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So named provisionally for dearth of any other officious materials found heretofore specifically referring too it by a special name. Alternately named 'further underhook', or 'over underhook' if you're feeling cheeky.
In many respects, the fighting clinch is a place of transition. It can be a literal point of transition, going between ground fighting and standing fighting. Or it can be something of a transitional alloy between standing and grounded in terms of dynamics. The fighting clinch can often be a more 'controllable' or 'deterministic' situation than fencing in neutral, yet also more distincted from control on the ground, in which positional dominance can often not so much be a factor of achieving a particular state in time, but more of an 'active flow' across time; he who is best able to go and go again from momentary advantage to momentary advantage, keeping his opponent on the back foot and merely reactive to a constant rockfall of (un)balancings, strikes, shifts.
Which is not to say that there are not even more advantageous moments of advantage one may go to of course.
After his disputed loss to Robin Van Roosmalen, talented muay thai phenom Petchpanomrung Kiatmookao(9) started displaying a new wrinkle in his clinch attacks, that provided quickly immediate effectiveness even through the highly abortive break-ups of fighter contact typical of kickboxing formats.
First successfully in his fight with Lei Xi and later and too an even more lopsided degree in his fight with Zakaria Zougari, Petch would repeatedly go to the further underhook as soon as the clinch was initiated, screwing a high underhook in and crossing his opponents neck, locking his opponent down and away into an awkward hunch, unable to retaliate properly, yet wide open to his own attacks.
Petchpanomrung's habit of leading with his right in a southpaw stance vs orthodox is actually a reminiscent mirror of another great user of the underhook in another world, Yazdanicharati, who in wrestling leads with his left, where many opponents will tend to lead with their right. This provides a shortest path and steepest angle for shooting your underhook in and getting it deep fast.
Techniques we have seen elsewhere in grappling contexts that are most analogous would be examples like the reenforced underhook;
Or underhook setups to throw-bys/snap downs/go-behinds;
In the thai boxing meta-game, the underhook tends to be an underexplored(heh) element. Given that throwing knuckles and elbows to the face is A Thing, the tendency tends to be to take whatever grips are just most immediately available, that will wrangle each others arms to stifle a strike, even if structurally sub-optimal; less focus on working towards grips with superior advantage, focusing more on the more underlying element of balancing itself, anticipating their opponent and taking the opportunities to upset them with whatever grip is had presently (or even no grips at all). Eg;
Some contingent factors at play that ought be acknowledged, would be the fact that muay thai is still ultimately more of a strike focused sport; clinching in muay thai is developed within the *context* of clinching with strikes, like in mma, but perhaps not as *extensively* developed as it might be were taking your opponent down be more valuably rewarded, such as sanda style rules, or mma in general. Fighters are often in highly upright stances, and are often balanced on one leg in order to block kicks or throw kicks or their own, and it is those moments where a canny fighter may anticipate and strike with a sweep. Were tumbling too the ground be a more momentous factor, it is likely you'd see such situations less often, but the essential principles at play never the less carries over in any case.
If you were to ask someone what a dominant grip in the fighting clinch is, chances are, they'd probably say the double collar or plum clinch. When most people even hear the words 'thai clinch', that's probably the first image that pops into mind. However, it is a situation that is both difficult to acquire and easier to escape, such that in reality it is rarely ever actually seen even in actual muay thai competition except in cases of large mismatch. Furthermore, it is not especially dominant from a structural point of view either; you can go jock to jock and collapse into a body lock, sending them on a ride or driving them into the cage.
The head pin, or cross lock, or square lock, would be a more practicable example, that is infact structurally related in implementation with the further underhook as well, and can be used together in many of the same situations. From a muay thai perspective you could see users of the later as a cladistic development with the former; talented/prescient competitors naturally converging into advantageous technical forms, much like how users of the x-guard were often users of deep half before hand, for instance, and from there again to single leg x, essentially 'rediscovering' leg entanglements in the bjj context. In recent years, the use of the underhook, particularly through the development of the further underhook, has become more common in thai boxing, as more and more wai krus discover the advantages.
