High Crotch
High crotch — between single and double leg: head at hip level, arm under the crotch. Converts to double leg or spins to back.
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The high crotch is an intermediate takedown position between the single leg and the double leg. The practitioner’s head is inside — against the opponent’s hip — with one arm cupping under the opponent’s crotch (between their legs) and reaching toward the inner thigh. The other arm controls the outside of the leg. The practitioner is lower than in a standard single leg, with more direct hip access.
The high crotch provides the hip access of a deep single leg combined with an inside arm position that naturally converts to the double leg. It is the position that exists between a single leg shot and a full double leg — useful both as an intentional entry and as a natural position that arises during the scramble when a double leg attempt meets partial resistance.
The two primary exits are: drive through to double leg (extending the inside arm to wrap the second leg) and spin behind to back take (spinning to the rear side of the near leg to achieve a back exposure). The choice between them depends on whether the opponent’s weight is forward (spin) or backward (drive through).
INV-ST02Invariant "Hip access is the functional goal of all single-leg attacks. Controlling the leg without accessing the hip allows the opponent to sprawl and recover."
Why it works hereThe high crotch achieves the deepest possible hip access of any single-leg variation — the inside arm is past the hip line, between the legs at crotch level. Once the arm is through, sprawling cannot pry it back out because the hip itself is the obstacle. This is the structural reason the high crotch outperforms a standard single leg against a sprawl: the contest over the hip line is already won at the moment the position is established.
See full invariant page → The high crotch achieves maximum hip access — the arm is literally between the opponent’s legs at hip level. The sprawl cannot remove this hip access because the practitioner’s arm is already past the hip. This is why the high crotch is a superior position to the standard single leg for hip access purposes: the arm has passed the opponent’s hip line, not just reached it.
INV-ST04Invariant "Level change — dropping the hips below the opponent's centre of mass — is a prerequisite for penetration on most double-leg and single-leg entries. Attempting penetration without level change exposes the head and allows the sprawl."