Any time you can establish dominance over one of your opponent’s arms—with an arm drag or with an armbar like we saw in the last chapter—you can potentially set up a back take. The Kimura, for as much as we think of it as a submission, is also a remarkably strong two-on-one grip. With that two-on-one grip established, you can manipulate and maneuver your opponent’s positioning with the added benefit of having a very serious submission threat. That control, coupled with that threat, can create a reliable route to the back. In the case of this technique, that route is from the top.