In many respects, the fighting clinch is a place of transition. It can be a literal point of transition, going between ground fighting and standing fighting. Or it can be something of a transitional alloy between standing and grounded in terms of dynamics. The fighting clinch can often be a more 'controllable' or 'deterministic' situation than fencing in neutral, yet also more distincted from control on the ground, in which positional dominance can often not so much be a factor of achieving a particular state in time, but more of an 'active flow' across time; he who is best able to go and go again from momentary advantage to momentary advantage, keeping his opponent on the back foot and merely reactive to a constant rockfall of (un)balancings, strikes, shifts.
Which is not to say that there are not even more advantageous moments of advantage one may go to of course.
After his disputed loss to Robin Van Roosmalen, talented muay thai phenom Petchpanomrung Kiatmookao(9) started displaying a new wrinkle in his clinch attacks, that provided quickly immediate effectiveness even through the highly abortive break-ups of fighter contact typical of kickboxing formats.
First successfully in his fight with Lei Xi and later and too an even more lopsided degree in his fight with Zakaria Zougari, Petch would repeatedly go to the further underhook as soon as the clinch was initiated, screwing a high underhook in and crossing his opponents neck, locking his opponent down and away into an awkward hunch, unable to retaliate properly, yet wide open to his own attacks.
Petchpanomrung's habit of leading with his right in a southpaw stance vs orthodox is actually a reminiscent mirror of another great user of the underhook in another world, Yazdanicharati, who in wrestling leads with his left, where many opponents will tend to lead with their right. This provides a shortest path and steepest angle for shooting your underhook in and getting it deep fast.
Techniques we have seen elsewhere in grappling contexts that are most analogous would be examples like the reenforced underhook;
Or underhook setups to throw-bys/snap downs/go-behinds;
In the thai boxing meta-game, the underhook tends to be an underexplored(heh) element. Given that throwing knuckles and elbows to the face is A Thing, the tendency tends to be to take whatever grips are just most immediately available, that will wrangle each others arms to stifle a strike, even if structurally sub-optimal; less focus on working towards grips with superior advantage, focusing more on the more underlying element of balancing itself, anticipating their opponent and taking the opportunities to upset them with whatever grip is had presently (or even no grips at all). Eg;
Some contingent factors at play that ought be acknowledged, would be the fact that muay thai is still ultimately more of a strike focused sport; clinching in muay thai is developed within the *context* of clinching with strikes, like in mma, but perhaps not as *extensively* developed as it might be were taking your opponent down be more valuably rewarded, such as sanda style rules, or mma in general. Fighters are often in highly upright stances, and are often balanced on one leg in order to block kicks or throw kicks or their own, and it is those moments where a canny fighter may anticipate and strike with a sweep. Were tumbling too the ground be a more momentous factor, it is likely you'd see such situations less often, but the essential principles at play never the less carries over in any case.
If you were to ask someone what a dominant grip in the fighting clinch is, chances are, they'd probably say the double collar or plum clinch. When most people even hear the words 'thai clinch', that's probably the first image that pops into mind. However, it is a situation that is both difficult to acquire and easier to escape, such that in reality it is rarely ever actually seen even in actual muay thai competition except in cases of large mismatch. Furthermore, it is not especially dominant from a structural point of view either; you can go jock to jock and collapse into a body lock, sending them on a ride or driving them into the cage.
The head pin, or cross lock, or square lock, would be a more practicable example, that is infact structurally related in implementation with the further underhook as well, and can be used together in many of the same situations. From a muay thai perspective you could see users of the later as a cladistic development with the former; talented/prescient competitors naturally converging into advantageous technical forms, much like how users of the x-guard were often users of deep half before hand, for instance, and from there again to single leg x, essentially 'rediscovering' leg entanglements in the bjj context. In recent years, the use of the underhook, particularly through the development of the further underhook, has become more common in thai boxing, as more and more wai krus discover the advantages.
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