Kimura

• ›Wrist first, then wrap.
• ›Elbow to your chest.
• ›Turn your body, not just your arms.
• ›Slow arc, never a yank.

• ✕Letting a gap open between their elbow and your chest. Fix: hug the arm into your chest before you start to turn.
• ✕Cranking with the arms alone. Fix: turn your whole torso and let your hips do the work.
• ✕Pulling the wrist straight up or out. Fix: rotate it in a slow arc toward their back.
• ✕Applying it fast, which can injure the shoulder before your partner can tap. Fix: slow down and stop at the tap.

• •When your partner posts a hand on the mat or on your hip from inside your guard.
• •When you are on top in side control and their near arm is bent near their head.
• •When they defend a choke or an armbar by bending the arm and pulling it in.
• •When a partner on their hands and knees keeps one arm tucked and their elbow near the mat.

• •Attack a cross collar choke or a guillotine so that they post a hand, then take that hand for the kimura.
• •Start an armbar, and when they bend the arm to stop it, switch to the figure-four.
• •From side control, wait for them to frame against your neck or hip, then take the wrist.
• •From north-south, secure the near arm's wrist and thread the second arm over it.

• •An armbar if they straighten the arm to escape.
• •A sweep to the top, using the figure-four to roll them over.
• •Back control if they turn away from the lock.

• •Pull the hand back to your chest before the wrist is taken, or lock your hands together.
• •Straighten the arm and turn into the attacker before the figure-four is locked, then pull the elbow out.
• •Roll with the pressure toward the attacker's side to take the strain off the shoulder, then get your elbow back under you.

• •Keep your elbow tight and your hand close to your body so there is no wrist to grab.
• •If they take the wrist, clasp your own hands or grip your belt and pull the elbow in; do not let them thread the second arm behind you.
• •Tap early: a shoulder can give way with little warning.

The IJF describes it as using both arms to entangle one of your partner's arms and twist it to the outside or inside to control the elbow. Judo competition allows locks only on the elbow, so the finish stays on the elbow and does not crank the shoulder.

The same figure-four with the opposite rotation: you hold the wrist with the opposite hand, thread your other arm under the upper arm and slide the wrist toward their hip. Judo still calls this ude-garami, and the kimura is the reverse version.

Catch wrestlers called it the double wristlock long before it was named after Kimura. The Olympic champion Robin Reed reportedly used it to force pins in 1924, and that in some versions the arm is taken behind the back like a hammerlock.

Sambo rotates a bent arm inward, fist toward the feet, in the hold it calls the reverse knot. Sport sambo limits how far you may bring the forearm behind the back.

It is legal because the shoulder counts as a large joint under the Unified Rules. Frank Mir's 2011 win in Toronto shows what happens when it is finished on a resisting opponent.

Roll up a towel or use a training arm. Practise gripping the 'wrist', threading your other arm around the upper arm and clasping your own wrist, then falling to the side and turning. Ten reps each side, slowly.

Your partner kneels in your closed guard and posts a hand. Take the wrist, sit up, lock the figure-four and finish at about 30 per cent pressure. Switch after ten reps.

Start a kimura, and when your partner defends by straightening the arm, swing into an armbar; if they turn away, take the back. Do each link at half speed and switch.

We teach it in Wrestling & Grappling. A coach will fix the details you can't see yourself. Join now and book your first class for $20, paid online.