The power of kimura: Of all the major submission holds, kimura is in my experience the one which creates the most devastating injuries when opponents fight to the end and refuse to tap. All the major submissions are capable of doing serious damage when taken to their conclusion but the extreme rotation power of kimura creates total separation of the joint that often results in gruesome dislocations and on occasion, even spiral fractures of the bones. It is a move that is often disparaged as a strong mans move, but this is an unfair criticism. If you let an opponent lock his hands in front of his torso and fight his two hands with yours – then yes – strength will be the deciding factor. However, if you get an opponents hand behind his back or use your legs to supply the rotation power against his hands, smaller athletes can definitely use this move against bigger athletes. Understand always that there are many variations of kimura – many of which incorporate the legs and thus avoid the two versus two hands deadlock and use legs against hands to ensure skill, not strength will be the deciding factor. Here, Gordon Ryan works on expanding his formidable submission repertoire with kimura practice. Note how he immediately gets the hand behind the back to take strength out of the equation and take advantage of the devastating rotational power of the move.
