Alias · Leg Locks
Honey Hole Finish
Also known as Inside Heel Hook — the canonical term used on this site.
Training background: Named for the honey hole (cross ashi) position
Coach-specific — inside heel hook from the honey hole / saddle
Honey Hole Finish is the coach-specific name for the inside heel hook finished from the honey hole — the cross-ashi (saddle) position in which the attacker’s hips are diagonally inside the opponent’s hips, providing the geometry for the inside heel hook submission.
Etymology. “Honey hole” is the John Danaher Death Squad-era vocabulary for the cross-ashi / saddle position — a label that flagged the position as the high-percentage finishing platform for inside heel hooks. The “Finish” suffix marks the term as referring to the submission attack from that position rather than the position itself. The label spread through no-gi vocabulary in the 2010s alongside the broader leg-lock systematisation; “honey hole” itself entered the language and is now widely understood in submission-grappling contexts.
Mechanics. The inside heel hook rotates the heel against a knee held immobile by the cross-ashi configuration — the fixed point is the knee, and the rotation transmitted through the heel reaches structural limits with almost no movement because the knee has no rotational tolerance.
Cross-reference. “Saddle Finish” refers to the same configuration under the cross-ashi’s other common name. Full mechanical coverage on Inside Heel Hook.