Jump to content

Should You Train Clinch Barehanded or With Gloves? Pros and Cons


Recommended Posts

I'm posting my article on the pros and cons of training clinch barehanded (the Thai way) or with gloves (the way we fight), creating a space for longer form conversation of our experiences. I found benefits to both, but lately I've turned to gloves for reasons outlined in the article.

Should You Train Clinch With Gloves or Barehanded?

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've been training both recently - mainly training without gloves when doing technical sessions or trying new things out; like you say, the transitions are much easier without the added bulk of gloves. However, I'm wary of becoming too comfortable without gloves so when we're doing more competitive clinch sessions we've been using gloves to get us used to the restriction of movement . My trainers tend to mix it up with us as well, although they don't split it directly between the technical/freestyle sessions and I've never actually discussed it with them. It may change but at the moment I'm happy with the mix - not using gloves makes me see how I want things to work and what my technical options are, but having gloves on allows me to have a more "realistic" experience of what I can physically achieve and adjustments I need to make.

On a related note, I've found that training with gloves when clinching with guys that are bigger than me is easier than clinching with girls the same size - the size difference, especially when their technique isn't particularly strong in clinch, provides a lot more space for me to use for transitions and less for them. Again I'm wary of getting too comfortable so it's nice to get a balance of training partners of difference sizes as well as gloved/ungloved training.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've trained both ways for many years. 

What I have found is training without gloves offers me more imagination, creativity and choice. I combine clinching techniques from wrestling, judo and sambo into my traditional muay thai clinching. So I have many more options than those who are limited by only using muay thai clinching. 

Training with the gloves allows me to distinguish which tactics transfer to the ring. 

I'd rather have an abundance of choices via training without gloves rather than limited choices training with gloves. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I consider myself a beginner at clinching and the times when I do it without gloves allow me to feel out the movements and the strenght movement in the clinch, which is still very foreign to me.

In gloves I just grab on to the head and do nothing fancy ;)

Actually I currently train under two trainers. The first one, with whom I've beed training for over a year now usually has us clinching in gloves. It's rare that we do it bare-handed. The other one does it completetly different (although I've only been training with him for 2 months) - first we learn a technique bare-handed and then we have to try it in light sparring with gloves on.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

At my gym we are generally told to take our gloves and wraps off before clinching so we don't scratch each other's faces with any velcro. I would prefer to clinch with gloves as this is what happens in fights, but instead I just ball my fists up a little bit and try to not to use my fingers to grip.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 year later...

Primarily I like to train without gloves on in as relaxed a manner as possible. It allows me to get a better feel for the technique without resorting to trying to overpower with strength. You appreciate this a lot more when the smallest guy in the gym throws you around like a rag doll without even trying.

Techniques feel different when performed with gloves on and I think it's important to experience the difference once you've gotten a grasp of how the technique should feel without gloves. I see no harm in the odd session here and there with gloves on but you can usually do this type of practice during sparring really (at least from a western training perspective anyway).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

My trainer has me doing both. Sometimes bare handed, sometimes with gloves; both ways sometimes slowly with lots of technique input, or fast and furious, or in play mode! I find it a lot easier without gloves, but gloves are how it would happen in the ring, so I like that we do both. Damn difficult either way! :teehee:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Most Recent Topics

