Teacher Development Programme: Clinch (diary entry)

28.09.2021 Hour five of my client 11 hour teacher development programme looked at the Muay Thai clinch. We ran through various compliant drills for technique development and then into specific sparring. The lesson focused on building on the various composite parts of the Muay Thai clinch, isolating and then integrating them. The objective was develop through compliant partner work switching intensity to a competitive format and then back into flow drilling before eventually building to full clinch-based sparring.

• Warm-up, including knee strikes and stand-up grappling callisthenics

• Footwork shadow drills - forwards, backwards and lateral.

• Plum position - drilling for middle position moving into sparring

• Plum position with layered footwork - compliant drill to 10 seconds of sparring and back again

• Angled footwork shadow drills

• Plum position with angled footwork - compliant drill to 10 seconds of sparring and back again

• Plum position with all footwork - compliant drill to 10 seconds of sparring and back again

• Straight and diagonal knee strike layering in one-for-one

• Breaking and escaping the plum position - technique training

• Collar and elbow tie position - drilling, dominating grip technique and specific sparring

• Collar and elbow tie rythmic lateral footwork for the curved knee strike - two step and strike

• Collar and elbow tie curved knee drill

• 2 x 2 minute rounds of specific clinch sparring - 1st round = all clinch sparring 2nd = 1 minute each outside boxing vs clinch