A CARLISLE gym is encouraging local adults to try Muay Thai fighting with a new series of beginner courses.

Dragon's Gym on Lorne Street is launching the four-week courses to promote and deliver the benefits of Muay Thai to more people in the city.

The courses will run throughout November and take place every Wednesday and Saturday, with the first session billed for Wednesday, November 1. No specialist gear is required apart from boxing gloves and normal gym wear.

The sessions will be delivered by Dragon's Gym's experienced coaching team and will be focused on the basics of Muay Thai which include how to kick, punch, knee, and elbow as well as well as an introduction to clinching.

Ahead of the first session, Dragon's Gym's chief instructor Christian Percival encouraged anyone interested to get involved regardless of experience.

He said: "The hardest part is walking through the door for that first time.

"It can often feel a bit intimidating walking into a gym for the first time so by running a beginners' course we are hoping to take down some of the perceived barriers with to coming to the gym and getting started.

"Our gym is a friendly place with people willing to help each other out, we have a fantastic coaching team who strive to bring out the best in all of our students.

"Getting anybody into exercise and keeping fit is a definite winner however a lot of people soon lose interest in going to the gym for one reason or another, generally because they get bored or haven’t found their niche."

Christian also detailed some of the benefits that can come from taking part in Muay Thai training.

He said: "Muay Thai offers excellent all-round fitness as well as learning how to defend yourself.

"There is no pressure to compete and the majority of our students come along for fitness and to learn how to defend themselves, however, that being said, we have a lot of students who start for these very same reasons but once they get into it then they decide to advance their training and compete."