Guard Theory

Submissions Foundational · Gi and no-gi

The americana reverses the kimura grip

The americana and the kimura close the same figure-four on a bent arm and turn the shoulder in opposite directions, and the americana depends on a top pin holding the wrist and shoulder to the mat.

Position and problem

From side control their far arm comes up to push on your jaw, bent at the elbow, the hand beside their head. You pin the wrist to the mat, thread your other arm under their upper arm, take hold of your own wrist and start to turn. Their elbow slides up the mat toward their ear, the arm lengthens, and the pressure you were building goes into a stretched arm that no longer rotates. The americana, also called the keylock, is one form of what judo calls ude garami, a name judo also uses for the kimura, and it needs an elbow that stays bent and a hand that travels toward their hips.

Objective

Pin a bent arm with the hand above the elbow and the shoulder flat, then turn the upper arm outward by sliding the hand toward the hips while the elbow lifts.

Core concept

Both locks start from one grip. Your hand holds their wrist, your other arm threads under their upper arm and holds your own wrist, and their elbow sits bent in the middle of the grip. What separates them is the direction the forearm points. With the hand up beside their head, the forearm points toward the top of the mat, and turning it down toward their hips rotates the upper arm outward in the shoulder socket: that is the americana. With the hand down by their hip, the forearm points toward their feet, and driving it up their back rotates the upper arm inward: that is the kimura. The same arm can be caught either way depending on where it is when you take it, so the figure-four is best learned as one grip with two directions, and an arm dragged out of one of them can end up in the other. The americana has a condition the kimura can do without, which is a pin. The wrist stays on the mat while the elbow lifts slightly as the hand slides toward their hip, as if painting the mat with the back of their hand. That is why it is a top-position lock, taken from mount and side control, where your chest holds their shoulder down and the arm has nowhere to go. From underneath there is no weight to hold the wrist down, and the arm tends to lift out of the grip, so it is seldom seen from guard. The lock fails when the elbow travels. If it slides up past their shoulder toward the ear the arm straightens, and a straight arm has no rotation left to take; the grip then does little more than hold a limb.

Key mechanics

  1. Pin their wrist to the mat with your hand directly on top of it and your weight above it. A wrist held in the air can be pulled down to their side, where the americana no longer exists.
  2. Keep their elbow bent with the forearm pointing toward the top of the mat. The bend is what the rotation acts through, so an elbow that opens takes the lock with it.
  3. Thread your other arm under their upper arm close to the elbow and grip your own wrist. The nearer your forearm sits to their elbow, the less room the upper arm has to slide out.
  4. Set the elbow of your pinning arm against the side of their head. It blocks their elbow from travelling up toward the ear, which is the route the arm takes to straighten.
  5. Slide their hand along the mat toward their hip and lift their elbow a little as it goes. Together the two movements turn the upper arm outward; either one alone mostly moves the arm around.
  6. Keep your chest heavy on theirs for the whole finish. The rotation has to arrive at a shoulder that stays on the mat, and a shoulder that lifts turns with the arm and absorbs it.
  7. Change direction without opening the grip when they drag the hand down toward their hip. The forearm then points toward their feet, and the same figure-four becomes a kimura.

Common errors

  • Pushing the wrist toward their hips while the elbow stays flat on the mat, which bends the wrist and moves the arm without turning the shoulder.
  • Leaving the space beside their head open, so their elbow slides toward the ear and the arm lengthens out of the lock.
  • Gripping far down the forearm instead of near the elbow, which lets the upper arm slip through the loop.
  • Attacking from a loose side control or a high mount, so their shoulder rises and the rotation spends itself turning their body.
  • Trying the americana from underneath, where nothing holds the wrist down and the arm lifts straight out of the grip.
  • Forcing the lock after the arm has straightened, when the grip could have switched to the kimura or simply kept the position.

Safety

Turning the upper arm outward loads the shoulder, and the inside of the elbow too when the forearm is not bent squarely. The warning in this lock tends to come late: a partner may feel little while the hand slides and then a great deal over a short distance at the end. Slide the hand in stages, pause at each one, and let go on the tap without finishing the slide. Top weight dropped onto a pinned arm speeds all of this up, so the pin stays steady rather than landing. The defender taps once the shoulder is felt rather than bridging hard against a held americana, because a sudden bridge under a pinned wrist turns the shoulder faster than the attacker intends.

Training progression

  1. Static: from side control, partner raises the far arm, bent, hand beside the head. Pin the wrist, set your elbow against their head, thread and take the grip, and stop there.
  2. Cooperative: add the slide and the lift in small stages. Partner says out loud when they first feel the shoulder, and you stop at that point and reset.
  3. Cooperative: partner pulls the hand down toward their hip at a moment of their choosing. Turn the same grip the other way into the kimura without letting go.
  4. Constrained: in mount, partner frames on your chest with both hands. You may attack only the arm that pushes, and only once the elbow is bent.
  5. Positional: start in side control with the partner escaping at full resistance. You may attack the figure-four in either direction and nothing else.
  6. Live rounds: after each figure-four, say which way you turned it and whether their hand was above or below the elbow when the grip closed.

Written material cannot correct your positioning, feel your pressure or stop a submission in time. Everything here is intended to make training with a qualified coach more useful, never to replace it.

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