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- Oct 12, 2016
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By now the guys in my gym who all like to box know I'm a clinch fighter. They don't want to eat knees and so, when I try to clinch them, they simply struggle like a wild animal, like the looney tunes tasmanian devil. They don't try to clinch back at all - they simply put their arms in between us, refuse to grip fight, keep themselves tight and push me off while backing out. This leaves me scrambling, trying to get some kind of grip on them; something to keep them in place and force them to clinch. I always try to get one or two underhooks and "side control". The sparring area is a large room, so I can't just keep going after them until they hit the other end of a tiny thaiboxing square. This kind of resistance is something you don't see clinch training take into account. It's like someone coming from grappling - what do you do if you want to pull guard, but the other person just wants to stand up? What do you do if you want to clinch, but the other person just wants to deny the clinch and has the ring space to keep doing so?
So far my ideas are to: 1) let them exit and load up a liver punch, 2) take them down instead of trying to clinch. The thing is I want to reliably win by throwing knees. The only other idea I've pondered is to use single legs more, not to take them down but to try to set up knees and clinch them after a hit. I should mention that we don't throw knees to the legs in my gym (and not to the head either), so I haven't really considered trying to unbalance them that way but without having a grip I doubt it would be very effective.
So what *should* I do when they simply refuse to grip fight and clinch, but that's what I want to force them to do, and the sparring area is spaciously open? What adjustments do I make?
So far my ideas are to: 1) let them exit and load up a liver punch, 2) take them down instead of trying to clinch. The thing is I want to reliably win by throwing knees. The only other idea I've pondered is to use single legs more, not to take them down but to try to set up knees and clinch them after a hit. I should mention that we don't throw knees to the legs in my gym (and not to the head either), so I haven't really considered trying to unbalance them that way but without having a grip I doubt it would be very effective.
So what *should* I do when they simply refuse to grip fight and clinch, but that's what I want to force them to do, and the sparring area is spaciously open? What adjustments do I make?
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