Learning decent, technical, reliable escapes to your opponent having double underhooks on you is a fundamenal skill to have in clinch.

Escape One

This is my preferred escape, as it’s low technical/skill requirement. Here, Ciaran has me with double unders and is looking mean.

With my right hand I push against his head. This creates space on the side I’m pushing towards (my left)

The further you can push your opponent to the side the more space you’ll create, and in defence we are space creators. Also, the more to the side Ciaran’s head goes, the less forward pressure he can apply as you’ve got him off balance.

While pushing with the right, I dig for an underhook with my left hand. Don’t be afraid to Judo-Chop down hand on the crux of his elbow to open up more space for yourself.

Once you get your hand through, turn your thumb down. This forces your elbow up, and wedges your hand through better. Any time you have a tentative underhook turn your thumb towards the ground to get deeper.

Start circling towards your underhooked side, getting low underneath your opponent. You want to get your left shoulder underneath their armpit. This makes it extremely difficult for them to get a decent overhook or repommel for an underhook.

I finish by taking a tight side One-Over-One-Under control on Ciaran. If you can’t get this control, you should have enough space to compete for Double Unders anyway.

Escape Two

If you can’t create enough space by pushing his head, it usually means your opponent is fighting back with his neck muscles, overcompensating by pushing towards your hand.

Switch quickly to the other side of his head and pull back. It seems like you’re pulling his. Really, what you’re doing is catching the corner of his jaw and pulling by dropping your elbow bank, yanking him in the direction he’s pushing. If he was really resisting the push, his momentum will already be traveling in that direction anyway.

After the pull, quickly switch to an underhook with the same arm that pulled. This requires more skill (timing) than the previous version, but is a useful compliment to the one listed above.

Escape Three

A lot of people don’t like bringing their hands as high as we did in the previous defences as they can feel exposed. Indeed, a weakness in the above defences is that you can possibly allow your opponent a chance to tighten his underhooks or go to your back/side by raising your right arm. This is an alternate version which fights directly against his hips.

If you have any space, place your hands against your opponents hips, with thumbs up, heel of you palm on his hip bones. You’ll have very rudimentary overhooks here.

I push my hips back hard, and turn my elbows in while I shove against Ciaran’s hips. It’s important I keep my chest up. A strong lumber curve stops your opponent pulling down your head, which is a danger if you mess this up.

To turn your elbows in effectively, turn your thumbs out, much like Fonzie saying “Aaay” or an idiot going “I dunno”. I was going more for idiot in this pose.

Keeping pressure on with your left hand, make an ‘L’ with your right hand and put this in the crux of his elbow, shoving his elbow back and across his body.

With your left hand, you can armdrag your opponent. The armdrag can set up a number of takedowns.

Here I’ve secured a double overhook grip. I did this by holding onto the armdrag, and stepping across my opponent to get hip to hip contact.

In case anyone missed it, look at the pose on Lee in that photo!

Anto has listed some of the options from the double overhooks in this video.

Happy Clinchin’!