Drill to Win: 12 Months to Better Brazillian Jiu-Jitsu [Paperback]

Andre Galvao (Author), Kevin Howell (Author)

Book Description

Release date: August 10, 2010

Andre Galvao has earned his reputation as one of the best and most exciting Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu champions of all time. Now, he brings his training methods to the public with Drill to Win: 12 Months to Better Brazillian Jiu-Jitsu. If you want to move like Galvao, submit like Galvao and win like Galvao, this is the book for you. In this one-of-a-kind manual, Andre outlines both a 1-year schedule to overall improvement as well as smaller game plans for short term competition preparation.

This is not your average reference book, but instead a step-by-step guide to building a champion grappler. The key to this book is in its building block methodology that follows Andre's basics of grappling—the ability to move and adapt to new movements in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. So don't wait, pick up this book and start the first day of your BJJ explosion!

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Andre Galvao is a multiple time black belt world champion, submission wrestling champion and MMA fighter based out of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Andre is currently fighting MMA for DREAM and Strikeforce while competing regularly in jiu-jitsu and submission wrestling.

Kevin Howell is a political science professor and author based out of Huntington Beach, California. He is a brown belt in both judo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu as well as an assistant instructor at the Vieira Bros' Fight Zone USA Academy in Signal Hill, California.

Product Details

• Paperback: 292 pages
• Publisher: Victory Belt Publishing; Original edition (August 10, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0981504485
• ISBN-13: 978-0981504483
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 0.8 x 11 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #35,801 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #8 in Books > Sports & Outdoors > Individual Sports > Wrestling
  • #51 in Books > Sports & Outdoors > Individual Sports > Martial Arts
  • #98 in Books > Sports & Outdoors > Coaching > Training & Conditioning

More About the Author

Hello all! My name is Kevin Howell and I am a jiu-jitsu fanatic who's goal is to help in the growth of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and grappling both through the sharing of deep personal knowledge and practice. My goal is to make the best use of my over 13 years of grappling experience and education/writing background to create the most unique and sought after grappling related books in martial arts. I am the author of two best selling books on the martial arts: Jiu-Jitsu University with Saulo Ribeiro and Drill to Win with Andre Galvao.

When away from writing, I am either teaching college level political science, spending time with my family, or teaching jiu-jitsu at The Jiu-Jitsu League in Long Beach, California (www.TheJiuJitsuLeague.com).

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 37 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Good, not great. Terrible for solo drills. January 10, 2012

By John Da Blue

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

The book itself is mostly solid, with clear glossy photographs, a decent layout, and lots of drills. But it also has a couple problems.

The good:

The drills layout is logical. Follow the arrow and you get a series of pictures as the instructor moves through the drill. There's a text also describing what the instructor is doing. By comparing the two, it's easy to get a solid feel for each drill.

The book is divided into 12 months, with each month containing 4 weeks, and each week containing five days. Each day usually has 1 or 2 drills. Some will seem familiar to anyone who has been to a bjj class recently. I'm sure if you follow the drills in addition to your current training you will end up a better player.

The first few months focus on strength, conditioning and balance, the next few on basic movements, and then more advanced drills are introduced. It's a relatively logical sequence, with later drills building on earlier drills. Most everyone who makes it to a class will be familiar with a good portion of the drills in the first four months. Some heavier trainees might strain a bit on some drills, but that's why they need to do them. Comparatively, some lighter trainees might find some of the drills too easy. Overall, solid.

The bad:

The initial month has no drills, just a couple pages noting that diet is important and that you should work on that for a month. While diet might be important, it would have been better to mention that as part of the introduction or the first several chapters, and not cut into drill time. The final month is also under 2 pages, just noting that the trainee should review and work on weak spots. 10 months to better brazilian jiu jutsu.

10 months of drills could still be pretty solid.... However, a good number of the drills assume you have a swiss ball, and a few also assume you have a balance board or two. A mat is also assumed, but that assumption is completely understandable. Even these are acquirable without too much trouble.

My big issue comes with the lack of solo drills in the book. Most of the drills in chapters two and three can be done and are shown solo. Very, very few other drills in the book are solo drills. You might be able to attempt some of the drills alone where the partner is least involved, but it's a dodgy prospect at best.

