How effective is the MT knee strike?

[Kung Fu Wang]

How effective is the MT knee strike? Your thought?

Here is an example that:

- A knees strike at B.
- B catch A's leg and takes A down.

 

[skribs]

Every single technique has a counter or a defense to it. If there was a technique that didn't, then everyone would just use that one technique.

I don't subscribe to the notion that combat sports is the definitive validation of technique, but it is a damn good method of doing so. If a technique tends to work well in Muay Thai, I'm going to go out on a limb and say it will work pretty well in any situation where it's allowed.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

Every single technique has a counter or a defense to it.

That's a fair statement.

In the following clip, neither person has tried this counter move. Why?

They may try the counter and fail. That's OK. But if they don't even try it at all, it can be hard to understand.

 

[skribs]

That's a fair statement.

In the following clip, neither person has tried this counter move. Why?

They may try the counter and fail. That's OK. But if they don't even try it at all, it can be hard to understand.

How would anyone but the two of them know the answer to that?

Off the top of my head, I can think of a few reasons: they didn't know it, didn't think of it, didn't react in time, were busy trying something else, felt like they could take those hits...

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

How would anyone but the two of them know the answer to that?

Off the top of my head, I can think of a few reasons: they didn't know it, didn't think of it, didn't react in time, were busy trying something else, felt like they could take those hits...

If one trains knee strike, should he also train the knee strike counter as well?

 

[drop bear]

That's a fair statement.

In the following clip, neither person has tried this counter move. Why?

They may try the counter and fail. That's OK. But if they don't even try it at all, it can be hard to understand.

Because if you fail you get elbowed in the face

A whole bunch of guys not doing the counter.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

Because if you fail you get elbowed in the face

When you try to catch your opponent's left knee striking leg with your right hand, you also use your left hand to push on his neck/shoulder. This way, his left hand/elbow cannot reach you. You also hide your head on the left side of your opponent's body, his right hand also cannot reach you.

If you charge in fast, even if your opponent's fist/elbow may land on you, it won't be powerful enough to hurt you.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

Catching the knee is a valid technique and is trained in Muay Thai. However that also means that a good nak muay knows how to make it difficult and dangerous to attempt that particular counter.

I'll start with noting an important difference between the clips you posted. In the gif with the fighter successfully catching the knee and dumping his opponent, there is no clinch established yet. That makes it much easier for the fighter catching the knee to use the tactic you mention of pushing on the opposite shoulder to disrupt the opponent's balance. In the other clip from the Rich Franklin-Anderson Silva fight, Silva had already established a highly dominant clinch position which limited Franklin's ability to counter.

Once an opponent has that dominant position, there are a number of reasons the person being kneed might not attempt catching the knees:

• The fighter with the dominant clinch is continually using that clinch to break the other fighter's posture and balance. It is hard to effectively catch a knee when your posture and balance are compromised.
• The fighter with the dominant position is continually varying the timing and angles of their knees in order to make them harder to predict and catch. They are also maintaining awareness of their opponent's position and readiness to possibly catch a knee.
• Attempting to catch the knee when you are caught in that bad position means momentarily opening yourself up to take the full impact of the knee, which can be pretty devastating.
• If the opponent feels you preparing to catch a knee to the body, they can fake you out and use the opening to knee your head instead, which can be a knockout.
• Lowering your hands to catch the knee can also open you up for elbow strikes.
• The "pushing on your opponent's opposite shoulder with the hand you're not using to catch the knee" tactic doesn't work when your opponent has your posture compromised with their clinch.
• Most often when you are caught in a bad clinch position like that, the better option is to fix your position first. Regaining your posture and at least equalizing the clinch puts you in a much better place to defend the knees, throw your own knees, and possibly even counter the opponent's knees by catching them. I've met Rich Franklin and I know some of the people he's trained with. He definitely knows the counters to try equalizing the position and I think he wanted to use them. Unfortunately Silva's clinch was just too dominant and he wasn't able to make anything work.

Ultimately, all the best counters to the plum clinch position involve not letting your opponent break your structure first. Once your structure is broken things get very difficult.

 

[jayoliver00]

How effective is the MT knee strike? Your thought?

Here is an example that:

- A knees strike at B.
- B catch A's leg and takes A down.

