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39 of 40 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Innovative Jiujitsu Techniques, December 25, 2005
This review is from: Jiu-jitsu Unleashed: A Comprehensive Guide to the World’s Hottest Martial Arts Discipline (Paperback)
Eddie Bravo has made waves in the Brazilian Jiujitsu community by advocating gi-less training, developing an unconventional guard game, and tapping out Renzo Gracie in the prestigious ADCC tournament. He shares some of his unique system in this book.
The first part is an introduction (almost autobiographical) in which Eddie talks about how he developed his signiature system (mostly 'cause he was a poor student of the basics) as well as why he favors non-gi training. He makes a compelling argument that goes against some of the established BJJ teachers by insisting that in order to get better at non-gi grappling, one must practice grappling without a gi (as opposed to the standard party line, which is "to get good without a gi, you must practice WITH a gi").
His first technique chapter is on the half-guard, and he emphasises various sweeps, combinations of sweeps, and submissions, which differs from the standard strategy of trying to attain full guard. This offers the player the advantage of doing something unexpected, and turning a possition that's commonly thought of as "bad" into one of offense.
Next is the chapter on Eddie's "Rubber Guard". This possition requires a degree of flexibility, but what impresses me about it is how Bravo gives a grappler the option of using his own legs as a sort of substitute gi. The emphasis here is on submissions, but he also covers his "spider web" sweep into various arm bar & triangle choke possitions.
The third chapter is on the "Twister Side Control", a possition which sets up the submission Eddie is known for: the Twister (aka abdominal stretch, aka wrestler's guillotine). It's a unique possition that has one's weight (hips) near the opponent's head, and one is looking towards his opponent's legs. The emphasis is again on submissions, but ultimately, most require some dynamic repositioning (usually involving a roll of some sort).
The fourth chapter is on the mount, including a nice little variation called the "monkey mount". Most moves involve pushing yourself over your opponent's head in order to foil his upper-body control & expose his arms for subs.
Chapter Five, on back control, is a short one, but just the addition of the over-under control that Eddie uses will be valuable to most players. A handful of subs are covered.
Chapter Six, "Passing the Guard", has five guard passes, most of which are familiar to most BJJ players, but are done in such a way that they compliment the previous moves pretty well.
The last chapter is on combining the moves from the different parts of the book. This is the sort of thing that all grappling books should have, but most don't. It allows the reader to see how things might progress in a grappling match, and the combinations that logically follow one another.
Overall, a very good book. Right now, these techniques may be considered "state of the art", because they're so unconventional and not many people know them. The half- and Rubber-guard sections, especially, are very helpful in opening one's eyes to different possibilities. In the MMA/Sub Grappling "arms race", techniques shown here may give someone the decisive edge they need.
On the down side, this book is definitely not for the begginer. Someone with no grappling experience would most likely be lost upon reading it. As well, some of the chapters are too brief for my taste, or didn't really show anything all that new. As a final complaint, I feel that there is a "truth in advertising" problem with the back of the book, which promises "stances, kicks, punches, takedowns", and "sophisticated... strategies"; nope, just some pretty unique ground grappling.
Overall, a very good book for a grappler looking to add to his guard game, and some other neat stuff in the ground game. A must-have for the modern grappling competitor.
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18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I love this book!, July 25, 2006
This review is from: Jiu-jitsu Unleashed: A Comprehensive Guide to the World’s Hottest Martial Arts Discipline (Paperback)
First off I want to give a few warnings. This book is No-gi submission wrestling all the way. If you are a hardcore Gi-wearin Jiu Jitsu dude then you probably will not like this book and I highly recommend The Guard/Passing the Guard (both available from Amazon). What all these books have in common is that they take a very in-depth look at a limited number of positions and situations. , no take downs, no clinch moves, etc. Which brings me to another warning, this book is not a general jiu jitsu manual. If you want basics and an overall introduction to all the moves there are tons of books like that out there. I recommend Mastering Jiu Jitsu, No Holds Barred Fighting, and/or Submission Wrestling . This last one is just chuck full of moves with absolutely NO FILLER. The other two are good too but have more general info about training, equipment, etc. OK, back to the review. I also must warn that if you are not very flexible and don't plan on working to become flexible then this book might not be of much use to you. If, however, you are flexible, but perhaps not the strongest dude in the gym, this could be just the thing for you. Also, if you have experience with high school or freestyle wrestling the whole idea of using a "leg ride" as we called it should be quite familiar to you. He actually resurects the old wrestling guillotine and converts it into a fearsome submission.
So basically I recommend this book for the flexible and especially for those who might lack the strength to set up submissions. Without a Gi even strong guys can have a hard time. This book teaches you how to SET UP submissions step by step. These are high percentage moves that are worth trying and having in your arsenal. You should also review the submission itself. This book assumes that you already know how to do a good arm bar. Same thing with the triangle. So if you have the basics down this book takes your game to a whole new level. If you are still learning the basics this book can help you learn how to get to the point where you are set up to try the submission.
Other cool things about this book:
The personal story of how this stuff came to the author is very effective at explaining why everything is important. He says like " I kept trying this one move and it never worked so I tried... " This helps you remember not to make the same mistake.
The book has Joe Rogen from the UFC in it. I've actually heard him using terminology I first heard of in this book.
