Sounds good, Andrew. Care to go into more detail? Or hit us with a link to a vid of something similar?
Not an easy thing to encapsulate in a few sentences, but:
Good head positioning in the clinch can negate many striking options. Basically if your head is glued to his body, his options to hit you with any authority are limited. If you can hide your head, you can hide your eyes and throat. OTOH, if you are controlling HIS head, per the MT plum or similar, you can put him in position to expose targets.
Astute clinch positioning can also rob him of the structure he needs to strike. If he’s off balance, bent forward, arched back, up on his toes or has his spine bent or twisted, or if he is carrying your bodyweight as well as his, or he’s been lifted off the ground, he’s going to have a great deal of trouble doing that deadly one inch punch.
Tying up his limbs with yours can take away his ability to use his weapons. Most of the basic tie ups with good head position mean he can only strike with little power to relatively inconsequential targets.
We hear all the time about the importance of correct structure to WC power generation - especially short power. If you can take away that structure and/or the space and targets to use it, you also take away the power.
In the guard, similar things are possible. You usually want him either on open guard right away from you where you can kick the crap out of him if he gets too close, or right in tight with one limb and the head controlled (e.g the classic overhook one arm, head on that side (so he can’t hit it with the free hand)next to his (avoiding butts) and hips out that side (so he can’t get his arm out of the overhook by posting), pulling his head down with your other hand, or using it to parry shots he takes at your side with his free hand. Get it in the crook of his elbow and he can’t do much.
MY MMA teacher also teaches a fairly simple guard pass, with a window of risk for triangles and armbars, which ends up with the guy that was in guard twisted up like a pretzel, all four limbs under control or unable to be used effectively, leaving you with a direct power shot at his face. Nitey night if you ever get caught here.
John Will (bjj.com.au) has developed some simple but effective strategies to allow a grappler to close on a striker without taking serious damage. While I’ve only seen vids and read articles on Keysi, they seem to do similar things, but to get in range to employ close range elbows and headbutts, etc., rather than grapple.
A lot of these things have application to WC. WC (generally) is more about control for a short period and hitting the guy with a flurry of blows while he is not in a position to parry, retaliate or retreat, MMA/grappling is about getting greater control for a longer period over the person’s body, to apply either blows or submission holds. Both strategies are applicable to different defense situations, with some overlap.
BTW, I do believe in short power. My first instructor has an excellent one inch punch and could deliver serious short power from just about anywhere. It probably didn’t hurt that he had a nidan in goju karate before taking up WC, and used to do quite a lot of breaking. He could break 8 roof tiles with a backfist, shutting up the “backfists have no power” crowd.
But this is not the norm in WC in my experience.
