Glossary /// Alias
Kesa gatame armbar
Also known as Kesa Arm-Crush — the canonical term used on this site.
Training background: Common, and ambiguous — the scarf hold offers more than one armlock, so it is worth saying which fulcrum you mean
Judo-derived, and ambiguous — the scarf hold offers more than one armlock
Kesa gatame armbar names an armlock by the position it comes from, which is common usage and not quite enough information.
Etymology. Kesa gatame is the judo name for the scarf hold — kesa for the sash worn across the body, gatame for a hold — and attaching “armbar” says only that an elbow is being attacked from there. The scarf hold offers several, so the label is regularly applied to different techniques by different sources.
Mechanics. On this site the name resolves to the thigh-fulcrum attack: the leg slides under the isolated inside arm and the elbow is hyperextended over it. Some sources apply the same phrase to the shotgun armbar, whose fulcrum is the attacker’s own forearm rather than their leg, and the two are genuinely different techniques with different requirements. The fulcrum settles it — if a leg is under the elbow, it is this one.
Cross-reference. “Scarf hold armlock” is the less ambiguous name. The forearm-fulcrum attack is Top Shotgun Armbar. Full mechanical coverage on Kesa Arm-Crush.