The clinch

The clinch

In Western Boxing, the two fighters are separated when they clinch, in Muay Thai however, they are not. It is often in the clinch where knee techniques are used. The front clinch should be performed with the palm of one hand on the back of the other and not as shown in the picture. There are three reasons why the fingers must not be intertwined. 1) In the ring fighters are wearing boxing gloves and cannot intertwine their fingers. 2) The Thai front clinch involves pressing the head of the opponent downwards, which is easier if the hands are locked behind the back of the head instead of behind the neck. Furthermore the arms should be putting as much pressure on the neck as possible. 3) You can injure your fingers if they are intertwined, and it is harder to release the grip if you want to elbow your opponent's head quickly.

A correct clinch also involves your forearms pressing against the other fighter's collar bone while your hands are around the opponent's head rather than his neck. The general way to get out of a clinch (not the one pictured) is to push the opponents head backwards or elbow him, as the clinch requires both participants to be very close to one another. Additionally, the non-dominant clincher can try to "swim" his arm underneath and inside his opponent's clinch, establishing him as the now dominant clincher.

Muay Thai has several other variants of the clinch, including:
arm clinch, where one or both hands controls the inside of the defender's arm(s) and where the second hand if free is in the front clinch position, this clinch is used to briefly control the opponent before applying a knee strike or throw
side clinch, one arm passing around the front of the defender with the attacker's shoulder pressed into the defender's arm pit and the other arm passing round the back which allows the attacker to apply knee strikes to the defender's back or to throw the defender readily
low clinch, with both controlling arms passing under the defender's arms, which is generally used by the shorter of two opponents
swan-neck where one hand around the rear of the neck is used to briefly clinch (before a strike) an opponent.