Who Is the Kimura Named After?

The Jiu Jitsu Mindset · History

Every grappler learns it. Almost every grappler uses it. But the double-wristlock we call the Kimura carries the name of a real man — and one of the most extraordinary fighters who ever lived.

Walk into any academy on earth and someone is hitting a Kimura. It is one of the first submissions a white belt learns and one of the last a black belt stops respecting — a shoulder lock that works from side control, from guard, from the back, in the gi and without it. In judo it is the reverse ude-garami; in catch wrestling it was the double-wristlock or “chicken wing.” In jiu-jitsu, we call it something else entirely. We call it the Kimura. And that name belongs to a person.

The Greatest Judoka Who Ever Lived

Masahiko Kimura was born in Kumamoto, Japan, in 1917, and he is still, decades after his death, the name most often cited when judoka argue about the greatest of all time. He won the All-Japan Judo Championship three years running and, by legend, went more than a decade without being thrown. His training was the stuff of myth: a thousand push-ups a day, endless hours of randori, a work ethic captured in his own maxim that a thousand days of training is mere forging, and ten thousand days is where the tempering truly begins. There is a saying about him that Japanese fans still repeat: before Kimura, there was no Kimura; after Kimura, there is no Kimura.

Rio, 1951

On October 23, 1951, that man stepped onto the mat in Rio de Janeiro against Hélio Gracie, the co-founder of the family art, in front of a roaring crowd of some twenty thousand people. It was a mismatch on paper. Kimura was far heavier and one of the strongest grapplers alive; Hélio, at roughly 140 pounds, was giving up dozens of pounds to a living legend of judo. The Gracies had built their entire reputation on the promise that leverage and technique could overcome size and strength — and here was the ultimate test of it.

What followed was, in its way, a vindication of both men. Kimura took Hélio down at will and controlled him for long stretches, but the smaller man would not break. Hélio survived submission after submission, escaping, defending, refusing to give the Japanese champion the finish everyone expected to come quickly. For a challenge match against the greatest judoka in the world, simply lasting was its own kind of victory — and it made the Gracie name.

The Lock That Earned a Name

Eventually, Kimura secured his favorite finishing hold — the reverse ude-garami, that same shoulder lock — and cranked. Hélio, true to everything the family stood for, refused to tap. The arm gave way before he did, and his brother Carlos threw in the towel to stop the fight. Kimura had won. But he left Brazil openly impressed by the toughness of the small man who would not quit.

Then came the gesture that says everything about jiu-jitsu’s character. Rather than bury the memory of a loss, the Gracies honored the man who beat them: they named the technique after him. From that day on, the reverse ude-garami became “the Kimura” — and a submission taught in every gym in the world now carries, forever, the name of the rival who used it best.

That is the part worth keeping. A martial art confident enough to name one of its signature weapons after the man who beat its founder is an art that understands something rare: that respect for mastery matters more than the score, and that you honor greatness even when it comes at your expense. Hélio’s refusal to quit built a legend. Kimura’s brilliance earned a monument. And every time you finish a Kimura on the mat tonight, you are saying his name.

The Jiu Jitsu Mindset with Pete Deeley. Part of our series on the history and culture behind the techniques we train.