Customer Reviews

Drill to Win: 12 Months to Better Brazillian Jiu-Jitsu

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I have been saying for a very long time that there needs to be a book that covers this subject matter. Andre Galvao has hit this one out of the park.

In the book, Andre covers a year of drilling, with a little diet, and some very different calisthenics. The best thing about the book is the drilling game plan and the way Andre laid out the photographs. Drill to Win does an excellent job at showing how the drill looks in movement and this is the first for me in a martial arts book. It is simply beautiful and I cannot wait to try these drills in the morning.

I'm not sure if I will make it the whole year, but I will definitely be dissecting the drills and try adding as many to my game as possible. Hopefully, once I get more focused, I'll go through the whole year, see if I become a champion and update the review!

I recently read this book, I must say I was very impressed. The book is beautiful, seamlessly organized, and easy to follow. As I just received the book, I haven't yet had the opportunity to incorporate the drills shown into my regimen. However because of the of the clear layout I have no doubt that I'll be able to utilize something new from week 1 until week 52.

This book has a plethora of unique drills that I had never personally witnessed before. There's a drill in this book to improve every single aspect of your game. At this stage in my training I'm quite content when I buy an instructional manual that can teach me one new thing, and this book has already taught me dozens of new drills that I can utilize in my BJJ sessions. I highly recommend this book to both beginners and experts. Beginners will find a systematic gameplan that will allow them to build a foundation of movement, explained in a more clear and direct manner than many instructors in person. Experts will undoubtedly spot one or two new movements that they can incorporate into their routine. Great book, it's already been an extremely useful tool for me.

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.

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.

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.

Drill to win is filled with comprehensible material and photos. As a BJJ enthusiast with a large family and professional demands, this book has quickly become a valuble resource because it enables me to sharpen my skills on my own. I especially like the diet and supplement section. As well as, the personal heart felt story told by Galvao. As a grappler, I know everyone has their fight, but it's not to often you get to hear it straight from the champ. Interestingly, it uncovers some of the Post-Gracie BJJ World. After reading the short introduction I felt a deeper sense of understanding of modern BJJ.The conventional BJJ books requires "willing" partner, "Drill to Win" gives me a choice and the ability to speed up the learning process. Realistically I've sometime have a hard time finding "drilling" partner, as most people like to spar. However, as a former collegiate wrestler, I know the value of drilling. wrestiling practice sessions often are made up of 40% solo drills. Through these drills I've I gained speed and muscle recall. This book has allowed me to take my skills to a sharper level. The only draw back is if I don't train I can't blame it on anyone else but myself. Andre and Kevin Howell give me plenty of material to train hard everyday, with or with out a partner, even if I'm injured. Now it's up to me, and that's the way I like it. If your serious about traing Jiu Jitsu or submission wrestling I would recommend you pick this one up.

As primarly a Taekwon-Do practitioner and instructor I have tried to absorbe the basic of grappling/BJJ to my personal toolbox in my quest to become a more "Complete" martial artist. Unfortunatly learning techniques and engage in sparring only gets you so far unless you incorporate a system of sport spesific conditioning and drills. This has been a challenge due to the lack of a qualifeied instructor around to assist in ouer training. "Drill to win" has made a remarkable impact on my ground game. I am in no way claiming to have gone "from zero to hero", but the drills and conditioning exercices have alowed me to fasilitate the techniques that i have picked up from friend in the art and instructional material (books, dvd`s, online, etc.)

I Higly recomend this text for martial artist and others hwo have tried to study grappling in an informal fashion (without a regular instructor),frieldly training groups etc hwo experience that they dont develop as desired.

As you can see from the majority of the reviews, this book has a recurring theme... ATTENTION TO DETAIL. That's what makes the difference in the world of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Very often BJJ practitioners like myself forget the minute details like the sagging of the hips to make you heavier, doing an ab crunch from closed guard to break an opponent's posture, extending an opponent's trapped leg from the half-guard to manipulate their base, etc. Just those minor adjustments make the biggest difference from being your opponent's highlight reel to you "folding Gis" with your opponents in them. Drilling to Win holds nothing back and breaks everything down to the lowest level possible. The drills are so easy to follow that even my jarhead teammates at the academy can comprehend the exercises just by following the sequence of pictures lol.

Just picked this book after a long wait. Andre is one of my favorite bjj fighters and has unique charismatic style of jiu jitsu. From my experience, most people don't enjoy drilling at all. When I first started training I would rather spend my time rolling hard and fighting pointless battles instead of drilling moves and working angles. I got to meet Kevin and his wife Haley at a Bjj tournament and picked his brain about the secrets to Andre's sucess. chatting. He informed me that drilling is what will make you better than everyone who doesn't do it and Andre Galvao is a fine example. I learned that his secret is drilling drilling and more drilling. Ever since then, this is one of the things that I've been meaning to incorporate into my training.
This book shows many different ways to drill, shows a sequence of drills and the meaning of them.
This book offers a step by step pictures and detailed instruction in all the basic to advanced drilling techniques that are truly important. He covers the most basic and fundamental Drills to advanced drills with an importance on transitions and such. I highly recommend this book. Its very well organized in a logical fashion, great pictures and a joy to read. It answers almost all of the questions I have wanted to know since I started and will help your game.

In order to learn and execute techniques from a book, you have to be able to implement the movements into your daily training. Most jiu-jitsu books are filled with useful techniques, but don't give you specific instruction on how to train. Drill to Win solves this problem. In addition to demonstrating several partner drills, Kevin and Galvao cover several independent drills that you can implement in your garage or living room. Although the layout suggest following a twelve month program, you can just as easily pull out a specific drill to augment a particular aspect of your game. This is one of the best jiu-jitsu books on the market, and I would highly recommend it to anyone looking to improve their game.