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

Good Muay Thai sparring should not feel like a choreographed exchange. It should ask questions the fighter has to solve in real time. Tonight’s 1.5-hour class with my client was built around that idea. The goal was not to collect rounds for the sake of fitness. It was to teach better strategy, better ring generalship, and better decision-making under pressure.

Teaching martial arts requires constant adaptation and learning. Recently, I had the opportunity to provide a martial arts teacher training private lesson to a long-time client from the Cotswold School of Karate. After completing a course focused on knee strikes, we shifted our attention to elbow strikes, using an exclusively Muay Thai approach. This post shares insights from that session, highlighting how karate instructors can integrate Muay Thai clinching and elbow techniq