Andy Souwer vs. Suzuki Satoru

[curlbroscience]

I don't know if that is the way to properly defend knees in the clinch.

[powerof0ne]

Yeah, I don't know where Suzuki learned that from but it's not wise.

I'd be a liar if I was to say I've never used my forearms and elbows to try and defend knees but the best "defense" against knees is proper posture and position and knowing when to either throw/takedown or knee back harder and take control of the clinch. "Turtling up" and hunching over is a HORRIBLE idea against somebody clinching and kneeing you, especially if they know what they're doing.

The last "defense" against a strong clinch and knee attacker is uppercuting your way out of the clinch but you have to maintain proper posture and position like discussed above.

The last thing you could do in competition is place your shin horizontally across the top of your opponent's knees until the ref breaks it up. Doing this in real life won't work because somebody could just dump you onto the ground.

Explaining proper posture and position in grappling and the clinch is very hard to do in text ,best shown by an experienced instructor...and really, experience is the best key to get it down so you don't have to think about it anymore in order to pull it off.
Osu!

[curlbroscience]

New Muay Thai Minute which coincidentally illustrates the last point you made regarding horizontal shin placement.

I <3 that series. Wish there was more information (for strict muay thai) regarding offense and throws for the body lock.

[powerof0ne]

It's more of a stall tactic then anything and I've never felt comfortable in clinching on just my opponents arms for long...bit of it works for YOU, use it! I do the "shin stall" while maintaining a full tight clinch or my modified clinch I've been using over the years.
Osu!

[curlbroscience]

Yeah I am not anywhere near comfortable in that range between elbows and clinch. Speaking of which, did you see the Jones fight? Particularly round 2?

Maybe if I could find someone at our gym willing to slow it down quite a bit, and throw on a pair of elbow pads just to work that range would be cool.

EDIT: Maybe it's just our gym but I find that when we do clinch work it's very aggressive and in close. We rarely practice at arms length with elbows and knees.

Just a lot of push, pull, rotate, throw and knees at close range.



We clinch/neck wrestle like those kids in the back most of the time.