Roger Gracie's Kimura Grip Attacks: A BJJ Fundamental

Words: Jiu Jitsu Style

Back in December 2016 we put up a short clip of Roger Gracie walking through his kimura grip attacks, and we didn't need to sell it hard. When the most decorated gi competitor Brazilian Jiu Jitsu has ever produced shows you how he actually got the tap, you watch. A decade on, the clip is older than some of the black belts using the position, but the grip fighting Roger was demonstrating hasn't changed a single detail, because it was never a trend to begin with — it's just correct BJJ.

Watch it: Roger Gracie's kimura grip from side control and mount.

Why Roger Gracie's Kimura Became a Signature

Roger's game was built on control long before it was built on submissions. Mount and side control were where he did his heaviest work, and the kimura grip — figure-four on the wrist and bicep, elbow pinned tight to the ribs — was the tool he used to keep that control airtight while the finish was still two or three moves away. Most people learn the kimura as a fast-twitch attack: grab the wrist, snatch the arm, crank. Roger taught it as the opposite. The grip goes on early, long before the arm is actually attackable, and it stays on through every scramble that follows. By the time the opponent's shoulder is rotated far enough to tap, the grip itself has already done most of the work.

That patience is what separated Roger's kimura from a highlight-reel finish. He wasn't hunting a single opening — he was locking a frame onto the arm and letting the opponent's own defensive movement walk them into the finish. Fight to free the trapped wrist and you load the shoulder further. Post to escape and you hand him the base to spin. It's the same principle that makes his collar choke so suffocating from mount: control first, submission second, and the two blur together by the time the tap comes.

The Jiu Jitsu Behind the Grip

Strip away the highlight footage and the mechanics are simple, which is exactly why they've survived. Secure the figure-four with your own grip, not your opponent's sleeve — a kimura built on a gi grip disappears the moment the fabric slips, but a hand-to-wrist figure-four travels with you through every scramble. Keep the trapped elbow glued to your own body, because the instant daylight opens between your ribs and their arm, the leverage is gone. And move the hips before you move the arm — the rotation that finishes a kimura comes from your base circling around the shoulder, not from your arms muscling the wrist.

This is where a lot of white and blue belts get it backwards. They try to rip the arm free with grip strength, get stuffed by anyone with decent size, and conclude the kimura doesn't work against bigger opponents. Roger Gracie was rarely the biggest man on the mat and still finished the position against world champions, because the kimura was never a strength contest for him — it was a grip-and-base problem, the same one that makes it one of the first submissions taught in any serious Jiu Jitsu academy and one of the last ones black belts ever stop using.

Still the First Attack Worth Drilling in 2026

Watch the modern game and Roger's blueprint is everywhere. Gordon Ryan builds entire mount and side-control sequences around exactly this kimura trap, using it as a control tool as much as a finish. Mikey Musumeci and the Ruotolo brothers hunt the same figure-four grip out of scrambles in no-gi, where there's no collar to fall back on and the wrist-to-elbow frame has to do all the work on its own. The instructional landscape has changed completely — where Roger's generation learned from grainy match footage, today's students have BJJ Fanatics libraries and slow-motion YouTube breakdowns of every detail — but the grip he was teaching in that 2016 clip is still the first one most coaches put in a new student's hands, because nothing about a kimura from mount or side control has needed reinventing.

That's really the whole lesson, ten years on. The kimura isn't a trick, and it was never about surprise. It's a grip you set early, a frame you refuse to let break, and a hip rotation you trust to finish the job the grip already started. Roger Gracie proved you can build a Hall of Fame BJJ career on that idea alone. Go drill the figure-four until your grip stops needing your eyes to find it, then go find someone bigger than you and see whether the principle holds.

See you on the mats.

Originally published on Jiu Jitsu Style, 18 December 2016. Refreshed for 2026.