Tonight’s 1.5-hour Muay Thai lesson focused on strategy under pressure. No long combinations for their own sake. No bag work to hide behind. Every round had a rule that forced a decision. That is where good training starts to look like fighting. A student can have a clean round kick and still freeze when the distance changes. They can punch well on pads and still fail to exit after a clinch. Strategy fills that gap.

Understanding the Complexity of the Clinch A knee from the clinch seems simple, right? But it becomes a different story when someone is trying to stand tall, jam the hip, fight the grip, and turn out all at once. That was the theme of tonight’s private lesson. My Muay Thai client put in a tremendous effort. They could knee a pad and replicate the shape. However, the real question was whether they could find the knee when the other person was solving the opposite problem. This

Hour four of my client’s Muay Thai course marked a significant milestone as we delved into the intricacies of elbow strikes specifically within the context of the clinch. The clinch, a fundamental aspect of Muay Thai, allows for close-range combat where fighters can utilise various techniques to gain an upper hand. In this session, I opted to dedicate the initial series of rounds to focusing on individual elbow strikes, allowing my client to practice landing these powerful st

The third hour of my teenage client’s Kickboxing course introduced round kicks to sparring. We worked through several exercises that built up his confidence to defend and deliver this technique before integrating them into sparring. The round kick introduced in this kickboxing course is principally the Thai style in the beginner course, although other variations are introduced in more advanced, later courses.

The third hour of my client’s first Muay Thai Personal Training course continued our work in the clinch. Our lesson integrated all the main knee strikes from the previous classes: spear knees, curve knees and introduced the horizontal knee. I also worked more on other arm positions in the clinch, such as the body locks.