Clinch Positions – MMA Training in Chicago, Schaumburg, Aurora, Naperville, Minooka, and Merrillville Indiana

Approximately six types of clinch have proven the most effective in MMA competition. We must not immediately that these clinches can be ranked according to the degree of control and domination that they offer over an opponent. Some of the clinches are neutral in so far as they do not offer any intrinsic advantage over your opponent. In other words, these clinches are symmetrical in that you and your opponent have the same grip on each other; therefore, your opponent has access to exactly the same moves that you do. Two examples of neutral clinches are important in MMA competition are the collar-and-elbow clinch and the over-under clinch.

Collar-and-Elbow Clinch

To lock up your opponent in a collar-elbow clinch, place one hand behind your opponent’s neck at the collar (you can also grip higher up on the crown of the head). With your other hand, grip his arm at the elbow. Your opponent will probably grip you in the same way, creating a neutral clinch, but you can give yourself a slight advantage by pushing the hand on the elbow inside your opponent’s arm and placing your hand on his biceps. This gives you the advantage of inside control, which makes it easier for you to open up your opponent so that you can enter for strikes and takedowns. At the same time, it also helps negate your opponent’s striking and takedown attacks.

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Breaking Out of a Double-Underhooks Clinch- MMA Gyms in Illinois and Indiana

We now come to the question of breaking out of dominant clinches. This fear is always more difficult, since dominant clinches give your opponent more control of your body than do neutral clinches. One of the best ways to escape the troublesome double underhooks clinch is the chin post.

As your opponent locks up a double-underhooks clinch. place both hands under his chin and push. At the same time, sag your hips back and away from your opponent. This maneuverer breaks event the strongest lock around your body. This move is also particularly useful when you are pinned against a fence or the ropes (or in a street fight, against a wall), or when you are locked up in a tight bearing.

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Breaking Out of a Collar and Elbow Clinch – MMA Training and Conditioning

The collar and elbow clinch is easy to enter into and is thus one of the most common forms of a clinch. It is important for fighters to have a quick and simple form of escape so that they can get out before their opponent can control them and go on the offensive. One of the best escapes is a simple outside Russian.

When your opponent grabs you behind the neck, grab his arm at the wrist and triceps. Push his arm across and control it by hugging it to your chest as your circle around toward the arm you are grabbing. his hand will slid off your neck. Do not let go of the elbow, but continue to push it across and control it. Your opponent no longer has a grip on you, and you can easily back away now and return to the free-movement phase.

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Drills for the Bottom Position – MMA Training and Conditioning in Chicago

A  number of useful drills can dramatically improve a fighter’s bottom game. We shall look now at some of the best. But before we do, let us quickly review how partners should begin each drill.

Perhaps the best way to gain expertise in escaping from bad positions in a quick and efficient manner is to have your training partner start in each of the dominant positions while you try to escape from them. Now we can begin with the following positional escape drills.

Rear-Mount Escape Drill

Have your partner start in the rear-mount position (try both top and bottom mounts). He attempts to submit you as you attempt to escape. As soon as either of you succeeds in this goal, swap roles and start again.

Mount Escape Drill

Your partner begins mounted.  HE attempts to hold the mounted position and apply submission holds while you attempt to escape to the guard position or attempt to bridge and roll your partner over. When either of you succeeds, swap positions and start again.

The  mount escape drill can be done with the knee-on-belly position and side-control position. Only this time, the top man not only tries to submit his partners, but he also looks to improve his position by getting to the mounted position. The bottom man must resist this move by escaping to the guard position, getting to his knees, or just scrambling out.

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Key skills for the Clinch – MMA Gyms in Illinois

We have maintained that each separate phase of combat has a set of skills that are appropriate to it and that allow one fighter to dominate another fighter in that phase. Of course, this does not mean that there is no overlap in skills between the different phases. Nonetheless, the empirical evidence is clear in showing that the skills of one phase are not even close to ensuring success in the other phases. The clinch phase is no exception to this rule. A unique set of skills that we shall now look at are essential to success in the clinch.

