Clinch For The Street

A review of The HardCore Gym’s "clinch for the street" tape by Richard Killick April 2003.

I have for a number of years trained with free style wrestlers to improve my take downs and reversals from the bottom quarter position etc. In the past I made use of my Muay Thai skills in clinch range. Being tall I have always found it easily to grab the other guys head and knee to the body. If fact my Thai coach used to drill me over and over in that position as he felt it was a strong point. Over the last ten years or so, my training partners and I have been sparring vale tudo style. This has meant that I have banged heads with a number of good wrestlers, who to be honest have man handled me in the clinch range.

The fact is that if you cannot control clinch range you will end up on the ground and worst of all, on the bottom being ground and pounded. I have taken some private lessons with wrestling coaches, so I have picked up the basic clinch techniques such as a body lock, under hook etc but I could never get them to flow in vale tudo sparring.

Fed up of being bounced on the mat and into the gym walls I recently purchased the Clinch for the street tape from The Hardcore Gym. What I was looking for, was the bottom line on how to build a game in the vale tudo clinch.

The tape covers a two day clinch workshop taught by Adam and Rory Singer who are both SBG coaches and who also run The HardCore Gym located in Athens, Georgia. The Gym is part of Straight Blast Gym International. Firstly the tape is not one of those commercial tapes which have fifteen techniques repeated nine times in slow mo etc. There are no ten minute introduction shots. The tape is packed wall to wall with how to build your clinch game.

The following is a basic rounding up as to what is covered on the tape because every time I review it I see something else. The first area covered is the swimming drill with a number of points underlined, one of which I had completely missed. The swimming drill is a great way to get beginners to dig in when clinching.

Then the right way to get the under hook is reviewed, flowing into the body lock or double under hook. Both high, low and side body locks are shown. Here I found out where my take down from the side body lock has been going wrong.

The next area covered was hand fighting, with some very cool set ups and more importantly why you need to be able to hand fight. Hand fighting is then added in to the pummel drill.

A number of counters to the under hook position are covered in detail. This naturally leads into counters to the body lock position and showed me how to turn the tables on my BJJ friends.

The front head lock position is reviewed with a number of drills to build your skills. The snap down is also shown and day one ends.

Day Two

The people on the workshop have been pummeling techniques as they go and Adam re- covers a couple of the concepts. The single neck tie is covered along with counters to it. Rory covers how to counter the various body locks from the first day with the whizzer etc.

The double neck tie which is know to most as the muay thai plum position is shown in fine detail. This includes a cool entry off of punches. Five or so very useable counters are shown for this position. The action then flows into the head and arm position and also the pinch headlock.

Now that you can control the position hitting in the clinch is added, covering use of the head, elbow and knees. There are some smart counters to the front head lock position which have again helped my game a lot. You also learn how to turn your opponent into the cage ala Randy Couture, when you’re pinned up against it.

Dirty tactics are added such as groin pops, eye rakes etc. There is a review of defending takedowns with the sprawl, with a further point I had missed. The lesson ends with some Q/A.

That’s all I have from my notes, I know I have missed some bits such as a 2 on 1 and takedowns etc. I have been watching some on the tape and then road testing it in sparring with great results, as I now get to be on top on the ground for once.

To summarize, this tape is ideal for the beginner or advance person, it will show you step by step how to build the skills for the clinch range and give you lots to work on. Rory and Adam give clear instruction like all great coaches do and as most people know its all in the fine details of how to do the fundamentals well. The price is very reasonable and my only regret is not getting it a year ago.

If you’re fed up of being rammed into the wall go to http://www.thehardcoregym.net/index.shtml and get the tape.

Adam and Rory are the Southern USA Regional Directors for SBGI and are available for group training, privates and seminars.

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