Alias · Kimura system
Double wristlock
Also known as Kimura — the canonical term used on this site.
Training background: catch wrestling term — describes the two-hand grip on the wrist
Catch wrestling — two-handed grip on the opponent's wrist
Double wristlock is the catch-wrestling name for the figure-four shoulder-rotation submission — the configuration BJJ calls the kimura and judo calls ude garami.
Etymology. The name predates “kimura” by decades and is older than the BJJ lineage it later entered. In catch-as-catch-can wrestling — the Lancashire-rooted grappling tradition that produced figures like Karl Gotch, Billy Robinson, and Lou Thesz — the term referred to the attacker’s two-handed grip configuration: one hand on the opponent’s wrist, the second hand reinforcing it via a figure-four wrap around the opponent’s own arm. The technique passed into Japan via professional wrestling in the mid-20th century, where Masahiko Kimura’s 1951 victory over Hélio Gracie via the technique attached the Kimura name to it in Brazilian vocabulary. Outside Brazil, “double wristlock” remained the standard catch term.
Mechanics. The figure-four grip isolates the target arm by removing it from the body’s defensive system — neither the core nor the opposite arm can supplement the shoulder’s defence — and then rotates the humerus against the natural range of internal/external rotation in the glenohumeral joint.
Cross-reference. BJJ uses kimura; judo uses ude garami (inside variant). Full mechanical coverage on Kimura.