The best example of technically proficient striking from the clinch is Randy Couture. Go to dailymotion . com and do a search and you’ll catch a few fights, but definitely try and get a hold of his match against Vitor Belfort.

The key thing about Randy’s striking is that he doesn’t go for the big knockout shot from the clinch. This is a huge mistake I see people make in training and competition – they get over excited at the opportunity to strike and therefore lose control.

Control comes before striking!

Just as on the ground, you go fishing for position, that’s the key to clean submission! (Thanks Fianna for that little rhyme). In the clinch, striking should be used as a tool to wear down your opponent. The key principles of good attacking clinch – forward pressure, hip control, good posture are even more vital when striking is involved.

What you should aim to do is control your opponent, unbalance him, and then get off a shot or two before re grabbing and controlling him. If you do this correctly, each time you clinch it up again, you’ll have better control, which means you can move him more easily and then get off more shots each time.

But remember, in order to strike you have to give up some control. So always make sure you’ve got your opponent off balance or on the back foot when you’re striking.

Breaking to hit:

Largely as a result of how we segment our training into Stand Up, Clinch & Ground, we tend to think of them as separate aspects. We should try to blue the lines between Stand up and clinch as much as possible. (This is why it’s important to make it to the Tuesday MMA Sparring Class – which looks to blend the training together, segmented training gives a segmented capacity)

When breaking from the clinch to strike, you should come out swinging. Now I don’t mean you should thrash about wildly, we want forward, controlled, technical pressure in everything we do. The key point is to begin striking while you’re still in the clinch. Don’t break, reset, get your hands up, take a big deep breath, think about striking, readjust your footwork, wonder if your gloves are on right, if there’s long left in the round, think of a really cool combo, and then strike.

Here are some vids of clinch striking with an enforced break. This was on Day 3 of playing with striking from the clinch, which included knees. I think it stands as a testament that guys training with the right mentality can play quite safely with the clinch and strikes without injuries. On the break, one guy was looking to strike and re clinch, one guy just to defend. In the clinch, both parties were looking for positional dominance and to strike.

Clinch Striking 1 (mpg, 24 secs, 6.1MB)

Clinch Striking 2 (mpg, 29 secs, 7.3MB)