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

    • Sorry for not answering in proper quotations, a quick input. I asked someone who documents lethwei about it: "I think a lot of people mistake the tattoos for being directly connected to lethwei. I've seen them in so many more contexts including theatre and other traditional sports from Burma." On martial arts as warfare I completely agree with you. It would be extremely odd if weapons were not included. Lethwei belongs to "thaing" though, one of Myanmar's traditional martial arts together with banshe which uses weapons. I understand Myanmar army has been trained in Thaing and historically there were differences between various people and parts of the country, lowlands and highlands. Could be a connection there?  In lethwei what we see today I think difference is more in personal styles than ethnicity but I'm not 100% sure.       
    • One of the interesting things in Michael Chaney treatment is that he specifically would like to erase the highland/lowland distinction that a lot of historians focus on. This, for instance, in Thai-Siam studies can be quite emphasized. Part of this may be that highland cultures may have had more of a penchant for aggression or violence in combat - for instance headhunting seems to have persisted in the highland regions much longer than elsewhere in mainland Southeast Asia, and in Siam-Thai ideology these peoples have been positioned as "savage", opposed to the high culture of the Capital and its halo of authority out to the foothills of the North. I don't really know the distribution of ethnicity, but have you noticed an cultural connection between highland (or lowland) Burmese and present day Lethwei?    That is a very nice data point. My own intuition is that I have doubts about Muay Boran (or Lethwei) directly coming from combat itself, at least large scale combat tracing back to the 17th century, for example. My main reason for this is that practically every piece of evidence I've seen is that this kind of combat is not weaponless at all. Everyone is armed with blades, spear/lance and/or shield. I'm sure every rice farmer was very adept at using a blade for work. If there WAS a direct development of a fighting art for or from military actions it most certainly would have been a weaponed fighting art, and the shield would probably be a significant aspect of that fighting. We can make conceptual connections to how Muay Thai, Muay Boran or (I guess) Lethwei may be related to weaponed fighting...but that fact that it isn't weaponed fighting seriously undermines some of that historical picture. I could though see subduing an opponent being part of much smaller scale raiding, which would be largely focused on slave capture. I think this makes perfect sense. I think trends in culture and expression really change and can change fast, in a decade or two, and not necessarily reach back centuries. A big part of the ideological picture Thailand presents about Muay Thai is that it is the reason the Thais were never in historical fact colonized (the story that is told). Instead it is presented that a series of Kings through strategy were able to find ways to absorb Western influence & control, and retain a sense of ideological identity. [sorry, I wrote all this before I saw that you brought it up! But I'll leave it in nonetheless] In the Thai telling they "won" because they were smart and pliant before a formidable force, something they navigated with great sagacity. You can see how the two mythologies diverge (not making judgements on either). The brief (allied) Japanese occupation left a mark on Thailand, but largely there has been seldom a sense that a foreign invader had to be fought off (since the Burmese defeat of Ayutthaya, with possible exceptions of some of the 19th century slave capture revolts in the Northeast, and the fight against Communism in the 1960s-1970s, and today's insurgence in the South). Largely, Thailand has painted itself as "whole". Maybe this makes a big difference in terms of what fighting means to a culture. Much further up in the thread this is discussed in broad SEA historical view by Anthony Reid. He suggests that even the way in which SEAians thought about property, identity, wealth, was shaped by the transience of wooden houses. This flows into the idea of the perpetual possibility of retreat. Houses were not valuable. The land in a certain sense is not valuable (because fertile land is not scare, as say it is in Europe). Speaking very broadly, invaders or raiders would come, villagers would run to the forest and take all their valuables with them (wealth had to be transportable), and the village would be burned. He presents this as nearly a pan SEA pattern lasting centuries. When the Dutch came and established trading posts in, I think Jakarta?, they were forbidden from building anything with stone. Everything had to be made from wood, with the exception of the palace (and perhaps wats). In the sense or warfare and conflict, if Anthony Reid is right, then raid (and maybe burning) were a regular part of the life cycle, as was fleeing to the forest or mountains, and relocating one's village. The main point was not to be captured, and to escape with one's relative wealth (rice, valuables). Personally, I see in this transience of the abode something even of the foundations of the Buddhist conceptions of the transience of the Self. As the palace and the wat were made of stone, you have the contrastive permanence of spiritual and political authority. This is quite different than in the West where one's home/land helps constitute one's more individual identity much more. The "castle" of the Self, to which Western religions are more focused on. In any case, an interesting speculation.    
    • Yes, understood. It resonates a lot with evasive muay thai comparing it to that kind of warfare. What caught my attention is the stark contrast to lethwei which is very aggressive and forward moving. I have a limited view not speaking the language properly and lethwei teachers or students who do are very few. And Burmese people who do speak English but not too invested in martial arts have a hard time translating for me as the Burmese words used for various strikes and techniques are not self-explanatory. In addition, the sport is dominated by Karen, Mon and Kachin people with different languages. My teachers are Karen and their words for specific techniques are different than Bamar people's for example.  But having trained with very traditional teachers and shared some clips with Sylvie, seems like traditional techniques I'm being taught are very similar to muay boran. So even though the sport today might seem brutal and aggressive there is something beneath what it has become known as "most brutal sports on the planet" (and promoted as by western fighters). I've been taught techniques that would pacify my opponent like stomping their foot with my heel, push my thumb into the neck of my opponent, heel kick back of opponents knee in the clinch. Things that are effective but doesn't cause too much damage. Which would resonate with your reflections on capture not kill.  One thing though is that retreating is not viewed beautifully in traditional lethwei. And caused a bit of drama recently when two champions met in a title fight scored on points and one of the up and coming champions Thway Thit used a retreating style making champion Tun Tun Min chase him. Thway Thit won (very fairly he scored more) but his backing up caused debate.  I wonder if it has to do with more recent history. Myanmar was colonised by Britain, occupied by Japan and since independence oppressed by the Myanmar armed forces with around 26 Ethnic Armed Organisations fighting for their independence (Karen being very successful example). During the recent coup people fought back. They wouldn't have it. They won't give up. Myanmar culture has a lot of stubbornness in it. Which I see reflected in lethwei.  I might simplify your theories here by seeing how Thailand avoided colonisation, it evaded it very cleverly.  I saw something you wrote about burning villages by the way, this is of course pre-Tatmadaw (Myanmar armed forces established in 1940s), but scorching earth policy is a permanent strategy of the Tatmadaw (they just keep burning down villages as im writing this). I wonder if there's a cultural root in that depicted in the illustrations? Above views are really just my own reflections and very anecdotal. I just find this region very interesting and I'm wondering how Khun Khmer and Lao martial arts fit in. 
  • The Latest From Open Topics Forum

