BJ Penn - The Full Guard - Score: 70%

Review: I was pretty excited about receiving this book because having a comprehensive BJ Penn full guard book seems likea really good idea. However, i was worried that it may be too basic and therefore not all that exciting. I am afraid, I was correct. This book is a great book for a white belt or someone who wants to brush up on his guard skills and has forgotten most of the techniques he has learned in the last year or two. However, I found the techniques kind of bland and basic. There wasn't much where I would say "Oh this is neat" - mostly...oh yeah..I remember that. Again, if you dont keep a journal or if you do teach sometimes, this book will come in handy as it organizes the common techniques that you may already know. However, there is little that is new and that you have to try out right away on the mat. I know the techniques already and BJ failed to describe them in any more details so that I feel like I could do some troubleshooting or get interesting ideas. It is overall uninspired. Compared to Saulo's book, BJ doesnt have anything interesting about himself or about his philosophies. Just a rundown on basic full guard techniques. It is a book that you would buy for your collection and use every now and then but you just dont get excited over it.

Score: 70%

Building the BJJ Fortress

The BJJ fortress is part of a strategy that I have developed for myself which helps me with dealing with people that are better than me. Therefore, this is an extremely defensive game plan. The above pictures illustrates an example of the different stages of security that I have against an opponent. If someone is in my full guard - the danger of being submitted is rather small. However, as my opponent gains better positions, starting with breaking my full guard and going to open guard, half guard, turtle guard, and eventually mount/cross body/back, the chance of being submitted dramatically increases.

Many guard passes attempt to achieve a dominant position such as cross body. If you are facing an opponent who is much better than you, the chances of the oponent passing your guard is quite high. An aoopnent that is much better than me will always break my full guard, pass my open guard, and continously advance until they achieve a dominant posiiton, eventually leading to a submission. They are better, faster, quicker, and more experienced. I will always lag behind and be too slow.

However, knowing the above, I would start using an old BJJ wisdom to the extreme, for example, if someone is about to break your full guard, you don't let them break it, instead, you open it and transition to open guard. You go to open guard on your terms. This ensures that they have to react to what you do and you are one step ahead in the game.

The defensive strategy does not stop there. I try to use the same principle with all positions. Since failure is inevitable, you ought to give up every position voluntarily. Give up open guard and settle for half guard, then give hup half guard and settle for turtle. I never want a better opponent to pass my open guard straight to cross body without taking them through the stages of half guard and turtle first. Each time I give up a position, I can do so on my terms, stay ahead in the game, and try to attempt a quick sweep and maybe recover full guard, open guard, or even, heaven forbid, gain a dominant position myself.

It can be tough to put your ego aside and accept ultimate failure and therefore continuing to give up position but let's be real. If you go against a black belt, it will happen. You might as well take the little bit of advantage that you can get (and which is not solely based on luck) and give up positions in order to stay ahead in the game and maybe score a sweep or reversal.

The second part of the strategy includes the focus one should have on each stage of the defensive hierarchy. The ultimate defense, for example, would be if our game would become progressively better as our opponent advances. For instance, he might open our full guard easily but then have a little trouble with out open guard because we spend more time in the open guard position. If he passes and we end up in half guard, our half guard should be even better than our open guard and thereby increasing our opponents frustration. As the opponent advances, he will encounter more and more roadblocks because we get continously better in the positions that he achieves. Therefore, our best positions should be 1. submisison defense from one of the dominant positions (I would suggest back defense for reasons which I will explain in the next article called Platypus Guard), 2. turtle, 3. half guard, 4, open guard, and 5. full guard.

By using the above strategy you are essentially controlling the fight even though you are the much weaker opponent. You determine where the fight takes place. If I use this strategy against people that are better than me, they usually have no choice but to go through my open guard, then half guard, then turtle, and eventually get to my back. This happens over and over and everytime I roll, we go through the same sequences and every roll is very similar to the previous one because I am determining what is happening even though I am the one getting beat.

The next advantage, however, is that I continously get better and better at these positions because a lot of my focus is on them. We had an advanced blue belt in our class who used to be a wrestler and who had a very tough cross body. My instructor sometimes said - he has a black belt cross body game. He spend so much time on cross body that he could compete on a black belt level in that position once he obtains it. The same happens in our defensive game plan. By continously going through the same stages, our skill level in these positions increases faster than our overall skill level. Think of it has having in the end a black belt back defense, a brown belt turtle game, a purple belt half guard game etc. If you achieve that, your game will become increasingly frustrating to your opponent, because as he advances, you suddenly get harder and harder to beat! My opponents often spend lots of time getting better at any positions and the will get better each month by X amount. However, if I focus on back defense, turtle, half guard, open guard, and full guard according to our game plan, my skill will increase faster in these positions than his skill will increase overall. Sure, other aspects of my game suffer which is the sacrfice you make for maximizing your chances against better opponents. The nice part is that I can dictate where the fight takes place and I can dictate that the fight takes place in the positions where I am strongest in.

