Please poke holes in my ideas

[Jaron Bernstein]

We did knives in class tonight for a bit. One guy had a rondel simulator and was tasked to go after the unarmed fellow with repeated committed attacks. The vast majority of the time the unarmed defender got repeated stabbed.

[Stewart Sackett]

There was an experiment a while back. I'll try and look it up, but what they did was this:

They took a bunch of police and ran them through a "safety program". At the end of the program they did a force on force evaluation.

The policemen went through an escalating encounter with a guy in a bulletman suit. Once they actually got into a fight at clinch range, the guy in the padded suit took out a training knife, held it in front of the policemen, and yelled "I am going to stab you, pig!"

Of the policemen, after the exercise was over, over 85% still didn't realize a weapon had been used in the encounter.

The adrenaline dump tunnel vision syndrome is worse the closer you get to your opponent. I don't think they really cared all that much for the clinch.

Unfortunately, it is necessary for police to use the clinch as restraining & detaining suspected criminals is an integral part of law enforcement. It is therefore of primary importance that law enforcement officers learn to use the clinch in a way that minimizes their risk. This is much like a medieval fighter trying to use Ringen (wrestling) against an opponent who has a weapon but has not yet chosen to draw it.

The parallels between modern & historical fighting imperatives are interesting but discussing them is ultimately tangential to the primary subject for which I started this thread. But, while we are discussing tangents: I have to say that I find your apparent bias against the clinch rather odd given the fact that you study the Renaissance martial arts.

The clinch simple refers to grappling (fighting by grabbing & endeavoring to move/manipulate your opponent's body by means of your grips) while you & your opponent are both standing & that’s really what Ringen (wrestling) is all about. Admittedly the historical art of Ringen includes striking & ground techniques but the central focus remains on standing grappling.

[Aaron Pynenberg]

Well Stewart, David is correct, the clinch is not a safe place to be just because of position alone. In the clinch you are standing directly in front of your opponent, which could allow them to grab a weapon etc..the best place to be is off to the side, or off to the side at an angle or directly behind.

We always try to stay out of the area directly in front no-matter what. I have to believe that historically they understood this as well, as they would want to stay out of that area in case of weapons.

I am looking for that information in the source works...some kind of advice to stay out of directly in front of the guy...but understanably sometimes you cannot help it, and most likely end in a clinch-AP

[Stewart Sackett]

In the clinch you are standing directly in front of your opponent

Sometimes.

There is nothing about the definition of the term clinch that describes the relative angle of the fighters. "Clinch" simply refers to fighting while standing & with 1 or both combatants gripping their opponent. Regardless of if you are standing in parallel, or at an angle, or holding your opponent from behind; it is still a clinch.

I think the big problem that's coming up in this conversation is that we each have very different preconceptions about what certain words mean & are having trouble translating each other's ideas.

P.S. a lot of grappling positions (clinches) that are shown in the codex are about fighting from a neutral clinch into a position (still attached & so still a clinch) where you have an angle on your opponent & so, combined with dominant grips, can control/attack him.

[david welch]

I am looking for that information in the source works...some kind of advice to stay out of directly in front of the guy...but understandably sometimes you cannot help it, and most likely end in a clinch-AP

We look at the clinch the same way we look at the bind. You don't fight from it, it is a very fast transitory position. It isn't that as soon as you clinch you immediately look to lock or throw, but that you get into the clinch because it is the entering for the lock or throw you are shooting in for.

Of course, we are always armed even in ringen, so when somebody wants to "fight from the clinch" they pay a very heavy penalty for it.

[Brent Lambell]

Of course, we are always armed even in ringen, so when somebody wants to "fight from the clinch" they pay a very heavy penalty for it.

There is indeed a great amount of danger in fighting from the clinch, which is exactly the point of Stewart's original assertion that ringen lays a high priority on control of the primary (weapon) arm. In a perfect scenario the clinch would be brief and transitory, but in lieu of a perfectly executed maneuver it seems logical to control the most dangerous limb - the weapon arm. Plus, control of an arm seems to be a good start to a lock or throw if your first technique fails or is countered.

Thoughts?

[Jay Vail]

Of course, we are always armed even in ringen, so when somebody wants to "fight from the clinch" they pay a very heavy penalty for it.

