Inside Dubai’s women-only Muay Thai gym, where strength and confidence take centre stage.
For a few minutes, the gym becomes more than just a place to work out.
I watch two strong women move through the session, one urging the other to push her kicks and punches higher. There is an artistry to it; the movements look almost graceful, I tell the person beside me.
There is nothing awkward or uncoordinated about their technique. Every kick and punch lands with precision, their arms and legs moving at sharp angles. The rhythm is almost hypnotic. She keeps going without a pause, throwing kick after kick, and only when she finally stops do I notice how breathless she is.
After several intense minutes, the two women finish the round beaming, their faces flushed with exertion and carrying a hint of triumph.
One of them is Lara Fawzy, the owner of this intimate Muay Thai gym in Dubai. As we weave through rows of punching bags, she begins to recount her own journey — and how she found her way into the world of Muay Thai.
‘The person I’ve become…’
Born in London, UK, Fawzy moved to Dubai nearly 15 years ago after accepting a corporate job in the city. But Dubai’s vibrant sports scene eventually drew her towards the ring.
“Muay Thai was the one that really pulled me in, and I’ve been practising it for almost 10 years. I’ve loved the challenges and the person it has helped me become. That’s why I created this gym — it’s rooted in my own journey,” she says.
Fawzy says she began training in 2016, meaning she has been practising Muay Thai for approximately a decade.
Her journey, however, was interrupted by a serious injury. Rather than letting it end her time in the sport, she fought her way back.
Breaking her arm and returning to the ring
Laughing, Fawzy describes herself as “titanium”, explaining that she has a metal plate and nine pins in her arm.
The injury happened during a sports event in the UAE in 2016 and required major surgery after her arm was badly fractured. But her determination extended far beyond the ring. She watched countless fights, trained intensely and worked with a top-level professional fighter as she prepared for her return.
When she eventually stepped into the ring for her first amateur fight, she won — a result she remembers with obvious pride.
A victory in every sense.
Fighting for a place in a man’s world
What inspired Fawzy to create a women-only gym in Dubai? When she started training in 2016, female coaches were few and far between. “I could count them on one hand,” she says. Even when women’s classes were available, they were often led by male coaches or held in mixed gyms where privacy was limited.
Fawzy began receiving messages from women on social media asking if she could train them at home. But she didn’t believe a home environment was the safest setting for a demanding combat sport.
She soon realised there was a strong interest among women who wanted to try Muay Thai but felt intimidated by its traditionally male-dominated culture. “It’s always been a very macho sport,” she says. “It originated with men fighting and dominating the sport, so there needed to be a space created out of genuine curiosity and an understanding of what women were looking for.”
The challenges women face in martial arts
For Fawzy, breaking stereotypes and finding a place in the male-dominated martial arts world has been a demanding journey. The physical toll can be tough, too. “I’ve had my nose broken as well, so my arm was broken, but that was part of the game,” she says.
While she values the intensity of traditional training, Fawzy believes women need an approach that takes their bodies and specific needs into account. “It’s tough training, and very good training, but you always feel you’re an add-on, or that the culture isn’t always geared towards you as a female and how you need to train,” she explains.
At the same time, she credits training alongside men with making her stronger and more resilient. However, she recognises that the macho culture can feel intimidating, particularly for women who are new to martial arts.
Making Muay Thai safe without making it soft
Fawzy has gone from competing as an athlete to creating a supportive community for women, with her own experiences shaping her coaching philosophy.
“I’ve always trained Thai style. I haven’t really mixed my style with other forms of martial arts. I’ve done a bit of boxing, a lot of competitive boxing, but I’ve always tried to keep the style Thai,” she says.
Fawzy’s commitment to Muay Thai took her abroad for years at a time. “I trained in Thailand for almost seven consecutive years, and I also had my professional fight there in 2023,” she says.
During that time, she immersed herself in traditional Thai techniques, watched countless fights, attended seminars and trained alongside some of the sport’s top athletes and world champions.
She has since brought that experience back to Dubai, while preserving the intensity of the training she learned in Thailand. Fawzy describes her approach as old-school and demanding, but says safety remains equally important.
That philosophy is reflected in the gym itself. “For example, the mats that we’re standing on are really dense, in case anybody has a fall, so safety is a priority,” she says. “But that doesn’t mean the training is soft or that we don’t push people 100% here.”
For the women who train with her, that balance is part of the appeal. Dania SaifEldawla, 16, had never tried a sport like Muay Thai before joining the gym. Inspired by Fawzy, she says the discipline has shown her what she is capable of.
