03.08.17
At my client’s request we looked at Muay Thai. On my decision, we looked specifically at Thai clinch with a small detour into MMA. We began with a light solo warm-up of shadow boxing and technique movement patterns. This quickly moved into light partner warm-ups from the clinch. We focused on neck-wrestling from the plumb position and footwork. Gradually one-for-one technique placement followed.
Tonight I taught two lock-off positions and a breakaway/counter. This will eventually move us onto sweeps and tosses that are specific to Muay Thai, but have a reasonable crossover to MMA and self-defence. The first lock-off was taught to me by Phil Titmus via Tony Hayes’s old gym, and involves trapping across the head and levering up the elbow on the same side whilst performing a v-step movement. The fighter effectively pulls the opponent off-balance by pulling the head down in a diagonal motion and creates leverage by pushing the arm up whilst stepping offline. This sets the opponent up for a diagonal knee strike. The next lock-off involved a similar set-up, but this time by controlling the arm from the outside and placing both hands on the head. This position sets up for various knee strikes, including straight (spear) knees and round knees. We tangented off into MMA/submission grappling with a standing arm-bar into a ground submission, which uses a very similar position. Finally, we looked at top arm position breakaway into a round-kick, cross punch combination.
We then sparred for two rounds. The first round was specific to the clinch and I was pleased to see my client almost naturally getting a sweep. The next round was normal Muay Thai free-sparring.
Muay Thai Clinch Techniques from the “Muay Thai Guy”