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Kesa Gatame Used as a Submission

 In a Judo Tournament

Welcome to everyone visiting from the Judo Info site's Kesa Gatame as a Submission forum topic!

For everyone else, welcome to you too!

Lately there has been an interesting discussion, started by one of our senior club members, Chris Miller, about the use of Kesa Gatame in judo tournaments for more than just osaekomi (a pin).  The idea is that the Kesa Gatame can be effectively used as a submission due to chest/lung compression, causing an inability of the opponent to breathe sufficiently, and subsequently leading to a tapout.  Here's a link to the forum thread if you haven't seen it: http://judoforum.com/index.php?/topic/49546-kesa-gatame-the-submission

Shortly after the discussion (which included some controversy!) began on the forum site, a few of our club members entered a tournament in our area, and Chris had the opportunity to use Kesa Gatame in his first match, resulting in ippon by submission.  He went on to win his division plus an additional division in the Masters' class.

Here is a video of the relevant matches.  You'll note that in the background of the first match, you can hear two gentlemen (who were strangers to us!) discussing his groundhold, and one of them saying something about Chris not letting the opponent breathe - too perfect!.

Interestingly, his gold medal match in the Master's division was also won by ippon via Kesa Gatame, but the opponent lasted the full 25 seconds, so no second tapout for Chris :)

For more information on applying Kesa Gatame/Scarf Hold as well as many others, and some effective escapes, please check out the following pages on our site with a number of more instructional videos:

Traditional Ground Holds
Traditional Ground Hold Escapes
No-Gi Ground Holds
No-Gi Reversals and Escapes

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