Underhook Battle

Counter

The underhook battle is a counter used when your opponent attempts to establish an underhook, typically from half guard or after a leg drag scramble. You fight to deny their underhook while securing your own, creating a positional advantage that can lead to kimura attacks or dominant underhook control.

Quick Reference

Key principles

  • · Whichever fighter gets their underhook deeper and their hips closer to the opponent first wins the exchange.
  • · Your elbow must stay tight to your ribcage to prevent the opponent from swimming their arm underneath.
  • · Use a cross-face or shoulder pressure to flatten your opponent and kill the power of their underhook attempt.
  • · Anticipate the opponent's whizzer (overhook) counter by keeping your posture low and driving forward.
  • · Frame on the hip or bicep to create the space needed to re-swim your underhook when initially beaten.

Execution

  1. 1 Recognize the opponent reaching for an underhook by watching for their elbow lifting away from their body or their shoulder turning into you.
  2. 2 Immediately clamp your elbow tight to your ribs and swim your near-side arm underneath their armpit, fighting to get palm-on-back depth.
  3. 3 Drive your shoulder into their jaw or chest to flatten them and neutralize their ability to turn into you.
  4. 4 If they secure a whizzer to counter your underhook, limp-arm or circle your trapped arm free and re-pummel before they consolidate.
  5. 5 Once you win the underhook, lock your grip on their far hip or belt and drive your hips in to establish underhook control or transition to a kimura grip.

Common mistakes

  • × Reaching too far for the underhook with the elbow flared, which exposes the arm to a kimura or allows the opponent to easily cross-face and flatten you.
  • × Staying upright during the pummel exchange instead of dropping your level, giving the opponent superior leverage to win the underhook.
  • × Winning the underhook but failing to immediately pressure forward with the shoulder, allowing the opponent to re-pummel or establish a whizzer and stall the position.

Do it from

Positions and situations where the Underhook Battle shows up.

Leg Drag Position

Chains into

Where to go next when the Underhook Battle lands, or gets defended.

Kimura From Half Guard submission

Where it lands

The position you end up in.

Underhook Control