Closing The Gap (Empty Hand)

[Chad W. Getz]

I'll post this thread on the MMA/BJJ and JKD lists as well. So how do you train closing the gap(transitional range) when fighting empty hands.

[Underdog]

By far the biggest obstacle I stumbled onto in my MA training is closing the distance.

That's because I have FEAR to get hit.

You can search high and low and drill until the cows gets home, but when you'll face a real sparring session or worse, a real fight, the fear will resurface. Sure as hell.

So basically you have only one option: accept the price to get proficient in closing the distance, and that's PAIN. Lots of pain.

I fear what i don't know, and tend to exxaggerate my fears, so I feared my opponent's blow thinking they would hurt me in a disproportionate way.

When I first trained in Ruas vale tudo one of the first question I put to my instructor was "How you can get the clinch bypassing your opponent's hands? How Marco teached you?" he replied "I trained with Marco in LA and Brazil, and EVERYTIME he beated the crap outta me" so he did exactly the same to me.

Once explained how to clinch you must deflect the incoming blows against a partner THAT IS TRYING TO CUT YOUR HEAD OFF!

Really; that's no other way.

There are endless techniques to get the clinch, but the real secret is become confident in the fact that even if you catch an incoming blow it must be a very powerful and precise one to slow you down for the count; if you have experience in dealing with the sensation of get hit you will not have fear, and you'll enter INSIDE your opponent blows. I was stunned when I saw my instructor getting the head over chest clinch with experienced boxers; his timing was so precise, finding a little hole between the guys arms and then stepping inside. I think this is the single most important ability for a fighter: to enter inside close range at will. If you watch Ruas fights you'll see that he clinch getting behind the opponent front shoulder; with the head pressing it. From this position you are fairly safe: and a moment away from a takedown.

I would expand on this but now I must go to work!

[Chad W. Getz]

Well said.

[Underdog]

Thanks, Chad; now let's tech:

We train in three types of closing the distance:

1. getting the "high clinch", i.e. the muai Thay, boxing, or greco roman clinch. You wrap your arm around your opp. neck, and work from there.

2. the "medium clinch"; i.e. your arm are wrapped around your opp. chest: you may have a frontal clinch, where your head is buried in opponent's sternum; a lateral one, and your head is behind your opp. front shoulder, or a back one, where your head is pressed against you opp. high spine.
We from RVT think that the medium clinch is the safest of the three, but that's reflect the fact that the style is a byproduct of Ruas, a Tall guy like mine. If I shoot for a low takedow, I must lower myself alot, telegraphing the move.

3. the "low clinch"; when your head is pressing against the opp. rear hipbone. Is the classical wrestling/BJJ takedown attempt.

To train you must progress in sparring, and chose if you get the clinch defensively or offensively: in the former case you have an opponent chasing you with wathever weapon you decide (only punches, kickboxing, elbows etc.) and you have wathever padding gear you decide: then it's WAR, if your partner nail you, the gym laugh hard, if not, they laugh hard alsoewher...

To get the clinch offensively your partner held focus mitts or thai pads, and you throw combinations and then enter. Simple. If you did something wrong he hit you wit the mitts. hard. very hard.

Then you do conditioned sparring: when one get the clinch score a point; the one who reach a certain number of point laugh hard when the other did 100 push ups...

Ciao!

[thekuntawman]

if you have a guy in front of you who is not a grappler, or he is not trying to clinch with you, a good way to go in is to decide how close you want to get in first. like are you going close enough to jab only (stick and move), close enough to power punch, close enough to kick with the shin, close enough to kick with the foot, or close enough to clinch, or clinch and strike. there is a distance you need for one of those.

the first thing is to practice and decide which footwork you will use, a slide or a step. the best way when you use one of those is to step or slide in BEHIND you opponent foot. and while you moved in or a half second before you moved in you should throw a hand technique or foot technique to get you opponent reaction. this way when you see his reaction, you will know what you will do second, because that determines what will you do third, which is the beginning of what you really plan to do in the first place.

my favorite entering technique is to very bravely slam my round kick to my opponent about every five seconds to make sure it hurts. then i set up a good angle and distance to my opponent, then i initiate a fake round kick (my leg only comes up about one or two feet) then i put it down while i slide in, take my opponent front hand and follow it up with hands. i use it whenever i need to let him know who is boss, because it works for me almost every time. it use it in full contact matches and point fighting and continuous point. sometimes i skip the trap and go right to punching if my opponent is real slow.