The Martial Educators of Living Muay Thai

Ajarn Justin Markus, EdD

Head Educator, MX Gym (2003)
Co-Founder, Living Muay Thai (2020)

Justin discovered martial art at nine years old. He believed that to become a Jedi, he needed to study combat sports and dedicated himself to learning any martial art he could find. By the time he began high school, Justin was devoting 25 hours per week to training, and after graduation, he began studying martial arts full-time.

From the beginning, Justin asked questions. They weren’t always the right ones, but he wanted to know “why”. He wanted to understand techniques, not just copy them. His refusal to accept surface-level education became the foundation for everything he would later build.

Justin taught his first striking class in 1988 and launched his own programming in 2003 through what is now MX Gym, an experimental martial education facility in Northern Minnesota. MX Gym nurtures fighters, teachers, hobbyists, and fitness enthusiasts. MX Gym is built on the belief that every student can understand the “Why” and deserves education that challenges them where they are.

Ajarn Sangtiennoi, a man whose legacy in Muay Thai needs no introduction, was the first person to call Justin "Ajarn". Several years later, in 2018, the legendary Ajarn Chai Sirisute formally promoted Justin to the rank of senior instructor. These moments were as humbling as they were meaningful. Justin works tirelessly to live up to the love and honor that his teachers showed him, and, as a part of LMT, to live up to the example they set as teachers in the world of Muay Thai.

In 2018, Justin looked at the landscape of martial education and made a decision: he would act to transform teaching methods and combat theory in Muay Thai, right person for the job or not. The decision led him to finalize the Four Corners conceptual model and to return to academia for seven years of graduate study, culminating in a doctorate in education. Justin’s educational design and research focus on transformative martial education, grounded in the belief that the strongest modern warriors are built not just through Muay Thai practice but also through intentional community and support systems.

In 2020, Justin co-founded Living Muay Thai to answer one question: What if no martial educator had to build alone? Five years later, his doctoral research examined how LMT impacted educators. The findings confirmed members’ suspicions: when educators have access to real training, real tools, and real connection, they don't just teach better, they become who they were supposed to be.

Today, Justin is the lead curriculum designer, educator training developer, and event planner for Living Muay Thai. Throughout the year, Justin travels the country, sharing LMT’s curriculum, educator training tools, and Four Corners methodology with other knowledge-hungry educators and students.

Ajarn Danny Terrell

Board of Educators, Living Muay Thai (2025)

Senior Muay Thai instructor under the legendary Ajarn Chai Sirisute, Danny Terrell — "Coach Danny" to his students, friends, and associates — is one of Living Muay Thai's staff instructors and carries the most experience of anyone on the LMT board of educators: nearly 50 years across multiple martial disciplines, with over 30 of those years dedicated to Muay Thai.

Danny's martial journey began when he was young, driven by a simple desire to learn how to protect himself and the people he cared about. What started as self-defense became a lifelong pursuit of knowledge. Shaped by mentors who taught him that the truest way to understand something is to pass it on, Danny committed himself not just to mastering martial arts, but to building other people up through them. That commitment has defined his career.

Danny spent decades developing his craft through relentless study, and travel — testing methods, learning from mistakes, and watching how students responded to different approaches. Long before formal educator training existed in Muay Thai, Danny was already doing the work: refining how he communicated, studying how learners absorbed information, and building systems that worked for real people in real classrooms. He trained multiple generations of martial artists and educators, many of whom went on to run their own programs.

When Danny connected with Living Muay Thai, he found something he had been looking for across his entire career — an organization with a genuine intention to train educators, not just certify them. LMT's curriculum, its collaborative structure, and its commitment to legacy aligned with everything Danny had spent 50 years building toward on his own. For Danny, LMT is the platform where decades of solitary expertise can finally become shared infrastructure.

His energy, enthusiasm, and deep knowledge of the art are evident the moment he steps in front of a class. Danny teaches under the tenets of Respect, Discipline, and Conditioning of Body, Mind, and Spirit — values he doesn't just instruct, but lives.

Ajarn Keith Z. Leonard (Keet)

Head Educator, The Forge Martial Arts Academy
Co-Founder, Living Muay Thai (2020)

Ajarn Keith Leonard has been training in Muay Thai since 1991 and holds 28 years of teaching experience. His training journey, however, started before Muay Thai, rooted in a competitive drive that would eventually pull him across multiple disciplines and decades of relentless self-development.

Keith's path into martial arts began after a high-level commitment to competitive sport left him searching for something deeper. When he found martial education, he found new purpose. Keith trained under Ajarn Chai Sirisute and Khru Darcy Regala, building a foundation in Muay Thai that would anchor everything that followed. Along the way, he earned a black belt (Shodan) in Nick Cerio's Kenpo/Jiujitsu (1997) and achieved ranks in Decuerdas, Sinawali, and Kadena de Mano Eskrima through Mangisuro Mike Inay's Inayan Eskrima system. He competed throughout the 1990s and early 2000s in tournament sparring, weapons, full-contact Muay Thai smokers, and full-contact Kali Eskrima, building firsthand knowledge of what it means to test yourself under pressure.

But Keith's deepest hunger was for connection within the community of martial culture. For much of his career, he built his practice within the adversarial and often isolated Western martial tradition. Keith craved something more. He wanted a community where educators could learn from watching each other teach, exchange methods openly, and build something together that none of them could build alone.

That search led Keith to co-found Living Muay Thai in 2020. In LMT, he helped build the collaborative infrastructure he yearned for. With Kieth’s support, LMT became a network dense enough to carry the accumulated wisdom of its members and open enough to let that wisdom flow in every direction. Today, Keith serves as one of LMT's driving forces behind technology, curriculum development, gamification, and event instruction. His ability to bridge technical innovation with traditional martial education makes him essential to LMT's evolving programming.

Keith holds the rank of Ajarn through the World Thai Boxing Association under Ajarn Chai Sirisute. Over his career, he has coached everyone from children to UFC fighters. What drives him now is the same thing that has driven him from the beginning: the belief that martial education fosters deepest human connections, and that the personal growth of his students is reason enough to keep sharpening his craft as a martial artist and educator.