pinching?

im new to growing and what does it mean to "Pinch" your plants?

It means that instead of cutting or topping your plant you instead take the top stalk and pinch it hard between your thumb & forefinger. You can bend it as well 90 degrees. I have done this with the result being the lower branches fill out while you reatin the top cola. I have done this after having topped - I pinch the two branches that result from the topping, giving me fuller lower branches with more bud sites and two colas. It's an art, not a science. You can't pinch so hard you break the stem; you just want to debilitate it a bit so the plant sends energy to other areas of the plant.

Stan that's something a bit different.
Plain ol' pinching is removing the growing tip, about the top inch of the plant, or each branch, if you continue on with it.
It differs from FIM-ing in that pinching essentially makes a cut through an internodal region, while FIM if done properly cuts DIRECTLY through the tissue at the active node at the top of the plant, and may take a bit longer to recover and resume side growht than a straigh pinch, but results in multiple new tops rather than the 2 that a pinch gives.
As an aside, the bending thing I did by mistake on a few plants recently and ended up with a bunch of vigorous growth from the LOWEST nodes.. ?? No complaining here though~