There is indeed a great amount of danger in fighting from the clinch, which is exactly the point of Stewart's original assertion that ringen lays a high priority on control of the primary (weapon) arm. In a perfect scenario the clinch would be brief and transitory, but in lieu of a perfectly executed maneuver it seems logical to control the most dangerous limb - the weapon arm. Plus, control of an arm seems to be a good start to a lock or throw if your first technique fails or is countered.

Thoughts?

Brent, there may be "a great deal of fighting from the clinch" but not in dagger defense. None of the manuals I am familiar with show clinching (as we generally understand the term) against the dagger. They show arm control -- but with grips of one hand or two, or with over- or underbinds.

This is why there is such push back against Stewart's assertion that "of course they used clinches in ringen against the dagger." The fact is, neither he nor anyone else engaged in this discussion has come forward with a specific reference where this is so. Until someone does, reliance on the clinch in dagger defense is a conjecture. You cannot say that something was done in ringen without specific support in the texts.

I'll be the first person to cry uncle if someone finds such a reference -- the field is a vast one and not all the material has been adequately surveyed, after all. But until then, the assertion is unsupported. They may have don so but we just can't be sure yet.

[Brent Lambell]

Some of the issue here appears to be the definition of "clinch." Perhaps my use of it is incorrect and probably too broad, but I am applying it here to anytime you have laid hands upon your opponent at ringen range with the intention of applying grappling techniques on your opponent. Arm control with or without under/overhooks falls under the clinch by my understanding of the definition.

That is the definition (perhaps incorrect) that I am working with when I argue that dagger uses the clinch in many of the techniques, mostly seen as control of the wrist, elbow or shoulder. To back up with primary source material, we have been working the Codex Wallerstein mostly and plates # 34, 35, 36, 39, 40, 43, 44, 50, 52, 55 (as a partial list) all use some amount of wrist, elbow or shoulder control for the ringen and rondel techniques.

If Stewart and I are off in the theory of arm control, how do we explain what appears to me to be a recurring theme in the limited number of manuals with which I am familiar? And what is a good working definition of clinch for our European martial arts purposes?

[Jay Vail]

Some of the issue here appears to be the definition of "clinch." Perhaps my use of it is incorrect and probably too broad, but I am applying it here to anytime you have laid hands upon your opponent at ringen range with the intention of applying grappling techniques on your opponent. Arm control with or without under/overhooks falls under the clinch by my understanding of the definition.

That is the definition (perhaps incorrect) that I am working with when I argue that dagger uses the clinch in many of the techniques, mostly seen as control of the wrist, elbow or shoulder. To back up with primary source material, we have been working the Codex Wallerstein mostly and plates # 34, 35, 36, 39, 40, 43, 44, 50, 52, 55 (as a partial list) all use some amount of wrist, elbow or shoulder control for the ringen and rondel techniques.

If Stewart and I are off in the theory of arm control, how do we explain what appears to me to be a recurring theme in the limited number of manuals with which I am familiar? And what is a good working definition of clinch for our European martial arts purposes?

If this is your theory, then we have been having an argument over nothing. It is pretty evident from the manuals that the dagger defenses involve a grasp and then a control of the arm (at least from the manuals we have available to us now). That is not a "clinch" as the term is generally used in modern wrestling and so how I think we understood it for purposes of this discussion.

[Jaron Bernstein]

Jay,

I have a sense that some manuals (von Auerswald comes immediately to mind) seems more of a pure (no knives) wrestling manual, where others (Fiore especially) gear their grappling to the idea of an armed opponent. Do you share that sense?

[Aaron Pynenberg]

Yes, then I have been discussing this over nothing as well, that was exactly my point as well...the def of clinch maybe threw off Stewart, but I agree that arm control..which then leads to weapon control...which then leads to control of the deadly threat, was what the manuals teach...as well as what the modern schools teach. Schools like Officer training courses...as well as higher-level military training. Both of which I have expirenced, and one of which I now teach. That was all I was saying as well.

As a last comment on the clinch buisness when you approach someone to come to grips they will naturally turn and face you head on..ending in the classical "clinch" position. When you gain thier side, or back you usually have employed some technique or use of force, to gain that advantageous position. That is no longer a clinch but the begining of a dif technique to get the "upper-hand". -