Defending the Muay Thai Plum
I’ve been training Muay Thai consistently for almost 3 years. It’s incredible how much I have progressed and also how little I know. Every week I learn more skills and things connect in a way that continue to fascinate me.
I’m tall and lanky with sharp knees and elbows. For that reason, I’ve always enjoyed being in the clinch. I still have to learn a lot about my base, but for the most part, I feel like I can control people really well inside clinch.
One of the “dominant” positions inside clinch is called plum. Basically it means that I have both my hands behind someone’s head, and I pull my elbows in and pull their head down. I’ve always thought of this as being the absolute best position in Muay Thai.
Look at the picture below for an example.
It’s rare that fighters stand still in a plum position because they are always attacking and defending, but you can see how the one fighter is clearly controlling his opponent with the plum.
Yesterday I learned that plum isn’t quite as dominant of a position that I always thought it was.
Here’s why.
If I have my opponent in plum, that means that both of my hands are in front of me, and it’s relatively easy for my opponent to reach their arm behind my head, wrap their hand around the back of my head, grab my ear (not literally but put their hand on my ear), pull my head around and then wedge their shoulder in-between me and themselves.
In this position, my head is tilted and they can easily get inside control and wrap their gloves around my tricep. Just like that, I lost control.
It’s hard to find an exact picture, but here is a decent example.
You see how the fighter in the blue trunks got his shoulder in between him and his opponents face? The fighter in the red shorts has to let go of the plum, in this case, because he is preparing to defend a knee to the body.
Fascinating.
I could see how people would even lull their opponents into thinking they have a dominant position in plum, just to set them up in the counter to land this knee to the body.
Like I said, since both of your hands are out in front of you behind your opponents head, your belly is wide open to a knee. Could be devastating.
I really love this shit. I am going to keep writing about it more and more.