Common Clinching Mistakes To Avoid
If you want to better at clinching, it’s best that you practice with these common mistakes in mind to avoid committing them again in the future.
- Not Being In The Right Position
A very common mistake when fighting, especially among foreigners, is entering the clinch with one foot forward and the other a few inches or a feet back. This is different from the proper position where the feet are evenly spaced apart and the hips square to the opponent.
Not being in the right position will make it easier for your opponent to throw you off balance.
Practice being in the right position when entering the clinch at all times and you’ll find yourself doing the same thing in a real fight.
- Throwing a Knee When Off Balance
Do you want to know how to best get swept when in the clinch? Try to throw a knee when off balanced and you’ll find yourself on the floor in no time.
You should only throw knees when your opponent is off balance or if you’re locked in a good position.
- Fouling After Sweeping Your Opponent
You can’t just wrap your leg around your opponent after you sweep them. In Muay Thai, that’s a foul, unlike in BJJ where it’s legal.
You should only do a sweep using a sweeping motion of your feet, wrestling takedowns and wrapping your leg around your opponent is both illegal in Muay Thai.
- Trying To Overpower Your Opponent
When entering the clinch, the first instinct is to try and outwrestle the opponent. Though, in Muay Thai, overpowering your opponent will do you no good, even if you do think that you’re stronger and even if you’re bigger than your opponent.
Overpowering opponents when in the clinch is best done only against beginners. However, against more experienced and skilled fighters, you’ll end up doing more harm than good by exerting much more effort than necessary. As a result, you’ll end up gassed once your opponent manages to break out of the clinch.
When being in the clinch, it’s best to think of the best ways to score points and outmaneuver your opponent as opposed to freaking out and trying to use brute strength to win.
Additional Tips
Clinching is very important in Muay Thai, but it’s not the only thing that’s important. You can survive as long as you know the basics and you keep on practicing it.
If you’re not that good in clinching, you can try your best to learn how to lock your opponent up to allow the referee to break up the fight.
If you’re a beginner, nobody’s going to blame you for your lack of clinching skills during your first few pro fighters. More so if you’re a foreigner. However, you’ll want to start picking up, even just the basics, once you start facing more skilled Thai opponents.
If you’re not practicing Muay Thai in Thailand, the best way to improving your clinching skills is to go to the birthplace of Muay Thai and train there. While Thailand does excel in Muay Thai, they are even more excellent when it comes to clinching.
The more you practice and clinch with guys who are significantly better than you, the better you’ll be able to learn to defend against all sorts of locks, sweeps and strikes.
Invest in a few months of solid clinching practice and you’ll notice significant improvements in your clinching techniques.
Of course, it would definitely help to keep this list of mistakes in mind.