This brings me to the disadvantage of this game plan. I have found that this is effective against people that are better than you. However, you tend to roll similarly with people who are less experienced than you. If this becomes a habit, your offensive skills suffer a little and you feel like you maybe are doing less well against weaker opponents. What looks impressive against a black belt, will look poor against lower belts. You will give up positions unnecessarily against lower belt. While you feel safe from submissions with your defensive game, you will feel like you are losing to many positions.

I have used this strategy for over a year now and found that it actually works. You can dictate a fight even though you are losing the fight. You can maximize your chances against better opponents and appear competitive. The strategy will help your game also by for instance, not accepting positions like cross body or mount as you will abandon half guard in order to gain turtle position thereby not letting your opponent gain cross body. What used to happen to me was that as someone passes my open guard and is about to gain cross body, I was just sitting there for a few seconds being annoyed that it happens and waiting to be pummeled. the best time to defend cross body is right as the opponent is about to achieve it. The above strategy will sharpen your defenses by not letting your "accept" dominant posiitons too early.

The next part of this is dedicated to a defensive position that I call the platypus guard and which is also an essential part of making the above strategy work.

Saulo Ribeiro - Jiu-Jitsu University Book Review - Score: 100%

Review: This is now one of my favorite BJJ books. Not only does it have an arsenal on great techniques, Saulo also shares some of his philosophies which are fun to read. It is also a great problem solving manual. If you need help with a certain position or you need a defense to something, the book does a great job of suggesting some approaches for you. You can always find an idea for almost everything that you encounter. It gives you techniques to which you can develop a game around. As a problem solving book this is invaluable! If you sometimes teach classes, it also makes a great book because you can just pick a position and start showing osme of the techniques in an organized fashion. As we progress in BJJ we learn so many techniques but sometimes I do such a poor job of remembering them. It is nice to have a comprehensive book where you can find many things that you have learned in class. If you arent good about keeping a BJJ journal - then this book is for you. I think I have learned just about every technique in the book once at least but it is nice that Saulo wrote a journal for me (plus you can be sure that the way he teaches it, is correct).

I highly recommend this good as it is probably my favorite BJJ book of all time.

Score: 100%

Robson Moura - Fusion 2 DVD Review - Score: 95%

After receiving the shiny box at home and seeing the title of the first of three DVD's I thought to myself: Great, another version of "Let's make up a new name for some odd position - call it a guard - put it on DVD - print money." I was sceptical but curious about this so called 93 Guard. Interestingly enough, Robson himself isn't quite sure if it is the 93 Guard or the 92 Guard as he uses both terms to describe this new position. Nevertheless, 92, 93, whatever - it is one sweet presentation of a new type of guard.

Perhaps it is because I have been more focused on BJJ the last few weeks (some say...obsessed) but I found parts of this DVD set to be eye opening. In fact, it inspired me to write a subsequent article called "Building the BJJ Fortress" (soon to be published). After an initial viewing, most of the techniques presented are fresh, clever, and new to me. What sets Robson apart from other DVD instructionals is his presentation of elements that form a game plan. It isn't just a collection of random moves but the techniques build on each other and some are worthy to build a game plan around.

Some of his techniques are repeats from his Fusion 1 DVD but there aren't many and it made sense to include them into certain places. After starting the Open Guard DVD I was a little disappointed as my first randomly picked technique was a double. Further, the intro to the Open Guard section was pretty standard and exactly what we do in class for warm ups. However, after watching the entire DVD, it quickly became one of my favorites. However. the 93 DVD is the highlight of this set and a must have for me!

Robson also covers the half guard position (top and bottom), as well as the single leg guard and the versatile look choke. I am impressed with all of these and am excited to use them in training. A more detailed review will follow.

While the quality of the DVD is outstanding, I must say that Robson is a "lazy talker." Maybe it will become his trademark someday but he leaves off the endings of random words (as a fellow non-native English speaker - I can make fun of him for that). It is also odd that throughout the entire DVD you see Gustavo Dantes not say a word. I think it would be refreshing someday to see a dialogue between Robson and his partner where both interact with the audience to some degree.

Other nice touches would be the inclusion of a clip that shows each technique one after the other without commentary. Sometimes I like to revisit the techniques and it is a pain to go to each one separately and fast forward. It may be nice to have one clip that includes everything that was covered in that section. Alternatively, it may be nice if the technique that is about to be shown is presented at the beginning of each technique section so that you can quickly review things.

