Marcelo shares some late-stage and preferably early-stage defenses for heel-hooks: Free your hips from your opponent's feet by using your elbow to dig off their outside heel when placed inside Single-Leg X (Irimi-Ashigarami, Foot-Lock Guard, Anaconda-Guard, Noose-Guard, et al.) with your foot caught in an Outside Heel-Hook. If your opponent has a strong bite on your ankle so that you cannot readily free your shin from their body, opt to place your weight over top by sitting onto your heel. Once you've cleared your opponent's legs and are sitting on your own foot in a Reverse Knee-on-Belly, you can spin around and face your opponent's chest with a modified Technical-Mount (Ukigatame, Floating-Hold, et al.) and potentially catch an arm. Trying to spin before clearing their legs will often lead to you defending follow-up attacks, e.g. a Knee-Bar. Ideally, one should try to avoid letting an opponent get deep onto their leg; perform a High-Step whenever your opponent looks to entangle your leg, whether with Single-Leg X or an inversion (50/50-Roll, Imanari-Roll, et al.).