It's not just the knee strikes but the MT clinching game which puts them above most TMA standup systems in this situation.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

Catching the knee is a valid technique and is trained in Muay Thai. However that also means that a good nak muay knows how to make it difficult and dangerous to attempt that particular counter.

I'll start with noting an important difference between the clips you posted. In the gif with the fighter successfully catching the knee and dumping his opponent, there is no clinch established yet. That makes it much easier for the fighter catching the knee to use the tactic you mention of pushing on the opposite shoulder to disrupt the opponent's balance. In the other clip from the Rich Franklin-Anderson Silva fight, Silva had already established a highly dominant clinch position which limited Franklin's ability to counter.

Once an opponent has that dominant position, there are a number of reasons the person being kneed might not attempt catching the knees:

• The fighter with the dominant clinch is continually using that clinch to break the other fighter's posture and balance. It is hard to effectively catch a knee when your posture and balance are compromised.
• The fighter with the dominant position is continually varying the timing and angles of their knees in order to make them harder to predict and catch. They are also maintaining awareness of their opponent's position and readiness to possibly catch a knee.
• Attempting to catch the knee when you are caught in that bad position means momentarily opening yourself up to take the full impact of the knee, which can be pretty devastating.
• If the opponent feels you preparing to catch a knee to the body, they can fake you out and use the opening to knee your head instead, which can be a knockout.
• Lowering your hands to catch the knee can also open you up for elbow strikes.
• The "pushing on your opponent's opposite shoulder with the hand you're not using to catch the knee" tactic doesn't work when your opponent has your posture compromised with their clinch.
• Most often when you are caught in a bad clinch position like that, the better option is to fix your position first. Regaining your posture and at least equalizing the clinch puts you in a much better place to defend the knees, throw your own knees, and possibly even counter the opponent's knees by catching them. I've met Rich Franklin and I know some of the people he's trained with. He definitely knows the counters to try equalizing the position and I think he wanted to use them. Unfortunately Silva's clinch was just too dominant and he wasn't able to make anything work.

Ultimately, all the best counters to the plum clinch position involve not letting your opponent break your structure first. Once your structure is broken things get very difficult.

Your last statement is where it all comes together for me. The structure is more important than the rest because if your structure can’t be broken quickly, you have more time to position for the counter. I only have about a year of intensive MT training when I was 19, 32 years ago. I lived and worked with a guy named Prampatina who trained me before I started CMA training. He stressed the importance of the structure Almost as much as my CMA Sifu Paul Gale. I know a couple of skilled MT guys from fairtex in sf, they all have this same idea in the clinch.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

Catching the knee is a valid technique and is trained in Muay Thai. However that also means that a good nak muay knows how to make it difficult and dangerous to attempt that particular counter.

MA has a lot of contradiction.

- One day my teacher said, "If you can't get a head lock on your opponent, you are not a good wrestler."
- Another day he also said, "If someone can get a head lock on you, you are not a good wrestler."

Even today, I still cannot figure out what he had tried to say.

When you train:

- a technique (such as knee strike),
- counter to that technique (such as catch the leg),
- counter to that counter to that technique (such as make difficult to catch that leg),
- counter to that counter to that counter to that technique (such as make difficult to make difficult to catch that leg),
- ...

How far can you go by following this process?

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

You are not a good MT fighter if your

1. double collar tie cannot break your opponent's body structure.
2. opponent's double collar tie can break your body structure.

Do 1 and 2 contradict to each other?

 

[Tony Dismukes]

MA has a lot of contradiction.

- One day my teacher said, "If you can't get a head lock on your opponent, you are not a good wrestler."
- Another day he also said, "If someone can get a head lock on you, you are not a good wrestler."

Even today, I still cannot figure out what he had tried to say.

When you train:

- a technique (such as knee strike),
- counter to that technique (such as catch the leg),
- counter to that counter to that technique (such as make difficult to catch that leg),
- counter to that counter to that counter to that technique (such as make difficult to make difficult to catch that leg),
- ...

How far can you go by following this process?

It's only a contradiction if you try to put it into absolutes, like those quotes from your teacher. If he had been speaking more realistically he might have said "If you can't get a head lock on your every opponent, you are not a good wrestler the greatest wrestler the world has ever seen" and "If someone can get a head lock on you, you are not a good wrestler the greatest wrestler the world has ever seen."