Finally, a nice and entertaining touch would be to show these techniques as used in competition or sparring a la Eddie Bravo in "Mastering the Rubber Guard." However, while these are more general and minor gripes, we will have to wait for the next generation of DVD instructionals to include such things.

The current overall score based on my initial viewing is: 95%


The 93 Guard

93 guard Details/Top leg position/Neck pressure/Bottom leg position/ Controlling the distance/Putting it together

I really have enjoyed working with this 93 Guard set up - it is easy to transition to and Robson does a good job explaining the common pitfalls of this position (and how to correct them). The first few sections (93 guard Details/Top leg position/Neck pressure/Bottom leg position/ Controlling the distance/Putting it together) are dedicated to troubleshoot the 93 Guard position. Essentially, Robson points to 4 ways with which your opponent can mess up the intitial set up and he gives you the appropriate counters to each which work pretty well.

The nice thing about the 93 Guard is that it sort of looks like a scrambling position to your opponent. Your guard was about to be opened and you transitioned to the position to avoid the guard pass - however, having done so purposly and having Robson's specific techniques and sweeps in mind can keep you one step ahead in the game.

The different sweeps Robson shows center around the different things you may encounter while playing with the 93 Guard set up. Some of them look like $5 moves and others probably require some practice before you can use them effectively. I found that some sweeps are designed to not take you to cross body but e.g. top inverted half guard. While he easily pulls is leg out, a quick opponent could trap the leg and you would now battle for a half guard pass etc. For other techniques you end up in your opponents guard even though you are in a good guard pass position. While this may get your tournament points it is a lot to do for going from your guard - sweep - to have an attempt of passing your opponent's guard. I need to play around with these some more to see what actually happens in life rolling.


SCORES

A. Initial Impression upon watching

1. Effectiveness of the techniques: 95-100%
2. Presentation: 85-90%
3. Value: 95-100%

TOTAL SCORE: 95%
(not an average of all scores)

Standard of Review

Reviewing instructional DVD's or books objectively is challenging because the skill level of the writer may be different than the skill level of the reader. With that in mind, I review these DVD's with my skill level in mind - as such, it will be a subjective review. However, I will compare the DVD sets with each other which would be somewhat of an objective review.

Further, I will go through several stages of review including:
1. Initial Impression upon watching
2. Drilling with a partner
3. Application in sparring

I will continously rethink my previous scores as I become more familiar with the techniques. This process will take time.

I will also assign a total score from 0-100% based on:
1. Effectiveness of the techniques
2. Presentation
3. Value

I will try to describe and review the techniques individually and categorize them as such:
1. Bread and Butter Technique
2. Situational but effective
3. Cool but Wishful Thinking
4. Inadequately described
5. Useless

The final review score should look like this:
100% - Perfect and a must have
90-99% - Excellent
80-89% - Very Good
70-79% - Good
60-69% - Ok
50-59% - Sub Standard
40-49% - Bad
30-39% - Horrible
0-30% - The Worst Jerry - the Worst...

What is this BLOG all about?

It seems that every day I come up with a new BJJ strategy to take my game to the next level. Every day - it seems to be a different strategy. The general purpose of the BLOG is to capture my thoughts and frustrations, as well as my highlights in the BJJ world. Maybe, someone else in a similar position can relate to my experiences. Perhaps, people will leave comments and this could actually become a learning experience!

However, I don't want to just put up my random thoughts without some utilitarian purpose. Here we get to the second purpose of this blog. I am a BJJ Instructional DVD/Book addict. I have browsed the web for sites that give good reviews of these instructional DVDs or books. I was a little underwhelmed with what I found aka not much. I want to start a DVD/Book review section that reviews and scores these instructionals on a much deeper level than usual. My goal is to be critical and score these instructionals while I learn the techniques.

I anticipate that my reviews will be subjective and will change over time. My abilities may not allow me to master one approach/technique today but I might incorporate it into my game next year. These reviews will start with a general outlook and then develop over time so that a potential buyer can see what it is like to learn from a particular instructional. I hope that people will comment and discuss some of these techniques as well.

However, I will also try to be objective and score the instructionals compared to each other. I will outline my review philosophy in a later post. I will also tell you a little bit about me since it will be important for you to understand what my limitations and/or strengths are.

I anticipate that my first review will go to Robson Moura's Fusion 2 DVD (http://www.groundfighter.com/details/prodid/281.html) since this is one of the latest products on the market. I will also review Saulo Ribeiro's Jiu-Jitsu University (http://www.amazon.com/Jiu-Jitsu-University-Saulo-Ribeiro/dp/0981504434/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1227290992&sr=8-1).

I hope that people will enjoy these reviews and I hope I'll learn something from posting these!