of sparring, switching partners every round. The coach was observing everyone and gave some pointers on what to focus on.
During those two classes we had, I noticed that the people training there are nice, humble, and polite. Sometimes I see a pattern (when you visit different gyms) that there are folks acting like they own the place – just because they have been training at certain gyms for a while, and this can put some people off. With Asia Wien, this was not the case; we met decent people with good intentions.
The training session lasted 1 hour and 30 minutes and finished off with stretching. Those who wanted to do something extra were welcomed to do so. We stayed a bit longer to chat with Peter – the founder of the gym and the coach that we had trained with.
He told us about the history of the place, the sponsors, his trips to Thailand, and the fighters he coached. He showed us the trophies and certificates and spoke about the biggest accomplishments of the gym.
We took some souvenirs which you can buy at the reception – for me, it was a T-shirt, and Filip got yellow Muay Thai shorts, as we like to collect them from the gyms we visit.
Our overall experience was very pleasant; so far, for me, it was the first gym with so much history and stories to tell.
The cherry on top was the feeling of knowing that after the training, we were going to eat something, and by far, Vienna had the most vegan options available so far – from supermarkets to vegan Vietnamese food and delicious ice creams 😊
I would also like to take this opportunity to highly recommend the restaurant that serves amazing vegan Vietnamese food – Vevi Restaurant. If you’re ever in Vienna, stop by and indulge.
For more gyms where we had the pleasure to train Muay Thai, follow us at our website.
Thank you Note
Lastly, we extend a sincere thank you to our dear friends, Rene and Martina, who graciously invited us for a visit, showed us around, and shared quality time with us during our stay in Vienna. Wishing them all the best in life, we hope for their endless happiness and health. Our time spent together has been truly special, and their warmth and hospitality have added immeasurable joy to our Vienna adventure.
Until our paths cross again, may their days be filled with joy and well-being.