  • Latest Comments

    • I remember - I've probably written it somewhere else - driving to Phetjeejaa's family gym, which was up a few lanes and a dirt road, when she was the best female Muay Thai fighter in the world, at only 13 years of age, something we did everyday so Sylvie could train with her. And to get there we motorbiked up Khao Talo road, a pretty active road, and would pass by a Taekwondo studio with a large plate glass window showing the training mat inside, where numerous kids around Phetjeejaa's age all glowed in their starched white Gis, Ha-ai-ing in their moves. And I thought to myself...we are driving to where the best female fighter in the world trains and all these kids, the parents of these kids, don't even know she's there...up the road. And even if they did, they wouldn't train with her at her gym, because Muay Thai is low class, its dirty, nothing like the promise of a clean white Gi.   The story of Muay Thai cannot be told without this strong division of class.
    • As Thailand's Muay Thai Turns Itself Toward the Westerner more and more, people are going to yearn for "authentic" Muay Thai This is one of the great ironic consequences of Thailand attempting to change its Muay Thai into a Western-oriented sport, not only changing the rules of its fights for them, and their presentation, but also changing the training, the very "form" of Muay Thai itself...this is going to increase the demand and desire for "authentic" Muay Thai. Yes, increasing numbers of people will be drawn to the made-for-me Muay Thai, because that's a wide-lane highway...but of those numbers a small subset is going to more intensely feel: Nope, that stuff is not for me. In this counterintuitive way, tourism and soft power which is radically altering Muay Thai, it also is creating a foreign desire for the very thing that is being altered and lost. The traveler, in the sense of the person who wants to get away from themselves, their culture, the things they already know, to find what is different than them, is going to be drawn to what hasn't been shaped for them. This is complicated though, because this is also linked to a romanticization, and exoticization sometimes which can be problematic, and because this then pushes the tourism (first as "adventure tourism") halo out further and further, eventually commodifying, altering more of what "isn't shaped for them". This is the great contradiction. There has to be interest and value in preserving what has been, but then if that interest is grown in the foreigner, this will lead to more alteration...especially if there is a power imbalance. So we walk a fine line in valuing that which is not-like-us. What is hopeful and interesting is that Thailand, and Siam before it, has spent centuries absorbing the shaping powers of foreign trade, even intense colonization, and its culture has developed great resistance to these constant interactions. It, and therefore Muay Thai itself, arguably has woven into itself the capacity to hold its character when when pressed. This is really what probably makes Thailand's Muay Thai so special, so unique in the world...the way it has survived as not only some kind of martial antecedent from centuries ago (under the influence of many international fighting influences), but also how it negotiated the full 100 years of "modernity" in the 20th century, including decades and decades in dialogue with Western Boxing (first from the British, then from America). The only really worrisome aspect of this latest colonization, if we can call it that, is that the imposing forces brought to Muay Thai through globalization are not those of a complex fighting art, developed through its own its own lineage in foreign lands. It's that mostly what is shaping Muay Thai now is a very pale version of itself, a Muay Thai that was imitated by the Japanese in the 1970s, in a new made up sport "Kickboxing", which bent back through Europe in the 1980s, and now is finding its way back to Thailand, fueled by Western and international interest. Thailand's Muay Thai is facing being shaped by a shadow of itself, an echo, a devolvment of skills and meaningfulness. On trusts though that it can absorb this and move on.   some of the history of Japanese Kickboxing:  
    • Wow, just watched an old Thai Fight replay of top tier female matchup that featured Kero's opponent in her last fight, someone she pretty much overwhelmed right away (with probably a 4 kg advantage). It was amazing to see the difference in performance on Thai Fight. Very skilled, very game, sharp. I came away realizing just how HARD it is to fight up. It changes everything. Sylvie takes 4 kg disadvantages all the time, and honestly overcomes them more often than not. What she does is so unappreciated, not only by others, but by Sylvie herself. Giving up significant weight and winning doesn't just take toughness, it takes an incredible amount of skill to keep that fighter away from what they want to do, to nullify all that size, strength and the angles. It's a complete art. You see this in female fighting all the time, big weight advantages REALLY matter. 
  • The Latest From Open Topics Forum

    • Hi all, Does anyone know of any suppliers for blanks (Plain items to design and print a logo on) that are a good quality? Or put me in the right direction? thanks all  
    • The first fight between Poot Lorlek and Posai Sittiboonlert was recently uploaded to youtube. Posai is one of the earliest great Muay Khao fighters and influential to Dieselnoi, but there's very little footage of him. Poot is one of the GOATs and one of Posai's best wins, it's really cool to see how Posai's style looked against another elite fighter.
    • Yeah, this is certainly possible. Thanks! I just like the idea of a training camp pre-fight because of focus and getting more "locked in".. Do you know of any high level gyms in europe you would recommend? 
    • You could just pick a high-level gym in a European city, just live and train there for however long you want (a month?). Lots of gyms have morning and evening classes.
    • Hi, i have a general question concerning Muay-Thai training camps, are there any serious ones in Europe at all? I know there are some for kickboxing in the Netherlands, but that's not interesting to me or what i aim for. I have found some regarding Muay-Thai in google searches, but what iv'e found seem to be only "retreats" with Muay-Thai on a level compareable to fitness-boxing, yoga or mindfullness.. So what i look for, but can't seem to find anywhere, are camps similar to those in Thailand. Grueling, high-intensity workouts with trainers who have actually fought and don't just do this as a hobby/fitness regime. A place where you can actually grow, improve technique and build strength and gas-tank with high intensity, not a vacation... No hate whatsoever to those who do fitness-boxing and attend retreats like these, i just find it VERY ODD that there ain't any training camps like those in Thailand out there, or perhaps i haven't looked good enough?..  Appericiate all responses, thank you! 
  • Forum Statistics

    • Total Topics
      1.4k
    • Total Posts
      11.4k
×
×
  • Create New...