    • I just came across your post and wanted to say that when it comes to video editing, there's a huge selection of applications out there, so it's important to find one that suits your specific requirements. Take your time to explore these options and see which one resonates with you the most.
    • Thanks for responding and wow, what a beautiful ram muay. I think I really resonate with what you said about allowing yourself to occupy and utilize masculine and feminine energies without it having any bearing on your actual gendered existence. Being able to "go back" into masculine territory with Muay Thai has really let me take ownership over the parts of myself that I was running from and contextualize them into my post-transition persona.  You and Angie are literally who I think of when I am overwhelmed and pessimistic about fighting. You both made room for me in the sport in your own ways and I am very grateful. PS, Bev Francis is so dope.
    • I will be sharing your words with Angie, as I'm sure they mean as much to her as they do to me. For me, personally, what drew me to Muay Thai was the performance of masculinity, with these simultaneous soft and fluid expressions. I've written on my blog about how masculinity does not belong to men; men "wear" it just as much as women can, it's not intrinsic or "natural" or inherent. Bev Francis, one of the most famous female Body Builders in the 70s and 80s pushed past the "acceptable" limit of muscles that "feminine" bodies into muscles that were heavily criticized as being "too much" for a woman. But Bev loved muscles and being strong for the exact same reasons males with those bodies love them: because it feels good. A pleasure not "belonging" to a gender, even if socially it is flagged or coded to the binary. As a cis woman, this is how I've navigated the very complex experiences of Muay. The parts that are masculine feel good for the same reasons they feel good to men, but I do get offended when folks comment that I "look like a man," or am "strong like a man." As a Cis woman, I have a more relaxed privilege to those offenses because I don't worry about "passing," but I do, at times, fret that I can never be unaware of being NOT A MAN in a man's arena. But vacillating in the in-between is where the real beauty is and, if Muay Thai allows you to explore and express your gender in a more nuanced way, then that's a wonder I have greatly appreciated as well. If you can find Superbank's stunningly beautiful Ram Muay, wherein he is pouring out feminine grace and at the exact same moment filling himself with masculine prowess...it's that. That's the perfect example.  
    • I started late, 25 yrs old. I have recently found Sylvie's videos interviewing Angie and while that is a huge inspiration for me as someone now a few months into training, I have found the real hook that kept me coming back to class religiously is the impact of Muay Thai on my relationship to my body. I pass fairly well when I am conforming to western femininity but I actually gravitate towards tom/butch expression (undercut, little makeup, "men's" cloths) despite being MTF. For my whole life, and especially the last few years during transition I have had basically hypervigilance/hyper fixation surrounding my body and how its being perceived/gendered and how I exist in space. Surrendering to the grind/burn of Muay Thai has been one of the biggest non-medical transition tool for reframing my relationship to my body from one centered on the perceptions of others, to one centered around learning how to assert myself in space and exercise balance and autonomy over my body. I have a lifetime of sharpening ahead of me but I have found a great deal of relief and reward in the distance I have come so far. As I become more at home in my body I am able to understand how my natural tendencies match up to the various subdisciplines/systems of Muay Thai and serves as a salient anchor for these parts of myself I want to develop in my regular life, and for getting past traumas. Making this post to share this experience, as after the fact I thought it was very ironic that this thing that is so good for specifically trans mental health (in my opinion) is socially and sometimes legally off limits to us. How does my experience compare to yours? Do you know any trans fighters that have had similar or different experiences?
    • Sorry for reviving this thread, but I wonder which video editor you picked in the end? I bought a new laptop and thinking of trying some new video editors.
  • Forum Statistics

    • Total Topics
      1.3k
    • Total Posts
      11k
×
×
  • Create New...