Scarf Hold

Last updated: June 9, 2026

What is the scarf hold position?

Picture someone lying flat on their back. The person on top sits down close to them, roughly at chest level, but turned so their body runs across the opponent rather than chest-to-chest. One arm scoops under the opponent’s near arm and clamps it tight. The other arm reaches around the head. The two bodies form a rough T-shape. That is the scarf hold.

The name comes from judo, where the position is called kesa-gatame. “Kesa” is the Japanese word for the sash a Buddhist monk wears draped from one shoulder down to the opposite hip, and the top grappler’s body sits across the opponent at that same diagonal angle. In wrestling, the same control is usually called a head-and-arm ride or simply a headlock pin.

Kesa-gatame is one of the foundational pins in Kodokan judo, the system Jigoro Kano founded in Tokyo in 1882. According to JudoLearn, it is typically the first hold-down a beginner learns, often around 6th kyu (white belt), because it teaches the core ideas of ground control: how to distribute body weight and how to react when an opponent tries to escape. The job of the position is simple. Stop the person on the bottom from getting up or turning to escape.

How the scarf hold works

Control in the scarf hold comes from the angle of the body rather than raw strength. Because the top grappler sits perpendicular across the chest, their weight drops through the hips and into the opponent’s ribcage. The trapped near arm and the wrapped head take away the two things the bottom grappler needs most: a free arm to frame with and a free head to turn.

A few details separate a loose scarf hold from a crushing one. The top grappler keeps their hips low and their weight settled rather than propped up on stiff arms. The legs spread wide, which lowers the center of gravity and makes the position harder to roll. The trapped elbow stays pinned close, since any space there gives the bottom grappler a path to free the arm and begin escaping.

From here, the position is rarely the end of the sequence. The top grappler can hunt submissions on the trapped arm, such as an americana, an arm triangle, or an armbar, using the legs, or shift into stronger positions like mount or north-south, depending on how the opponent defends.

Scarf hold vs. side control

This is the comparison most people arrive looking for, because the two positions are close cousins and easy to mix up. Both are side-control pins in the sense that the top grappler is beside a flattened opponent. The difference is body orientation and what gets controlled.

Feature	Scarf hold (kesa-gatame)	Standard side control
Body angle	Perpendicular, hip-to-shoulder, forming a T	Chest-to-chest, more parallel across the torso
Head control	Top grappler’s arm wraps the head or neck	Usually a crossface, no deep head wrap
Near arm	Trapped under the armpit	Often isolated or pinned against the body
Origin	Judo pinning system	General grappling, central to BJJ
Main risk	Bottom grappler can chase the back	Bottom grappler can recover guard

In short, side control keeps the top grappler chest-to-chest and squared up, while the scarf hold turns them sideways and adds a head wrap. That head wrap is what gives the position its grip, and also what creates its biggest weakness.

Variations of the scarf hold

Judo treats the scarf hold as a small family of related pins rather than one fixed technique, and the same variations show up under English names in BJJ and wrestling.

Variation	Japanese name	What changes
Basic scarf hold	hon-kesa-gatame	The standard version: arm around the head, near arm trapped
Modified scarf hold	kuzure-kesa-gatame	The head wrap is swapped for an underhook beneath the far shoulder
Reverse scarf hold	ushiro-kesa-gatame	The top grappler faces toward the opponent’s feet instead of the head

The modified version, kuzure-kesa-gatame, matters most in BJJ. Because the basic hold puts an arm around the head, it leaves the bottom grappler a route to spin toward the back, which is the most prized position in jiu-jitsu. Trading the head wrap for an underhook closes that door, so many BJJ players default to the modified form. As the team at Attack The Back notes, this trade-off is the main reason the classic scarf hold is more common in judo and wrestling than in jiu-jitsu.

Why the scarf hold matters across grappling

The scarf hold means slightly different things depending on the room you are training in. In judo, it is a scoring position. Under International Judo Federation rules, a pin held for 20 seconds earns ippon and wins the match outright, while 10 to 19 seconds scores waza-ari, so locking an opponent in kesa-gatame can end a contest on the clock alone.

In wrestling, the same control shows up as the head-and-arm ride, used to keep an opponent flat and earn or protect a pin. In BJJ, the position is treated with more caution because of the path to the back it can give up, but a well-applied scarf hold is still a heavy, suffocating pin that drains an opponent and opens up arm attacks. The reason it travels so well across all three is that it solves one universal grappling problem: how to glue a resisting person to the mat without exhausting yourself.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the scarf hold the same as kesa-gatame?

Yes. Kesa-gatame is the judo name for the scarf hold, and the two terms are used interchangeably. “Scarf hold” is simply the English translation.

Is the scarf hold legal in BJJ competition?

Yes. The position itself is legal across the major rule sets. What varies is which submissions you can finish from it, depending on the competitor’s belt level and the specific ruleset.

Why is the scarf hold less common in BJJ?

The traditional version wraps an arm around the head, which can hand the bottom grappler a path to take the back. Because back control sits at the top of the BJJ hierarchy, many practitioners prefer the modified version with an underhook.

Can you submit someone from the scarf hold?

Yes. Common finishes target the trapped arm, including the americana, the armbar using the legs, and the arm triangle.

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Sources

1. Wikipedia. “Kesa-gatame.” Accessed June 2026.
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kesa-gatame
2. International Judo Federation / Kodokan. “IJF-Kodokan Classification of Judo.” British Judo. Accessed June 2026.
   https://www.britishjudo.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/IJF-Kodokan-Classification-of-Judo.pdf
3. JudoLearn. “Kesa-Gatame (Scarf Hold): Step-by-Step Guide.” Accessed June 2026.
   https://judolearn.com/techniques/kesa-gatame/
4. Evolve MMA. “Understanding The Reverse Scarf Hold In BJJ.” Accessed June 2026.
   https://evolve-mma.com/blog/understanding-the-reverse-scarf-hold-in-bjj/
5. BJJ Graph. “Scarf Hold Position (Kesa Gatame).” Accessed June 2026.
   https://bjjgraph.org/Positions/Side-Control/Scarf-Hold-Position
6. Attack The Back. “Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Techniques – Scarf Hold.” Accessed June 2026.
   https://www.attacktheback.com/scarf-hold/

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