• Basic clinch positions and grips
• Transitions from one type of clinch to another
• Entering a clinch
• Off-balancing the opponent
• Takedowns from the clinch
• Submission holds
• Striking in the clinch
• Breaking a clinch and escaping

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Development and Change in MMA Competition

In time, the nature of MMA events began to change. Because of the lack of rules, there were some rather brutal fights. These tended to occur when two fighters met each other whose enthusiasm was much greater than their skill level.  American audiences were not used to the image of one man holding down another man and brutally hitting him. It did not square with the general public’s image of a clean fight-an image of both men standing up as they fought and stopping when one went down. To a public raised on the Western boxing ethic of not hitting a downed fighter. It appeared brutal and sadistic. A strong political movements developed to ban MMA fights in North America unless drastic changes were made to the rules. At the same time, other spectators demanded more nonstop action. Quite often, the early MMA events had long periods of ground grappling, which some people found boring. Fighters would often degenerate into draws with little activity on either side. To keep the action going rules were implemented to prevent long periods of inactivity.

As a result of these demands, most MMA events began to introduce short rounds and shorter time limits. At the end of a round, the two fighters would stand up and prolonged inactivity would result in a referee intervention that this time to prevent the tremendous size differences that characterized many early MMA fights. If fights went the distance, a judge’s decision would determine the outcome. If a fighter appeared to be in trouble, the referee could stop the fight and declare a winner. Gloves became compulsory. They enabled strikers to h it full power without fear of breaking their hands, a common problem in early MMA fights. In addition, it made grappling more difficult, since grapplers lost much of their grappling sensitivity when their hands were gloved.

The general result of these rule changes was to greatly increase the importance of striking in MMA events. Fighters could now hit harder without fear of injury. Knockout victories became much more common, and there was now much more time spent in the standing position, since the beginning of every round saw the return of th fighters to their feet. Many fighters sought to convey the image of greater aggression by striking as much as possible, knowing that this would work to their advantage if the fight should go to a judge’s decision.

In the face of these crucial changes, a number of important trends emerged. The first attempts at cross-training began to appear. This was the idea of training in a number of different disciplines to accomplish the following objective: have sufficient expertise in every aspect of a fight to avoid getting into serious trouble while at the same time having some area of specialty where one tried to attain victory. for example, a kick boxer  might train diligently in ground grappling in order to survive long enough on the ground to last to the end of a round. He could then resume the fight where he wanted it-back on his feet where his striking skills could come into play. In addition, he could spend time learning to defend takedown attempts and thus avoid the whole ground game as much as possible and keep the fight in the phase where he felt most comfortable.

In the early days of MMA, many fighters looked on Brazilian jiu jitsu as a riddle to be solved. They studied it intently until they were no longer taken by surprise by its strategy and tactics. Wrestlers learned to avoid the submission holds that head wreaked havoc in the early MMA events. This enabled them to use their excellent takedown skills to take their opponents quickly to the ground where they could use their great strengths and athleticism to pound them from a to position and eventually win via decision or a referee’s stoppage. In this way, they could keep the fight in a standing position as much as possible, where their striking skills would be most effective. Thus,t he increase in skill level as a result of cross-training, along with the rule changes, allowed wrestlers and strikers to experience much greater success in MMA competition. The trend came full circle when jujitsu and submission fighters had to cross-train in striking and wrestling so as to keep abreast three basic types of fighters in contemporary MMA events.

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Arm Bar – MMA Training

Few submission holds have the versatility of juji gatame. It can be used from a vast number of positions. Here we see a particularly useful one from the side-control position. Begin by grabbing your opponent’s far arm at the wrist. Begin your other hand around and under the elbow of the arm you have just gripped and grasp your own wrist. This grip, often referred to as the “kimura” grip, gives you tremendous control over your opponent’s trapped arm. One option is to then step around your opponent’s head, placing your foot very close to his upper back. Then simply turn around and sit down. This puts you in a prefect position to execute juji gatame. Clamp your knees together to control the arm and straighten the arm out, holding it at the wrist. Push your hips up to break the arm.

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Triangle Choke – MMA Training and Conditioning

The triangle choke remains one of the most popular and successful submission holds from the guard position. The variant we look at here is best used from the closed guard when the opponent is on his knees. With your opponent locked in your closed guard, grab both his wrists, forcing one wrist back towards his sternum. This allows you to throw your leg over that trapped arm and around your opponent’s neck. This traps your opponent’s head and one arm between your legs. Try to touch the foot of your strangling leg to the back of your opponent’s opposite shoulder to create an optimum angle for the stranglehold.  It is often helpful to scoot your hips out to the side to facilitate the choke. Lock your legs around your opponent’s head and arm in teh triangular figure-four pattern. Be sure to pull the foot of the strangling leg all the way under the knee of the other leg. Squeeze your knees together and pull down on your opponent’s head to strangle.

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