Key Takeaways
- Underhook Advantage Chance Marsteller DVD Review — a three-part, 16-module wrestling-tie system from BJJ Fanatics that teaches how to win the underhook and convert it into throw bys, ducks, high singles, and snap downs.
- This is a freestyle and folkstyle wrestling course, not a No-Gi Jiu-Jitsu instructuinal — the question of what transfers into grappling is the entire point of the review.
- Marsteller is a two-time NCAA Division I All-American, a 2023 US Open champion, and a 2023 US World Team member — the underhook is the tie he actually wins with.
- Best for wrestlers cross-training and BJJ players whose takedowns collapse under pressure; skippable for anyone who already owns a full underhook takedown library.
- BJJ World Expert Rating: 8.5 out of 10.
Underhook Advantage Chance Marsteller DVD DOWNLOAD
Chance Marsteller built a career on refusing to let opponents decide where a match takes place, and the underhook is the grip he used to do it. The Underhook Advantage Chance Marsteller DVD: Controlling the Tie, Controlling the Match is his first BJJ Fanatics release — a three-part, $79 digital instructional built around a single idea: win the underhook, and you control where the exchange goes.
It is also, on its face, not a Jiu-Jitsu course. Marsteller is a freestyle and folkstyle wrestler, and this is a wrestling tie system sold on a Jiu-Jitsu storefront. That framing is why the review matters. The real question is not whether the underhook is a dominant position — it plainly is — but how much of this material survives the trip from a wrestling mat to a No-Gi ruleset, where the guillotine and the kimura exist, guard-pulling changes the entry, and nobody awards takedown points in half the rooms you will train in.
Why A Wrestling Tie System Shows Up On A BJJ Site
The underhook is the default attacking tie in standing grappling because it does three jobs at once: it clears your opponent’s arm off their own defense, drops your weight onto their posture, and opens a straight line to the legs, the back, or a snap down.
Wrestlers have treated it as a system for generations. Jiu-Jitsu players usually meet it in fragments — a half-guard underhook here, a dog-fight pummel there, a whizzer on the other side — because BJJ academies rarely teach the tie as a standing plan the way a wrestling room does.
That is the gap this DVD tries to fill for a grappling audience, and it is worth being precise about what it does and does not do. Garry Tonon’s Quick Concepts: Underhook vs Overhook treats the underhook as one half of a No-Gi decision map, cross-cutting it against the overhook across standing, dog fight, half guard, and chest-to-chest positions.
Marsteller’s course is a different animal: a standing, wrestling-native deep dive into one tie, built for folkstyle and freestyle scoring and taught by a man who actually won a US Open with it. One surveys the tie game; the other drills a single tie until it becomes a plan.
The distinction matters because the two instructuionals are not interchangeable, and neither is a substitute for BJJ-native standup. A wrestling tie system teaches entries, angles, and finishes at a level most Jiu-Jitsu takedown instruction never touches — but it will not tell you what to do when the opponent sits to guard, frames your neck into a guillotine, or kimura-grips your far arm mid-duck.
The underhook control wrestling philosophy that works when both men are fighting for the same two points needs re-reading the moment the other man can simply sit down.
Who Chance Marsteller Is
Chandler Shane “Chance” Marsteller is an American freestyle and folkstyle wrestler — not a Jiu-Jitsu black belt — and the credential stack behind this course is the reason it deserves a serious look. He went 166–0 at Kennard-Dale High School in Pennsylvania with four PIAA class AAA state titles, was the nation’s No. 1 recruit in the Class of 2014, and became a two-time NCAA Division I All-American at Lock Haven after starting his college career at Oklahoma State.
On the senior circuit he has represented the United States at the 2023 World Championships at 79 kg, won the 2023 US Open at the same weight, and added a 2024 Pan American Championship gold at 86 kg. The underhook is not a chapter he pulled from someone else’s syllabus — it is the tie his senior-level game is organized around, and the Chance Marsteller wrestling pedigree is the single strongest argument for trusting what he teaches here.
Marsteller’s path also included a well-documented fall and recovery: an alcohol and drug addiction that cost him his spot at Lock Haven in 2016, a legal case, and a return through rehab that put him back on the mat and back on the podium. It is a real part of his story and worth knowing, but it sits outside this assessment — the course earns or loses its value on the mat, not on biography.
Chance Marsteller Underhook Advantage DVD Review: Part by Part
The course is split into three parts and 16 modules, and the sequencing is the strongest structural choice Marsteller makes: it moves from winning the tie, to attacking the legs, to attacking the far side, so every technique answers a reaction to the one before it.