All the moves have memorable names IN ENGLISH.
After learning and trying these moves I have seen that A) they work (I got my first Oma Plata using Eddie's Rubber Guard. )and B) you will recognize if others are trying this method or some variation against you.
I hope I have sufficiently explained why this book deserves 5 stars. It is not for everyone, but if it's for you then it's GOLD!
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great book for the offensive game, April 22, 2006
This review is from: Jiu-jitsu Unleashed: A Comprehensive Guide to the World’s Hottest Martial Arts Discipline (Paperback)
Eddie Bravo's approach to jiu-jitsu is entirely novel, and something that anyone could benefit from incorporating into his or her own jiu-jitsu game. That being said, I would say that this book isn't really geared toward the beginner. Eddie doesn't go over the basics of jiu-jitsu. Rather, he assumes you know the basics and are looking to add something new to your game. Furthermore, being in the 150 pound weightclass himself, Eddie has a lot of good advice for those practitioners that are in the lightweight category. The book is filled with large, black and white pictures. Too often jiu-jitsu books are filled with small pictures in which you cannot see the details of the moves. In "Jiu-jitsu Unleashed", although black and white, nearly every picture is at least a half-page in size, and many are a full page! In what follows, I'll give a "play-by-play" of the major sections of the book.
In the introduction, Eddie tells his personal jiu-jitsu story, from high school wrestling up to his defeat of Royler Gracie in ADCC and on to his creation of the 10th Planet Jiu-jitsu school. As a self-described "150 pound weakling", his story is inspiring. And he makes a very, very strong case for training without the gi. In my opinion, the introduction alone should be required reading for all jiu-jitsu "players" (as Eddie likes to call them) and instructors. Whether he is right or not, I really admire Bravo's courage in advocating such a drastic change to the jiu-jitsu establishment.
With the enthralling introduction aside, here comes the instructional segment of the book. Eddie begins with the half-guard (from the bottom, as opposed to "half-mount" from the top). Eddie asks: since so often players spend so much time and energy attempting to reposition from the half-guard to the full-guard, why not just learn to fight from the half-guard? I think this is a great approach. With this in mind, Eddie goes on in the first chapter to show the reader numerous sweeps from the half-guard, and even a few submissions. Here Eddie sets a precedent for the rest of the book. He first explains why he is about to teach you what he's going to teach you, and when it is to be used. Then he explains how to do it. And finally, if it doesn't work, he goes on to the next move, which is "plan B", then to "plan C", and so on. In this way, I feel he has done an excellent job in building up the jiu-jitsu game like it really is: a sequence of moves that act like a flowchart, giving you options for the various possibilities that arise in a real grappling situation.
In chapter two, Eddie discusses his variant of the full guard, called the rubber guard. This is essentially a clever version of the guard that allows you to trap your opponent in your guard without relying on grabbing ahold of the gi to do so. Rubber guard has become quite common and can be seen often in mixed martial arts matches on PPV, like in UFC. Also in this chapter, Eddie discusses delivering an armbar after a sweep. He points out that often a bigger opponent would simply stand up, stack, and smash his way out of an armbar (does that sound familiar to any of you lightweight players out there?). So, Eddie invented (with the help of his instructor, J.J. Machado) a way of doing the armbar without giving up the top/side position, which he calls the Spider Web. This move, like many in the book, is victim to a somewhat cheesy name, but is however quite effective (I've tried it myself, and it works!). This is another illustration of what makes Eddie Bravo and his book great; he is creative and not afraid to experiment and invent new techniques.
In the third chapter, Eddie introduces his trademark move, The Twister. I appreciate the fact that Eddie is not selfish with his winning moves. Throughout this book he takes on a very selfless attitude in which he bares all in the hopes that everyone will learn jiu-jitsu as well as he has.
In the fourth and fifth chapters, Eddie goes over some submissions from the mount and from back mount, respectively. Chapter six deals with guard passing. Compared to the first three chapters, these are pretty much standard jiu-jitsu fare, though I like his over-under approach to back mount.
In chapter seven, Eddie brings the entire book together. As anyone that's done jiu-jitsu knows, things never work out in reality like they do "in the playbooks". Therefore, you must be prepared to move from one strategy to the next. In the last chapter, Eddie does just that, by showing you how to transition between each of the positions he's described in the book and back again. This chapter really ties the book together, and makes chapters four through six essential.
The only reason I'm not giving this book 5 stars is that I felt it lacks as an "all-around" guide to jiu-jitsu. You may have noticed from my overview that Bravo focuses only on the offensive jiu-jitsu game, with no mention of escapes. Really, the primary focus of the book is half-guard, rubber-guard, and the Twister. Those are great topics, especially as taught by Eddie Bravo, so if this book had been titled and advertised as only that -- rather than having the subtitle "A Comprehensive Guide" -- I'd give it 100 stars. Don't buy this book if you want to learn jiu-jitsu basics and the entire jiu-jitsu game (for that I might recommend Royce Gracie's new 2-volume book series, or something by Royler and/or Renzo Gracie).
I highly recommend this book to anyone that is looking to add something new and interesting to their jiu-jitsu game. Combine that with the fact that this is one of the least-expensive jiu-jitsu books out there, you really can't go wrong with this purchase. 4.5 stars.
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