3 Things to Focus on in the Muay Thai Clinch (for beginners)

Clinching is a whole other practice of its own! It can be overwhelming and hard to get a grasp on when you’re new to clinching.

Here’s 3 things I remind myself to focus on during clinching - And in my opinion useful cues for yourself when you’re practicing the clinch.

1) POSTURE

Keeping posture is key in the clinch to keep you safe and to be in a position to attack/takedown.

Here are some cues to remind yourself:

• Keep your hips in.

  Standing with hips behind ankles and shoulders will make you easily “foldable”. You want to maintain a slightly forward hip posture to stay sturdy and grounded - making yourself hard to off balance.

Example of having posture broken in the clinch. A common “bad position” when your head is pulled down and exposed to knees.

• Keep your chin tucked - similar to a “double chin”.

  You basically want to align your spine. Chin overly up or down will expose you to getting your posture broken.

• Keep grounded.

  A good clincher is sensitive to weight distribution and able to disrupt, sweep or find a stronger position when you make these mistakes. Strong clinchers feel like they’re literal blocks of stone lol. Their bodies hard to tip, move and manipulate.

  Maintain a slight bend in your knees and feel “weighted” - you want to keep yourself “heavy” in the clinch and hard to move. Avoid putting too much weight on or away from your partner. Eg. Leaning or pushing your partner exposes you for a foot sweep forward (video example of me landing on my face lol).

2) FEET POSITIONING

Being aware of your feet positioning keeps you in an advantageous position for attacks and to stay “on your feet”.

• Keep your feet in line with your opponent/partner.

  One of the first basics we learn is how to keep our feet in line, with squared hips to our partner. You want to maintain a similar width and prevent having one foot on the “inside” of your partner’s position. During the clinch, you want to constantly adjust your feet position to maintain the above. Eg. having a foot “inside” will expose you to takedowns.

Things to avoid:

1) Feet “inside” your partner/opponent’s feet

2) Standing one foot in front of the other.

Having one foot on the “inside” of your partner’s feet positioning will expose you to to getting thrown.

3) ARM CONTROL

I normally emphasise arm control to myself to prevent getting elbowed in the clinch and also having my posture broken (nothing good comes from that.. lol).

As a beginner, you want to familiarise yourself with the various arm positions, and their pros and cons and when to use which. The basic position beginners are usually introduced to is having one hand behind the neck, and one on the elbow.

It’s difficult to explain in text for the various arm positions but do ask questions to your coaches to show and explain them if you’re confused about what to do in the clinch with your hands!

Also remember when you’re practicing clinch that your hands will be in gloves during the fight/spar. You want to keep your fingers together as they would be in mittens and avoid using your thumbs when gripping.

Some final key points to remember when practicing the clinch:

• Prevention is key!

  You want to practice good defence to prevent your partner/opponent from getting a dominant position. Rather than allow your partner to get the said position and then trying to fight/out muscle it after, prevention is less energy consuming and safer.

• Try to avoid relying on brute strength

  A lot of good clinchers have said to avoid out muscling your opponent. Yes, strength and endurance is important in the clinch but you want to also sharpen your abilities of “feeling” where your partner’s weight is for throws and attacks, and learning how to “frame” so you find yourself in a strong, balanced position and difficult to undo.

• Practice often!

  Clinching sometimes feels like a whole different art of its own. It’s intricacies are difficult to master and I feel like I have a long way to go before being the clinch master I’d like to be! So practice often with good training partners and keep each other honest.

Hope that was helpful :) There are some short form videos on my coaching insta on the clinch if you’d like to check that out below!

Happy clinching!