For a top player, one of my biggest problems has been finishing kimuras. Whether from side control or top in the half-guard, I don’t think I’ve gotten a kimura submission in many, many months. This is a little frustrating because my Americana or keylock attack from just about every position remains solid, and a part of me feels that if my keylock is good, then my kimura should be at least decent. Which it is not.
I posted a Cry for Help over at the jiu jitsu gear forum, and I’m convinced that I’ll get some good responses there. But I’ve already picked up one thing that might be a problem after watching a clip of Minotauro demonstrating a “Tip of the Week” for MMA Weekly. (See the clip here).
I think the mistake I’ve been making is mostly with my underhook. In the same way that you can get too much shoulder into a triangle choke, making the choke harder to finish, I think you can also get too much shoulder—or, at least, upper arm—in the kimura, making it hard to complete the kimura grip, let along get the submission.
After watching Big Nog explain the set up for his “inverted Americana” as he calls it, I can see how he makes sure that his underhook comes just above the elbow. Another way of putting it is that you want to wrap the elbow more than you want to wrap the upper arm (to put it bluntly, you really don’t want to wrap the upper arm, at all). Not only does this bring your two hands closer together, making it easier to secure the kimura grip, but also wrapping the elbow gives you leverage against the guy’s attempts to straighten his arm.
He still might be able to straighten the arm—in which case you can switch to Nog’s inverted Americana by releasing your wrist grip with your underhook arm and grabbing the bicep of the south-most arm instead, then shooting the hand of the south-most arm back up to cup the elbow of your underhooking arm, squeezing the guy’s elbow between your arms tightly as you prepare to walk around to the head, sit out and then tilt your locked arms up and away from the head.
But this should go a long way toward helping make my kimura attack a much more credible threat.
