In Judo you win the match if you pin your opponent for 20 seconds, and so Judoka can have some pretty ferocious ‘osaekomi‘ (Japanese for pinning someone’s back to the mat).
To help them get to a pin and then hold down frantically struggling opponents Judo players have quite a few tricks up their sleeve.
Today I want to talk about one of these moves that creates a handle on one of his arms and totally immobilises one side of your opponent’s upper body, putting you into a great position in both Judo and BJJ.
Now if you were competing in Judo, once you lock in this handle I’m about to show you, you wouldn’t move and you wouldn’t go for a submission. You’d stay there and keep pinning the guy for the next 20 seconds even if the roof of the arena caved in.
However in a BJJ context you want to progress; you want to improve your position or submit the guy. Fortunately this same handle that Judoka use for pinning can be used in a BJJ context to set up some very powerful and hard-to-defend submissions!
Here’s a video taking you through this arm-trapping and body-immobilising Judo trick; I think I saw world champion Katsuhiko Kashiwazaki do it first but he’s definitely not the only Judoka using it.
Be warned: this is a gi-dependent technique, so if you’re entirely focussed on MMA or no gi grappling then move along; nothing to see here, maybe go check out other articles on this site. But if train with the gi and want to have a useful trick in your back pocket to pin and submit tough opponents then this might be useful for you..
Watch the video, drill the technique in secret, and then unleash it on your toughest opponent the next time you get to a good position on top. When you tap him out from it the first time you’ll be just like James Bond using a cool new gadget, or Batman defeating the bad guy with just the right item from his utility belt!