Part 1: Bump Dig and Short Offense
Part 1 covers the entry and the closest-range attacks: the keys to the underhook, the bump dig he uses to clear the arm and win the tie, the throw by, and the same side duck. This is the section that separates a wrestler’s underhook from a Jiu-Jitsu player’s. The bump dig and the throw by are wrestling-specific tools that most BJJ academies never teach, and they are precisely the movements that let you convert a neutral tie into a scoring exchange instead of a stalemate.
Part 2: Leg Attacks from the Underhook
The middle part chains the tie into leg attacks: a high single to run the pipe, a high single to run backside, and throw by singles. The underhook to single leg transition is the most directly transferable material in the set, because it is the one attack that works almost unchanged under No-Gi rules — a head-inside single or a throw-by single does not care whether you are scoring two points or hunting a sweep.
Part 3: Snap Downs and Attacking the Far Side of the Body
The final part is the deepest, running nine modules from an underhook snap down go behind through far-side ducks, a far-side duck to knee pick, wrist ducks, and two “trickery” far-ankle-pick sequences.
This is where the course shows its wrestling pedigree most clearly. The far-side attacks are built around the reaction to a committed underhook, and the ankle-pick trickery is the kind of material you only get from someone who has spent years hand-fighting at the senior level.
What Actually Transfers To No-Gi Grappling
The honest answer is: the mechanics transfer, the risk calculus does not. Throw bys, ducks, high singles, snap downs, and ankle picks are all live under No-Gi rules, and the entry work — the bump dig, the pummel, the hand-fight — is exactly what a BJJ player with weak takedowns is missing. If your takedown game dies the moment someone ties up hard, this course fixes the underlying problem rather than adding another move to a broken chain.
The adjustments are yours to make, and the course does not make them for you. Under No-Gi rules, a committed underhook invites a guillotine or a kimura grip on the far arm in a way a wrestling tie-out never does, and a duck or a throw by commits your hips in directions that a guard-pulling opponent can simply refuse to follow.
None of that is a flaw in the wrestling — it is a difference in the sport. As a wrestling for BJJ takedown instructional, the Underhook Advantage Chance Marsteller DVD supplies the raw material superbly and leaves the translation to the grappler.
FULL Underhook Advantage Chance Marsteller DVD AVAILABLE HERE
Who Is This For?
Wrestlers cross-training into Jiu-Jitsu are the first buyer. They already have the underhook instincts; this course gives them a systematic, competition-proven version of their best tie and lets them carry it straight into No-Gi takedowns for Jiu-Jitsu. Coaches are the second: the three-part progression from entry to leg attack to far-side reaction is a ready-made curriculum for a standing-tie unit, and it is cheap enough to be a resource rather than an investment.
BJJ players are the conditional case. If you are a blue or purple belt whose takedowns collapse under a hard collar tie, the underhook takedowns for BJJ in this set will change how you approach the standup — but you have to supply the guillotine, kimura, and guard-pull awareness yourself. White belts and anyone who wants a complete, BJJ-native standup game should look elsewhere first; this is a specialist’s course, not a foundation.
Pros And Potential Drawbacks
Pros:
- Elite, on-topic instruction. A US World Team member and two-time NCAA All-American teaching the exact tie he wins with beats a generalist repackaging fundamentals.
- Genuine progression. Entry, leg attacks, far-side attacks — each part feeds the next, so the system reads as a decision tree rather than a list of moves.
- Wrestling-specific tools. The bump dig, the throw by, and the far-ankle-pick trickery are movements most BJJ rooms simply do not teach.
- Transferable core. The underhook to single leg and the snap down go behind plug into No-Gi almost unchanged.
- No filler. Sixteen focused modules you can actually work through, with nothing padded out to hit a runtime.
Potential Drawbacks:
- Narrow scope. One tie, standing offense only; no takedown defense, no mat wrestling, no ground phase.
- Price is fair, not generous. $79 for three parts of a single-tie system is reasonable but not a bargain next to broader takedown libraries.
Win By Advantage
The Underhook Advantage Chance Marsteller DVD earns its place as a specialist’s course. For a wrestler cross-training, or a BJJ player whose takedowns fall apart the moment a real hand-fighter ties up, this is some of the most coherent underhook offense you can buy, taught by someone who has actually run it at the World Championships. The sequencing is the selling point: bump dig to throw by, throw by to single, single to snap down, snap down to the far side — it reads like a decision tree rather than a list of moves.