“I really like it because Muay Thai makes me challenge myself. It’s such a detox for yourself as well, and it’s self-defence,” she says.
Similarly, coach Mohaddeseh Moradi recalls that she first met Lara after coming to Dubai for a competition. Impressed by what she saw, she decided to join Lara’s gym as a coach — a decision she says she has never regretted.
Breaking the ‘man’s sport’ perception
One of the biggest misconceptions about Muay Thai is that it is exclusively a man’s sport. Fawzy says some women associate the discipline with a macho image and worry that training could make them bulky, when in reality, she believes it is more about building strength and confidence. She also highlights its potential benefits for bone density.
According to Fawzy, much of the hesitation comes from perception rather than experience. “Until they try it, they don’t know, or they don’t get the experience to feel how empowering it is. They just see the perception, and some people can feel it’s very aggressive,” she says.
How Dubai’s Muay Thai scene has changed
After nearly a decade in Dubai, Fawzy has witnessed a significant shift in the city’s Muay Thai community, particularly in the growing participation of women.
“The landscape has changed dramatically in the last 10 years,” she says. Today, far more women are competing in the sport. When Fawzy was training, finding female opponents was difficult, partly because of her weight division and partly because there were relatively few women competing.
She also credits the UAE Muay Thai Federation for helping drive greater inclusivity and encouraging more women to take up the sport. With increasing numbers of women now training and competing, Fawzy believes Dubai’s Muay Thai scene has evolved considerably over the past decade.
Even so, Fawzy is careful not to suggest that the sport has reached its full potential. “I’m not sure what all the reasons are for this, but there is definitely a bigger pool now. There are more women competing, so I feel there has been some change,” she says. “But we’re still miles away from where we could be, and I think in the next 10 years, it will shift dramatically.”
Closing that gap is one of the reasons she established Muay Gym. “That’s part of the objective with Muay Gym — to be part of that change in the region. I still feel there’s a huge gap, and we’re nowhere near where we could be in terms of the quality of the sport,” she says.
What Muay Thai means to her
Fawzy pauses before answering.
For her, Muay Thai represents the willingness to face challenges head-on, stay strong and refuse to give up. Even failure, she says, is part of the journey — what matters is getting back up and remaining consistent.
“Even if you fail, you come back, you’re consistent, and I bring this into the gym space as well as the business.”
For Fawzy, Muay Thai is as much about inner growth as physical strength. “You use determination, but you’re also self-aware, and you learn about yourself and need a great deal of humility. You need respect for people. So I think it makes you a better character, which is a really good thing,” she says.
She also challenges the perception that the sport is simply about aggression or violence. “Where people perceive it as aggression or violence, I see it as self-development,” she says. “It’s a mental, physical and emotional challenge, which helps you really develop as a character.”
There is also a practical benefit. Learning how to defend yourself, she says, is an important skill, particularly for women. “I think all women should have some skills in self-defence. It’s very important,” she adds.
When the ring becomes a mirror
Did Muay Thai save her? Fawzy answers without hesitation: “Yes.”
When she first moved to Dubai, she found herself surrounded by people constantly working, hustling and pursuing their ambitions. For Fawzy, that spirit became one of the city’s greatest strengths.
She says Dubai encourages people to chase their dreams, which is also part of what inspired her to build the gym. “I really believe in Dubai. They inspire people, they encourage you, they want you to bring innovation.”
But Dubai’s fast-paced environment also made it important for Fawzy to remain grounded. After her accident and while adjusting to life in a new country, Muay Thai gave her a way to stay focused, grow and understand herself better.
She says the ring exposed habits she had not recognised in other parts of her life. “I learned, for example, I have a tendency to procrastinate. I learned that in the ring because I just stopped at one point, and those are habits you have in your life,” she says. The experience helped her become more self-aware, something she considers essential to personal growth.
For Fawzy, training functions as a mirror as much as a workout. “When you train, you learn: are you coachable? What are your weaknesses? How does your mind work?” she says. She also credits the sport with improving her coordination, which she struggled with when she first started.
Looking back, she says Muay Thai ultimately taught her resilience and self-reliance. “I think it helped me to develop. It helped me to become stronger. I didn’t feel like I needed to be part of a huge community to train as well, because it helps to become a bit tougher,” she says.
That same independence has shaped how she approaches her business. While she works with a business coach, Fawzy says she has never felt the need to seek constant validation from the wider community.