The better you are at wrestling, the easier it will be for you to get that headlock on an opponent and the harder it will be for them to get a headlock on you. More to the immediate point, the more expert you are at applying headlocks (or chokes or armbars or throws or knees or whatever) the better you should be at defending them, because you understand all the details necessary to effectively set them up and therefore understand what you need to prevent your opponent from doing.

Which brings us to a point that less experienced martial artists may not immediately realize ...
"- a technique (such as knee strike),
- counter to that technique (such as catch the leg),
- counter to that counter to that technique (such as make difficult to catch that leg),
- counter to that counter to that counter to that technique (such as make difficult to make difficult to catch that leg)"

You can go really deep down this rabbit hole, but contrary to the way the text looks on the page, the counters to the counters to the counters often come before the initial technique timewise. The best way to keep an opponent from putting you in a situation where they can knee you while making it hard for you to catch their leg or otherwise counter them is to not lose the initial clinch battle and have your structure compromised. Of course, that's often easier said than done.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

You are not a good MT fighter if your

1. double collar tie cannot break your opponent's body structure.
2. opponent's double collar tie can break your body structure.

Do 1 and 2 contradict to each other?

They sort of do ... and they're both sort of nonsense. As I noted in my previous comment such statements conflate being a good MT fighter with being the best, strongest clinch specialist on the planet. A better formulation would be "the better you get at the MT clinch game, the better you will get at breaking your opponent's body structure and not letting them break your structure."

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

It's only a contradiction if you try to put it into absolutes,

Let's look at this from a different angle (not absolute). As a teacher, you may tell your students:

In clinch, you should try

1. to control your opponent's leading arm.
2. not to let your opponent to control your leading arm.

Do you think your statement make sense to your students?

 

[drop bear]

Let's look at this from a different angle (not absolute). As a teacher, you may tell your students:

In clinch, you should try

1. to control your opponent's leading arm.
2. not to let your opponent to control your leading arm.

Do you think your statement make sense to your students?

Think in terms of high percentage and low percentage.

Catching that knee is low percentage. It tales time and planning to pull it of.

Meanwhile they can strike you without needing that time. So you take a risk doing that counter.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

Let's look at this from a different angle (not absolute). As a teacher, you may tell your students:

In clinch, you should try

1. to control your opponent's leading arm.
2. not to let your opponent to control your leading arm.

Do you think your statement make sense to your students?

Yes, absolutely. In fact I tell my students that whenever I teach them how to execute a technique I am also implicitly teaching them how to counter that same technique. Because every step and detail that you want to apply to your opponent is a step and detail you want to keep them from applying to you.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

Think in terms of high percentage and low percentage.

Catching that knee is low percentage. It tales time and planning to pull it of.

Meanwhile they can strike you without needing that time. So you take a risk doing that counter.

You use both hands to control my head. You can't punch/elbow me at that time. You can only knee strike at me. But I have 2 free hands to catch your leg. The moment I can catch your leg, I can sweep/hook your rooting leg, the striking game will be over, the grappling game will start.

Who has advantage at that moment?

When you have double collar tie on me, I can also use my right knee strike at your right inside upper leg. My right leg can then inner hook your left standing leg and take you down.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

You use both hands to control my head. You can't punch/elbow me at that time. You can only knee strike at me. But I have 2 free hands to catch your leg.

Remember, if you lower your free hands to catch my knee:

• I can throw an elbow very quickly with one arm and still control your head with the other - and your hands are out of position to block.
• If you have your free hands lowered to catch my knee then you aren't using them to defeat my head control

Who has advantage at that moment?

It depends. If I can break your posture and control your balance with my head control, then your free arms aren't so useful. If you can keep me from controlling your posture and balance then my advantage goes away. Of course, it's harder to do that without using your arms for something other than trying to catch knees.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

if you lower your free hands to catch my knee:

• I can throw an elbow very quickly with one arm

You look at this from a striker point of view. I look at this from a grappler point of view. Not saying who is right, or who is wrong, just compare the difference.

I may drop so low that your elbow won't be able to reach to my head.

Both wrestling single leg and double legs are powerful take down. The MT knee strike can be a free gift to a wrestler.

- A tries to reach to B's leg.
- B gives his leg to A.

Which one is easier for A?