For someone like me who picked up the book to work on my own time with no practice partners accessible, this is crushing. The only time I have partners accessible is usually during class hours, and those are better spent with a live instructor. So, for me, 2 months to better brazilian jiu jutsu. And most of those drills I knew already.

Overall, if you have a training partner, the necessary gear, and the time and the will to implement the program, four stars. Without the training partner, two stars. Read more ›

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Getting better at BJJ September 5, 2010

By patrick m conaway

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

This book is a treasure trove of drills for improving your BJJ! The book is divided up into months, with each month and each week within it having a theme. This makes it easy to search through the contents for drills to work on your own weaknesses, or to follow the one year schedule as intended by the author. The drills cover topics such as:

1. General strength
2. Balance
3. Gymnastic ability
4. Breakfalls/Sprawls
5. Grips
6. Throws/Takedowns
7. Escapes
8. Guard passing
9. Top position control
10.Guard control/sweeps

Although there is a wealth of partner drills, there are also plenty of solo drills. This book superbly fills the gap left by so many BJJ instructional videos; namely making key movements second nature and erasing bad habits. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in becoming better at BJJ and highly recommend it to those who are studying on their own and don't have a school where (some) of these drills would be introduced.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An Amazing Book For Bettering Your Jiu-Jitsu July 27, 2010

By Muay Thai Student

Format:Paperback

This is a very unique book on the sport of jiu-jitsu. There are literally hundreds of drills covered, all of which are sport specific. Some are designed to improve your jiu-jitsu technique, some are for improving your stamina in the sport, and some are designed for increasing you overall strength. Often I use large books on jiu-jitsu just as a reference. However, this book is broken down on a week-by-week basis to improving your jiu-jitsu. Granted I probably won't do the exact training program laid out, but it certainly gives a base to work from. If I only did a fraction of the drills outlined in the book each week, I have no doubt I would watch my game improve dramatically over a years time. I highly recommend this book to anyone serious about the sport.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A whole new paradigm for jiu jitsu manuals September 4, 2010

By Nathan L. Wilcox

Format:Paperback

There have been dozens of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu manuals, many by legends of the sport, but Drill to Win: 12 Months to Better Brazillian Jiu-Jitsu by Andre Galvao with Kevin Howell, is a unique and valuable addition to the canon.

Where most jiu jitsu manuals focus on presenting a dizzying array of techniques, Galvao's book focuses on practical drills that will help the diligent reader master the movements involved jiu jitsu and dramatically improve their competition game.

Galvao is a highly decorated grappler with multiple World Jiu-Jitsu Championships and IBJJF Pan American Championships as well as a third place prize from the ADCC World Championships.

In the introduction to the book Galvao describes his effort intensive approach to jiu jitsu and the way he, an athlete of limited natural gifts, outworked and surpassed many more talented training partners.

Howell is the co-author of Saulo Ribeiro's Jiu Jitsu University, which judging by its amazing sales on Amazon seems to have become THE standard jiu jitsu instructional book. Drill to Win is the perfect complement to Jiu Jitsu University with its plethora of drills for each stage of your jiu jitsu game.

Galvao and Howell cover diet, balance and strength drills, breakfalls, grip fighting drills, takedown drills (both wrestling and judo), guard pulling, basic escapes, guard passes, top position drills, two chapters worth of guard drills (including exotic positions like x-guard, spider guard and de la riva guard), and a great chapter on transitioning drills that will allow the diligent student to transform themselves into a very dangerous jiu jitsu player able to string together combination attacks....

Visually the book is amazing, graphic artist Kathy Howell has outdone herself as every move is illustrated with a series of photographs of Galvao and training partner Marcel Louzado moving through each sequence of events step by step. I can't describe it adequately other than to say that it looks more like animation on the page than a bunch of still photos. She's cropped out the backgrounds, leaving just the figures moving through space. The most complicated moves are illustrated by as many as two dozen photographs, yet the pages never look busy and are always clear and easy to follow.

I highly recommend this book for anyone who is seriously looking to dramatically improve their jiu jitsu game. Galvao and Howell have supplied the step by step instructions and drills, you'll have to provide the hard work. Read more ›