Five time World medallist Kirill Denisov is an expert at combining movement and gripping.

Denisov is a left handed fighter. When up against right handers, he uses a circular motion in his gripping patterns.

Primarily, he aims to fight for control of the lapel, before looking to dominate the sle...

Once Denisov is in charge of the lapel he fights for his favoured sleeve grip.

He likes to pin his opponent’s sleeve, whilst tucking his elbow into the side of his stomach.

This unique body position allows him gripping dominance, whilst conserving energy in his right arm.

After catching the op...

When fighting right handed opponents who want a traditional high lapel or collar grip, Kirill Denisov’s first aim is to catch the power arm.

Once he’s done this he takes a cross lapel grip.

Before feeding the lapel into his left hand.

He then starts putting pressure on his opponent by pushing ...

Kirill Denisov’s lapel feed is the starting point to his most effective gripping sequence against opposite stance opponents.

Competing at the very highest level in international judo for over ten years, the lapel feed was a regular technique Denisov successfully employed.

Occasionally he would ...

Multiple World medallist Kirill Denisov is a left handed fighter. When up against opponents who are also left handed, Denisov’s prime target is to catch and then neutralise their power hand, before he does anything else.

As his opponents will not give up their sleeve easily, Denisov’s strategy i...

Kirill Denisov says that whenever he fights left handed opponents, his first thought is always to have control of their left arm.

‘How do I catch the left arm’, he says. ‘How do I control it’.

With his opponents aware of his game-plan, they do as much as possible to prevent Denisov from catchin...

When Kirill Denisov is up against an opponent who takes a high cross grip, or ‘the Russian arm’, he has two very efficient ways of quickly dealing with this dangerous grip.

The Russian arm is very threatening, as an attack usually follows in quick succession.

Denisov’s response, therefore, has...

If Kirill Denisov is up against a left handed opponent who targets his lapel with their right hand, he has a very effective way of turning defence into attack.

With the opponent switching their upper body stance from left to right, Denisov’s main objective is to prevent his left lapel from being...

One of Denisov’s most effective strategies against same stance opponents is to come out right handed before switching back to a left stance once gripped up.

Here’s a good example against Turkmenistan’s Hojamuhammedov in the 2018 Agadir Grand Prix.

Denisov leads with a right handed lapel grip, w...