Preventing The Kimura With Jimmy Pedro
In a previous blog here: https://judofanatics.com/blogs/news/over-under-pass-with-jimmy-pedro we looked at a really tight Over Under guard pass by Jimmy Pedro, who was demonstrating this with Barnardo Faria. What we’re looking at today is how to escape if you leave an opening for a Kimura armlock (Ude Garame in Judo). We’ll first briefly look at Jimmy Pedro’s Over Under so we can see where the opening for the Kimura is coming in, then we’ll see how Jimmy counters it.
Jimmy Pedro is a four time Olympic Judo competitor and twice Bronze medal Olympic Judoka as well as coach to such greats as Kayla Harrison, Travis Stevens, Rhonda Rousey, Rhadi Ferguson and more besides. He knows what techniques work at the highest levels of competition, so this is a great detail to add to our passing game against a whiley opponent.
To begin with the Over Under pass, which Jimmy calls Split the Legs passing, Jimmy allows his opponent to have a butterfly hook as he doesn’t want to start in their full guard but knows they’ll feel comfortable enough with a butterfly hook. His first goal from here is to control the leg opposite their butterfly hook and so reaches underneath the opposite leg and grabs the skirt of the gi, pulling tight around the hip of this leg.
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At the same time Jimmy wants this leg, the leg that’s opposite the Butterfly hook, under his shoulder so his free hand pushes the inside of the leg away and moves forward to pressure down with his shoulder, which is now past the bottom leg. Now Jimmy is controlling the leg by wrapping the hip with a tight gi grip underneath and pressuring down with his shoulder from above the leg.
Once this has been achieved Jimmy’s free arm wraps around his opponent’s leg that started with the Butterfly hook. This would ideally set Jimmy up to start to pass his opponents remaining leg but in this instance his opponent is paying attention and reaches through for Jimmy’s wrist while beginning to secure the set up for a Kimura. Not good!
This is damage control when things have gone wrong. Jimmy’s wrist was exposed and his opponent capitalized on the opportunity so now he needs to know what to do. To counter this Kimura attempt by his opponent Jimmy grabs his opponents gi pants for dear life because he doesn’t want his opponent to start cranking on that lock and moving him around or rolling him with it.
This grip on the pant leg won’t keep his arm safe forever so Jimmy takes the leg furthest from his opponent and steps over his half guard. As Jimmy does this he is scissoring his legs so the the active passing leg can drive with the knee past his own hand that’s grabbing the gi pants. Before his opponent can roll Jimmy he will step over his opponents leg, creating a great base and leverage. From this position Jimmy is free to rip his arm away from his opponent, making sure to keep his arm tight into his own body and using his leg to help in posturing up.
From here as there’s a gap between both players there will likely be a scramble but Jimmy has nullified the Kimura attempt and is still in a position to pressure his opponent and put him in danger. Submission avoided!
For more powerful guard passing from Olympian and Olympic coach Jimmy Pedro check out his full course ‘Power Judo Guard Passing’ here: